Sephardic Music Festival NYC 2009

Yallah Chabibi! The Festival that could is back again this year and the line up is, as always, outstanding! Taking place from December 12 to December 19th, New York’s Sephardic Music Festival includes performances by Matisyahu, Y-Love, Pharaoh’s Daughter, DeLeon, Kosha Dillz, Eprhyme, DeScribe and a whole host of more traditional Sephardic musicians. Every year, the Yemenite artist known as Diwon aka Erez aka DJ Handler, the man, no, the force of nature behind Shemspeed and more parties, events and concerts than I can possibly keep track of pulls this Festival together out of fumes, sweat, hard work and I don’t even know what… a love of quality Jewish music and happenings that transcend denominations, fostering unity and booty bumpin’ good tunes. If you are in or near the NYC area, check out... Continue Reading

G-dcast Does Chanukah

The crew at G-dcast has been hard at work. Having produced 55 episodes featuring the weekly parsha, this innovative group has now tackled Chanukah. Sit back, enjoy and watch the dreidel spin. And, if you’re an educator – as with all their videos – a free teaching guide is available. Parshat G-dcast Spins Chanukah! from G-dcast.com More Torah cartoons at www.g-dcast.com Production support provided by the ROI Community. [Translate] Bookmark:  Read More →

Innovation, By the Loaf

Last week, at the General Assembly in Washington DC, ROI, PresenTense, Jumpstart, the Center for Leadership Initiatives, Bikkurim and Jewlicious Festival, all official fans of challah, innovation, and Eli Winkelman, sponsored an event in honor of Challah for Hunger’s fifth anniversary. The event drew ROI, Kivun, and Reality Israel alumni as well as Insight Fellows; was hosted by founder Winkelman and volunteers from five Challah for Hunger chapters, and featured a gourmet and diversely flavored challah-tasting. The ROI Community asked Eli, the original “Challahback Girl,” to provide some reflections. Innovation, By the Loaf Bagel traditionalists often proclaim, “There is no such thing as a blueberry bagel!” I hope that one day, I’ll be blamed for spawning ridiculous... Continue Reading

From Daring Shall Come the Reward: The 2009 PresenTense Institute

Last night, at Jerusalem’s Bible Lands Museum, the third summer of the PresenTense Institute drew to a close. The outdoor tent was alive with energy as this summer’s fellows pitched their projects to over 200 invited guests. They came from Beijing and New York; Washington, D.C. and down the street, juggling school, families and careers to devote six weeks to projects that will change the future of the Jewish world. In the words of Institute coordinator Brachie Sprung, “These daring entrepreneurs are our inspiration at PresenTense – pioneers who break new ground in the face of great uncertainty, and who work tirelessly to improve the world and strengthen the Jewish people… They have clarified their vision and purpose, strengthened their business models to maximize earnings... Continue Reading

Happy (Belated) Birthday to Jewlicious

Deep inside Jerusalem’s Machne Yehuda market sits the international headquarters of Jewlicious. And, one week ago tonight, hours prior to Jewlicious celebrating five, good years, I sat with founder, friend and community influencer David Abitbol, aka “ck”, for an update on Jewlicious and their various projects. The plan was a post the next morning. Sometimes, though, life gets in the way. So today, a belated mazel tov! You might ask, what is Jewlicious / who is Jewlicious? A Website; a festival; a community? All this and more. Centering around a dynamic Internet presence with 220,000 unique visitors/month, Jewlicious is geared to a varied audience; tech savy, plugged in and almost completely divorced from the organized Jewish community. Not just unconnected, but a significant number... Continue Reading

The Jewish Liturgy Project: A Toolkit for Custom Liturgy

from Haaretz: Prayer ala carte Aharon Varady always dreamed of putting together his own prayer book. Realizing that many people – including himself – often see prayer as a dull and robotic exercise in the fulfillment of a religious duty, he thought for years about ways to enable people to create their own prayer book, or siddur, in order to make the most of their experience. A fellow at this year’s PresenTense Institute, Varady earlier this month finally embarked on a daring project, creating a tool for “individuals and groups to build the siddur they’ve always wanted,” as his Web site explains. Varady’s Open Siddur project aspires to funnel all different regional traditions, translations, commentaries and instructional notes that Jews from the four corners... Continue Reading

Short Term; High Impact; Empowering; Reputation Changing

Did you know that 50,000 Israelis visit India each year? Without guidance, they can display a lack of cultural sensitivity, engage in drug-use and partying and soon establish an unfavorable reputation for Israelis and Israel. After a few months of freedom and rest from the army, many start to look for ways to get the most out of their time there. All this takes place in a country which is crying out for support for its millions of malnourished children who do not have good opportunities for education and a way out of the cycle of poverty. Enter Project Be a Kli: from the Hebrew, haKol Lemaan haYeledim – All for the Kids – Helping to feed and educate some of the most impoverished children in the world by forming partnerships with [Israeli] backpackers who are looking to get more meaning... Continue Reading

Who Said Jewish Boys Can’t Rap?

Meet Matt Bar: Bible Raps Learn Torah, bit by bit, from alphabet, to sentences, to pages, with phrases from sages oh baby… Rapper and educator Matt Bar infects his students with Torah. He’ll take a lesson plan, spin it on its head, and bust out rap lyrics that get kids crazy about learning. These lyrics from his song “Rabbi Akiva and Raquel: Learn Torah” not only teaches the story of Akiva’s struggle to study, but also teaches students they can learn anything if they try, bit by bit. Incorporating passages of Torah, commentary and Midrashim, Bar may get the prize for developing a curriculum that get students running in Hebrew school doors to learn. Bar thought using his hip hop talent would just make his job a little easier, but instead he became the unofficial “Best Hebrew School Teacher... Continue Reading

PresenTense 2009: The Newest Cohort of Fellows

Meet PresenTense’s 2009 Fellows View more presentations from presentense. You can read more about the 2009 Fellows on the PresenTense Fellowship Website. [Translate] Bookmark:  Read More →

Women Empower Women

“As we discuss the critical issues of our time it’s also important to remember why we do this… to provide people with a chance to fulfill their own dreams, to live lives in safety and security and to be given the opportunity to fulfill their own God-given potential”. How many NGO’s find Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referring to them in a press conference [during her recent visit]? Well, Israel’s Supportive Community is one. Established in 2003 by four women entrepreneurs – immigrants from the Former Soviet Union – these women recognized two important factors; the importance of micro-businesses in creating financial independence and the great difficulty which women and immigrant women in particular face when attempting to integrate financially and socially in mainstream... Continue Reading

Next Page »