After Speaking today at the 92nd Street Y — to the 60 + Senior crowd on Reconstructionism — I met a survivor, Margot Freidlander — who told me about hearing Leo Baeck speak in Thereisnstadt. What she said was this “People always tell shmaltzy stories of those who attempted to follow Jewish ritual in the camps but people do not realize that Baeck gave lectures on Jewish intellectual thought in the camps! On philosophy – That was what kept us…
I’m off to the Larchmont Temple Sunday morning to do a presentation entitled “What’s a Nice Jewish Boy Doin’ in a Place Like This?” The public is invited.
This Sunday Auburn is hosting a private screening of Hiding and Seeking the new film by Menachem Daum and Oren Rudavsky. I got a chance to see a rough cut of this film a few months ago. In short, the piece is brilliant – it is the journey of a devoted modern Orthodox father to teach his self-ghettoized ultra-orthodox sons to reach out beyond their enclave. The Voice gave it a fantastic review and I hope there will be more…
The Beggar King is a gem of a book. I met Ben Izzy when he wove a few of his tales at Auburn Theological Seminary last Fall and the acclaims his book have recieved speak to the power of this bizzare tale of cancer and coincidence. It is great to see a storyteller make a shekel or two.
As Bill Frist cleans his office he may also be thinking about what he’ll be speaking on at Washington 14, the UJC conference coming to D.C. next month. He and “Hillary!” are the politico headliners. Rabbi Art Waskow and I are doing one of the side-shows “Speaking Truth to Pharoah” on Monday the 22nd. There is a list of all the confirmed speakers.
Last week I met Senator George Mitchell in a closed door meeting concerning Mideast Peace and I heard the Prince of Jordan speak at the Abraham Initiatives. Both events seemed hopefully optimistic in light of the bombing in Jerusalem, but optimism beats the prison building mentality any day. The highlight of the day was in between meetings – sharing a car with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and talking about the Mideast as a big football game. It sounds like a…
Last night I joined Rabbi Leon Morris and Joe Fins, M.D. at Temple Emmanuel for a panel on Palliative Care. The best thing about doing an event at Emmanuel is that they label the cheeses — as in “Belgian Gouda” , “Sharp Wisconsin Cheddar” — written in mock calligraphic letters. Fins had the line of the night “Palliative care means to “cloak” like wood veneer — something you won’t see here at Emmanuel!”
Well, here’s my latest piece in Killing the Buddha — Queer Eye for the Straight God. The tasteful photo and caption illustrating the piece is another example of the creative brilliance of the Killing the Buddha team. Avocado Theology.
This morning – all of six degrees in NYC – I stopped by the newstand in Penn Station to pick up the Jewish Week to see if they ran my piece on the Yoruba Church. I was thrilled to see it on the back page, and they also ran a great photo of the minister who was so gracious in welcoming me (sadly the pic is not included in the web version). Check out the Jewish Week.
I went to the book release party for Killing the Buddha Wednesday night at a swank loft on 28th street (above a furrier) I met the editors and some other fine folk. The book is an off-shoot of the web-zine I’ve been writing for as an outlet for my unconventional religio-literary work. Two of my pieces are in the archive, Please Don’t Kill the Prophet and Behind the Pulpit and I’ve got another piece debuting next week.