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DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

DON COHEN

Special to the Jewish News

An international effort targeting Jews and Judaism is coming to metro Detroit and Ann Arbor Sept. 3-24. And no matter how much you try to avoid them, the “Jews for Jesus” will be working hard to make sure you can’t.

“The goal is to make Y’shua (Jesus) an unavoidable issue,” says local co-leader of the effort, Loren Jacobs, whose congregants at the “Messianic” Congregation Shema Yisrael in Bloomfield Township call him rabbi. According to Jacobs, local “Messianic Jews” and members of supportive Christian congregations as well as Jews for Jesus missionaries from other states will be arriving to share the message that “believing in Jesus is the most Jewish thing a Jewish person can do.”

[…]

The U-M Hillel is also preparing for the campaign, says Hillel Assistant Director Rabbi Jason Miller.

“Historically, they have been successful at targeting college students,” he says. “They know how highly impressionable college students can be.”

During Ad Hoc Committee meetings, “the discussion focused on the difficulty of denouncing the JFJ effort without aiding in their publicity effort,” says Rabbi Miller. “We Jewish leaders do not want to do for JFJ what the conservative media did for Michael Moore’s film [Fahrenheit 9-11].”

“Rather than devising our own strategy to combat the BYG campaign, [Hillel] will follow the Jews for Judaism playbook” by printing its “7 Answers to Jews for Jesus” brochure [see sidebar] to distribute at all of its welcome-back events this fall.

“We will make students aware of the upcoming JFJ campaign through our e-mail network,” says Rabbi Miller, who will address the subject during his Rosh Hashanah sermon. “We have over 1,500 students attend services here, but we also need to reach the unaffiliated students who will not likely attend holiday services.”

Community leaders are confident the BYG campaign will not succeed and may be less extensive than in other cities. But they are prepared for whatever might occur and are flexible enough to adapt.

Again, the consensus is expressed clearly in Schiffman’s document: “Hebrew Christianity constitutes a profound challenge to the Jewish community with its heritage of open mindedness and its desire to embrace all Jews no matter how close or how far from our tradition. Yet there are times when a line must be drawn, when a barrier must be erected.

“Our history tells us that when confronted with Jews who have adopted another faith and who seek to lure others to follow that same path, we must stand firm in asserting that this other faith is not Judaism; and that its adherents, even if of Jewish status, forfeit their privileges as Jews.

“How much more so is this the case when our ancient rabbis already confronted the very same phenomenon in the form of Jewish Christianity and pronounced it loudly and clearly to be another faith, and when our modern rabbis stand united behind these principles.”

From Jeremy Fogel’s “Just-Stam” blog:

As seen on Dvorak Uncensored

Anyone who has been on the London Undergound, affectionately called the “tube,” knows that this list of announcements currently going around the ‘net as “fact” may be real.

A list of actual announcements that London Tube train drivers have made to
their passengers…

1) “Ladies and Gentlemen, I do apologise for the delay to your service. I know you’re all dying to get home, unless, of course, you happen to be married to my ex-wife, in which case you’ll want to cross over to the Westbound and go in the opposite direction”.

2) “Your delay this evening is caused by the line controller suffering from E & B syndrome, not knowing his elbow from his backside. I’ll let you know any further information as soon as I’m given any.”

3) “Do you want the good news first or the bad news. The good news is that last Friday was my birthday and I hit the town and had a great time. The bad news is that there is a points failure somewhere between Stratford and East Ham, which means we probably won’t reach our destination.”

4) “Ladies and gentlemen, we apologise for the delay, but there is a security alert at Victoria station and we are therefore stuck here for theforeseeable future, so let’s take our minds off it and pass some time together. All together now….’Ten green bottles, hanging on a wall…..’”.

5) “We are now travelling through Baker Street, as you can see Baker Street is closed. It would have been nice if they had actually told me, so I could tell you earlier, but no, they don’t think about things like that”.

6) “Beggars are operating on this train, please do NOT encourage these professional beggars, if you have any spare change, please give it to a registered charity, failing that, give it to me.”

