Aliza Libman writes on ...

Diaper prices, going up?

2011-11-05T20:23:00.003-04:00

When Rena was born, I came up with a three-point financial plan: beg, borrow and steal.

My revulsion for larceny led me to interpret point #3 as "get everything you absolutely must buy for a steal."

Especially diapers. Really. The baby wears it for 5 minutes (if we're not lucky) or 10 hours (if we are) and then we just toss it in the trash. I'm not paying full price!

At first, a great Groupon made me think, diapers.com is the place to be. Then that great Groupon disqualified us from any discount ever again, and we said sayonara. For a while, we were using the Amazon Mom discounts on Amazon to score super-cheap diapers, discounted 30% and paid for with gift cards I got for free with Swagbucks and credit card points.

Have I mentioned I'm nuts?

All the while, my obsession with finding the best coupon codes was fueled by my favorite frugal mommy bloggers, Kosher on a Budget and Chief Family Officer. Unfortunately, a lot of the good couponing principles (like "stock up when there is a good price" and "wait for sales") don't work when there is only 1 diaper between the baby being adorable and the baby peeing on the bed on Shabbat morning.

I'm a bit annoyed because Amazon Mom is now only offering discounts of 20% on new subscriptions, meaning that I need to find a new "cheapest place to get wipes". I had lately been cheating on Amazon with CVS for diapers, since I can get the same gift cards with credit card points, and the Extra Bucks and stacked coupons often make a lackluster sale really cheap. However, the wipes deals have not been as easy to find. I expect that Ari will mutiny if I announce that we'll resume wiping the baby's adorable derriere with paper towels, like the doctor made us do for the first 12 weeks of her life.

We all have our own points of view, the things we don't care about and the things we can't let go. The thrill I get from a good deal combined with my feeling that I should not pay good money for anything I use to wipe my baby's butt keeps me reading circulars and pining for specials. Until the day I'm the lunatic driving a tractor trailer away from a store with $1000 worth of goods I paid $12 for in an episode of Extreme Couponing (which I'm convinced cannot be real), I'll be reading my circulars, searching for the best price and running to two CVS stores at 10pm on a Saturday night to get the best deal before it expires. In my own bizarre way, I'll consider it worth it.

Seriously, have you seen what they are charging for diapers these days?

On Lactation

2011-07-20T09:05:00.002-04:00

Check out my profile of Mother's Milk Bank of New England founder Naomi Bar-Yam in Brandeis Magazine here:

“Milk banks are really designed to help premature, hospitalized babies,” she says. “Our screening procedures for both mothers and the milk they donate are so involved because we’re taking surplus milk from a healthy, full-term baby and providing it to a baby who weighs just 1 or 2 pounds.”

On childbirth

2011-03-24T15:55:00.003-04:00

When Rena was born, I wanted to remember all the details, so I tried to record them as a note on my iPod. I went back and reread it, and had ended up with a dry list of facts I recorded between IVs, monitors and epidurals. Ari did a much better job, which Isis published today on their Parenting Starts Here blog. An excerpt:

The surgery went really well. Shortly before the baby was delivered, Aliza said something along the lines of "okay, call it. Boy or girl?" Neither of us really wanted to guess. I had a brief glimpse of a little blue thing get handed to the pediatricians, who then went to work. It took a few minutes before the baby started crying. They were probably the most terrifying moments of my life. I heard a lot of suctioning, and oxygen being pumped, while several people called out facts and figures. (The baby’s first APGAR score was a 5, the second was an 8. As a teacher, Aliza totally understands the need for the occasional retest.) One of the nurses came over to our side of the drapes to tell us that the pediatricians were doing their thing. Before she walked away, I managed to ask, "is it a boy or a girl?!" Amidst all of the carefully organized chaos, nobody bothered to inform us. The nurse ran over to peek, then came back to tell us that we were the parents of a little girl.

If it's not TMI, you can check out the rest of the story here.

Corporate Rewards Programs: Not All Created Equal

2010-10-23T21:08:00.003-04:00

My husband came home with a code for Hood cottage cheese rewards after a trip to Stop and Shop last week, which is right about when I discovered that the corporate rewards world had hit oversaturation.

When I first began to collect airline points, shortly after moving to Cambridge in 2005, I set a goal for myself: I would know I was doing a savvy job juggling points programs if I could fly for free once a year. Alternating Aeroplan miles, Aadvantage points and Bank of America rewards points, I have basically made that goal and flown for free or almost free four times. We also now have enough points for at least one free flight in the winter or spring.

Once upon a time, the rewards program world was a small one: airlines, credit cards, and that was about it. In Toronto, my father would make sure to pay Canadian Tire (like a smaller Home Depot) in cash so he could get his Canadian Tire money - literally, fake money that you could use at the store. These programs were particularly valuable to us, and I learned from him that it made sense to consider where you were buying, how you were paying, etc. so you could work all the angles and get the most rewards. If only all rewards programs that later sprang up were that straightforward and easy to use.

I got into survey-based incentive programs early (I've been doing e-Rewards for almost five years). When I joined, it was sponsored by Aadvantage, and I once got 1000 Aadvantage miles from them for the many surveys I had taken. A year or so later, a $50 gift card to Starbucks showed up in the mail. I was following, of course, the cardinal rule of rewards programs: they are only really valuable if you can use them to get things for free that you would have paid money for otherwise. Since I make it my goal to underspend my coffee budget and put the excess right into savings, and since I was never intending to miss my grandmother's 75th birthday, both rewards directly saved me money. There are many other programs whose email updates I've received, or who I've tried out, and none have delivered the way e-Rewards has. Not everyone is such a fan, though, including me two years later. They only gave out Starbucks gift cards for a really short time and they discontinued their partnership with American Airlines a while back. I now get rewards and don't know what to use them for. I've got too much credit to allow to expire, so I get magazine subscriptions, fill out the occasional survey and hope for better rewards in the future. But the time I spend on a site like theirs is directly proportional to the value I expect to get out of it going forward; in the case of e-Rewards these days, I'd say that both of those are "almost none."

You can't always tell at first if a rewards program will be good for you. I was passing along Coke points for My Coke Rewards to my brother-in-law for the longest time before we decided we could probably use it to our advantage. I admit, I have never been an early adopter, so though my sister-in-law sent me an invitation to Swagbucks in November '08, I didn't sign up until January 2010. Swagbucks seems to me to be in the same category as MyPoints, where the best benefits come to those who buy things and "participate" in "special offers" - read: buy things - but I regret not signing up 14 months earlier for Swagbucks. One of my favorite mommy bloggers, Chief Family Officer, calls it her favorite way to make free money, and I have come to agree since it only takes me 2ish months of >1 minute a day of investment and I get a $5 Amazon gift card effectively for free. Since the advent of Amazon's "Subscribe and Save," I've been buying certain groceries online, and this knocks down the price. (In one memorable transaction, I got 48 Timothy's K-cups for $2.21.) But I have no use for MyPoints. I am pretty sure I've been a member for longer, but I have never received a tangible benefit.

We all have a calculus of how much finagling and tracking is worth our time. I am of the mindset that if you wait to buy something until you absolutely need it, you'll probably pay too much. This has its reasonable limits - such as non-pregnant people buying maternity clothes - but is certainly true for things that one will use eventually, like toothpaste and toilet paper. If you're careful with coupons and savvy about ExtraBucks, you can get these items for a fraction of their original price (and sometimes even "make money" in the form of ExtraBucks) when you buy these things at CVS. I avoid making myself crazy, though, by sticking to one store, so I ignore Walgreens' parallel Register Rewards program. There are normal human limits.

It's a lot easier in this day and age to stretch a buck. Coming from Canada, where there are fewer consumers and less attractive programs, I am always appreciative of the ease of finding good sales, cheap shipping, coupons and coupon codes, and online shopping portals. (I use Ebates and Bank of America's Add it Up, though I prefer Ebates.) I like feeling like my loyalty and patronage are rewarded, that I am saving money I might otherwise have spent, and that I am doing my utmost to keep spending down so I can build a nest egg for the future. The road to financial security seems to sometimes be filled with useless rewards programs, and I occasionally think that the energy I put into something (like the Tropicana rewards program) has been completely wasted.

The fundamental theorem of corporate rewards programs seems to be simple: Their goal is to get you to spend more money than you initially intended, a larger fraction of your shopping budget there than elsewhere, and to get you to "come in" (in-store or online) for something cheap and wind up buying something expensive as well.

But who is to say that any of this is not to your advantage?
The math is simple. If:
Benefit to you > cost to you (especially if you would have spent the money anyways,)
Then:
It is worth your time.

That being said, there is some saying about needing to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince, so I recently signed up for Hood Cottage Cheese rewards and Pampers Gift to Grow (since I'm hoping to have a lot of points before the baby is born so that we can reduce our inevitable spending by using rewards.) Though I ought to spend the rest of the evening doing work, my husband just walked into the apartment with my new issue of Conde Nast Traveler, to which I got a free subscription through e-Rewards. On the cover? A text box advertising "How to Save a Bundle: 15 Magic Web Sites."

I suppose I'll kiss a few more frogs.

