Thursday, December 9, 2010
Josh from Denver
We love to have fun in many ways by throwing sick dinners, playing and watching different kinds of sports, and partnering with other cool Jewish organizations in the city with some sweet activities and crazy fun parties amongst many other things. We plan on making MoHoDen even bigger and better than it is now. So as this year winds down and another begins I want to express our intentions of making this Moishe House a place that more and more Young Jewish adults can come to comfortably and feel as well as know that they are a part of this ever growing family.
Josh Benporat
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Hello everyone! Its Kiki here at MH San Francisco. While I am not a huge fan of the freezing SF weather, early sundown and propensity for rain (its actually pouring outside as I write this) that comes with this time of year, I really and truly love all the big holidays that come so close together- its like six weeks (or more!) of holiday goodness! Thinking about how much I love Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and New Years made me realize just how much I like living in MHSF. Beyond the opportunity to host events, meet new people and cultivate my Jewish identity, in the last few months I’ve really begun to feel at home in our moishe house. I love coming home to my roommates after work, cooking dinner with them and hearing about their days. I love that MHSF can be such an active part of the larger Jewish community, but the sense of family that being a part of my moishe house is what I have really grown to appreciate. At 26, I have lived in many different houses, different cities and with different roommates but that sense of personal community and comfort that I feel here is one which I know to be rare and I am so grateful for it.
In other fun news: we recently went to our regional retreat, and as someone who has been in Moishe House for a while now, I have to say that it was really great to meet up with all our fellow moishe houses and just get inspired to be a part of moishe house all over again. Even though the retreat was short, being there was like going to a family reunion- we are all connected by this awesome experience that is moishe house and while we all come from different places that connection is important to all of us. Because the retreat was actually in San Francisco this year, our house had the extra bonus of having some post-retreat visitors from Denver. It never ceases to pleasantly surprise me just how great Moishe House is at building relationships and bringing people together. I have met some amazing people through Moishe House- at events we have hosted and at retreats- and am just so excited to continue to be a part of the organization.
I hope has been enjoying a wonderful Hanukkah!
Monday, December 6, 2010
Becca November Blog
Moishe Family
Happy Chanukah! The opportunity for me to blog about my experiences as a resident of a Moishe House couldn't come at more appropriate time, as we celebrate one of the 2 Jewish holidays that has been a constant throughout my life. I did not grow up in a particularly observant house as a child. In fact, until I neared the age of Bar Mitzvah, Chanukah and Passover were the only aspects of Judaism I honored regularly. Fast forward to the start of law school and we find me, for the first time, in a community where Judaism is prevalent. Professors cancelled class for the Rosh as well as Yom Kippur. At this same time, I met a resident of Moishe House Philadelphia and started attending an event or two every couple months. The more I visited the house, the more I learned about cultural Judaism and the more comfortable I became with Judaism playing a role in my daily, non-holiday life.
Skip another couple years forward and we find me a regular attendee of events at/organized by MHP. I'm also about to turn 27 and realize, that even with all I've become accustomed, there's a lot more. A lot more for me to learn, but a lot more for me to contribute. So I applied to be a resident of MHP, and the rest is היסטוריה.
Let's get to the good stuff.. my life as a resident. Moishe House has presented me with the opportunity, resources and vehicle to live an active Jewish life. My roommates are family. I had never known Havdalah before MHP. I had certainly never lived in a house honoring rules of Kashrut. Every day I feel Judaism coursing through my veins and heart. But it's not just grabbing a dairy dish for my bagel and cream cheese in the morning, or a meat bowl for the side of veggies I just boiled (in the appropriate pot, of course) for my kosher-chicken dinner. It's hearing something almost every day from a roommate (in the idea of family, they're all sisters - it's me and three girls, but that's another blog for another time!) about an experience she had in Israel, or a Yiddish word used so casually in conversation I barely notice it. It's sharing Shabbat. It's a conversation about Gilad Shalit or the Israeli forest fire near Haifa (one roommate has close friends local to the area) in our living room in the evening. It's being able to visit, 9 blocks away, the National Museum for American Jewish History with an Employee's Friends & Family pass from a roommate.
