Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This year I attended a Yom Ha’Atzmaut celebration. There were hundreds of kids from Israel, San Francisco, New York and Turkey eating falafel and dancing to Hadag Nachash, Israel’s premier hip-hop band.

I happened to be in my living room, and this dance party was taking place on computer screens against the backdrop of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. The dancing students were avatars created by Jewish students from across the world. The context was a course being taught in several Jewish day schools and supplemental programs about Jewish peoplehood — and it was all taking place within a virtual world.

Click here to view the embedded video.

for the full article go to The Jewish Week…

Maybe I’m crazy or maybe I just don’t know what I have got myself into. But the training has officially begun and the countdown started for my first marathon.

A few years ago a son of a good friend of ours battled and survived neuroblastoma. But the fight for him and many other kids just like him is never really over – as if I needed extra motivation to complete this thing – that is it! So please help me and help all the kids with cancer out there by supporting me to run this year’s New York marathon.

And if you’re in New York I’d really like the support along the way – I’ll be somewhere in the back of the pack – and even if I’m half delirious, writhing in pain – believe me I’ll still appreciate any shouts of support coming my way!

I’m running with Fred’s Team to raise funds for crucial cancer research and I’m asking you to help me by donating to my run.

Although raising money is defintiely our number one priority there is one other way that you might be able to help out Mirm and me. As you might imagine there is quite a bit of training involved and if anyone wants to help us out by babysitting a pretty cute kid while we push ourselves through some of those miles we’d be totally appreciative. So if you have a couple of hours to spare in Park Slope please let us know. And if you don’t believe that he’s cute you can check out Jonah at and see his reactions to his nutty parents as they embark on this New York marathon ordeal.

Thank you for your support – and I hope to see you out there on November 7th!

Please click here to make your donation and know that you are helping in this fight against cancer.

A few years ago Kobi Oz, a well known Israeli musician and lead singer in the band Tipex, made a splash in international circles with a Eurovision entry which created some controversy among the peace loving nations of Europe. “Push the Button” may not have won Eurovision but it certainly attracted some attention at the time.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Since then, Kobi Oz, has been performing for more and more diaspora audiences and bringing his personal narrative and experiences to thousands of people who may have previously been unexposed to this truly unique individual.

This latest collaboration with MAKOM is an exciting and dynamic approach to bringing contemporary Israeli culture to Jews all around the world.

Makom on Kobi Oz’ Mizmorei Nevuchim

Included in this website are interviews, songs, lyrics and questions – many of which will inspire and bring you to reflect upon your own personal relationship with Israel.

I really like arts and culture as a medium for education.  When an artist presents their work – whether it be a painting, song, dance, or even a photography they hand over the responsibility of interpretation to the audience. For an artist there can be no right or wrong. But an artist if they are successful must inspire, bring about an emotive response, and possibly even transform individuals. Kobi Oz, in this collaboration with MAKOM, begins to do just that.

I like to think that an apparent recent interest in the Jewish adolescent population signifies a trend in the North American Jewish community to begin focusing on this most critical demographic. It is in these years that identity is developed more intensely than in any other age span. It is in these years that teenagers move gradually (or alarmingly) from the strong bonds and attachments that they have with their parents to the new relationships that will also endure with their  friends, role models and the like. And it is this demographic that the Jewish community has paid least attention to in recent years. But that is about to change, I can feel it, I know it, all it takes is a few good educators, with a few good communities (read Federations and Central Agencies), a lot of good congregations, youth groups & youth movements, summer camps, Jewish travel programs, and a few good foundations to join forces and….

Recently my dissertation has attracted some renewed attention. Entitled “Giving Voice to a Generation: The Role of the Peer Group in the identity development of Jewish Teenagers in America” this dissertation focuses on many issues covered in this blog – Jewish adolescents, identity development, formal and informal (nonformal) settings of Jewish education, experiential Jewish education, Israel, popular culture, relationships – to name but a few.

For those of you who want to read my dissertation, I recommend waiting for the book or movie to come out. But in the mean time – a picture really does tell 75,000+ words (click to enlarge)

With Tu B’Av (the Festival of Love) just around the corner (July 26th) I wanted to share the following with you. Someone very close to me tells me during occasional tender moments, “I like you so much, it hurts.” I never quite understood the phrase, but maybe now I do – at least just a bit better than before. But before reading on, and despite what I am about to share with you, rest assured that my personal life is actually doing quite well – thanks for caring!

I guess liking someone so much that it hurts could happen for many reasons – but in this case, the object of my affection is just making it so difficult for me – that it actually hurts.

I’ve had a bad week with the object of my affection. In fact I’ve had a bad couple of months – perhaps even longer and I’ve just been in some sort of denial.

A few months ago I think that she made a series of big mistakes. If I were in her shoes, I would have acted differently. But, if I had decided to do what she did, then at the very least I would have made sure to explain myself to others – so they would then understand why I did what I did and not judge me so harshly. Sometimes perception is reality, and at the very least, she needed to acknowledge upfront that others were hurt by her actions.

Then last week, just when I was getting over the last watershed incident, she did something really stupid.  She basically decided to make a decision, or at least raise the possibility of making a decision that would alienate many of my friends – as if to say “I don’t really care about you as much as my kind.” What’s even worse is that this particular decision basically tells people that if they want to become more like the object of my affection that they have to change – and change in a particular way that is not compatible with the way others might want to. Her decision basically tells me that she doesn’t think that my friends matter as much as her friends – and that hurts!

