Local News
The Jewish Federation of Greater Binghamton will host the 92Y Live program "Madeleine Albright in Conversation with Christiane Amanpour" on Thursday, May 31, at 8 pm, at the Jewish Community Center, 500 Clubhouse Rd., Vestal. It will be a CD broadcast of a program held at the 92nd Street Y in New York City earlier in May. The cost to attend will be $8 for the general public or $5 for Federation members. The doors will open at 7:15 pm. Light refreshments will be served.
The College of Jewish Studies will continue its series of "Jewish Troublemakers of the 1960s" with a presentation on Thursday, May 17, at 7:30 pm, by Professor Lauren Strauss, of George Washington University, discussing Bella Abzug in "Her Hat Was in the Ring: Bella Abzug and Her Life as a ‘Troublemaker.’" The program will be held at the Jewish Community Center, 500 Clubhouse Rd., Vestal, NY. The cost, payable at the door, will be $8 for general admission or $5 for seniors.
Arieh Ullmann will be honored at the Beth David Synagogue annual dinner on Sunday, May 20, beginning with cocktails at 3 pm, followed by dinner at 3:30 pm. He will be presented with the Jack and Mary Ferber Memorial Award.
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National News
BOSTON (JTA) – On a recent Sunday, Ayla Watson celebrated her bat mitzvah. Ayla, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other behavioral difficulties, ascended the bima and recited the Torah reading for Rosh Chodesh, the new month. The service culminated a year of thrice-weekly classes or services at Temple Beth Emunah in Brockton, MA, and one-on-one tutoring. Ayla learned her Torah portion phonetically and listened to a tape again and again. Now Ayla, who struggled with several tutors, wants to learn to read Hebrew and trope (the Torah and haftarah chants).
NEW YORK (JTA) – Bills or bug juice?
With the economic recovery still struggling to take hold, many American Jewish families are finding they face a difficult question as deadlines for summer camp enrollment approach: Can they both pay their bills and send their kids to Jewish overnight camp?
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International News
BUDAPEST (JTA) – Linda Ban is a rebbetzin, but with a mass of curly hair and chunky rings on the fingers of both hands, she hardly fits the stereotype of a Central European rabbi’s wife. A mother of two in her mid-30s, Ban is married to Tamas Vero, the 38-year-old spiritual leader of Budapest’s Frankel Leo Street Synagogue, a neo-Gothic building hidden in a courtyard near the Danube. The congregation may hold a key to the Jewish future in Hungary.
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Features
The biblical text is said to have many layers, which offer insights from the spiritual to the mystical. Dr. Norman J. Cohen, a rabbi and professor of midrash at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, uses the text in yet another way: as a mirror to help readers gain insights into their own lives. In his new work "Masking and Unmasking Ourselves: Interpreting Biblical Texts on Clothing and Identity" (Jewish Lights Publishing), Cohen discusses 10 biblical sections that highlight the symbolic use of clothing. With the help of rabbinic midrash (stories), which offer details not revealed in the Torah text, he explores how clothing can be used to mask or to reveal our inner selves.
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Opinion
(JTA) – With the contemporary music world buzzing about Regina Spektor’s upcoming album more than a month before its release, I cannot help but think about the young musician’s rise in the context of Russian-speaking Jewry. Spektor, who came to the United States with her parents when she was a young girl, still identifies deeply with the Russian-speaking Jewish community and has been an outspoken defender of Israel. And she is not an exception. (See related article in the April 13 issue of The Reporter.)
Even something as simple as a humorous comic strip can offer opportunities for contemplation. Take, for example, a recent series of the "Diamond Lil" comic strip (which can be found online at www.gocomics.com). Lil, an opinionated, curmudgeonly older woman, is approached by a young neighbor who wants to play catch with her. When explaining why she can’t, she says she is too busy "doing absolutely nothing." In the second strip in the series, Lil notes how few people now seem capable of doing absolutely nothing with their time, a thought that resonated with me.
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