Author Archives: Alia

Discussion Topics, General

February 20, 2012

Teach me to curse in Yiddish

By Alia

Much has been written about the beauty and humor of the ever-dying, ever-living language of Yiddish. Words in Yiddish have more flavor, more spice, more fun. Why say you feel a little crazy when you can exclaim that you’re just meshuguna. Why say Auntie’s dress pattern is busy when it can be ungapatchke?

After a whole discussion on Facebook about the word shvantz, I decided to do a post about swear words in Yiddish. I went to one of my favorite resources, YouTube, sure I would find some great and funny short about cursing out your friends while they scratch their keppes in confusion. What did I find? Bubkis! Gornisht! Gornisht mit gornisht! Sadly, my grandparents, like many of their generation, only spoke Yiddish in front of me, never to me, and they certainly didn’t pass along any juicy words.

Yiddish Dictionary online is one great resource for learning Yiddish words, but so many meanings for the same word abound: Yiddish Dictionary didn’t list shvantz (which I finally found when I realized it uses -ts instead of -tz) among its 11 words for penis. Instead it defined it as “cock, prick, dick, asshole” – everything penis but the organ itself!

So I turn to you, my foul-mouthed, multi-lingual friends. What are your favorite curses or curse words in Yiddish? I’m pretty tame, I like putz and shvantz. Got any really juicy ones? Words, that is.

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February 15, 2012

Israel itinerary ideas

By Alia

It’s that time of year: it’s cold, blustery, mostly gray outside, and we’re itching for true spring. It’s perfect weather to start thinking about escaping to beautiful, warm-even-when-it’s-cold Israel.

My first round of ideas of things to see and do I gave to you a year and a half ago, so it’s time for a new batch:

The Palmach Museum celebrates the elite force of the Haganah, the pre-state army. I have heard from others that this experiential museum, which only takes 90 minutes to walk through, is not to be missed. So it’s really too bad that we missed it. We ran out of time on our last visit and couldn’t go, so it’s definitely going on our itinerary for our next visit! From the website: “Visit to the museum must be pre-arranged. The tour is carried out in groups of up to 25 people (individuals visitors will be pre-arranged into groups). The tour is for children over 6 years only.” The tour is conducted in Hebrew, with English translations via headphones.

Not my family. Photo from Chan Hashayarot.

During our family trip, it became a refrain among the five kids: “not another ancient Roman ruin!” as we would pull up to yet another ancient Roman ruin. Our tour guide loved them; the kids, not so much after the second one and I think we saw four or five. Chan Hashayarot, near Beersheva in the Negev, is a perfect respite from tour buses and museums and ancient Roman ruins. It is a Bedouin tent experience. If you are camping and bring your own sleeping bag etc. the rate is very cheap. But if you plan to leave your towels and pillows at home, they can provide them; the cost for a family then becomes similar to a hotel. But no hotel will be this fun: the whole family sleeps on mats in a giant Bedouin tent. (Real restrooms with hot showers are very close; this is a must for me.) Get the optional dinner (I think breakfast is included): it is so yummy. I’ve stayed there twice: once with a federation group, with 50 adults in two tents, and once with just my family. When the Ramers went, we arrived on Shabbat afternoon, and they don’t get many visitors on Shabbat, so we had one tent all to ourselves. After 10 days of touring, my kids were so happy to let loose and literally run naked around the tent. Okay, that was the boys. Big Girl is too refined. They also have a herd of camels, which you can ride for an extra fee.

In Jerusalem, anyone will tell you to go to Ben Yehuda Street to shop. Our Tribe and Joy will tell you to go around the corner (right on Yaffo Street and right again) to 8 Yoel Solomon Street and bring a tissue. Why? Because you’re going to drool at the gorgeous handmade jewelry in Turquoise 925. Gold, silver, stones, necklaces, rings, bracelets. If it’s not busy inside Itzhik Sasson, the owner, will offer you a cup of Turkish coffee and he’ll tell you all about how he makes the jewelry himself. Tell him you live in MetroWest NJ and he’ll say “oh, Rebecca G–, how is she!” and treat you like a long lost friend and give you “very good price.”

Yoel Solomon Street has lots of other jewelry, pottery, and crafty shops, and really is a great alternative to the overpriced trinkets on Ben Yehuda (I bought a kipa from The Kipa Man for $10 for Bulldog and found the same one in Tel Aviv for about $4).

Israel-trip veterans, what else would you suggest?

