General

March 29, 2012

Dirty horseradish

By Alia

Come on, if you had seen this guy in the Passover veggie display (parsley, leeks, more parsley, horseradish root), you’d have brought him home, too, right? I mean, that’s a dirty horseradish. Really! It has dust all over it. What did you think I meant?

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General

March 28, 2012

I did it long distance

By Alia

Annoy my teenage daughter, that is.

Thanks to modern technology, one can now multitask the important chores of both communicating with and embarrassing one’s 13 year old while at a Federation conference in Las Vegas.

My friend Debbie showed me the way last summer: while we were in Chicago for a weekend, she happily texted back and forth with her two teen daughters. She said she communicated more with them (and got more information about their activities without her) by text than if she had called them. Remembering this, I texted to Big Girl and it worked. We chatted about shorts I had bought for her (they fit, but she thinks they’re too long) whether or not she would follow me on Twitter (she won’t, no big surprise) and her outing to see Hunger Games for the second time in its opening weekend.

I wish I was savvy enough to put up the screen shot of our convo but I’m not, so please bear with my old-school quotes:

“How was it the second time?”

“JOSH HUTCHERSON CAVE SCENE ASDFTGU”

“Cave scene not nearly as hot as in the book. #alwaysreadthebook”

“Ew mom dont do hashtags”

“Mwa hahahaha”

Meanwhile, the report on life during my absence varied by reporter. DB was proud to tell me (upon my arrival home at 11:30 last night) that some laundry got done (it was in a pile on my side of the bed when I got home, but still) and that he made salmon for dinner that night. Skater’s wrap-up of their time without Mommy: “We ate a lot of pizza bagels while you were gone.”

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General

March 25, 2012

Tribefest, baby!

By Alia

I’m reporting to you live from my hotel room in Las Vegas, Nevada, where I’ve just woken up to a gorgeous sunrise outside my 31st floor window. I’m here for TribeFest, a two-and-a-half-day conference of Jewish young adults (yes, I still count as young!) from Jewish federations across these United States and Canada.

Dana's great photo of our view from the Palazzo Hotel

I’ll try to post updates during the conference, but if you want to know how it’s going, follow me on Twitter at @tribeandjoy. Follow TribeFest at @TribeFest – very logical.

My roommate and good friend Dana Lichtenberg tweets at @DKLicht. We arrived yesterday and made up for sitting on the airplane for four hours by walking up and down the strip for the next three hours. Our window shopping went great: no men or children pulled on us, or told us they were bored, or rolled their eyes, and it wasn’t considered a wasted afternoon just because neither of us bought anything. Our gambling was limited to me losing $11 in a slot machine because we couldn’t find a $5 blackjack table, the only table game I’m willing to sit down at.

I really can’t wait for our other roomie to show – Doni Zasloff Thomas, aka Mama Doni (Twitter handle: @MamaDoni). She’s flying in tonight after doing a show today in Virginia. What a rock star mama! We’ve been Facebook friends for years and I adore her although we’ve only met in person about four times. As she said on the phone to me last week, “Isn’t it funny that we have to go all the way to Las Vegas to hang out with each other?” It is freakin hysterical.

You know how you (and by you I mean I) forget to pack something on every trip? Well, this time I forgot my “Our Tribe and Joy” bookmarks, which are my basically my business cards: they say “bookmark this blog” – get it? Bookmarks/bookmark? I amuse myself. I got 1,000 of them when the blog first started and they just ran out a couple months ago, so in a moment of being responsible ahead of time (a rarity for me) I ordered a new thousand a month ago so I would have them for this trip!! I am so upset I’m having DB overnight me a hundred or so. DB, please don’t forget.

We’re getting hungry, so I’m going down for breakfast now, and we’re maybe getting a massage before the conference starts in the afternoon. Because I’d rather spend my money and get a massage in return than put down $100 or so and probably lose it all. And I just found out from Dana that we should go for a swim, because the hotel pool offers “complimentary frozen grapes and hooka.” That’s Vegas, baby.

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Discussion Topics

March 23, 2012

Is Katniss Jewish?

By Alia

Maybe some other column has covered this, but in my four-hours-of-sleep haze from taking my Big Girl and Skater and a friend (we’ll call her Dancer ’cause she’ll want a blog name) to the 12:01 premier of “Hunger Games,” I think Katniss just might be Jewish. Okay, she’s not, there’s no religion in either the books or the movie (but can’t you just imagine someone out there somewhere in Panem lighting candles in a cupboard), but there have been several cases of biblical Jewish women kicking ass, Katniss-style.

Jewish women can be deadly, you know. Take the cases of Yael and Judith:

Yael hosted a fleeing General Sisera, who was losing a war to Barak and his Jewish army, in her tent. He asks for water, she gives him milk. Possibly, this isn’t in the text, it is warm milk to make him sleepy. He  does fall asleep and she whacks him in the temple with a tent stake. With the general dead, victory was ensured.