As a member of the Moishe House community, one can attend the holiday meals (and participate further by contributing a dish cooked in their own kitchen), hear the speech from the Editor of GRID magazine, bless the start of Shabbat, pick apples at Linvilla Orchards, shake the tuchas for the annual Apples & Hunnies party, learn about relationships and Judaism while drinking a beer (or glass of wine, or water, whatever the fancy) during a session of Topics on Tap and enjoy a roaring fire while sipping cocktails (coming up!!). We're talking about further engagement by gauging interest in community-led/hosted activities. But for many of those post-college members of the MH community, they don't have a local Jewish family to call their own. As a resident of Moishe House Philadelphia, I do.
~Cody
Sunday, December 5, 2010
The Beginning of My Moishe House Story
I felt my adulthood every day as I grapple with a million big and small decisions. I took a job as the assistant director of a youth development non-profit organization in New Orleans’ Vietnamese American community. I found a place to live two blocks from the Mississippi River. I discovered a JCC and decided to become a member. I began to meditate and go on walks each day. As I put the pieces of my new life together, I realized there were few restraints. There was no discernible path. There was no one evaluating my success, and no definition of success to which I was subjected. I could assemble the life I found most compelling and authentic—a prospect both liberating and terrifying.
It was within this context that I began thinking about my Jewish identity for the first time in years. Here I was in a new city creating a life for myself from the ground up. I felt no obligations to be Jewish in any way. The barrage of emails from Hillel, imploring me to attend this event or that event, was gone. Even the not-so-subtle comments from my concerned mother about my level of Jewish engagement had petered out over time.
At first my thinking about being Jewish was fleeting and superficial: Should I go meet people at the Avodah house for Shabbat? Should I figure out a plan for the high holidays? These were short-term questions, practical in their nature. Soon they gave way to a deeper, more existential inquiry into myself as I realized that college had all but annihilated the Jewish aspect of my identity. I began to think: where is my Jewish self right now? How deeply has it been buried? How can it be embraced, nurtured, reintegrated?
College was the nadir of my Jewish self—a four-year hiatus. I had been uprooted from my family and home; from the sound of my father’s voice singing his ancestors’ hymns; from my temple; from the rabbi who lead my bar mitzvah ceremony; from the melodies and prayers that touched me. In college I found Shabbat services that bored me, melodies that I found entirely foreign, and Jewish programming that was alienating and often offensive. I was not interested in becoming a partisan in the Israeli-Palestinian on-campus propaganda war, nor was I interested in programming that I felt stifled my moral and intellectual maturation. In the beginning I engaged with, and attempted to alter, an on-campus Jewish culture that I principally disagreed with; eventually I got tired and stopped caring altogether.
In college the self-alienation I experienced happened gradually, almost without notice. In New Orleans I discovered the absence of my Jewish self as revelation, and it became piercing. Completely on my own, in this new city, I felt a sense of potential and longing. I wanted to feel my Jewish self again. I wanted to marry my Jewish self with the rest of who I was—the rest of who I had become over the course of college—and continue down the river of my life.
This project felt urgent, though I had no idea how to start. I knew the window of opportunity would be open for only so long before I became entrenched in a new regime of habits, practices and thinking. If I were to build this new life without integrating my Jewish self, I knew something essential would be lost. Yet where was I to begin?
In July one of my new friends in the city approached me about Moishe House. Her timing was uncanny. She was about to join and mentioned that there was another opening. Taking it as a sign, I responded without hesitation, and moved into the house a month later.
No doubt I am still in the beginning phase of this new journey. My Jewish self is buried quite deep, I have realized, from years of decay and neglect. At times I am so used to being spiritually numb that it is hard stay the course. Yet through Moishe House there is something shifting within me—a sense of returning, even if it is gradual. I feel my Jewish self in the relationships I have formed here with others who are invested in a similar journey. I feel my Jewish self in the Shabbats that we create for the community.
