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The Mythic Arc of Predatory Desire in Jewish Legend: primary sources on the origin and end of predation

In advance of this year’s Hazon Food Conference I’ve prepared a source sheet packet containing text arranged to elucidate what I’ve called the Mythic Arc of Predatory Desire in Jewish Legend.

Wherever I live, that is my ‘Homeland’ — a Response to Zionists on the Jewish and Christian Right

For the last several years I’ve become concerned with a movement on the right, an alliance between Christian Zionists in the U.S. and Israel’s Likud party-flavored right-nationalist Zionism. Something I heard Sarah Palin say back in 2009 in an interview with Barbara Walters raised my eyebrow and Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic was quick to […]

A Simplified Summary of Public Domain Status for Creative Works in US Copyright Law (excluding audio works)

Among the many things I do in my work for the Open Siddur Project, I create digital copies of works in the Public Domain. These copies then serve as the basis for individuals and groups to convert the images of prayers and related content into machine-readable (copyable, pasteable, searchable) text. My partner in the Open […]

Uncle Isak’s Story: A young man journeys down an endless road… (from Fanny & Alexander, 1982)

A story told by Isak Jacobi (Erland Josephson) in Ingmar Bergman’s FANNY & ALEXANDER (1982-1983).

Levi, the Leviathan

About ten years ago, at a Jews in the Woods gathering nearby the Pearlstone Retreat Center in Maryland, I offered my first shiur on biblical mythology and on the Leviathan and the Behemoth. (I subsequently wrote up some of what I talked about in several posts back here and here and here on the Omphalos, […]

גְמַ״ח | A Short Reflection on the Roots of the Federation and G’milut Ḥasadim

I was incredibly honored to have been invited by the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati to speak this evening at their 120th Annual Meeting. Long-lived community bodies can seem to be just part of the landscape, as old as the mountains and somewhat inscrutable, so it seemed appropriate to me on the event of an organization’s […]

where grass can never be called straw

A poem for Nissan, and an everyday reminder.

Community Identification

Some self-reflection on community identity spurred by a conversation on the Pew Survey (2013).

Mechon Hadar is Open

From 2009-2010, I was a fellow of Yeshivat Hadar in the pilot year of its first year-long program of study. A couple months ago, Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, Dean of Students at Yeshivat Hadar, asked me if I would consider reviewing Mechon Hadar’s new website. At the Hadar reunion earlier this year, Jason had provided a […]

Pinḥas Haiku Iterations

Haikus offered in commentary to Parashat Pinḥas 2011-2014, originally for Avi Strausberg’s Torah Haiku project.