I Believe in Miracles, heard in the video above, is performed by Pey Dalid, a band comprised of Mordechai and his two brothers, Shlomo and Pesach. Watch more videos on their YourTube channel.
Mordechai is currently the 5th grade teacher for the Connect After-School program and co-director of the children’s vocal group, The Miracle-Makers.
I Believe in Miracles has been performed by The Miracle-Makers at 92Y’s Hanukkah Festival on December 11, 2011, and was originally performed by Mordechai at the 92Y Hanukkah Festival in 2010.
On December 24, Pey Dalid will perform in Occupy Hanukkah at The Knitting Factory.
Excuse our immodesty, but 92Y really is: An open door to extraordinary worlds!
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Posted in Jewish Life All topics of 92nd Street Y at 12:17pm | Link to this item |
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Rabbi David Kalb, Director of Jewish Education for the Bronfman Center for Jewish Life at 92nd Street Y, continues his series of guest blogs below, with another post on the weekly Torah portion.
Dream Weaver - Miketz:
In this week’s Parsha (Torah Portion), Parshat Miketz, the story of Yoseph (Joseph) that began in last weeks Parsha, Parshat Vayeshev, continues, as does the theme of dreams.
A question that is often asked about the Yoseph stories in the Torah is: what is the nature of Yoseph’s ability to have dreams and interpret them? Are Yoseph’s dreams a message from God? Are they prophetic or just Yoseph’s mind at work? In Freudian terms, are the dreams a manifestation of Yoseph’s subconscious? When Yoseph interprets the dreams of Pharaoh, is this simply Yoseph interpreting a dream, perhaps using psychology or God giving over a revelation?
The readings of the stories of Yoseph in the Torah always come in close proximity to Chanukah. Perhaps by looking more closely at Chanukah, we can begin to answer questions about the nature of Yoseph’s dreams and his ability to interpret them. According to the way the story of Chanukah is told in the Talmud, Shabbat 21b, after the Jews were successful in their revolt against the Assyrian-Greeks, they went back to Yerushalayim (Jerusalem), to the Beit Hamikdash (The Temple), and they saw that the Beit Hamikdash had been defiled by the Assyrian-Greeks. They purified the Beit Hamikdash and then began to search to find oil to light the Menorah, seven-branched candelabra, which was used in the religious experience of the Beit Hamikdash. They eventually found one container of oil that still had the seal of the Kohain Gadol (High Priest) on it, but there was only enough oil in the flask that was found to last one day. As we know, a miracle happened and the amount of oil that was only supposed to last one day lasted for eight days. As a result, we celebrate Chanukah by lighting the Chanukiah (the special eight-branched Menorah used on Chanukah) for eight days.
The Beit Yosef, a commentator on the Tur, and Shulchan Aruch (two of the most important Jewish Legal Codes) asks an interesting question in Orech Chayim 670. Why is Chanukah eight days long? The miracle of the oil was really seven days, not eight. The Maccabees found one container of oil that was enough for one day. Therefore, Chanukah should be celebrated for seven days, not eight? Seven lights for seven nights, not eight?
Read more on the 92Y Facebook page.
Learn more in a fascinating analysis of the central text of Judaism on January 3. Check out all 92Y Jewish Studies - First Class programs and you might also be interested in An Introduction to Judaism for Adults at Derekh Torah™ classes.
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Posted in Jewish Life All topics of 92nd Street Y at 11:27am | Link to this item | Comments (0)
A reminder for our friends and neighbors: Join us in our lobby at 4:30pm today, tomorrow and next week for our Annual Hanukkah Lighting ceremony. It really is a great time and Karina and Rebecca know how to sing and have fun! AND… we end the celebration with Hanukkah chocolate gelt candies!
For more Hanukkah fun, you can come to our Hanukkah Dinner with Karina and Rebecca on December 23.
Related: How do re-emerging Jewish communities around the world celebrate Hanukkah? 92nd Street Y Resource Center for Jewish Diversity partner Shavei Israel made an awesome video to show you.
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Posted in Jewish Life All topics of 92nd Street Y at 11:14am | Link to this item |
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How do re-emerging Jewish communities around the world celebrate Hanukkah? 92nd Street Y Resource Center for Jewish Diversity partner Shavei Israel made the awesome video above to show you.
Shavei Israel works with Lost Tribes and Hidden Jewish communities around the world.” Join us now,” they wrote, “as Jews from Spain, Portugal, Russia, Poland, China and India all celebrate Hanukah together. Many faces, one song!”
Of course, everyone is invited to our annual Hanukkah lighting ceremony with Karina and Rebecca, on multiple days this week and next, at 4:30pm in the lobby of 92Y!
And on January 10, Michael Freund, founder and chairman of Shavei Israel, will moderate an event at 92Y: The Hidden Jews of the Holocaust: Poland’s Re-emerging Jewish Community. After the fall of the Soviet empire and Poland’s transformation to democracy, a growing number of Poles are rediscovering their families’ concealed Jewish roots, with many choosing to live a full Jewish life and return to the Jewish people. Join members of this re-emerging Jewish community for a fascinating and inspiring account of young Polish Jews reclaiming the heritage that Hitler sought to extinguish.
Read more and purchase tickets, here. See all upcoming Jewish Interest talks.
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Posted in Jewish Life All topics of 92nd Street Y at 5:38pm | Link to this item | Comments (0)
Our annual Hanukkah lighting ceremony is underway in the lobby of 92Y! Join us now or on multiple dates this week, at 4:30pm.