7) During an extremely hot rush hour on the Central Line, the driver announced in a West Indian drawl: “step right this way for the sauna, ladies and gentleman… unfortunately towels are not provided”.

8) “Let the passengers off the train FIRST!” (Pause …) “Oh go on then, stuff yourselves in like sardines, see if I care – I’m going home….”

9) “Please allow the doors to close. Try not to confuse this with ‘Please hold the doors open’. The two are distinct and separate instructions.”

10) “Please note that the beeping noise coming from the doors means that the doors are about to close. It does not mean throw yourself or your bags into the doors.”

11) “We can’t move off because some idiot has their hand stuck in the door”

12) “To the gentleman wearing the long grey coat trying to get on the second carriage – what part of ’stand clear of the doors’ don’t you understand ?”

13) “Please move all baggage away from the doors (Pause..) Please move ALL belongings away from the doors (Pause…) This is a personal message to the man in the brown suit wearing glasses at the rear of the train – put the pie down, four-eyes, and move your bl**dy golf clubs away from the door before I come down there and shove them up your a**e sideways”

14) “May I remind all passengers that there is strictly no smoking allowed on any part of the Underground. However, if you are smoking a joint, it’s only fair that you pass it round the rest of the carriage”.

Britney Spears’ new Kabbalah-inspired Hebrew tattoo actually has the letters reversed, making it meaningless.

It’s proof once again of how hard it is to find a tattoo artist who graduated from a decent Hebrew School.

“You are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts”

-Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927 – 2003)

Bill Clinton will be on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Monday night at 11:00 PM EST.

Bill Clinton has been all over television promoting his new book. But one show he won’t be visiting is “Saturday Night Live.”

The former president has turned down an invitation to be guest host of the NBC sketch-comedy series next season, spokesman Marc Liepis confirmed Friday. No reason was given for Clinton rejecting the offer, first reported by TV Guide Online.

But far from going into retreat, Clinton will sit down with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” Monday at 11 p.m. EDT, presumably to say more about his best-selling memoir, “My Life,” as well as global affairs and the presidential race.

This appearance comes on the heels of Clinton’s guest shot on CBS’ “Late Show” Tuesday, when he brought a copy of his book as a birthday gift for host David Letterman’s 9-month-old son. Meanwhile, Clinton gave Letterman a rare ratings win over NBC’s “Tonight Show,” delivering the biggest audience for the “Late Show” since last March, when Janet Jackson drew a crowd for her first post-Super Bowl interview.

Fueled by Clinton’s ongoing publicity blitz, his book has sold more than 1.5 million copies since its June 22 release.

© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Kabbalah Red String

Don’t have one?Choose from above to enter and we’ll set one up for you.

Our Price: $25.99

Availability: We’re sorry. This item is temporarily unavailable.


Product Description:

A centuries-old spiritual tool used by Kabbalists, this red string is believed to protect against the evil eye, a negative energy source. What makes this particular piece of string so special is, in part, the fact that it has traveled to Israel, to the ancient tomb of Rachel the Matriarch, and returned, imbued with the essence of protection. The string is tied to the left wrist—the left being the body and soul’s receiving side—and worn to essentially deflect the negative energy brought forth by unfriendly and envious stares, unkind glances and looks of ill will. A feeling we’ve all experienced, the evil eye is considered by Kabbalah to be a powerful force and an influential factor in regards to achieving goals and everyday well-being. The string draws upon the connection to and awareness of Rachel and must be tied on by a loved one and sealed with Rachel’s protective energy by reciting the Ben Porat prayer (included on a card).

From The Kabbalah Centre. 72L”.

• Item Weight: 1.0 pounds • Made in USA

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(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller

It’s been a very long time since I’ve posted.  In fact, this is the first official posting since relocating to the home of the wolverine, Ann Arbor Michigan.