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February 14, 2012

I’m meh about the pagan-Hallmark love day

By Alia

The headline kinda said it all. I’ve always been meh about it. In life I vacillate between being a true romantic and a staunch pragmatist.

For true romance, you can’t beat my mom and dad: they met on a blind date and were engaged a week later; they were married 7 months after that, and then I was born a month before their first anniversary.

For pragmatism, you can’t beat Tim Minchin. Can’t be beat. Happy pagan-manufactured Hallmark-promoted all-about-monetizing-your-love day. Edifying you about Tim’s existence is my present to you.

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Discussion Topics, General

February 10, 2012

What to Wear

By Alia

On Sunday, March 11, The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City will be hosting What to Wear, “An All-Day, Multifaceted Exploration of Women’s Clothing and Its Relationship to Religion and Culture.” I am proud and excited to be a part of this event.

Due to my blog posts right here with you fine folk, about what it took to dress my Big Girl and myself for her bat mitzvah,  Big Girl, my mom, and I have been asked as a family trio to be half of a panel discussion, “Clothing and Coming of Age.” The other family trio with us? Well, the grandma of that group is Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

I keep saying how excited I am to be on a panel with Dr. Ruth, and my mom keeps correcting me that she’s going to be on a panel with me. Explaining my excitement to Big Girl was a little tricky… “She’s really famous, it will be an honor to meet her.” “I never heard of her. What is she famous for?” “Well, she used to talk about sex on the radio.” “Ewww, why?!”

What to Wear will also feature another local speaker: Rabbi Francine Roston of Congregation Beth El in South Orange will join Rev. Dr. Katherine Rhodes Henderson to discuss “Women Clergy and Self-Representation.”

My mom may want to go to that one (she often has specific opinions on what my rabbi sister should wear while working). I like to remind that rabbi sister of mine that I was a student at JTS before she was – even though my residency there was just eight weeks: shout out to Mathilde Schechter Residence Hall summer ’89! But to go back as a speaker…wow. I am honored.

Please please please join us: the cost is low, just $36 per person, and that includes lunch. AND, because they would really like to see teens attend, each adult may bring one teen free of charge. Register here. During the first set of concurrent sessions, there will be one just for teens: “OMG – I Can’t Believe She Wore That!” Let them know your teen will be attending that session by emailing  what2wear@jtsa.edu.

This blog has given me a public voice, for which I am grateful, and a bit of micro-fame, which I have also savored (I was recognized. Once. And someone at a Jewish education conference told my sister she had to read this blog, not knowing we are sisters!). This will be the high point yet! Come hear me, live and in person, talk about my daughter’s adolescent clothing choices while my mother talks about mine! And our Big Girl complains publicly about both! I can’t wait to see you there. What will you wear?

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February 7, 2012

IDF updates

By Alia

One of the few accounts I subscribe to on YouTube is the Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Desk. It’s a great source to point people to if they question Israel’s defense of their own land and people. I feel such pride, absolute nachas, when I see these reports and updates.

Here’s the monthly wrap-up for January.

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General

February 6, 2012

Tu B’Shevat ideas

By Alia

The New Year of the Trees (and a great favorite in my house as one of my kids’ names means “tree”), Tu B’Shevat, is coming up on Wednesday, Feb. 8.  Here are a few resources for you if you’d like to celebrate the budding of the branches (in Israel; here the current budding is not to be celebrated, it’s a source of concern about climate change):

My friend Rebecca Missel wrote a great piece for the Morristown Patch about the holiday, along with a few activities coming up.

At Berhman House’s Babaganewz, you can learn to make a dried-fruit centerpiece.

For a sweet twist on the holiday, kveller.com offers a candy-coated variation.

For older kids or a group of adults, Hillel offers a downloadable Tu B’Shevat seder.

Not quite warm enough for this here in New Jersey, but in Israel, where it's now the rainy season, Tu B'Shevat heralds the start of spring. My, how this little girl has grown into a Big Girl.

Anyone else know of any great resources?

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February 3, 2012

My parenthood was planned with Planned Parenthood’s help

By Alia

This week’s news that Susan G. Komen for the Cure is cutting its allocation (earmarked for breast cancer screenings) to Planned Parenthood is upsetting for many across the country. But it’s particularly upsetting to me, as not only am I a supporter of Planned Parenthood, I am also a former client.

