RJ Blog

By Rabbi Paul Kipnes(Originally posted on Or Am I?)I spent much time during my time in Israel, playing on and updating my Facebook page. I reconnected with some old friends and developed connections with some newer ones. There’s nothing like discovering an old friend and catching up again.

By JanetheWriter A number of my friends, in commenting about my escapades in the I’m-searching-for-a-good-guy-in-NYC quest, have told me that they’re happy to take a back seat and live the adventure vicariously through me. Although I can certainly appreciate vicariousness in certain situations, if given a choice, it’s not the way I’d opt to visit Israel. However, since it doesn’t appear that I’ll have the opportunity to visit there any time in the foreseeable future, it’s the only mode of travel I’ve got at the moment. Lucky for me, though, with 300-some Reform rabbis gallivanting around Eretz Yisrael attending the [...]

by JanetheWriterOn Friday, after I read Daphne Price’s wonderful post on this blog about why she and her family are in Israel right now, I was prompted to comment thusly: Good for you, Daphne!  For so many of us, opportunities to visit Israel are too few and far between and I applaud you and your family for doing what you believe is the right thing at this difficult time. My own first visit to Jerusalem in 2004 happened to coincide with a rush-hour bus bombing in Rehavia that killed 11 and injured scores more.  Indeed, January 29, 2004 was a [...]

by Marge EisemanFacebook is a real blessing in my life. During the past few months, I have reconnected with people from my distant past (childhood neighbors, former Whitefish Bay High School acquaintances, an old lover and more), been able to give my Seattle-based cousin late-night pep talks as he spent many nights in the hospital with his baby’s difficult heart condition (stable right now, thank God!) and shared a little joy and a twinge of memory as I read a status update about from a new mom in New York who was smelling the top of her baby’s head while [...]

By Larry KaufmanA recent discussion in these precincts about Lashon Hara, intended to present a Jewish “take” on permissible and impermissible political discourse, gave rise to a peripheral discussion about the propriety of using words and phrases from languages other than English. That article provided a literal translation of lashon hara as “the bad tongue,” and provided as English explanations defamation, character assassination, or ‘bad mouthing.” The subsequent discussion suggested another meaning, malicious gossip. As a relatively new entity, this blog had not previously articulated any “rules of the road,” but the discussion provoked messages from the blog managers at [...]

by Gardening Grandma In a planning meeting for the November 2009 convention of the Reform Movement, we started talking about Facebook and whether it would be a good way to build understanding of and excitement about the Biennial.It turns out that nine of the ten folks around the table have Facebook accounts, and at least three of them were checking it as the meeting was going on. When I asked how often everyone checks Facebook, the numbers ranged from almost never, (as in less than once a week) to about 10 times a day. But there was a clear division [...]