Judith, a widow in the besieged town of Bethulia, took off her widow’s clothes, put on something more appealing, and applied that appeal to the conquering general, Holofernes. She feeds him salty cheese to get him thirsty, gives him wine to quench the thirst, and before he can seduce her (as if he had a chance) he falls asleep. Evidently, opposing biblical generals are very tired men. Then she and her servant decapitate him with his own sword. When his army finds him headless in his tent the next morning, they flee and the village is saved.

Oh, yeah, we are Team Katniss. Jewish women have volunteered as tributes. And the odds have been ever in our favor. Shabbat Shalom.

 

PS

The Peeta/Gale debate? The whole thing makes me think (every time) about a song lyric from the Broadway show “Into the Woods,” after the baker’s wife has had a “moment in the woods” with a prince. She sings that  ”You need a baker for bread and a prince for whatever.”

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General

March 21, 2012

A cringeworthy quote?

By Alia

Today’s cringe: I got quoted in NJ Monthly Magazine. That shouldn’t be a cringe, but after reading my two sentences about why I like to shop at Robyn Ross Designs in South Orange over and over, I think I’ve accidentally given a backhanded compliment.

Here’s my quote:  “In other places I’ve felt intimidated by an overly chic owner,” says Alia Ramer of Maplewood. “With Robyn, you’re hanging out together…she knows my name, my size and which jeans will look good on me.”

Um, what did I just say? Did I just say that Robyn has no style herself so I don’t mind walking in looking like a frumpy mess?

I take it back! Robyn, you’re the chicest! See you soon, if you’re still speaking to me…

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General

March 20, 2012

A Vayikra d’var Torah

By Alia

I am on the board of Jewish Family Service of MetroWest. Yesterday evening I gave the d’var Torah (a little speech of Torah learning) at a board meeting. In the interest of getting extra milage out of it, it’s today’s lesson for you, too:

This week’s Torah portion is Vayikra. Vayikra delineates the rules and how-to’s of the sacrifices brought to the mishkan, the tabernacle.

The word for sacrifice – korban – has the same root as the word karov, meaning close. The sacrifices given to God in biblical times were meant to bring us closer to God. In rabbinic times, which we still live in today, prayer has replaced offerings of cows, goats, birds, and grains. Many of the sacrifices were for sins: sins of the community, sins of the individual, sins of the head religious individual – that is, the high priest – even a sacrifice if you thought you had sinned but weren’t sure.

To quote from a past NJJN Rabbi Shlomo Riskin column on Vayikra (see, I did my homework for this): “An admission of guilt, an honest confrontation with oneself, is painfully difficult. But only after an individual faces his weaknesses and hypocrisies can the process of healing begin. …In biblical times the individual would bring special sin offerings if he transgressed — but a sin offering without heartfelt repentance was not only meaningless but considered an abomination by God.”

We Jews don’t just leave repentance for Yom Kippur. We are supposed to start afresh every new month, every week, every day. Where we used to use sacrifice, we now use prayer. But prayer alone can only help to atone for a sin against God. If you didn’t respect Shabbat in the way you know you should, you can offer your repentance and can pray for God’s forgiveness. However, if you sinned against your fellow man or woman, God alone can not forgive you. Here comes the hard part: you must face your weakness with that other person to heal that wound. This is hard, really hard. Our JFS counselors deal with the fallout of unhealed wounds every day.

My late father told me the hardest things to say in life are “I’m sorry” and “I need help.” As an adult, with children of my own, I see how true his words are every day. And we at JFS see it with every client; that’s our whole reason for being, to offer help when it is asked for.

As Passover approaches, because it’s waiting just around the corner, let us not only clean out our cupboards, sweep under the furniture and check for crumbs in the keyboards. Let us take a mid-year inner-personal and inter-personal relationship check, and apologize to those around us, who love us and will be quick to accept an apology. Let us sweep up the corners of our relationships with heartfelt repentance and prayer.

 

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Discussion Topics, General

March 16, 2012

Why you need to know about the Cinnamon Challenge

By Alia

When I clicked on a link last night about the  negative effects of the Cinnamon Challenge, I thought it might be a bad diet fad. But no, instead it’s a bad internet meme. And one being carried out in real life by kids and adults alike.

The idea is that you are dared to attempt to swallow a teaspoon of dry cinnamon without drinking water. The cinnamon is too fine a dust and in too large an amount for your saliva to incorporate, so you sputter and choke, possibly vomit and breathe in the dust. The Wall Street Journal online  reported two days ago that some 30,000 videos on You Tube are tagged “cinnamon challenge.” The You Tube comedienne Colleen Ballinger (Miranda Sings) did it for her video series. Her quote:”I thought everyone was being dramatic. But you really do feel like you’re suffocating,” she says. Her video garnered 70,000 views after one week of posting it.