Dear Fetus, you can come out of my womb if you promise not to lick the walls

2010-08-24T15:01:00.003-04:00

In honor of our recent move, I wrote the piece below when it was still quite uncertain where on earth we were going to be living in the fall. I publish it as a musing on the absurd state of RWP (renting while pregnant) in Massachusetts. We do have a happy ending - we are now quite settled into our new apartment in Brookline, though we never did find a three-bedroom. I suppose it will richly prepare us for what we will shortly teach Fetus - you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get a third-floor walk up not far from Coolidge Corner, and you think, "I can live with this."

I see them everywhere. Happy moms pushing strollers and fit pregnant women jogging, preparing their babies for all the advantages Brookline has to offer. I have taken to looking jealously at these happy families, wondering, "Where do they live?" And of course, "Do they have any vacancies?"

Brookline, like many parts of Metro Boston, has much to offer young families. Excellent schools, library programs for tots, playgrounds, and the Box Office Babies program at the Coolidge Theatre. My husband and I would love to raise a child here. If only we could find a place to do it.

When I tell landlords and realtors that my husband and I want a three-bedroom apartment, they always ask dubiously "And it's just you?" While the law doesn't require mommies and daddies to disclose this, and actually forbids discrimination against kids and families, I don't feel comfortable hiding the 21-week old blob in my uterus that my husband and I have taken to calling "Blueberry". But I don't want to disclose Blueberry's existence either. To many landlords, our little bundle of joy is their little nightmare. They see my oh-so fashionable baby bump and expect that he or she will pop out and commence a lead-paint-chip-eating contest with some infant buddies.

When we made the mistake of telling one landlord that we were in fact hoping to move somewhere we could raise our future kids, she would not let us apply without a lead paint inspection - that we had to pay for. Many other landlords said things like "Ours is a building full of roommates - we're not sure a married couple would fit in."

Of course, the history of discrimination of any group is full of code words and insinuation. Many groups of people have been led to feel that people "like them" were not welcome, even if it wasn't explicitly stated. And though Craigslist proudly proclaims "Stating a discriminatory preference in a housing post is illegal," it's clear that you don't have to state something to enact it. Instead, parents turn into detectives, lying about having kids and scoping out a potential place to see if there are strollers by the front door and Pampers boxes in the recycling.

The countdown to the birth of our first child is T minus 19 weeks, but even less time remains until it will be patently obvious to any realtor that I'm pregnant, so my residential clock is ticking much louder than my biological one. Though I am confident I'll be able to put a roof of some kind over Blueberry's head, I'm worried that we'll have to settle - for something too small, too leaded or too far from our synagogue. If that happens, I know that in two years we'll be apartment hunting again, searching for a place to raise toddler Blueberry and any sibling whose debut may or may not be imminent. But regardless of how many kids we plan to have, without a culture shift here in town we'll just have to keep saying "it's just us!"

The blog is dead, long live the blog

2010-07-28T20:37:00.003-04:00

Over a Sabbath meal this week, one of my friends commented that everyone had a blog five years ago - and no one has one now. Hard-core writers maintain them, but who ever has the time to update frequently unless it's a core part of their business strategy? For everyone else, there are Twitter and the Facebook status update. Since most of you who are reading this post are reading it syndicated to my Facebook page, I think the point is true.

I've been too busy to maintain this blog properly lately, leaving my grad speech unposted for an entire month and my comments unmoderated. (All those Chinese spammers must have been biting their nails, waiting for me to publish their comments. Rejected!)

Of course, it's a truism that if you want to get something done, ask a busy person to do it. Christina Katz wrote about that this week. As a teacher, I cannot believe that my summer is half over and I don't have a free minute to blog. (Question - you ask, "Why are you blogging now, Aliza? Does this not prove you have free time?" Answer: It just proves that I procrastinate as well as I snark.)

However, I agree with Christina. I am blessed to be so busy. I am blessed to have projects to work on for school that excite me. I am blessed to be expecting my first child. I am, thus, blessed to spend all my free time on hold with realtors, movers, daycares, pediatricians and utilities. The big move is in two weeks exactly and I have until Friday to get my office at work ready for the cleaners to take out all the furniture and clean it. This would all be nothing, except Fetus has given me a curfew - one hour doing anything, and my feet hurt.

Before bed, I expect to pack 4 more boxes, hand wash two more shirts, practice piano, and catch up on emails and phone calls. I would not have it any other way.

On extending oneself

2010-06-22T21:41:00.004-04:00

My first foray into speechwriting occurred somewhere around May 2004, when I went to speak to a Hadassah luncheon in Toronto about the challenges facing students on campus. I still have a thank you note from them somewhere in my parents' basement.

Speechwriting was not the most well-worn tool in my writing arsenal before late April, when on a lark I decided to enter the Harvard Extension School commencement speaker contest. My style tends to be to run long, and what I would consider only the second speech I ever wrote was twice as long as it needed to be when I entered the contest. (Special thanks to Shanna for reading it and suggesting cuts.) I was flattered and shocked when they called to tell me I won - and needed to chop three of the first four paragraphs. Two sessions with an extraordinary public speaking professor later, I was ready to give my first major address since my bat mitzvah. The text is below the embedded slightly sketchy quality Youtube video.

Lessons learned?
Try things that you're not an expert at. That's the only way to become an expert (or at least proficient, in the meanwhile).
Take public speaking from Marjorie North should you ever have the opportunity.

Extensions
By Aliza Libman

In this year of the Harvard Extension School centennial, it’s clear that our school has fashioned a place for itself at the intersection between past and future. We take our classes on the same campus where many long-dead presidents once walked, but our prominence today is probably more linked to our Googleablity: When you Google^tm“extension school”, we’re the first link that pops up. When you Google^tm“extension” by itself, we’re third. This factoid is something that everyone graduating today from Educational Technologies, Information Technology, and Management recognizes as a substantial achievement.

We all have unique stories – and, as a teacher, I feel compelled to tell you that if we’re all unique, then really none of us are. In my journey through the Harvard Extension School, I discovered a number of different “extensions” that make me proud to stand here today. I think you will all glimpse shades of your own experiences in my story. I have previously mentioned that I’m a teacher. I grew up in Toronto Canada, and fell in love with Harvard (and Boston in general) at a young age. But an undergrad career at Harvard was not my destiny– I shudder to think that I actually handwrote my application form (in the year 2001!) – and though they never believe me, I always tell my private school students that not getting into Harvard for undergrad was the best thing that ever happened to me. Instead, I got a great education degree in Toronto for a sum of money that seems shockingly small in retrospect, and – because I was still in love with Beantown – got a great job teaching religious education in Brookline. And though people laugh when I say the excellent public transit drew me to Boston, it’s hard to scoff at my happy ending – I found a great career and a wonderful husband, all because I did such a poor job filling out my Harvard College application form.

So by now you are probably all wondering, “What on earth does this have to do with extension?” The first way I have found to connect this term to our school comes from the fact that I felt my career was missing something. Like many of you, I came here to extend my marketability. Many people often feel that the amount of respect they get for their skills is not directly proportional to their achievements, and we are here today because we wanted to earn degrees that would formalize what we already knew about ourselves. My desire to have a master’s degree led me to Harvard Extension’s Math for Teaching program, which stood apart from the dozens and dozens of interchangeable M.Ed. programs that didn’t interest me one bit. I didn’t want to take basic human development again or reflect about how teaching math made me feel, like I did with my first education degree. This brings me to Extension #2: By allowing students in the Math for Teaching program to choose which disciplines to study, Harvard extends the options available to teachers looking for professional development. While some of you took graph theory, I took Statistics for Baseball Fans, and learned about many important concepts I’d be able to discuss with my students – whether it was linear regression or the propensity of very few players to steal the majority of bases. Similarly, though computer science was offered every semester, I was more interested in probability. There were many ways I found these varied courses could work together nicely - like the time I used Bayes theorem to calculate the conditional probability I’d get at least a B minus on my calculus final, given the fact that I had a 70% percent chance of pulling an all-nighter.

The third extension I’ll mention is not one I’d prefer to discuss, but we cannot ignore the fact that there have been days when all this personal and professional extension and advancement has left us feeling overextended. Days when we ran to refill parking meters on breaks during lecture, when the red line got stuck underground three days in a row in December, when we were caught between commitments to class and commitments to our other priorities. We’ve all had to ask ourselves – what is most important to me? Is it my job or my GPA? We’ve had to sacrifice and accommodate, but we have found that a hand of support has been extended to us by our classmates, professors and colleagues. I personally found my program director, professors and thesis director willing to meet with me early in the morning and late in the evening, a level of personal accommodation that I would never have expected to be routine here.

My story is one of extension. No amount of calculus would enable us to do the time management necessary to balance Harvard, work and family. I’ve had to adapt my plans in life to accommodate various unexpected developments, but I’ve found a program that was better suited for me and my needs than I ever expected. I’ve also had to be flexible about what I consider appropriate and acceptable for myself. Many of us have had to extend the amount of time it takes to do what we wish to accomplish – according to the Extension School website, the average age of one of our students is 35. Many of us have had to broaden our personal definition of “cum laude” – given all that is demanded of us in all areas of our lives, it should be Latin for “I almost can’t believe that I finished.”

We have a lot to be proud of. There may not be that many of us, but you and I know that the adversity we overcame to be here, at this stage in our lives, makes our collective presence at Commencement quite the triumph. Whether it’s writing papers while packing lunches for our children, studying for finals while on break at work, or in my case, getting the take home final exam faxed to my hotel in DC and then completing it while on a bus with 30 exuberant 14-year-old girls, we have all moved mountains to be here today.

