springtime is coming in boston

springtime in boston means that the frigid, up and down winter is leaving for several months and will allow the other extreme of hot mid-summer temperatures in a few months. its true four-season territory up here.

there've been shifts of passover clean-ups galore around moishe house boston over the past few days. teams of 2-3 people have come every day to clean, straighten, purchase food, and tomorrow to cook second seder meal for the house. its certainly the cleanest ive ever seen the house. its been an incredibly show of organization, teamwork, and a desire to be a part of a community ritual (we couldnt allow everyone that wanted to come to the seder to come). its also a sign of warmer weather.

we're also running a series of bike mechanics workshops to get people up and on working bicycles. there's been a tremendous amount of interest to get back on the road (for commuting and recreation) but also to learn the tools to sustain one's own bike so as not to need to rely on a bike shop for maintenance. itll be a fun and team-building activity for the community.

and our winter csa's shares have been running for a few weeks now (partly a result of the local foods tu bshevat seder in february). the produce is a mix of local conventional and not local/organic. but its been an amazing way to reconnect to food in the off-season. given that, we're all excited for warmer weather and farmer's markets.

last summer the community was fairly quiet. to some extent i imagine the same will be the case this summer, with a focus on the outdoors and working on some ongoing projects that the house has established.

which all leads me to the question: is colder weather a harbinger of community building? if so, what does this mean? and given that summer is also a time of being out of town for students and young professionals, how can communities find ways to engage community members during the summer?

MHSeattle, Neal Schindler, 4/1/2009

It's amazing how much bacon we've been eating lately. More than that, I'm astonished by how many raw oysters Joel has managed to consume each night of the past week. These occurrences, plus our decision to change Shabbat dinner to Tuesday nights, have really shaken up the house.

Or perhaps it's simply April Fools' Day. :-)

Our recent MH Seattle events have gone well. Sunday's sushi lunch (which I should have billed as Jewshi when I had the chance) attracted some diehard fans of raw fish (no oysters, of course) and extremely sticky rice, and the most recent bowling excursion was a pretty big hit, too. (Skating has been phased out now that spring is supposedly here, though it snowed today -- and that's no April Fools' joke.) Next month there'll be an African Music Night at the local Eritrean restaurant Hidmo; I'll probably pass, in order to avoid event burnout. Our MH Shabbatot have been successful in both Russian and generic Jewish flavors, and we have a MH seder planned as well for Passover, which should be quite the three-ring circus at our house, between the epic cleaning, epic grocery runs, and epic hosting duties.

I think the 22-to-30-year-old set is starting to really get what makes Moishe House, and MH events, different from the other events we plan, and I think expressing that distinction consistently, clearly, and firmly is what will keep MH Seattle afloat in the future. There really are plenty of Jewish twentysomethings in town who have somewhat offbeat taste in social and cultural events, and I think we can bring in a rising number of them. Word of mouth is still an important tool for us, but people also find us via Facebook, or via other Moishe Houses. We may have a friend of MH Philly staying with us after Passover; she's checking out Bastyr University in Kenmore and looking for a couch to crash on for a few nights. It's always fun getting to know someone from another part of the country, with unique experiences to share, and I'm looking forward to meeting and hosting her.

Based on my wonderful experiences at MH D.C. earlier this year, I could really get behind a slightly more organized MH exchange program whereby Moisheniks visit a few Houses other than their own each year. It's probably too much to ask, at this stage, for MH HQ to underwrite our travel expenses for such a venture, but maybe in the years to come...

gefilte fish with guajillo-chipotle sauce

When people ask me about being a Mexican Jew, I joke that we eat spicy gefilte fish. Which is actually not such a joke – the title of this post is a recipe my cousin Fany contributed to an article on Latin-Jewish cuisine that just came out in Jewish Woman Magazine. The article is timely as we approach Pesach, noting that the story of exile and exodus repeats itself throughout Diaspora history, and wondering how customs and tastes inspired by new locales enrich ancient Jewish traditions and create new traditions to pass on; in this case, the new locales being countries in Latin America. And indeed, the author writes, “local cuisine definitely makes its voice heard at the Passover table of several Mexican families. Some Latinas I spoke to have suggested that this may reflect a special relationship the long-standing, stable Mexican-Jewish community enjoys with its host country. Fany Gerson, a Mexico City–born pastry chef [and my cousin!] deeply proud of the culinary traditions of her native country, explains it differently: ‘Maybe Mexican food is simply so tasty that they needed to translate that into traditional dishes…[it’s] probably the most rich and varied within Latin America.’” I Love this answer, as it suggests a metric for comparing the tastiness of different foods (the fact that Americans adhere pretty strictly to ancient Jewish recipes: oy ve). But more broadly, I Love this perpetual imprint of new places on our customs and tastes – when I eat my mom's spicy gefilte fish in California, I'm tasting both her family’s exodus from Poland and Austria, and her exodus from Mexico. And of course, I Love the possibility of seasoning brisket with tamarind and garnishing Matzo Ball Soup with cilantro, chile, lime, and avocado.

So if you wanna spice up this year’s Passover (hey, some extra spiciness – especially for the unsuspecting – can certainly satisfy the same function as bitterness, Mexican-style), go for my cousin's Gefile fish with Guajillo-Chipotle Sauce. And, spelling it the way Mexicans do, Hag Sameaj!

The Moishe Dilemma

What Happens when the lines between your Moishe House and your home collide?

We're about to find out.

As is the case with most things, everything always happens at the same time.

Jeremy Moskowitz, our regional director, will be visiting the St. Louis Moishe House over Passover.

My parents also decided to come in that same weekend. So did Ross'.

On top of that, I was offered a ride home for Pesach from a good friend, which I had to refuse due to work, and the aforementioned fact that my parents are coming in.

So what do we do with my parents? What do we do with Jeremy? How do we host a dinner that makes everybody happy?

With finesse, I hope. But this is the reality of Moishe House, in which your life is the communities life, and vice versa. These delineations have become blurred to the point that I've been referred to as The St. Lou Jew.

How do you extricate yourself and keep what is personal personal without detracting from the communal nature of this endeavor?

I'm interested in your thoughts