Yes, as a teen I was too embarrassed to ask my mom to take me to get The Pill. My father was gone at that point, but trust me: had he been alive there would have been no approaching him either. But I was appropriately paranoid enough to want to prevent a pregnancy: I had already seen how difficult it was for someone close to me to have a child at 18. She loved her child, and she’s an amazing mom to this day – one that I go to for advice – but it was a rough start that I know she has warned her own daughters away from. So one day after school my high school sweetheart drove me to the Planned Parenthood clinic. From then until I graduated from college, I was a patient for my annual exam and to get discounted birth control pills.

As a result, I never got pregnant when I wasn’t expecting to – at least not until after I was married: Big Girl and Skater are just 20 months apart. But at that point we get to call it a surprise, not an accident or mistake. Paraphrasing the great sage Roseanne Barr, an unexpected child is a “surprise,” because a “mistake” you wouldn’t repeat if you could do it over. Having an unexpected pregnancy threw us for a loop, but of course not nearly the loop it would have been if I had gotten pregnant in high school or college.

From Planned Parenthood 2009-10 annual report

The thing of it is, the money that SGK gave was never for abortions, or even birth control; it was to further their own mission of saving women’s lives. As The Atlantic noted, “[I]t was all — roughly $680,000 last year and $580,000 the year before that — used for breast-cancer screening and other breast-health services for low-income, uninsured, and under-insured women.” So after all the pink ribbons and times I’ve supported friends – and my own daughter – in Walks and Runs for the Cure, I’ll be finding a different outlet to support breast cancer research and prevention.

New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg has pledged a match up to $250,00 to replace the funding Planned Parenthood is losing. Please donate some tzedakah along with him and me. Join me in supporting girls’ and women’s health and eventual parental happiness.

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January 30, 2012

Kosher pizza FAIL

By Alia

I grew up in Columbus, Ohio, keeping the basic tenets of kashrut but not the letter of the law. Columbus had a couple kosher bakeries, one kosher butcher, and usually one kosher restaurant at a time, which would last a few years, close, and we would wait for another to open up.

But I have never heard of a pizza shop offering – with total sincerity – pizza with real cheese and kosher pepperoni. Now I’ve heard of it, and somehow I wish I hadn’t.

The Charleston Gazette, under the headline “Pizza joint cooks it up kosher,” offers the story of Al ”Some people have wanted pepperoni their whole lives and they never have had the option” Qutub, who indeed gives those who’ve always wanted their treyf pizza made with kosher meat the chance. You can read the whole article here, but really just for the laughter. Lines like “It’s also important to use separate utensils, he said, as he cleaned a pizza cutter to slice a kosher pepperoni pizza with banana peppers,” and “When Qutub makes a kosher pizza, he arranges the toppings so that the cheese covers the kosher meat. Pork has more fat than kosher beef so covering the beef with cheese prevents it from drying up during the cooking process, he said,” make the article flow smoothly, like cheddar cheese sauce over brisket.

Occasionally my family likes to fake it: we get fake shrimp for gumbo or fake meat for tacos, etc. We’ve learned that we much prefer tofu-meat with real dairy than real meat and fake dairy. But this community doesn’t get it: the store owner doesn’t get it, the reporter doesn’t get it, and obviously the editors who stuck it in the paper/on the web don’t get it. Like I said on my friend Joshua’s Facebook page (where I saw this link, thanks!): ew, ew, ew – this is going on my blog – ew, ew.

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Discussion Topics, General

January 29, 2012

Don’t text about this till you’re parked

By Alia

I’m not a huge texter in general; I prefer the sound of my own voice and yours. But I do agree there are times when a text is a fast and reasonable way to get a message sent. And I do struggle with myself against texting while in the car. Not while I’m moving, but at red lights I’m tempted (I’ve done it, I admit it). I can do it quick, I reason. I can glance up and see when it turns green. But after reading this article in The Jewish Week, my will is now iron for never doing it again, even at red lights!

The article says that the whole idea of doing something you know may result in harm is completely against Jewish law. So that’s it, I don’t even have to think about it anymore. From now on texting while the car is on, even stopped at a red light, is pork to me. A ham and swiss sandwich. On Yom Kippur.

Even if you don’t keep kosher, I hope texting while driving is now treyf for you too.

 

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January 26, 2012

A little Birthright humor

By Alia

I hope you enjoyed reading about Alexa’s trip on Birthright Israel, which in Hebrew is called Taglit. This week we follow it up with a sketch from Israeli television:

I barely speak any Hebrew and I still thought it was really funny. How about those of you who do speak Hebrew? Or any Birthright alumni? Does it ring true?

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