Selichot are special services recited during the High Holiday Season to ask God for forgiveness, and express our hopes for a better new year. Sefardim (Jews from Spain and the Arab world have been reciting Selichot for three weeks already, since the beginning of the month of Elul; Ashkenazim (Jews from Central and Eastern Europe) do so beginning this Saturday night around midnight. Below is a selection of Selichot services in the area; For additional options email rellife@hillel.columbia.edu .
Yavneh will be joining Old Broadway Synagogue (15 Old Broadway, between 125th and 126th) for Selichot at 12:30 am on Saturday night, and will walk down together from College Walk, time TBA
The Jewish Theological Seminary, Women's League Seminary Synagogue (Conservative) (122nd & Broadway), at 11 pm Saturday Night.
Kehilat Hadar (Traditional, Egalitarian) - 11:30 pm, Basement of the basement of the Second Presbyterian Church (4 W 96th Street at Central Park West).
The Carlebach Shul (Orthodox, with instruments) - Sermon at midnight, services at 12:30 am - 350 W. 78th St.
Fifth Avenue Synagogue (Orthodox - Cantor Joseph Malovany and choir) - 10pm program with service to follow, 5 E. 62nd St at Fifth Avenue
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
ISRAMERICA: Casting Call for Jewish and Israeli Actors
CASTING NOTICE:
Playline Productions and The Red String Theatre Company are currently casting artists with an Israeli or Jewish background to perform at our event at The Sage Theatre, located in the heart of Times Square.
Looking to cast pieces that are performance ready such as scenes, monologues and sketches as well as musical performances, dance numbers and comedic acts that all pertain to Israeli and/ or Jewish life in New York.
Auditions will take place July 30th and 31th between 3:30 - 6:30 at The Producers Club located at 358 West 44th street.
Please come prepared with a monologue, scene, dance number or musical piece as a headshot and resume. If the piece can pertain to Israeli and or Jewish life that would be preferred.
If you need music please bring a cd and we will play it for you. You may bring additional people to the audition if they are part of your act. You may forward this notice to a friend.
The show will go up mid- September and will be an on-going monthly event that will showcase young and fresh, Israeli and Jewish New York talent in all forms, Theatre, Music, Dance, Comedy and so on.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.
Please confirm that you are available to attend the auditions - playlineproductions@gmail.com
Monday, July 27, 2009
Sex and the Holy Land: New Play about Israel in NYC Next Month
For those in New York City this August, be sure to check out this new play about college students studying abroad in Israel. It is being produced by a Columbia student. For more information check out www.sexandtheholyland.com
SEX AND THE HOLY LAND is the tale of Lili’s plunge into a stereotype-shattering sexploration of Israel. Her two best friends and a string of Middle Eastern men lead Lili out of slavery from the Greek Chorus of Jewish Mothers in her mind. It is a coming of age comedy about liberation, religion, and love.
Written by Melanie Zoey Weinstein
Directed by Lee Gundersheimer
An Equity Approved Showcase featuring Ross Buckley, Ruby Joy, Sivan Hadari, Zack Imbrogno, Adrian Kelly, Lyssa Mandel, Sarah-Doe Osborne,* Susan Slatin, Michelle Slonim, Gabriel Sloyer, Melanie Zoey Weinstein, Goldie Zwiebel*
The Players Theatre
115 MacDougal Street
New York, NY 10012
FringeNYC Venue #8
Take the A, B, C, D, E, F, V to West 4th
Saturday, 8/15 at 8:15pm
Monday, 8/17 at 8:45pm
Thursday, 8/20 at 10:30pm
Monday, 8/24 at 5:15pm
Friday, 8/28 at 2:00pm
Music Direction and Original Music by Noah Aronson
Set, Sound, and Lighting Design by Arthur Peters
Costume Design by Kate Rusek
Stage Management by Michelle Beige
Produced by Rachel G. Karp, Robby Sandler, Melanie Zoey Weinstein.
*denotes a member of Actors’ Equity Association
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Inspirational Words by Chanel, featured in Haaretz Online: Guilt-Written
Guilt-Written
28/04/2009 | 13:22
Chanel Dubofsky
What if no one said your name for an entire year? What if it when it was said, it was mispronounced, and you weren't there to hear it? The names in books from Yad Vashem have strange letter combinations, lots of consonants placed next to each other, and I stumble over them at first. I make sounds I've never made before, and then, gradually, it becomes a language.