A Good Morning America news report on March 9 reported that a high school freshman in Ann Arbor, Mich., “spent four days in the hospital with an infection and a collapsed right lung after she ingested cinnamon two weeks ago.”

Here’s the link to the Good Morning America piece, as I can’t figure out how to embed a non-You Tube video.

\’Cinnamon Challenge\’ Sparks Health Concerns

So it’s awful, so what? Why would I put it on a blog that’s supposed to be about Jewish families. Many reasons. And most of them are summed up by Hillel’s quote, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?” Ethics of the Fathers, 1:14.

When I woke up this morning, I was still upset by what I had seen. I asked my kids (being for myself, and my children) if they had heard of this. I guess I wasn’t surprised when they (the 12 and 13 year olds) said yes. But I was shocked with Skater said his friend had attempted it at camp – at our lovely, Jewish-values-infused sleepaway camp. AND that the counselors had egged him on, chanting “go, go, go” with the other sixth grade boys. I know the boy who tried this. He’s not a risk taker, but almost any adolescent boy, when dared, will be backed into doing something stupid when the college kids in charge don’t stand up to the stupid idea.

So before I even posted it on Facebook (if I am only for myself, who will be for me?), I emailed the camp director, and our school’s head of school and upper school principal. The cinnamon challenge was new to all of them!

On Facebook, the reaction was swift. A teacher said that her principal friend had to send a middle schooler home sick because of it. Another friend said his dentist dad warned it can also cause burns on your gums and the roof of your mouth. A mom said her kid had tried it, in her house, and she hadn’t known the risks.

Talk to your kids about this. Explain how stupid and dangerous it is. Take the glamour of the word “challenge” out of it. I spent an hour this morning trying to confirm if anyone has died from it, but thankfully I couldn’t find any evidence to support that after reading it on one health blog. But why should we wait for anyone to die? If not now, when?

 

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General

March 15, 2012

Just sad, sad, sad

By Alia

No, not the state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or the length of dresses on bat mitzvah girls. This time, the problem is my memory:

Yesterday, about 2 p.m., Gerri calls me for someone’s contact info. I say I’ll text it to her.

Email, from Gerri, 2:38 p.m.: “You already forgot, didn’t you?!”

Email, from me, 10:06 a.m. today: “Dude, I’d forget how many children I have if they didn’t all show up asking me for food every few hours.” Sent along with so-and-so’s email address and home and mobile phone numbers.

From Gerri, 10:38 a.m.: “yah, yah, like when —- (kindly reminds me of one of my worst parenting moments…)”

From Gerri, 10:39 a.m.: “And BTW, that’s YOUR home #!!”

Me to Gerri, 10:53: “that’s not even fucking funny, I didn’t do that on purpose. Sad, sad, sad.”

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March 12, 2012

When sick is the least of your worries

By Alia

Everybody was tummy sick last week. First Skater on Monday night, then Big Girl on Wednesday; I felt it coming Thursday morning but fought it off till Thursday night, which is the same night it hit Bulldog. DB got it very lightly Wednesday, which was good for him as he went away on Thursday afternoon for a weekend with his college friends at Yankees’ spring training.

My friend Jordana’s family got it too, and she wrote about it for kveller.com. I felt for her, because having a sick family when one one them is a baby is a whole level worse.

But then I found out on Saturday that my friend Efrat’s son was sick in Merchavim, Israel. AND her husband was also away – because he’s been called up to his reserves position (I don’t know if it was planned or emergent). AND she and her kids spent the night in her safe room, because rockets are falling again.

Sometimes we joke about who has it worse: I cleaned up vomit. Well I cleaned up baby vomit and changed a bad diaper.

Sorry, Efrat wins the contest no one wants to win. According to JTA this morning,

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel remains on alert against an attack from Sinai despite killing the terrorist leader that was planning an attack from there — an assassination that has led to a barrage of rockets raining down on southern Israel from Gaza by terrorist groups.

Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday that the Israeli military’s targeted killing two days earlier of Zuhir Mussah Ahmed Kaisi, the secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committee terrorist organization, disrupted the organizing of the attack. Rocket attacks from Gaza by the PRC and Islamic Jihad have continued into Sunday.

More than 130 rockets have rained down on southern Israel since the killings, injuring eight Israeli civilians, including one severely, according to the IDF. At least 17 Palestinians, including a 14-year-old, have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Netanyahu praised the Iron Dome missile defense system, which according to the IDF has intercepted 90 percent of its targets, including 28 out of 31 long-range Grad rockets targeting major Israeli cities such as Beersheba, Ashdod and Ashkelon.”

And this update from our friend Sagit, who also lives in Merchavim, 36 hours ago on Facebook: “117 rockets, 0 dead people and 1 hashem that protect us from all. one more wish: may the peace come soon and the kids will not have to hear another siren. amen.”

Amen.

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General

March 7, 2012

Purim story, times two

By Alia

I love these two versions of the Purim story. Shake that grogger, and have fun tonight! Hag Purim Sameach!

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