Check out my friend Jeremy Fogel’s blog: Just Stam

From the New York Times (July 4, 2004)

To judge by the study, ”baby busters” (another tag for the post-boomers) have turned into family boosters who make their elders look not exactly like slackers, but not like patient nurturers either. Reach Advisors’ 2003 survey of 3,020 parents (supplemented by their analyses of government data) found that twice as many Gen-X mothers as boomer mothers spent more than 12 hours a day ”attending to child-rearing and household responsibilities.” Roughly half of Gen-X fathers devoted three to six hours a day to domesticity; only 39 percent of baby-boomer dads could say the same. What’s more, boomers were content with their (comparatively meager) quota of kid time — unlike their successors. Who would have guessed that the supposed cynical drifters of the 1980’s would be complaining about too little time with the children? (The contrasts between parents, Reach Advisors emphasizes, do not hinge on the age of the kids.)

The strategists call the Gen-X homebody mentality a ”backlash.” As a source of generational tension, child-rearing has been a hardy American perennial — and there’s certainly lots of fodder for a family feud issuing from marketing analysts, intent on ”Capturing the Gen-X Mom” (the topic of a recent toy-industry seminar). You may remember all the hard-bitten qualities that once gave young Gen X’ers a bad name: their disillusioned pragmatism and underachieving fatalism. The tables have turned. Those traits have now metamorphosed into a welcome antidote to the boomers’ competitive, perfectionist brand of ”hyperparenting.”

America’s debt-burdened younger parents, Reach Advisors explains, embrace their prospects of downward mobility with equanimity — even enthusiasm. Unlike their elders, they value family time over money and status. More Gen-X moms with part-time jobs and Gen-X dads with pitch-in attitudes are balking at the baby boomers’ Palm Pilot approach to raising resume-enhanced children. The general manager of First Fun, a division of Hasbro toys, recently told The Washington Post that young parents ”want smart children, but they think it’s more important for them to be emotionally and socially ready” for school than to be on the Harvard-bound fast track.

Take that, pushy boomers! Or how about this invidious diagnosis: an ad agency that handles kids and toys pronounced the ”boomer mom . . . more of an authoritarian figure. With Generation X, it’s a partnership between mother and child.” Who would have predicted that the boomer youths indulgently reared amid postwar prosperity (”Spocked when they should have been spanked,” conservatives once scolded) would be pegged as uptight taskmasters?

Actually, boomers might have seen it coming. After all, we dismissed our own child-focused, ”permissive” parents as outdated — and, armed with their brand-new copies of the ”Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care” (1946), those parents had judged their elders frosty and old-fashioned. The prospect of a closer intergenerational partnership beckons again and again in this country — and just as reliably, seems to backfire.

But I wonder whether a gap really is yawning. Even as the market researchers have been segmenting the parent sector, the first baby-boomer grandparents have been busy bonding — with Gen-X parents, roughly two-thirds of whom are the kids of the early postwar wave of babies. ”Are You Turning Into Your Mom? Great News About Generation Overlap,” the May issue of Nick Jr. Family Magazine announces. ”From pop culture to politics, today’s young moms share a common sensibility with their equally hip mothers.”

Gen X’ers, growing up amid the family upheaval of the 70’s and 80’s, may well have missed out on the sheltered childhoods that many boomers enjoyed. But with the arrival of parenthood, it’s notable that both cohorts confront similar challenges. More than half of Gen-X and boomer moms are juggling jobs and kids; back in 1950, by contrast, less than a fifth of mothers worked. The proportion of first marriages ending in divorce hovers around 50 percent for both generations — a figure that dwarfs the breakup rate at midcentury.

And let’s not forget that baby boomers themselves bridled at the ”soccer mom” label almost as soon as it was minted, almost a decade ago. ”I hate to be a whole breed of something,” a mother told The Times in 1996, ”but I admit I have a talented soccer player, so as long as it is Dr. Soccer Mom, because I have a Ph.D., I accept.” Boomer parents may be hard-driving, but who says we’re humorless about our excesses? Make room for us, Gen X’ers: my bet is that even (or especially) the generation renowned for hogging the spotlight is ripe for basking in the sunlight and moonlight, too.

Ann Hulbert is the author of ”Raising America: Experts, Parents and a Century of Advice About Children.

Last night I went to a David Broza concert and met Broza

Today, my brother is in Chicago for the DMB concert and he meets Dave Matthews

He wins!