At three in the morning on Yom Hashoah, I sit on campus with one of my students under a tent in the pouring rain, reading names. This goes on for twenty four hours. There is an amazing amount of foot traffic for the middle of the night, and lots of people stop to ask what we're doing.
Our tiny tent is a space of vulnerability, and not just because of its flimsy structure. Explaining that you are mourning your dead is sadly tricky business, especially as the Holocaust grows farther and farther away in our collective memory. In the minds of intellectual young people with an incredible capacity for empathy and a keen sense of justice, memorializing one genocide means doing the same for all others, with equal gravity.
The question of how to teach the Holocaust to this generation of American Jews remains at the forefront of Jewish education (along with, of course, how to teach Israel). How do we make the Shoah relevant to those who have no personal connection to it? How do we create a sense of ownership; grips on Jewish history and identity that are strong instead of tenuous? Genocides, wars, ethnic cleanings have happened and are happening all around the world. How do we answer what feels like the most paralyzing questions: How is this still relevant? Why should it matter?
As a Jewish educator, I empathize immediately with these questions, even though, admittedly, I'm terrified by them. They feel intensely high risk to me, as if the way I answer will make an indelible mark on my students, as if a person has no capacity to change or grow. In this world of universalism, what's demanded of us as Jews is that we justify ourselves, our grief, and our manifestations of it. American Jews are now seen as safe, privileged, white and rich. Our past is no longer relevant. We should get over it and move on. This is the truly insidious nature of contemporary anti-Semitism, which asks us to not only overlook, but disengage from our history.
If this generation of American Jews (largely) feels disconnected from the Holocaust, then the argument that Israel remains important because of it holds very little water. We need to find another way to make both Israel and the Holocaust relevant, each for their own unique reasons. Anti-Semitism has made it impossible for American Jews to hold multiple identities (i.e. progressive, feminist, queer, Sephardi), instead seeking to detach us from our Jewish selves. The Holocaust is instrumental in that attempt, as it's frequently pointed to as being used by Jews to silence other conflicts (Israeli and Palestinian is only one example.)
It's this insidiousness that makes us feel vulnerable in our tents, reading names. How can we “justify” our ownership of devastation? Of course we shouldn't have to, but before we get there, we need to empower confident Jews. Much like the idea that students will connect to Israel if we help them to build emotional connections, understanding anti-Jewish oppression can take place in the context of racism, sexism and other forms of oppression. In this instance, empathy is vital.
Whenever I'm in Israel, I take multiple trips to Yad Vashem: one to see the main exhibits, one to the art museum, and another to simply be there, to wander and sit and look out at Jerusalem from the hill. No one in my family was in the camps, I'm a third generation American, but somehow, in the arms of my dead, I feel safe.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Avanim invites you to meet a whole world of Jewish student writers
New Voices Presents the National Jewish Student Journalism Conference
Click here to register now!
Want to write about Jews? Come learn from pros and peers at the National Jewish Student Journalism Conference, presented by New Voices and hosted by Avanim, the literary journal of Columbia/Barnard Hillel.
The full-day conference features panels on Jewish campus publications, writing on Israel, and developing your critical voice. Plus, workshops on feature writing, getting published, and more. Speakers include journalists and editors from the Jewish press and beyond.
The conference will be held on Sunday, May 3rd at the Kraft Center for Jewish Life at 115th Street in New York City. Registration is only $30, and includes all activities and two meals. Limited travel subsidies are available.
To register now, click here. For more information, visit the conference website or contact publisher@newvoices.org.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Goings On: Good For the Jews at 92nd St Y Tribeca
If you want to make this weekend a true concert weekend, you can take your post-Bacchanal celebrations over to the 92nd Street Y's Tribeca outpost where the schlocky-with-an-edge Jewish rock/comedy band, Good for the Jews, will be doing a concert.
The concert, which refreshingly promises "No songs about dreidels. And no Israeli folk-dancing" will begin at 8:30 pm and will only cost $15 (a bahhhgain, dahhhlings.)
Check out the event page here, or listen to their stuff here or there.
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