Surving Man/Woman Down

It all comes down to trust and breathing. During the Chagim many of us were traveling to other parts of the country or to other parts of LA, which as you may know sometimes takes longer than traveling to different parts of the country. This meant that many of our events were undertaken while we were not at full MoHoLA strength, kind of like when Voltron had to form without all five lions. They still had to fight the Robobeast, and we were still expected to put on at least seven quality events. This is where one of the most important words beginning with "P" in the english language came into play. We are certainly not talking about Procrastination, no the word we had in mind was Planning. No matter how well one seems to plan during the Chagim the old saying, "Man Plans and G-d Laughs" is evoked. However, the better you plan, the easier it is to laugh with G-d and embrace the A-Team paradigm of, "I love it when a plan comes together." I anticipate that you have two questions right now, one, what the heck are these guys talking about, and two, who would have the nerve to use examples from two TV shows that aired in the 1980s. The answers are not necessary or warranted, nonetheless, we planned our events around the Chagim so well that we had enough time to watch re-runs of the A-Team and Voltron without worry. Once the planning is done, there has to be trust that your family is going to see the events through. There have also been amazing inventions in the digital age including, but not limited to, Skype, Cell Phones, and on-line poker to assist with excoriating any nerves that you may have if you are out of town during an event that you can't attend. Indeed Douglas Adams was correct when he said, "Don't Panic!!!!" And he wrote this without the use of Twitter, cell phones, guitar hero, or I-pods...so we are all out of excuses.

Cooking Brisket: An Essential Jewish Skill

Cooking for large groups of hungry 20 somethings is no easy feat. Being able to prepare an entire Shabbat meal, or any meal for so many people can brew up several challenges. One of the largest difficulties involved in creating such a meal, is having everything be ready and warm at the exact same time. For my blog, I am going to teach you how to prepare a super tender and delicious brisket, which will even impress your Bubbe, and will require about 10 minutes of preparation at the most. This may not be the best method of preparing brisket, but we have already served it several times in Moishe House LA with rave reviews. I am going to give you the basic rundown of how to prepare this brisket, and then leave you with a list of ingredients you can mix and match to create your very own recipe.

Question: How much brisket should I buy?
Answer: I'd say each pound will happily feed 3 people...
To keep yourself under budget, serve foods with carbs (pasta, cous cous) that will fill folks up for less, and then the brisket will feed more people. Cooking Length: You should cook the brisket for 8 hours at 200 degrees if you want it to be extremely tender. Make sure someone is home during this entire process.

Preparation:

1. Get a pot that has a good cover that will fit your brisket inside. If you're making a larger sized one, you can get those aluminum tins at the market and cover with foil.
2. Put the brisket in the pot and fill the pot with liquids of your choice (see below) until it is about a half inch below the top of the meat.
3. Add spices and vegetables
4. Cover, place in oven, Set it and forget it!

Sauces (mix and match):

• Coca Cola
• red wine
• onion soup mix (or just throw in a whole onion)
  
• ketchup
• bbq sauce
• beer
• whiskey

Spices (mix n match):

• Salt
• Pepper
• Garlic
• Hot Paprika
• Cayenne
• Cinnamon
  
• Coffee grounds
• Cocoa Powder
• Cumin

After 8 hours are up, just take out the brisket and slice it up! You can use the leftover sauce to pour over rice, or you can use it instead of water to make cous cous or rice.

If you make some brisket, respond to this post with what you did, and how it came out!

Thanks,
Benjie

Seeking internal equilibrium

Living and running the Russian Moishe House is by far the most
ambitious project I ever took on. While the responsibilities are
equally divided among the four of us living here, the sheer magnitude
of effort involved can drive anyone mad - and I'm no exception. My
official responsibility involves keeping track of the finances, but
over time, my duties naturally expanded to constructing meeting
agendas, managing mostly everything web related (other than face
book), sending reminders, and keeping track of all sorts of details.
In other words, this translates to lots, and lots of micromanaging.

In the first month of our operation, I was especially notorious for
keeping up to task on a daily basis. I consistently updated my
finance spreadsheets, updated the online event tracking system,
maintained the event calendar, sent consistent email reminders, and
made sure tasks were more or less carried out as efficiently as
possible. Moreover, I developed a habit of frantically running around
like a maniac during our events, trying to tend to as many guests as
possible. All in all, this constant overdrive mode was not only
extremely energy draining, but prevented me from fully enjoying the
events. It took me a while to acknowledge the lunacy of my obsession
with the inconsequential aspects of hosting, and over time, I
gradually became more lax with my self-imposed demands.