We’re all here for different reasons – but we are all here to extend our prospects. We’ve all had different paths through the school. Some of us know all our classmates and some of us have sat in classrooms filled entirely with strangers the entire semester – come on, you know you have – but we have all offered a hand of friendship or had one offered to us.

Though each of us has had a different experience, we have all been enriched. We know our lives will be changed because we took a chance, made some sacrifices, and extended our lives to include the Harvard Extension School. It’s too soon to tell how these degrees we are earning today will change our lives, but we’re here to celebrate because we know that we are fortunate that Harvard Extension was available to us.

On modern readings of the Bible

2010-05-14T16:25:00.001-04:00

My newest piece is a brief review in the Hadassah Magazine May 2010 web extra:

Subversive Sequels in the Bible: How Biblical Stories Mine and Undermine Each Other by Judy Klitsner. (Jewish Publication Society, 173 pp. $35)

Judy Klitsner’s award-winning first book challenges her readers to take a fresh look at familiar biblical characters. Klitsner’s refusal to gloss over the Bible’s complexity and ambiguity lends to rich readings of the text. Her literary approach examines repeated Hebrew roots to unearth hidden meaning, and extensive textual references engage masters and novices alike. Quoting Abraham Joshua Heschel, who says the Bible “speaks in every language and in every age,” Klitsner addresses head-on the challenges of finding modern-day relevance in the Bible, especially in relation to women’s issues. She analyzes without apologizing, leaving the reader with much to consider. --Aliza Libman

On cooking for Shabbat and Pesach: "Let all who are hungry come and eat"

2010-03-24T22:21:00.003-04:00

My newest piece takes its title from the words of the Passover Seder, which exemplify the spirit of Jewish entertaining. It appears in the Nissan 5770 issue of Kosher Spirit, the OK's in-house magazine. I wrote it after I made a really yummy fish course which three of my four guests refused to eat. It speaks to what I've learned as a hostess and as a semi-picky eater in the homes of others.

"Let all who are hungry come and eat."
by Aliza Libman

How to create a Shabbos or Yom Tov menu that will make all your guests happy year round.

Second only to the terror of not having enough food for all your Shabbos guests is the prospect of serving your guests food they can’t—or won’t—eat. Though you may know your family’s food preferences inside and out, when you’re filling your table with guests, you add a layer of uncertainty that can be eased with careful planning.

Click here to read the rest of the piece.

Due to spambots, I've enabled comment moderation. Sorry if that slows down the fun.

On raw cabbage and empty bottles

2010-03-18T18:04:00.006-04:00

Many of the go-to Jewish recipes for the modern Shabbat maker is the angel hair pasta salad. My family has multiple versions of the recipe that we like. Some have soy-based dressing, most have green onions, and all are quick, easy, and meant to be eaten cold. One version of the recipe adds color through julienne peppers and one through purple cabbage.

Last Shabbat, I went on a fruitless search for angel hair cabbage salad recipes that called for the cabbage to be cooked. I love cabbage, but I don't prefer it raw. I discovered through extensively Googling that thinly shredded cabbage is also sometimes referred to as "angel hair cabbage". I eventually gave Google up and set out to create the following recipe. In its reinvented form, it's warm and the cabbage is cooked. The star of the dressing is a balsamic-mustard combination, which does not have the cloying sweetness of a lot of similar dressings. I thought it was delicious, and everyone else either agreed or was excessively polite.

Doubly Angelic Cabbage Salad

Ingredients:
A pound of angel hair pasta
A bag of shredded purple cabbage (if you do it yourself, you too will be purple.)
A medium onion, diced or a medium red onion, diced
Vegetable oil
Salt, pepper, minced garlic
1 recipe "mustard bottle salad dressing" (see below).

Directions:
Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
Saute onion in oil over low heat until soft. Add salt, pepper and minced garlic.
When onions are soft, add cabbbage. Saute until soft, stirring constantly.
Mix pasta, cabbage and dressing in a large Pyrex and serve warm.

Mustard bottle salad dressing:
The origin of mustard bottle salad dressing is my deep and penetrating hatred of almost-empty bottles in my fridge, which nicely balances my inability to throw away anything useful.

The idea of mustard bottle dressing did not come to me at Passover time, but it's helpful to bring it out then, when we empty our fridges to make room for more (expensive) food. The trick involves making a salad dressing in a mostly-empty bottle, repurposing the contents for the dressing and the bottle as a low-class cruet. This trick can be performed on any mostly-empty bottle, but is especially helpful with thick condiments like ketchup, mustard and mayo, where it's hard to get the last bits out.

The trick is to combine wisely ingredients from the categories below, so that your dressing is balanced. I recommend equal parts fat and acid. The ones I used in this salad are bolded.

Fat:
Olive oil, vegetable oil, mayo

Acids:
Lemon juice, vinegar, wine vinegar, rice vinegar, salsa, cider vinegar, balsamic vinegar

Sweet:
Orange juice, sugar (2 tsp), honey, ketchup

Savory:
Mustard, dijon mustard, soy sauce, peanut butter

Spices:
Salt, pepper, garlic, basil, oregano, etc. etc.

King Cake ... an entree into baking

2010-02-12T15:24:00.003-05:00

The French call it a brioche and my bubby would call it a kuchen. For some strange reason, the person who wrote the wikipedia entry thinks it's a coffee cake.

At the behest of a couple of buddies, I made a non-dairy king cake. Using the dough recipe from my dad, the filling from here and the glaze from here, I present to you my first King Cake. It's attractive, but that's no guarantee it won't taste like sawdust.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler!

On Linking in ... till death do us part?

2010-01-13T22:15:00.005-05:00

I've written before about Facebooking exes (a witty little piece that I never sold and yet may someday blog) and I once started a Facebook group devoted to convincing my husband to join. He did, and Facebook is now the avenue for us posting wedding pics, coordinating our social lives, and finding out what cute things our friends' kids have said lately.

In fact, if you're reading this now, it's statistically probable you are reading it on Facebook, which is where my blog syndicates and where most of my friends' online presences exist.

In a charming, if possibly slightly "out there" story at which my hypothetical future grandchildren may someday roll their eyes, I even used my top secret personal blog to send the following message to my now-husband:

Announcement: Open for business
With a nine-day waiting period now complete, Aliza Libman is now accepting applications for the post of boyfriend. This is an unsalaried position.

Applicants must live in Boston and possess reasonable grasp of the English language. No strange body odours or prior felony convictions allowed.

Forward resumes and letters of reference to (you get the picture).

Despite how web 2.0 I might seem, I get the separation between personal and professional life. So I was flabbergasted when I got not one but two emails from my husband, courtesy of linkedin.com, asking to "Link" to me. I do not perceive us to be insufficiently linked. Not only do I know most of his good stories (from our courtship), I also usually have a good sense of what he ate for breakfast and what interesting things happened in his day. That's why I don't read his Twitter feed.

And Linkedin.com? It's a professional site. What do I know about my husband's professional life? Though I know where he works, what he does, and what many of his coworkers look like, I don't possess sufficient detail about his professional life to recommend him to others. He could be a photocopy machine hog, or steal people's staplers, or take the last 'Caramel Vanilla Nut' in the Keurig machine. Or he could be employee of the year. While I'd suspect the latter (he's pretty awesome), I doubt anyone who came to me for a recommendation about my husband's many talents would find my insights about the relative organization of his sock drawer to be worth their time.

But he's my husband. So now we're linked in.

On self-respect

2010-01-10T17:19:00.004-05:00

Christina Katz, a writing teacher I've worked with in the past, has a great e-zine entitled "The Prosperous Writer". Her writing prompt for the week is:

On a scale of one to ten, how's your self-respect? Can you say no? Do you say yes to yield to social pressure and supposed-tos and then suffer for it? Are you catering to too many other people's needs but burning out in the process? Do you listen to and trust your instincts about what is and isn't the best way to proceed?

I have blogged previously and informally about this topic elsewhere, but with apologies for the repetition, here goes my 2010 manifesto: "I'd rather not work than work for free."

It takes a lot for me to write this, since it's considered uncouth by some to discuss money. Jewish tradition requires balancing self-respect with humility, and I humbly put forward that I must consider myself a professional in a number of spheres. By taking my work seriously, I have found a full-time job I love and developed many ancillary passions (of which one is my writing.)

There are things in life that are meant to be free. Family, friendships, and community all come to mind. I am, however, a professional teacher and writer. As a professional, I owe it to myself to demand compensation for my work. The self-respect I have requires it. The money I earn writing enables me to do things like take writing classes, purchase writing resources and invest in my future. On the same note, I refuse to call myself a beginner. A cursory look at the hundreds of pieces I've published over time confirms that assertion. I don't write just to see my name in print, and I am way beyond the stage where I am writing just to get the experience. Thus, I am declaring my refusal to write for free to be my manifesto for 2010 - because self-respect means only writing for publications who respect me.

-----------------------------------------

*Like all rules, this one has a single, notable exception. The academic world does not pay writers, who contribute articles to journals strictly for academic advancement purposes. When I write for journals, I am investing in my (potential) eventual ability to get into a doctoral program.

Classroom innovation

2009-09-17T22:14:00.002-04:00

It's only accessible to journal subscribers, but I wrote the piece excerpted below in the academic journal Jewish Educational Leadership.