The chutzpah! If she only would stop and think about what her decisions mean to a whole set of people a world away – a set of people who care so dearly, but for whom caring and supporting gets increasingly difficult with so many decisions she makes.

In this instance, though there might be time to change her mind, so I urge all of my friends to tell her that despite everything she can continue to mean so much if only she doesn’t make any rash decisions.

I spend so much of my time trying to get my friends to feel like they should get to know her better. I want them to meet her and develop a connection with her. It doesn’t need to be as strong as what I feel for her, but maybe, just maybe, get them to feel a little something special every time they think of her. But she had to go and screw things up – again.

So now I turn to you, the object of my affection and plead: Please know that there is someone over here who loves you very much. I know that you’re not perfect, but perhaps it’s because I recognize that you’re not perfect that I feel I know you even better than most. And despite these imperfections, I still love you.

But geez, you are sure making my life difficult these days. Please, help me out just a little bit every so often. I won’t forget that you also make me proud and inspire me and get me excited every time I hear your name. But you have to recognize that if you sometimes try just a little bit harder, there will be many more people out there who will like you –perhaps even love you – just like I do.

(If you have read this far and the object of my affection is still unknown to you – then perhaps the ambiguous nature of the blog entry was too much. If by now you have worked out that it is Israel with whom I am both enamored and frustrated then maybe you too are experiencing the same love tensions that I am with this country.)

Various versions of this video have appeared in recent years – but this one really seems to hit home….

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

All of that being said (viewed) we shouldn’t forget that in itself social media is only a strategy and not an ends unto itself.

If you show this video to your staff/board/family/friends I would love to hear their reactions…

Looks like the Herald Sun in Australia has less of the problem with passing judgement ….

And surprise, surprise – the community response frowns upon anyone else’s attempt to memorialize the Shoah (Holoaust) in a way that is personally meaningful.

It is with mixed feelings that I post this video, but I am interested to hear what some of you think about it (as long as you hear this survivors words at the end of the clip) Is it poignant? disrespectful? inspiring? I’ll let you be the judge…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Any thoughts?

And as we should always be reminded, Part One was only part of the story.

Part 2

Click here to view the embedded video.

Part 3

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Recently I was asked about one of my favorite sites in Israel and why it meant so much to me. It took a few moments but then I recalled a place in Israel that always makes me smile – the soccer pitch at Kiriat Moriah in Jerusalem.

This pitch (if you can call it that) is a broken up piece of asphalt with barely visible markings and nets with gaps in them the size of soccer balls. And for those of you who know Kiriat Moriah, and have lived there and eaten in her cafeteria, you may be even more surprised with my choice of favorite Israeli site.

But I hearken back once again to 1990 and World Cup fever had descended on all of us. As an Australian growing up on Aussie Rules and cricket I was rather surprised to learn that there was in fact a world sport and that involved a round ball. But after the initial shock I began to learn a thing or two. Argentineans and Brazilians, who had been best of friends for many months, could come to blows during a soccer match. Grown men could cry inconsolably as never heard of before Cameroon defeated their heroes. And everyone who wasn’t British seemed to despise England.

For us Anglos who unlike this time around did not have our own countries to support we did the age old Jewish thing when determining who to support during the tournament. We would always support the team who had done less harm to the Jews. Some games were easy: United States Versus Czechoslovakia; Korea Versus Uruguay; or Costa Rica Versus Scotland. But other games gave us more trouble. How do you compare Spain (1492), England (1290), Austria/Germany (no dates needed), Argentina/Brazil (harboring those from Austria and Germany) or the USSR (Refusenik era)? At the end of the day there simply weren’t that many teams left for us to choose from.

But the point of this story is not the World Cup itself but the World Cup replica that we conducted on that infamous soccer pitch at Kiriat Moriah. It was here that I learned two important life lessons. First, the skills of an Australian Rules footballer mean absolutely nothing when as a goalkeeper a team of Brazilians is firing a series of penalties right past my head. Secondly, Jewish Peoplehood can come to life in some of the most unexpected (or expected) places.

Our tournament was quite simple. 6 teams (perhaps there were more) – Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Israel (they were the teachers), 2 Rest of World of teams (that was us – England, Australia, South Africa and the Kiwis). Round robin tournament and then finals. To cut a long story short – we (the highly underrated Rest of World team) made it to the finals, managed a draw, fought hard in extra time, and then got beaten on penalties in the final against Brazil. Did I mention that I was the goalkeeper who let 5 Brazilian penalties fly straight past me?

Here it sounds like just another sporting story – but at the time it was the most important thing happening in my world. I can vividly remember some of the plays, some of the players and some of the parties after each game. I remember using Hebrew because most of the time that was the only language that we had in common – that and soccer – which I now fondly refer to as football.

Sometimes a blog entry requires more explanation – and perhaps the connections here between football and Jewish Peoplehood need to be made more explicit for some readers.

But for me, still wallowing this morning in Australia’s 4:0 defeat against Germany I want to bring this blog entry to a close.

And now, as I do every 4 years, I bring myself back to that dilapidated football pitch at Kiriat Moriah – and smile.