Oh What up Moishe Housers?! 2007 is alive and kickin' and after traumatizing travels to the far east to learn the true meaning of yum yum boom boom - I'm back in fine form with Moishe House as my shelter.As you can see here I a) lost all my money and dignity at another poker night [sweatshirt reads: I LUV TO HUDDLE] and b) that it seems like no matter where I try to run a serious meeting I'm met with cock jokes [notice the Morris B. Squire original looming large in the background; soon to make us all millionaires].
If I had to pick one thing I'm most excited about pertaining to Moishe SF it's the upcoming softball season. We had such a big demand for spots on the team this coming spring that we're splitting into 2 teams with 3 people on each who stepped up to coach. We're having a draft next Monday! So it's no Beit Midrash but it's certainly spiritual. Moishe House Jersey is on board in beautiful Hoboken and I'm getting my first taste of a real winter in quite a long time. How do you East Coasters do it? No softball in January?! Seriously?! Much love from the city by the bay - stay healthy! - Isaac
4 comments:
Hey this is Rachel from Jerusalem (we are sadly lacking our own username so we're just using other people's to leave comments...) and we just finished our second month as a Moishe House--two exciting months filled with movies, food, people, and some great conversation!! Since we're in Jerusalem, where most of the people we encounter are already relatively Jewishly-involved, we had in mind when we started our Moishe House that we would focus on pluralism and bringing people from all sorts of different backgrounds together and we've gotten off to a great start. We had an interfaith Shabbat dinner with some of our Muslim and Christian friends from ulpan, and almost all of our events have featured guests from all over the Jewish spectrum--religiously, politically, geographically and every way possible! It's been a real honor for us to facilitate the friendships and conversations and interactions that have happened and we look forward to much more!!
Does anyone else think that rachel uses way too many exclamation marks?
It's good to now have two months under our belt as being the Jerusalem Moishe House; we are beginning to get a significant amount of feedback which will affect future programming.
Honestly, one thing that has been much harder than I expected is finding people to come to events; as, not located on or near the physical body of a university campus, people are wildly spread out across Jerusalem and all of Israel and/or entagled in the complex yeshiva and seminary networks which makes it difficult for them to escape their insular bubbles to be able to even come to events. We definately need to make an effort to devise ways to locate potential participants and create a broader sense of community in the city.
Even with the various obstacles that living in Jerusalem poses, I believe that our Moishe House has incredible potential to foster a more cohesive, pluralistic community in the greater area of Jerusalem.
Andrew
I agree with Andrew... Rachel uses too many exclamation points. And what's more, she just pretends to be that excitable; it's really all just a front. If anyone can figure out what the acronym NSOH stands for, I will give them a prize. More on that later.
Anyhow, I'm sure everyone has just been waiting in suspense for my blog post. I'm Jacob, the third and final member of the house, and as you can probably tell from the first couple of lines, I'm definitely the most cynical member of the house. Hence the reason I hadn't blogged until now. I never kept a journal at any point in my life - when I was supposed to, I avoided it like the plague (read: just never did it). So no shock that I wouldn't like blogging either... Why would anyone else want to read my thoughts? Apparently though, here, people value that kind of thing.
One thing that really has been difficult for the three of us (and this may echo what Andrew said a bit), is the lack of any social infrastructure that we're a part of. Having come here for the year out of the context of any real program, leaves us without any real way of making new friends. I'm lucky enough to know a few people here, but I really would like to branch out and meet new people - and it's not that we never get the opportunity, it's just rare - something that moishe house encourages as well. It is a constant struggle to get new faces into our events... We have definitely been having a great time with our events though, and enjoying the company of people we have met. One exception - that 1:30am superbowl party... I fell asleep before halftime.
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