The rocky transition from elementary to middle school presents itself in many ways – some students relish the freedom, the variety of switching classes, and the increased ability to learn independently. For many students, who they are outside of the classroom never becomes a part of who they are as learners. At parent-teacher
conferences, parents have long told me of their children’s love of anime, Broadway musicals, soccer, and scouting. Yet these very same middle school students often sit quietly and dispassionately in Humash class, willing to do the work, but not to invest in their own learning.

"Unraveling Parshanut through Learning Stations" appears in its entirety in Jewish Educational Leadership's Summer 2009 issue (7:3), titled "Activating Learning Through Activating Students".

Jewish Toronto

2009-09-14T22:01:00.006-04:00

I wrote the following travel piece, which appears in the most recent issue of Hadassah Magazine:

Downtown Toronto’s massive skyscrapers and bustling streets give way to miles of sleepy suburbs to the north. The Canadian city’s unique flavor is found in its multiculturalism—dozens of languages can be heard on street corners—and it is usually only a short drive from one immigrant enclave to another.

Though many of Toronto’s Jews didn’t arrive in a city that warmly welcomed newcomers, their hard work and influence contributed to making Toronto the ethnic haven—and worldwide capital of business and culture—that it has become.

See here for the rest (click on "current issue", then scroll down until you see my name.)

Ari's first day in Israel, and Aliza's major moron moment

2009-07-09T04:21:00.004-04:00

My first two days in Israel were spent in Givat Shmuel, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem. Since trips to Israel (and my life in general) are often odes to really good food, I will note that Monday night, Yoel and I ate at Caffit, where I had Fettucine Rosa. I've always liked Caffit's pastas, ever since my year in Israel, and this one really hit the spot. I also liked their customer service, in that they did not complain about me ordering one pasta with a different sauce, beyond the menu combinations.
Monday night was Burger's Bar in Givat Shmuel, where I am often overwhelmed by choice. What if I ask for the wrong sauce? Then everything will be ruined! (My sandwich was awesome.)

On Tuesday night, I had what is now my fifth pretty-much-sleepless-night because I got to sleep late, woke up every 1/2 hour, and then ended up getting up 15 minutes early because I just could not sleep because I didn't want to be late to the cab to take me to the airport, even though I already knew that Ari's flight left Heathrow 30 min. late.
(For those of you not keeping track, Sara's and Aliza's 3 sleepless nights were:
Monday, June 22 - Aer Lingus didn't turn off the lights on an overnight flight to Dublin;
Thursday, June 25 - Harder to sleep on an overnight bus to Seville than you'd think;
Wednesday, July 1 - Sara and I didn't know to reserve sleeper seats on the train to Marrakech, so we were up all night in the train compartment.
I also added to that Sunday, July 5, when Iberia didn't turn off the lights on the overnight flight to Tel Aviv.)

I danced the dance of joy at the airport, where the coffee place was willing to put SOY in my cafe hafuch and give me salad dressing for the salad I brought with me, then waited for Ari. After he came and at a snack of his own, we wended our way to Jerusalem the super slow Nesher taxi way. (These shared taxis don't leave until there are 10 passengers, so we sat in the heat waiting a while.)

Our only formal activity yesterday was a tour of Ir David, suggested by Melanie, with whom Aviva and I went to the beach on Tuesday. The tour takes you through the ongoing excavations of King David's ancient city and shares its political and military significance over time. Then you get to walk through King Hezekiah's water tunnel. The thrilling part is that the excavations are ongoing so a lot of what we've seen has only been discovered in the last 5 years. To see the edges of the Shiloach pool and hear speculation as to where in the vicinity of the Gihon spring King Solomon was inaugurated pique my curiosity as a Bible teacher.

I also had my major moron moment. I have been super careful packing liquids and gels for travel, and have had no real shampoo or body wash disasters up till now. Due to a dislike of my current sunscreen, I had Ari bring a spray sunscreen bottle, which we took with us to Ir David. I didn't even think to double-ziploc it. Consequently, as far as we can tell:
a. The lid came off.
b. I must have accidentally depressed the spray button continously.
c. My purse oozed with sunscreen.
d. The bottle was emptied.
e. The snacks in my purse had to be tossed.
f. The pens in my purse came into contact with the sunscreen and stained my skirt, which will need industrial cleaning to be wearable again.
g. My cellphone is about as functional as a paperweight.
h. My purse's replacement date has been moved up to last night.

Sara and I always said that you don't bring things on vacation if you would be sad to return home without them. I feel really fortunate that the passports and digital camera were not in the purse at the time of the sunscreen explosion. Otherwise, what is gone is gone, but replaceable. In the case of my purse, already been replaced. Ari and I moved the SIM card to his phone, and I changed before dinner.

Ari and I had a truly spectacular meal at El Gaucho. We have not done something so fancy since Le Marais in Sept. '07. It feels nice to know that kosher dining out need not be mediocre, as it often is in Brookline, and I was alternately thrilled by the fact that they gave us an amuse bouche, the fact that there were items on the menu that I had never had before, the fact that the meat was excellent and well-cooked, and the fact that service was excellent. We give El Gaucho four thumbs up.

Strolling around Machane Yehuda, Ari got complimented for being the husband willing to stand around in the women's clothing store while his wife tried on skirts. All else is well in Jerusalem.

Portugal photos are online, here and here. It take a while, so more photos will be online eventually, and I still do hope to blog about the final days in Marrakech.

For mature audiences only: Hammam in Marrakesh

2009-07-06T00:49:00.003-04:00

Sara and I took an overnight train to Marrakesh on Wednesday night, arriving in Marrakesh midday on Thursday. We spent the first day wandering the shuks, finding the central Place Jemaa el Fna and then heading to the mellah to see the shul and the cemetary. We discovered a lot about the Marrakech Jewish community, which I will blog later.

On Friday, our most exciting event was the visit to the Hammams. Hammams are gender-segregated bathhouses. Friday is the day off for many people, so the one we went to was quite crowded. The entire experience is like an immersion into Moroccan culture and sociology. It's only about 10 dh to enter, but through the hostel we paid 100 dh ($12.50ish) for the entire experience. One of the women who works at the hostel took us, bought the necessary supplies including an olive-oil based soap and exfoliating mitts, and brought us to the Hammam. After she paid the entrance fee, we went into the hammam. I am deeply squeamish, so it was a blessing in disguise that I was not wearing my glasses (one cannot usefully wear glasses in a sauna-like environment.) Given how many topless and entirely au naturel women were present, it was much easier not to be able to see. Thus, if you'd like a report as to how many women sported full bikini waxes, I am sorry that I don't have that information.

The hammam experience is centered around bathing: it comes from a time and a place where people didn't have running water in their homes. Even now, some people who live in the medina still don't. The full experience, though, includes a massage and what my people call "the shvitz". After a week and a half on the road, we finally felt clean, and after a tense couple of days in Fez, we also felt very relaxed. It was an awesome pre-Shabbat experience.

Sara´s and Aliza´s trip goals: a review

2009-07-05T15:26:00.002-04:00

Sara and I declared the following ten goals for our trip. In no particular order:

1. Avoid getting hit by a car.
In Morocco, where there are no traffic laws, and Gibraltar, where the streets are too narrow, this goal is harder to accomplish than it appears.

2. Avoid being hit by a moped or motorized bicycle.
See above: Really high numbers of small vehicles driven by people who appear to be stunt drivers.

3. Avoid falling off a Moorish castle.
This speaks to my ¨Lisbon, day one¨ post.

4. Avoid being bitten by a macaque monkey.
This, and the one above, were most relevant on the rock of Gibraltar. But avoiding being bitten by a monkey is good advice anywhere.

5. Avoid being grabbed by an unemployed Fassi man.
Sara would like me to point out that for the men to which this applies, grabbing tourists and extracting money is their employment.

6. Avoid being hit by a train.
If you wish to accomplish this objective, advise your travelling companion not to drop her train ticket on the tracks.

7. Avoid getting on the wrong train at 3 a.m.
Like #4, this is good advice any time of day.

8. Avoid being held up in an alleyway by Fassi men with knives.
This is just us being paranoid.

9. Avoid falling in love with, and marrying, a Moroccan man who is only in it for your Green Card.
This was Sara´s grandmother´s contribution to the list. I would like to point out that there was a Berber carpet seller in Chefchaouen who was quite determined to convince Sara to toss this one right off the list.

10. Avoid dying in an otherwise unspecified manner.
This falls into the category of ¨stating the obvious¨.

I am now in Madrid and fully aware that I have not yet blogged the awesomeness that was Marrakech. Sara and I will put up pics and discuss later, but for now, I will just articulate the following two deeply American words: Mission accomplished.

Night with Max

2009-07-02T12:23:00.002-04:00

Wednesday night, Sara and I found the legtimately Kosher place in Fez, which is at the Centre Maimonide (the JCC, essentially). We were quite amused at how small the Jewish world is: while there, we met a family from Manhattan whose son goes to BU and has worked with my brother-in-law Dani. The Amzallags invited us to join them for dinner, so we had Kosher food and good company. There were also some other Jewish guys around, including someone from Cambridge. The guys walked us to the train, where we took a mildly lengthy and uncomfortable train to Marrakech; which we like much more. Despite the fact that the men on the train moved to make us more comfortable (one even slept on the luggage rack so we could stretch out...), we found that we were not sad to leave Fez behind for the relative gentility of Maraakachis.

