Get Your Yiddish Here.
2007 CHICAGO YIVO SUMMER FEST Every summer, the Chicago branch of YIVO (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research) mounts a Summer Festival of Yiddish Culture, and the schedule for this year is now online. I...
View ArticleHotHouse to close
You may have heard that HotHouse is in trouble, again. A month ago, the Tribune’s Howard Reich announced what many already suspected; that between the Board battle that forced out founder Marguerite...
View ArticleParsha Balak
This is a parsha of contradictions. Balak, king of Moab, fears the Egyptian Hebrews and seeks help from the powerful prophet, Balaam. YHWH goes back and forth as to whether or not Balaam can go to...
View ArticleJew music on craigslist
You have to laugh, not at the sincereity, but at the contrast of these two musos looking to jam. Like two Jews stranded together on an island, they can’t settle on Minhag and build three shuls…. Not...
View ArticleWBEZ: KFAR’s Esta concert on Radio M
In case you missed KFAR’s May 16 concert by ESTA, WBEZ 91.5FM rebroadcast a 30 minute excerpt of Israel’s most original instrumental band on the Radio M program this past week. Our thanks to Tony...
View Articlefrom Minsk to Chicago
Chicago Classical Music’s Jonathon Miller conducted Kol Zimrah last month and found a surprise personal connection…
View ArticleThe Reader’s Critics’ Choice is…
It’s so effing sweet when they get it… and the Reader does tend to *get* it… Rabbinical School Dropouts The California big band known as the RABBINICAL SCHOOL DROPOUTS actually does seem to play at...
View ArticleNFJC- what’s in a name?
A few years ago, UJA became UJC, and not much changed except a whole lot of bureaucratic shuffling and money being uselessly wasted. Messing with brand identity is risking, like adding “New” before...
View ArticleHAMSA fest this weekend
“This popular summer festival will again engage people of all ages to not only experience a taste of the region through art and food, but also examine and challenge beliefs about personal and cultural...
View ArticleThe Faith Between Us: A Jew and a Catholic Search for the Meaning of G-d
Fringesters: Short but delightfully packed interview up on Bigmouth Indeed Strikes Again (my blog) that I conducted with Scott Korb and Peter Bebergal, authors of The Faith Between Us, A Jew and a...
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