How does this conscious effort to lighten up reflect on my output
nowadays? Well, I still compose meeting agendas for our meetings, but
I might do so right before, or even during! I still send email
reminders to follow up on everyone's responsibilities, but often only
once a week. I still update the finance spreadsheets, but only a few
times a month - often enough that I don't forget the important
details. I still take on a lot of the grunt work in preparation, and
during our events, but with a much more care-free attitude. I no
longer try to view this as a job, but more so that of a volunteer
effort. Has any of this decreased the effectiveness of our house
operation, or the quality of our events? Absolutely not. On the
contrary, we keep getting better at this. The care I put into my work
is still crystal clear - the only difference is, I do so with the
understanding, that if I exercise laziness, the house will survive,
and the guests will still take care of themselves and enjoy the
events. I encourage all Moishe House dwellers to see the big picture,
enjoy this unique experience, and not sweat the details.

eli wald - district of columbia.

It’s been a hectic, challenging few months on my end--I’ll try to illuminate some of the highlights. In July, I returned to the Middle East, albeit this time for a painfully short period. Spent a few days in Jordan meeting with HM’s advisors, followed by a couple of weeks west of the river, reuniting with the TLV beaches. For some enigmatic reason, I returned to the US, heavy heart and a slim wallet in tow, and the DC summer uncomfortably melted my face off. Adam moved out, Sarah moved in, and the vibe at MHDC is fresh and electric. A slew of great events have generated a deafening buzz in the District. I flew solo for our biggest Shabbat dinner ever, 125 people deep, successfully co-sponsored by Birthright Next, and a little help from my friends. Notably, our shtick was recorded faithfully by Haaretz (http://bit.ly/nIMbY) in an expose that unwrapped a family secret that perhaps should have remained buried in the Zionist history books. For better or worse, work devoured my September, as I spent the month preparing for and attending the UNGA. Exhilarating, no doubt, but there’s more to life than the P5+1 and non-proliferation strategy. Thankfully, I have Kid Cudi to keep me grounded. October bodes well, as I prepare for my October Sky event, which promises to fulfill the ambitions of a young Homer Hickam Jr. and countless others in DC who dream of launching rockets from their rooftops. CHAG SUKKOT SAMEACH. WORD.

First 3 months

After living in the newly founded Russian Moishe House for 3 months, I find myself reflecting on what an interesting experience it has been.

When I graduated from grad school, I decided that I'll never live with roommates again. I have a few quirks, one of which is that I'm a very private person, and I do not like others to know too much about what I do on a day to day basis. So the idea of moving into a house, which I'll have to shore not only with 3 roommates, but also with the entire Russian-Jewish community of Chicago, was, to say the least, unorthodox for me.

The results so far, have been positive. Not to say that there haven't been problems and small annoyances, but I feel like I've been able to contribute to the community by participating in this, and I got something back from them as well. The communal living experience, while having both highs and lows, has been fun and rewarding. The first three months, in my eyes, have been a success.

Cleveland,

Can't wait for our upcoming event: a large canvass, wine, paintbrushes, and local artists sharing in spontaneous art in our living room!

The high holidays were great here, and personally I benefited sooo much from having a community I could draw support from.

Nothing like going to a temple and being introduced around, as everyone says 'oh, you're one of the Moishe House guys?'
That's SO encouraging, that the larger community knows and supports us, even though we don't particularly advertise to them, we're well-known just by work of mouth.

The weather is doing its best to defeat my optimism, and soon the snows of winter will descend upon our frozen swamp, but until then, we're gonna party it up in the sukkah!

Jewish Russian Community in Chicago, and how Russian Moishe House fits into it.

One of the many reasons I love living in Chicago is that the city has a large and outstanding Russian-Jewish community. This is important to me. In fact, it's important to most Russian-Jews my age, especially those who were born back there, and immigrated here around 8 to 10 years of age. For whatever reason, we prefer sticking with our own, these reasons being long enough to write an academic paper on.

Regardless, Chicago has a huge advantage for these looking to build a Russian-speaking Jewish community, due to an abundance of the 20-something demographic. Chicago also has a huge geographical problem which complicates communications and interactions. Most Russian families live in Chicago's various suburbs. And because most Russian high school students end up going to colleges around Chicago, and living at home, they may not leave the suburbs until they graduate college.

This naturally leads to formation of cliques that are based on which suburb you grew up in and who you knew in high school, or who did you meet in college. For this reason, the Russian Jewish community is not particularly unified, and until recently has lacked a central organization or a common place to hang out and meet each other. And at the same time, expressing their famous cynicism towards anything different, the Jewish-Russian youth resisted efforts to get engaged in their Jewish identity by various religious organizations they came across.

The goal of Russian Moishe House of Chicago is to alleviate both these problems. We give our guests a promise of interesting, fun programming they'll enjoy and a great company in which they'll have an opportunity to meet like-minded people they may not have had the circumstances to meet before. At the same time, we want to give them a small taste of Judaism they may not have had before - not too much, so that it feels oppressive, but enough to get them curious about it and want to learn more. Our 1-year goal was to get our name out there and to make the community aware of our existence, and I feel that we've already met this goal sufficiently well. Going forward, our goal is to become the most recognized and most attended social organization among Russian Jews of Chicago. In the process, we will shape the community towards learning more about their heritage and culture, and increase awareness of their identity.