Jim Rittenhouse's semidaily journal of news, commentary and reports
Take a look at the gravestone to the right; that’s from one of my family members; translated from the German, it reads “Born in the year 1736: Heinrich Rittenhouse…” and trails off into the grass. Wikipedia’s entry on the Mennonite church / movement notes: Persecution and the search for employment forced Mennonites out of the [...]
I thoroughly recommend Robert Crumb’s new book The Book of Genesis Illustrated; exceptionally well done, and done straight, word for word. One note: while reasonably tastefully done, there’s no way to render the begats and things like Lot and his daughters without pictures that would make your maiden aunt Edna go *gleep, that’s a bare [...]
I have been listening to enough rants, hate and nonsense in the last year and a half to last me a lifetime or more, and I’ve been more than fed up with it all. But I started realizing that this sort of crud is endemic; uninformed people who choke off their sources of information to [...]
While retrieving THE FIXER from one of my off-air VHS tapes, I ran across the real-life story that the movie/novel was based on – see the story of the Beilis Trial in late Tsarist Russia in Wikipedia. Wow.
Martin Gidron‘s THE SEVERED WING, 2003 Sidewise Long Form Award Winner. Reviews here and here.
(Update: I’m noting this story about Frankfort, KY schools and their handling of gay students, but I’m beginning to think it’s a crock.) Stephen Fry: his blog (he’s a big techie) his letter to his 16 year old self. About love, mostly. -on manic depression -on his new BBC series on the USA (which I’m [...]
A French court has ruled that the Vichy government of France during World War II was instrumental in the handing over of Jews and others to the Nazis for extermination camps. Calling for a “formal admission of the state’s responsibility and of the prejudice collectively suffered”, the court said it had concluded that acts such [...]
GM to lay off 10,000 white collar workers this year (if they don’t go belly-up first). Ohio Governor and Senator agree that the stimulus is vital to keeping things going, and new Republican Congressman from Ohio says that FDR caused the Depression by wild spending. Mike Huckabee claims that the stimulus package is anti-religious – [...]
Hedge Fund founder who lost a serious bundle in the Madoff ponzi scheme commits suicide, and no, he didn’t jump out a window. The radical Israeli settlers in the West Bank are a political nightmare that any government will have serious problems with and neither main party coalition wants to deal with. Of course, government [...]
From the New York Times…one more place for fear: The origins of India’s Jews remain uncertain, but according to some accounts they may have come as emissaries from the court of King Solomon. They established communities and lived peacefully with Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and, later, Muslims. The absence of anti-Semitism throughout this history has been [...]
Kosher meat production in the US has been hit – 65% drop in supply of beef. Part is due to a fire, most is due to a big processor in Iowa’s problems with raids on the plant by the Feds for employing tons of illegal immigrants, etc. The skyrocketing IT presence in Bangalore, India is [...]
Going through my pile of clippings, I ran into a Tribune article about the creation of an eruv in the Lakefront area of Chicago. Never knew what the durn things were, but it’s a fascinating part of Orthodox Jewish practice. Of course, that may be my law school education talking or something.
Interesting stories about a group of Ugandans who converted to Judaism in the 1920s being recognized as Jews, and about German-speaking minorities in Belgium near the border…as the Walloons and Flemish argue endlessly with one another.
My apologies to all of the Satmars out there, but this looks like a reunion in 2014 of the Temptations to me. Except that the Temptations don’t wear hats like that and they aren’t white.