An update about our scam artist

2009-07-02T12:02:00.002-04:00

Sara found this woman's blog, where she writes of buying something from the guy we saw yesterday. She paid 700 euro for original Kabbalah doors over a year ago, and the guy in the site who sold them to her is the same one who showed us those doors yesterday.
Sara's purchase, upon inspection, had massive typos in the 10 dibrot; she left it behind.

We're glad we're not in Fez anymore.

Fez: The good, the bad and the smelly

2009-07-01T12:32:00.003-04:00

About once a day, I find myself saying, "Why on earth am I in Morocco?" This usually happens around 2-4 pm during the heat of the day. On Sunday, we were at the end of our harrowing taxi ride and walking through the crowded streets of the medina with 30lb backpacks on. On Monday, we were trudging up an impossibly steep hill on the way back from the bus station. (They said the walk was 15 minutes. It took us an hour and a half to go both ways.) Today, we were at the end of a long half day tour through a lot of really cool places, but we had gotten to the point where we were just going to all the shops that were buddies of our tour guide.

Paradoxically, the one day we had a nice time around the middle of the day was yesterday, when I spent the whole day being done with Morocco.

Scam of the day was this guy, who showed us a "museum" full of all sorts of "artifacts" collected by his grandfather, including all the items left behind by the Jews who emigrated in 1948, and who was having a liquidation sale because now he lives in France and doesn't want the collection. He told us he's Jewish; the tour guide who brought us there (and probably got a cut) told us that he has a gambling problem and spent all of his mother's money. Sara bought something, and we don't know what is its provenance really is. I am most upset that our tour guide was probably in on the scam.

Cafe Clock's owner told us precisely how to deal with sketchy Moroccan men: Basically, the F word is a universal sign for "go away". And the Cafe rocked.

Kosher meat for dinner? One can only dream.

Chefchaouen, Morocco: I flunked bribery AND negotiation

2009-06-30T15:16:00.003-04:00

When you are in a taxi hurtling around mountainous curves at 60+ k/h with a driver listening to the Koran on a cassette player, you have two choices:
1. Hold on to the "Jesus" handle and pray that you don't die,
or
2. Go with the flow - you're only in Morocco once.

I am sad to say Sara and I were in the latter category as we literally sped away from the border with a man who spoke no English and barely any French.

Our inauspicious start to our time in Morocco began when we read in the guidebook on the (gorgeous, air-conditioned) ferry that if you leave some money in your passport, you will go through more quickly at the border. So we each put 2 USD in our passports, but when we got to the border, we were first shepherded into a health department line, to check if we had swine flu.

As I am sure you have guessed by now, we inadvertently bribed the guys who took our temperatures. But we didn't have the flu, and we got into Morocco. And perhaps because we said the Wayfarer's Prayer, we made it to Chefchaouen in one piece.

We were told it was quiet and picturesque. Everything in Morocco is harsh and sketchy at first: The hot summer's day, the streets without street signs, the dirty flies buzzing on the fruit in the shops, and the men who leer. But eventually, we got accustomed to Chefchaouen. It has beautiful construction, including blue-washed walls. The shopkeepers are pushy but friendly, and on day two I made a purchase of two pairs of earrings. The guy started at 350 dh ($44), so I countered with 250dh ($31). He made a half-offer of 300, which I rejected, and then he caved. The rule in Morocco is that if the negotiating is done in about 3 minutes, it is because you got a bad deal and offered to pay too much. Another hint: He threw in a "free" hamsa. Sara determined that we had grossly overpaid, and has banned me from haggling.

Chefchaouen, especially the pretty lake where the women do their washing and the lovely casbah and the awesome coffee, grew on me a lot. I thought it was such a sleepy town at first, but it turns out everyone in town is out and about in the Casbah square from 9pm - 11pm. Even the three year olds. Thank you to Sara's random friends who insisted we go there.

We arrived in Fez today, and following Thumper's mother's principle: If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything. I will ask the Facebook universe only one question, courtesy of Sara: How do you say in Arabic "You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

The Jews of Gibraltar

2009-06-29T16:35:00.002-04:00

Sara and I were walking up the street in Gibraltar, minding our own business and thinking we already had Shabbat plans pre-arranged weeks earlier when we spotted obviously frum women in obvious sheitels, so we popped into their jewelery store with an incredibly Jewish name to ask them if the island had an eruv (complicated Jewish ritual construction that allows us to carry things outside the home on the Sabbath.)

They said yes, and we went along in search of kosher meat. But the restaurant whose address we had was defunct, so we went back to their store to ask them where there was a kosher restaurant. Mrs. B (as I will call her) immediately asked us about our Shabbat plans, and we told her that we were eating with Mr. L. She looked concerned and said he had been recently ill, and we should check to see if our Shabbat plans were still on. Then she gave us her phone and told us to call him (we left a message) and told us that if it fell through, we should go to her for the meal. She sent us up to Mr. L.'s son-in-law's restaurant, where we got yummy pasta, and rearranged our Shabbat plans. Mr. L.'s son-in-law confirmed that he was in the hospital, then called Mrs. B and her husband's stores alternetely until he got in touch with one of them. Then this woman, her sister and her baby walked into the store to eat and jumped into the swing of things. Their mom, Mrs. H, had been in touch with Mr. L's wife and was prepared to have us for lunch. Fortunately, even in a religious Jewish community, we look foreign enough for people to take pity on us.

We observed that the Jewish community is both very English and very Sfardi. They read Hamodia and send their children to Yeshiva in Gateshead (note: the rest of this paragraph will contain many cultural references. I won't explain them all while pounding away on a Moroccan computer. I'll leave it to commenters to explain the significance of various things.) The women wear sheitels and the men black hats (v. Ashkenaz) but they speak Spanish and have this really awesome custom to eat food after Kiddush and before Motzi in order to say more brachot.

Sociologically, they are a really interesting bunch. Lots of kids in small but well-organized apartments; they seem to marry young, be fruitful and multiply. They have WAY more than their fair share of seriously beautiful women and in true Moroccan style, they are all very well-put together.

Both couples served kind of different meals than we were used to - first course always contained a protein and many different small salads. The main course was probably less substantial and less carby than what might be served at a North American Shabbat table. We were well-fed in Gibraltar.

I have more to say, perhaps later...

Final day in Portugal: Caiscais

2009-06-28T12:14:00.001-04:00

Our trip to Caiscais on Thursday reaffirmed what I loved about Portugal, like the prompt and efficient bus and train service and the occasional availability of Ben and Jerry's.

It's a resort town, so we saw touristy shops, sandy beaches and the nicest McDonalds one would ever expect to see. Outside of town were glorious five-star resorts that we walked by on our way to Boca Del Inferno, some particularly impressive cliffs.

I also discovered that my application of sunscreen was not exactly uniform, given that I got a Rudolphesque sunburn on my nose, but the rest of my face was fine.

That night we learned all about sitting in bus stations in random locations in Portugal and Spain in the middle of the night. We started in Lisbon, then switched in Seville and Algeciras, finally disembarking in La Linea on Friday morning. Oddly, I have now passed through Spain twice, but they have yet to stamp my passport.

Today I walked past a Starbucks without going in and other small Portuguese miracles

2009-06-24T13:57:00.005-04:00

Today we headed down to Belem, a seaside area of the city with gardens, museums and monuments. We saw the Padrão dos Descobrimentos, a monument to Portugal's many discoveries, at which my hat kept blowing off because the wind was so strong. We found Ben and Jerry's (which is Kosher even here) and sat outside the Tower of Belem, which is a famous and historic tower, but it cost 3 euro to go in, so we just sat outside. I'm more of a "spend money on coffee" kind of girl.

Which is why we next walked past Starbucks and into some cute Portuguese cafe for a cappucino. Over a year ago, Sara made me promise that I'd actually experience Portugal, and not just spend my time and money in an American coffeehouse. It is quite the experience to stand and sip a cappucino at the bar. And since I'm blogging about things one never sees in America, the cafe had a cigarette vending machine.

Sara and I hit our biggest score at the Museu Nacional dos Coches, which was free because we're students. The museum is full of coaches, Berlins, carriages, and other modes of transport used in the last six or so centuries. Immediately before we walked in, a busload of middle-aged American tourists had entered along with their tour guide. Consequently, we got a free guided tour of the museum simply by surreptitiously following them. The coolest part was seeing the stagecoach in which King Carlos I was riding in 1908 when he and his eldest son were assassinated. You can see bullet holes on the coach from where stray bullets missed.

Lisbon is not the place for the shopper in me, in terms of its signature souvenirs. It's famous for its cork products, but excuse me for not wanting a cork purse. Ditto on embroidery. I am sorry to say that the only real shopping I've done has been at El Cortes Ingles, which was a very Western and Macy's like department store, if Macy's had a full food court and supermarket in the basement. I bought a cute blue glasses case.

Portugal, day 1

2009-06-24T04:47:00.002-04:00

Lisbon deeply wants to be liked. It's infinitely walkable, as long as you like winding cobblestone paths and steep stairways that get slick when wet. It's got charming architecture, which is all about Roman arches and columns, bright colors and textured tiles. And every few blocks is some kind square, some small and some vast with statues and fountains.

Day #1 was the walking day. Sara and I are staying right downtown in the city centre, so we could easily walk to Praca do Comercio, Praca do Munipio and all along the river Tajus. You can tell it's a seaside kind of town because every shop along the waterfront sells dried fish and every restaurant advertises a grilled sardine special.