I am now, more than ever, part of a truly constitutive Jewish space—I am a creator, a producer, as much as I am a participant of Jewish programming. I get to help choose the prayers we will sing on Shabbat; the speakers we host to spark our conversations; the values we live by within the house. I have no more excuses for feeling alienated or estranged from my Jewish identity. I have been empowered to create the culture that surrounds my nascent Jewish self. I am empowered to create the house that shelters my precarious Jewish self, as it grows stronger. My relationship to the house is therefore simultaneously a commitment to my community, and myself, for the two are surely bound. It is an honor and a blessing.
Jacob Cohen
Moishe House New Orleans
Hava nagila Remix: The 21st Century Look @ Jewish Entertainment
KFAR Jewish Arts Center stimulates, promotes and produces the next generation of Jewish musical expression. This non-for profit is a portal for hip fun Jewish entertainment. Director Adam Davis is very passionate about preserving the energy of the Jewish musical spirit and adds a cool element for all ages. We have had the pleasure to work with KFAR for a couple of events and each times it’s a kosher version of a rock star fiasco. I would describe the experience as Barbra Streisand meets Infected Mushroom with a side order of missing Lox on a Sunday afternoon brunch.
Through all of the historical hardships, to table pounding Shabbat & high-holiday dinners, Jews love to chant. Oftentimes, there are no words, merely heart vocals. Rabbi Andrew Hahn Ph.D takes chanting to a higher vibration by blending Hebrew messages with a call and response style called Kirtan. This musical experience merges the musician and audience into an unspoken musical conversation. By the time the musical journey is complete, your body may be thirsty but your spirit is quenched. Dr. Hann and I share a similar teacher Swami Satchianda whose message is “paths are many but truth is one,” Rabbi has been able to embrace that message and create a new expression for Jewish Ancient musical wisdom that is truly COOL , especially for my fellow Jewish Yogi’s.
How could I talk about Jewish music without mentioning the 21st Jewish Bar/Bat Mitzvah DJ? (CHAMPAGNE SNOWBALL SWITCH). I mean common on, what is Hava Nagila without a 4 part Tiesto beat. JJtheDj recently played at a Chanukah event that I went to and all the sudden I was looking for the Go Go dancers wearing modest clothes; oy! His beats are legit and he is able to take secular songs and blend them with kosher lyrics. I would highly recommend him for a PG party.
All of these Musical avenues have a different flavor that appeals to various Jewish audiences and communities. This comparison is yet another example that Jewish expression is more diverse than Baskin Robbins 31 flavors. So find your Jewish sound, explore your personal melody and remember that music has no language but one love. For more information about these musical outlets please click on links below.
By: Franklin S. Drob
www.kfarcenter.org
http://kirtanrabbi.com
http://www.jjthedj.com
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Moishe December
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Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training will
strengthen the support that you offer to an
affected friend, family member, colleague
or person in your community. It will enable
you to recognise the signs and symptoms of
those affected by mental health problems
and offer initial help and guidance towards
appropriate professional services.
YOU MUST BE ABLE TO ATTEND ALL THREE SESSIONS
Sunday 5th December 10am-5pm,
Tuesday 7th December 7pm-10pm
& Thursday 9th December 7pm-10pm.
COST: £75
Please book your place by emailing claire.nacamuli@jamiuk.org
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Come tickle your taste buds with freshly prepared south Indian vegetarian delicacies. Idly, dosa, vada, uthappam... these south Indian delights will be freshly prepared in front of you. Eat till your heart's content and support a great cause, helping Susannah Morcowitz to raise £2,235 to volunteer with the Association of People with Disabilities (seewww.APD-india.org for more information) for a year.
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This event is taking place internationally between December 10th (International Human Rights Day) and December 20th (International Human Solidarity Day), but join Moishe House on December 15th!
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'From the Titanic to Chile: In a Crisis, Who's Saved First?' Moishe House London and Marom are proud to host a shiur (learning session) with Rabbi Daniel Goldfarb, Director of the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem. |
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