Bring your dancing shoes and singing voices because Karina and Rebecca really know how to make this a fun time for everyone! Then we end the celebration with Hanukkah chocolate gelt candies. MMMM…
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Posted in Jewish Life All topics of 92nd Street Y at 4:49pm | Link to this item | Comments (0)
Rabbi David Kalb, Director of Jewish Education for the Bronfman Center for Jewish Life at 92nd Street Y, continues his series of guest blogs below, with another post on the weekly Torah portion.
And here’s to you Mrs. Robinson . . . (or Mrs. Potifar ....)
In this week’s Parshah (Torah Portion), Vayeishev (found in Bereishit/Genesis 38-40), we are introduced to Yoseph (Joseph), the second youngest of Yaakov’s (Jacobs) twelve sons. Despite being the second youngest, Yoseph has dreams of one day being the leader. This coupled with Yaakov favoring Yoseph causes feelings of resentment by the brothers towards Yoseph. His brothers eventually sell Yoseph into slavery in Egypt. While Yoseph is a slave, he rises to a high position as a slave. He becomes the Head Slave, in charge of the entire household of his master Potifar. Yoseph is described in the Torah as a very attractive man Bereishit/Genesis 39:6 “… Now Yoseph was handsome of form and handsome of appearance”. He is so attractive that in verse 7 the wife of Potifar tells Yoseph to have sex with her. Yoseph realizes the obvious moral wrong of agreeing to the indecent proposal of the wife of Potifar, and he refuses to have sex with her. Later on in verses 10-18 she continues to pursue Yoseph unsuccessfully, and eventually one day she tears his clothes off and Yoseph runs away. Presumably to save face and protect herself from what Yoseph might say and the potential reprisals her husband might take towards her, the wife of Potifar lies to the entire household and her husband, and says that Yoseph attempted to take advantage of her. Yoseph is then thrown in jail by Potifar.
Read the complete blog post on the 92Y Facebook page.
Learn more in a fascinating analysis of the central text of Judaism on January 3. Check out all 92Y Jewish Studies - First Class programs and you might also be interested in An Introduction to Judaism for Adults at Derekh Torah™ classes.
Posted in Jewish Life All topics of 92nd Street Y at 10:25am | Link to this item | Comments (0)
Did you miss Rabbi Israel Meir Lau in conversation with Rabbi Menachem Genack at 92nd Street Y in November? Enjoy a clip from that extraordinary evening, above.
Rabbi Lau regaled the audience with tales of his childhood during the Holocaust and his experiences as Chief Rabbi of Israel. Audience members had the opportunity to ask questions and Rabbi Lau was candid and authentic. He commented on questions such as the recent exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and whether or not Yom HaShoah should be commemorated on Tisha B’Av.
Many of his stories are featured in Rabbi Lau’s new book, Out of the Depths: The Story of a Child of Buchenwald Who Returned Home at Last.
This endowed lecture, the annual Francine and Abdallah Simon State of World Jewry Lecture, is just one of the incredible lectures offered by the Bronfman Center for Jewish Life at 92Y. See all upcoming lectures of Jewish Interest, here.
If you’re interested in more stories from the Holocaust, don’t miss the series of special program at 92Y, Will to Create, Will to Live: The Culture of Terezín in January. One featured event, The Story of Terezin, on Jan 18, will delve into one of the most moving and inspiring stories of the Holocaust era with documentary film clips and stories from survivors of Terezín itself.
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The Jewish Daily Forward reporter Paul Berger recently viewed the Lives of the Great Patriotic War: the Untold Stories of Soviet Jewish Veterans in the Red Army during WWII exhibit, which is now on display at the 92Y Weill Art Gallery. The exhibit looks at the participation of 500,000 Soviet Jewish soldiers in the fight against fascism during WWII (known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War).
Berger interviewed both Blavatnik Archive director Julie Chervinsky, who organized the exhibition, and Semeon Grigorevich Shpiegel, one of the soldiers featured in the exhibit.
The veterans’ stories are well worth the concentration it takes to explore the exhibition. But they are conveyed most accessibly by a 15-minute video of interview snippets that loops on a television screen set up on a table next to a wall.
In the film, Vladimir Ilyich Nemets recalls seeing cotton fly out of the back of the coats of the soldiers running in front of him as the men were gunned down. Dora Motelevna Nemirovskaya recalls the “tchok-tchok-tchok” of sniper fire exploding around her as she struggled to bandage a gruesome stomach wound.
Although anti-Semitism was rare in the trenches, Chervinsky said that many Jewish soldiers felt they had to fight harder and act braver “so no one would say, ‘He’s a Jewish coward.’” She said Jewish veterans also recounted how they had “an extra score to settle with Hitler” after they found out about the Holocaust.
But for the most part, Judaism played a secondary role to the veterans’ identities as Soviet citizens. Often in the exhibition, the most striking elements of their stories are not the Jewish ones but the universal ones — the senselessness and randomness of war.
Read the full article here.
Lives of the Great Patriotic War: the Untold Stories of Soviet Jewish Veterans in the Red Army during WWII is on display at the 92Y Weill Art Gallery until December 6. The exhibit features war-time diary and letter excerpts, reproductions of archival photographs and documents, as well as excerpts from contemporary oral testimonies.
Upcoming Jewish Interest Talks at 92Y include Debbie Wasserman Schulz in Conversation with Thane Rosenbaum (Dec 11); Our Movies Ourselves: Jews & Film (Dec 15); Reaching the Jewish Community in the 21st Century (Jan 8); The Hidden Jews of the Holocaust (Jan 10).
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Posted in Jewish Life All topics of 92nd Street Y at 9:00am | Link to this item | Comments (0)