The touring day concluded with a trek up and around a medieval castle called Castelo do Sao Jorge. It's mostly historic and original, which in modern American parlance means "lawsuit waiting to happen". I noted to Sara that in America its edges, walls and walkways would have been enhanced to keep morons from falling off. Sara wisely advised me to avoid being a moron.

European preview: Adventures in not speaking Portuguese

2009-06-01T20:10:00.003-04:00

Countdown to Portugal: 21 days.

In the pursuit of an organic, kosher bakery, I found myself in need of figuring out what

Segunda a Sexta: 08:00h às 14:30h e 16:30h às 19:00h

meant. I was certain it was a set of dates, but which?

This was a case for a battle of the titans. I entered the phrase "Segunda a Sexta" into Yahoo's Babelfish. The official translation: "Second a Sixth".

Up second was Google Translate, which offered the translation "Monday to Friday".

Google 1, Yahoo 0.

The recipe that's really a book review

2009-05-31T12:24:00.004-04:00

The hallmark of a good book (in my mind) is obvious when reading someone else's copy: finishing it is followed by resolving to own it myself, very soon. In this case, I returned the library's copy of "I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti" by Giulia Melucci and went to Booksmith to get my own.

The book is a memoir of a serious food lover, and the men she cooked for. Perhaps I feel guilty being happily married, but Melucci deserves serious kudos for turning personal heartbreak into a page-turner. The book will lead foodie romantics to alternately root for the author to find her own happily-ever-after, and note which food ideas they'd like to replicate. The book intersperses Melucci's story with dozens of recipes. There's a recipe index at the back, which makes the book more user-friendly. Though there's some variety of ingredients, the book is heavy on pastas, fish recipes, and desserts.

For Shavuot, I made a quadruple recipe of "Simple Tomato Sauce and Pasta for Two" (page 18) using whole wheat spaghetti. I mixed it in with a healthy batch of roasted veggies (carrots, red onion, asparagus, zucchini, and peppers, roasted in a 375 degree oven for about an hour with salt, pepper and oil.) Top with Parmesan, and it's fancy enough for the holiday, but healthy enough to eat the leftovers four days in a row.

The yummiest chicken ever, and the recipe that is not a recipe

2009-05-27T07:47:00.003-04:00

This weekend, I made two chicken recipes, both of which I would classify as "the yummiest chicken ever". One came from a cookbook, and one was entirely improvised, making it hard to record the recipe after the fact. So instead of a recipe, here I present general guidelines:

Tomato Pesto Chicken
(mildly inspired by Robin Miller and Susie Fishbein)

Preheat oven to 350.

Using a handblender, puree leftover fresh basil with toasted pine nuts and olive oil (and a little salt and pepper.) Then blend in a whole, fresh tomato.

In a pan sprayed with Pam/reasonable off-brand substitute, place many chicken breasts (we initially cooked 8 or 9) and pour the sauce on top. Cook uncovered for what seems like forever, making sure from time to time that the chicken is not dried out. The chicken is done when the juices run clear.

Remove from oven and cool. When the chicken is cooled, remove the excess liquid from the pan and save for roasting veggies or something similar.

This chicken was incredibly moist and tasted great in a sandwich or hot.

Restaurant Replication #2 - Roasted Replica Salad with Creamy Garlic Dressing

2009-05-08T18:27:00.006-04:00

Earlier this year, I replicated a favorite soup from a local restaurant, with my own special twist. You can check out Restaurant Replication #1 here.

Today, I am attempting to replicate a salad I tried in Toronto in April. The base of the salad is similar to the one I had there, but the dressing is my own (love it or hate it.)

Roasted Replica Salad with Creamy Garlic Dressing

Salad ingredients:
2 yellow squashes
2 medium zucchinis
1 red onion
2 colored peppers
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
2 big hearts of romaine, washed and chopped
1 (8 oz) container of feta cheese

Dressing ingredients:
1 head of garlic
1/2 cup mayonnaise
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
Reserved juice from feta cheese container (optional)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Cut zucchini and yellow squash into half moons, onion into medium sized slivers, and peppers into thin strips.
3. Mix vegetables in bowl with salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
4. Pour onto jelly roll pans. (You will likely need two.)
5. Wrap the head of garlic in foil. Put the pans of vegetables and head of garlic in the oven. Roast 45 minutes, stirring the vegetables every 15 minutes.
6. When soft and roasty, remove from oven. Let vegetables cool slightly. You want them warm, not sizzling.
7. Assemble a large bowl of romaine lettuce. Top with cooled veggies and a big heap of feta.
Dress (recipe below) and serve.

Creamy Garlic Dressing:
Remove all the cloves of garlic from their skins (this is the only part of the recipe that's a bit annoying.)
Add mayo, lemon juice, salt, pepper and feta juice. Mix well. If the garlic is sufficiently roasted, it will combine easily with the other ingredients.

The final result is a bit tangy and salty, but very yummy.

On Legal Action

2009-05-06T19:05:00.001-04:00

Today's sound bite from work:

ATLANTA — The nation’s top high school mock trial competition has become an actual legal battleground.

Earlier this spring, the Maimonides School, an Orthodox Jewish day school in Brookline, Mass., won the state mock trial championship — and with it a coveted spot in the prestigious national competition in Atlanta this weekend. But the finals of the tournament fall on Saturday, and the students do not compete on the Sabbath.
When tournament organizers refused to tweak the schedule, the students’ parents and school officials did what supporters of any attorney-in-training might do: they hired a lawyer, Nathan Lewin, a renowned litigator who has tried cases before the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Lewin filed a complaint of religious discrimination with the Department of Justice, which promised to investigate.

Click here for the rest of the story.

On Email Etiquette

2009-04-28T10:49:00.005-04:00

This month's Boston Parents Paper has my top ten email etiquette tips for tweens.
Here's one of them:

# 1: Choose your address wisely.

Princess_fiona87@domain.com doesn’t let the teacher know who is writing. Your child should begin emails with her full name and never email adults using return addresses that are offensive or sexually suggestive.

The full list can be found here.

The very hungry Google-pillar

2009-03-20T17:34:00.003-04:00

Today's Google logo spawned this story, which Ari and I cowrote:

On Monday, he ate one search engine, but he was still hungry.
On Tuesday, he ate two algorithms. But he was still hungry.
On Wednesday, he ate three YouTubes. But he was still - YouTube.
On Thursday he ate five iPhones, but he was still hungry.
On Friday, he ate one server, a slice of amazon.com, a piece of pi, a silk plant that he found on eBay, one Kindle, and a Twitter account.

With apologies for inside jokes, feel free to leave additional "pages" of his story in comments.

Profile of Michael Burstein

2009-01-26T19:32:00.002-05:00

Published in the December '08/January '09 issues of Brookline Magazine and its sister publications, Newton Magazine and Metrowest Magazine. Click here to see the entire piece.

Michael Burstein is a writer with a special focus, a profound concern with memory.

Burstein is a typical Brookline resident – well-educated, liberal, and with leisure enough to content himself with a wide spectrum of interests. A physicist by training and educator by practice, Burstein has been a Brookline town meeting member since 2001, a library trustee since 2004, was once a would-be astronaut and has a tendency to burst into song over dinner.

Should I be disturbed that George Bush is in my TIVO?

2009-01-15T20:18:00.004-05:00

Today, George Bush gave his farewell address. Someone at Fox thought I should watch it. Or perhaps it was Comcast?

All I know is that the Goerge Bush Farewell Address popped up in my DVR. Ari didn't program it, and I didn't program it.

John Adams may have been obnoxious and disliked, but at least he didn't crash my DVR without an invitation.

Holiday gift giving, year 2

2008-12-23T19:28:00.000-05:00

I wrote a piece on holiday gift giving last year. You can find it here.

I was struck today by a piece in the excellent City Journal:

The Phosphorescent List by Harrison Scott Key, City Journal 23 December 2008

Ricky, the enigmatic 12-year-old orphan to whom I’d been assigned as a Secret Santa, wanted three things for Christmas: a fleece blanket, some books, and a glow-in-the-dark basketball. The books were easy: The Call of the Wild and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. So was the blanket. The illuminated basketball was the monkey’s paw, and it would not let itself be found. I knew where one could be procured online, but I didn’t have enough time. The gifts were due at the mission in 12 hours. That deadline would crush the Christmas dream of Orphan Ricky. It was the purest kind of Christmas list, unsullied by the material lusts of the middle class or the depraved fantasies of the superrich. And yet I could not fulfill it. I knew that Orphan Ricky would see a gift-wrapped ball and that he would weep with mistaken thanksgiving. Then he would open it to learn that he had received the Christmas Shaft.

Full version well worth reading.

Our Hannukah gifts this year?
Photo puzzle for nephew, in hopes that he remembers what we look like.
Trip to puppet show for two small cousins.
Saturday night sleepover party featuring movie and pancakes for 7 year-old cousin.
No gifts for adults.

Local Jewish Author Suffers Theft

2008-11-20T07:31:00.002-05:00

By Aliza Libman

Brookline author Michael Burstein was dismayed to discover this week that two boxes of signed copies of his first book, I Remember the Future, were damaged and stolen during shipping.

Burstein, whose book of award-nominated short stories was published by Apex Publishing at the beginning of November, had been signing and personalizing preordered copies of his book. He shipped six boxes of books back to Apex, two of which arrived on Saturday, November 15.

