JustASC

This rather charming and even hilarious article, which appeared in the New York Times in 1897, is making its viral way around the Jewish community. It reports on the arrest of a rabbi in “Tompkins Square” who attempted to hold a ceremony to recite Birkat HaChammah, the blessing of the sun that comes around only once every 28 years (and will again on Wednesday morning).  The Times reports:

The celebration is rather a complicated matter to explain to anybody. Rabbi Klein’s knowledge of English is slight, while [Officer] Foley’s faculties of comprehension of matters outside of police and park regulations and local events are not acute. The attempt of a foreign citizen to explain to an American Irishman an astronomical situation and a tradition of the Talmud was a dismal failure.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 6th, 2009 at 3:02 pm and is filed under JustASC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.