Jason Sizemore, the publisher at Apex Publications, says that one box was entirely intact, but completely empty, while another was damaged and all books inside were not salable. Sizemore thinks his losses will amount to over $300, but only if the other boxes are not damaged or missing books.

“I’ll have to replace the books,” Sizemore explains, noting that the people who ordered these books may have to wait an extra month to receive the copies. While he is not certain about the total loss, since the last four boxes have not yet been inventoried, he notes that it will be a substantial loss for Apex, a small press publisher.

Apex, which has been in business since 2005, has an annual raffle this time of year. Sizemore says they have extended the raffle deadline to December 15 as a result of the loss of Burstein’s books.

“Originally, it was intended as a small fundraiser to help offset the losses incurred for publishing short fiction online,” Sizemore explains. “But now, I’ll probably have to use the raffle money … to buy replacement books.”

The damaging and disappearance of these copies of I Remember the Future has followed what both Sizemore and Burstein called a successful book launch. Hundreds of copies of the book were preordered, and the book party held at the Brookline Public Library on November 2 was so well attended that Burstein was autographing copies for two full hours.

“The fact that people were willing to wait in this line to get copies of the book signed, I think that can be garnered as a sign of the success of the party,” he says.

Sizemore, who is also happy with the sale, is nonetheless glad that Apex decided to publish Michael Burstein’s first book.

“He’s a great person to work with,” Sizemore says.

Both Burstein and Sizemore are disappointed with the United States Postal System. However, Burstein remains hopeful that the missing books, which are easily identifiable because they are personalized, will resurface, allowing them to get law enforcement involved. The USPS did not respond to requests for comment.

To find out more about the Apex Publications Raffle, visit www.apexbookcompany.com.

"Freedom of Information" - Gotcha!

2008-11-11T08:32:00.003-05:00

Twice in the past year, I have received letters from the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner because a certain scum-of-the-earth requested emails from York under the freedom of information act. The nice people at the commission explained to me that some emails I wrote fall under this request.

I explained to them precisely how I feel about said scum-of-the-earth professor, and that I consider the law a bit scary - why can they subpoena my emails? I am a not even remotely a public employee.

It is one thing for emails to be forwarded about accidentally or internally; it is quite another to tell people after the fact that their email can be demanded by any Ontario resident at any time for the purposes of transparency.

I think the unintended consequence of such legislation will be that people won't email public officials to share their opinions - a time-honored North American tradition.

This week, I sent a note about Brookline day care laws to my 15 town meeting members and my 5 selectmen (most of whom are women). A fair number responded.

At the bottom of her response, town selectman Betsy DeWitt wrote:

When responding, please remember the Secretary of the Commonwealth considers email a public record.

That appropriate disclosure is exactly what Ontario needs. Private citizens have a right to find out in advance that their emails are not considered by the state to be private.

Massachusetts 1, Ontario 0.

Aliza's tortellini-spinach-tomato-feta soup recipe

2008-11-01T18:57:00.004-04:00

This recipe comes at the request of the Friday night Settlers collective. I made it to commemorate the yahrtzeit of my grandfather Manny, who passed away five years ago yesterday. I wrote this five years ago and I still mean every word. But in the meanwhile, I thought a meal of soup, pasta, and bourbon-glazed potatoes followed by rum cakes would be a fitting tribute to a man who liked good food as much as I do and good books even more. While I'm certain my grandfather might have liked this soup had he tasted it in his pre-quadruple bypass era, I should note that a generation ago, kosher feta cheese and kosher tortellini were not in my family's good German cooking arsenal.

Ingredients:
2 onions
3 carrots
2 packages of frozen spinach
1 massive can of tomatoes (I used 28oz crushed.)
water
oil
consomme powder
16 oz. frozen tortellini
2 pkgs of feta (8 oz each)

Instructions:
Heat oil in saute pan (or 8qt soup pot, if you saute in your pots.)
Saute 2 chopped onions until translucent and beginning to brown.
Add 7-8 cups of boiling water and some Osem chicken consomme. (I never measure the amount of this.)
When boiling, add 3 chopped carrots and simmer for 20 minutes.
Then add the frozen spinach and simmer for 20 minutes more.
Remove soup from the heat and use a handblender to blend it partially. (Don't blend it completely.)
Return soup to low heat and add frozen tortellini. Simmer for 10 min.
When you're sure the tortellini and carrots are cooked to your satisfaction, remove the soup from the heat. Open the feta packages and pour the water the feta is packed in into the soup. Crumble the feta and put it into the soup. Cover the pot and let it sit for 10-15 minutes so that the flavors meld together.

Serves 8-10?

Some notes:
This is a very thick soup, so you need to cook it on a very low heat to avoid stuff sticking to the bottom of the pot.
Be careful with your spicing early on - you want the rest of your soup to have flavor, but feta is very salty and flavorful and will provide most of the flavor the soup needs.

Worth reading - October

2008-10-20T14:48:00.003-04:00

Three things I read lately that I really liked:

Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture: Taylor Clark: Books Not just knee-jerk liberalism.

Jeff Jacoby on health care in the Globe:

We thus ended up with a healthcare system in which the vast majority of bills are covered by a third party. With someone else picking up the tab, Americans got used to consuming medical care without regard to price or value. After all, if it was covered by insurance, why not go to the emergency room for a simple sore throat? Why not get the name-brand drug instead of a generic?

Michael Burstein's new book is coming out. Publication party is November 2. I have not read all of the stories in it, but I especially recommend "75 Years" and "Time Ablaze".

Yes, they can. (Hoard their cash.)

2008-09-14T21:29:00.002-04:00

For me, when it comes to politicians, the little things make a big difference. From Saturday's Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON - Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, the Democratic nominee for vice president, and his wife reported giving a fraction of 1 percent of their income to charity during the past decade, below the national average, tax records show.

A Biden spokesman said the couple has given more to charity than they claimed on their taxes.

Biden and his wife, Jill, earned $319,853 in adjusted gross income and paid $72,787 in federal taxes last year, including $2,721 in alternative minimum taxes. They claimed $995 in deductions for charitable giving, about triple what they deducted in any of the nine previous years. Over the past decade they reported giving an average of $369 to charity.

Barack Obama is not much better - at least he was not until he decided to start running for president.

There's been a lot of talk about politicians v. celebrities this election season, and I recall, for example, getting the 2007 "thank you to our donors" book from the Jimmy Fund, with a very long list of donors. Among them, Eliza Dushku (a Boston native) who is perhaps the best kind of celebrity - she takes on interesting projects, volunteers for the good of the world, and avoids Paris-Lindsay-Britney behavior. I realize that as a native Massachusetts resident, Eliza Dushku is statistically pretty much guaranteed to vote Obama-Biden, but perhaps they should be looking to her for leadership?

Education Week: Is E-Mail a Teacher’s Friend or Foe?

2008-08-25T20:34:00.001-04:00

Education Week: Is E-Mail a Teacher’s Friend or Foe?

By Aliza Libman
In Education Week's August 27, 2008 issue.

(You need to be a subscriber to see the entire piece online...)

When a technical glitch meant that I could no longer check my school email at home, I cringed at first. How would I be responsive to the needs of my students? How would I get everything done without staying at school until 8 pm? The situation seemed nightmarish at first. To my great shock, though, my inability to email around the clock actually forced me to become a better teacher.

Many of the students we teach can’t remember life before e-mail. But even for young teachers, email is a new addition to the teacher’s toolbox, and often a painful one. Many passionate teachers dream about impacting lives, but few are similarly enthused by the perceived ‘round-the-clock availability of teachers, as created by e-mail.

In my inbox, on a daily basis, about 50 messages pop up from students, parents, administrators and other teachers. Some read “hey did u get my papr i left it in ur box.” Some are epics that rival “Crime and Punishment” for length. Some are 10pm missives about tomorrow’s homework. Almost all get antsy if I don’t reply instantaneously.

There are three ways by which email can pose a problem: Volume, content and choice of media. By volume, I mean we teachers have too many emails to respond to, and by content I mean we must deal with emails that are rude, unclear, or of painful grammar. And of course, there is always a risk of trying to use email when phone or face-to-face communication would do the job better.

When I teach students about safe and appropriate use of the internet, I remind them that the internet is a tool, like a hammer, axe or saw. Wielded carefully and appropriately, it can do a job that needs doing. In the hands of an unskilled or careless person, though, it can cause great harm.

If I email a parent about his or her child, depending on the circumstance, I may be copying one guidance counselor, one or two administrators, one or two learning support staff members, the office staff and/or the school psychologist on that one email. Each has to read it, apprise him or herself of what is going on and decide whether or not to reply to or file this email. This volume of email is critical, so that we all know what is going on. The student in question will come into school the next day, expecting the adult professionals working with him or her to know all about his or her personal situation and how the school has decided to handle it.

In fact, in this email-savvy generation, being able to deal with a reasonable volume of email on a daily basis is an incredible asset that helps us connect to our students where they are and allows us to respond to them in a manner that is comfortable for them, and moderately convenient for us. (After all, your email can’t ring after midnight like your phone can.)

When the content of the email is unclear, malicious or consists entirely of acronyms, the value of email is less clear. Consider the email from the parent who told me that my differentiated instruction (a school-wide priority) made all the students feel stupid. Email has paved the way for tirades like these, because many people will say in an email what they might not feel comfortable saying to someone’s face. Regardless of the merits of her concern, this parent’s accusatory words set the tone for an entire day where her diatribe hung over me like Eeyore’s cloud of gloom.

At some level, we control whether or not we let our students and their parents get under our skin. In any given year three or four parents pick a major fight with me, but the other 100+ families of the children I teach are either happy with me or keeping it to themselves. But I can’t stop myself from walking into work, turning on my computer, logging into my email, and letting one angry parent ruin an otherwise lovely day.

My sensitivity to their emails helps me to understand one universal truth about teaching – anything I say may be misinterpreted. After all, if I am irked by the emails of my students, then I must choose my words carefully when emailing them. A misplaced comma or adjective not chosen carefully can cause major harm to the parent-teacher and student-teacher relationships I labor endlessly to cultivate.

The last area of challenge applies more to younger generations of teachers than to older ones: we who like email the best are most likely to use it in cases where it is not the ideal medium. Just as every teen magazine my students read preaches: “don’t break up with someone via email”, so too we must remember that sensitive issues call for face-to-face discussions.

Every teacher is acquainted with some form of these problems. And like many things in education, the answers may be clear, but that doesn’t mean they will be easy to implement. Teacher best practices apply to email as well as the classroom: Make your expectations and limitations clear from the outset. Many schools, like mine, have policies that give teachers a certain time frame in which to respond to emails. Just like I tell my students 50+ times that they must bring a notebook and a pen to class, knowing full well that eventually, most will remember, but some will always forget, so too we all must clarify clear expectations to our students and their parents, knowing some will always disregard them.

I found without email at home, I had to be quick and efficient or I’d end up staying hour hours after school ended. I taught myself how to prioritize and weed out the emails that didn’t require immediate attention or didn’t require responses at all. I found that with restricted email ability, I would think seriously before emailing if there were a better way to communicate with a family or solve a problem. I didn’t dash off emails quickly, but rather, when I emailed, I did so carefully and with attention paid to every word. Perhaps email is like ice-cream – too much makes me sick, but life without it would be inconceivable.

Worth reading: For teachers

2008-07-31T12:21:00.002-04:00

From Teacher Magazine: "Teaching Secrets: Five Tips for the New Teacher" by Cindi Rigsbee:

I feel strongly that it's important to be cheerleaders for our profession. I am weary from hearing "if you can't do ... teach" and other misrepresentations of what we do every day. We have to market ourselves as the professionals we are. Some folks have the idea that teachers are still Charlie Brown's wa-wa-wa-ing lecturers, whacking kids with yard sticks if they misbehave. But we know real teachers are committed professionals who believe in purposeful instruction and who have our students' best interests at heart. As we speak to others, in the grocery store or by the neighborhood pool, we must embody that professionalism—not fuel the negative fires that surround so many schools.

A victory for intellectual property

2008-07-30T12:03:00.002-04:00

I am often critical of "my generation" and its habit of entitlement - specifically, thinking that everything belongs to them.

From the Boston Globe:
NEW YORK - Facebook Inc., owner of the biggest US social-networking site, said the developers of Scrabulous stopped offering the word game in the United States and Canada after a lawsuit by Hasbro Inc., the maker of Scrabble.

Facebook members who try to access the application receive a message that says the game, which has 509,505 users a day, is disabled until further notice.
Users have started more than a dozen groups urging Facebook to keep offering Scrabulous. The largest had more than 45,000 members as of yesterday.

Scrabulous is no exception. Intellectual property is just that - property. People don't have the right to steal the ideas of others, even if they acknowledge the theft, and most especially, they don't have the right to profit off of those ideas.

Scrabble the game is a concept - and the Scrabulous creators sold ads and made money off their wildly popular app - but it was not their intellectual property to use. (In the interests of not covering up hypocrisy - I played Scrabulous. )

I'm glad Scrabulous is shut down, and even more glad that there is a legal version available. We buy knockoff purses, download movies and music for free, and accuse the people who create them of being corporate sellouts. But nothing is truly free, and our desire to always get something for nothing is an appalling characteristic.

Math Is Harder for Girls by Heather Mac Donald, City Journal 28 July 2008

2008-07-28T20:31:00.000-04:00

Last week, the New York Times reported that boys and girls perform equally in math, as quoted: “researchers looked at the average of the test scores of all students, the performance of the most gifted children and the ability to solve complex math problems. They found, in every category, that girls did as well as boys.”

The excellent City Journal points out the fallacies and distortions in the claims made by the Times.

Math Is Harder for Girls by Heather Mac Donald, City Journal 28 July 2008: "The Wall Street Journal, it should be noted, had no difficulty grasping the two main findings of the Science study: that “girls and boys have roughly the same average scores on state math tests,” as Keith J. Winstein reported on July 25, but that “boys more often excelled or failed.” That the New York Times, in an article over twice as long as the Journal’s, couldn’t manage to squeeze in a reference to the fact that boys outperformed girls at the top end of the curve should put its readers on notice: trust nothing you read here."

I note this for two reasons: one, to suggest that there is nothing untrue about stating that boys are different than girls, and two, to mock the New York Times.

As a teacher of teens and pre-teens, it is a daily reality to me to see students whose genders are somewhat predictive of their abilities and choices. Boys will be more likely to blow off work simply because they don't care; girls are more likely to let interpersonal conflicts take priority over everything. Women outnumber men in education programs and men outnumber women in college-level math. (Predictably, anecdotal evidence suggests that at Harvard, where I am currently studying math education, the women and men are evenly numbered.) What's wrong with that?

Feminism exists to fight the culture that told women they must be X because they are women. That's discrimination - closing doors on the basis of gender, and gender alone. In a world where women can choose any profession and lifestyle, the Lawrence Summers brouhaha is nothing but a long-dead horse that classical feminists love to beat. But if women choose not to take math in college, who is crying foul if these women do prefer cooking, fashion and scrapbooking? There is a small area at the top - 99th percentile - where there is a substantial gender gap for whites. The rest of us have no need to care about this statistic as anything other than an oddity reflecting the occasional significance of the possession of a Y-chromosome.

The feminists of our era could find better uses for their time and political capital - like maternity leave policies in this country and breast-feeding in the workplace - two tasks that even the most enlightened man can't take on.

The Associated Press: Prof whose 'last lecture' became a sensation dies

2008-07-25T16:17:00.000-04:00

The Associated Press: Prof whose 'last lecture' became a sensation dies

Randy Pausch died today. This video is well worth watching:

Who doesn't love the train station?

2008-07-22T22:22:00.002-04:00

From today's Boston Globe:

Change is brewing in Newton. And resident Denis Goodwin is boiling mad.

Last week, Goodwin created an online petition to protest the closing of the Starbucks at 70 Union St. As of late yesterday, nearly 100 people had offered support at savemystarbucks.com.

Starbucks Corp. plans to close 600 stores nationwide, seven in Massachusetts. There are efforts afoot to save other stores across the country.

As much as I love Starbucks, I agree with this guy that the decision to close the train station Starbucks is a really stupid one. It's a great Starbucks - vast, comfy, and unique. There are 187 signers of the petition, but that doesn't strike me as a blow to corporate America.

Sad times, I suppose.

On wedding presents

2008-07-21T17:57:00.004-04:00

Here in North America, actual gifts are just as common as ones of cash. And while Ari and I had a registry for items like plates, cutting boards and the garlic press, we also deeply appreciated the cash we got for things like an eventual down payment on a house, and paying off student loans.

The Israeli custom of only bringing monetary gifts is one of the many things I don't "get" about Israel. Consider this:

Gift credit

We’re in the thick of the Israeli wedding season and wedding present methodology has just reached new heights of absurdity.

Wedding hosts can now rent an automated teller machine that takes guests’ credit cards, allowing them to punch in a shekel figure and leave a ‘gift’ for the bride and groom that is transferred into their bank account the next day. The machine, which is rented for NIS 500, even prints out a deposit slip for the guests who can sign a quick mazal tov and slip it in a box for the happy couple.

Posted using ShareThis

I have strong opinions about not buying returnable gifts, having wished many times that people had not wasted their money buying me art that is not to my taste and items I'd never find useful. But ultimately, a gift needs to be freely given to be a gift ... otherwise, it's noting but extortion.

Some fun Canada-day themed stuff online

2008-07-02T20:49:00.002-04:00

The original "I am Canadian" commercial:

The second, better "I am Canadian" commercial:

And, of course, the Canada Day quiz from Maclean's. (Don't worry, I failed, too.)

Next Food Network Star: Who I Love and Who I Tolerate

2008-07-01T19:24:00.004-04:00

My current favorite is Lisa Garza, profiled on the "Serious Eats" blog as "love her or hate her".
It's totally true - I was not into her at all in the first episode. She came across as unapproachable and snobby. In the last few episodes, she's totally come to life and shown her fun and vulnerable side. I think her cooking is cool and I would totally watch her on Food Network.

My second choice to win is Kelsey - she's also what I would describe as "a lot of fun". I watch Food Network obsessively, but I am only drawn to shows that don't take themselves too seriously - like Ace of Cakes. I could watch a Kelsey show - maybe not always.

I'm not so into:
1. Adam. He's hip and fun, but he is too much of a goofball for me. Also, I don't watch many shows centered around male hosts.
2. Shane. He's a good cook, but not memorable.
3. Aaron. He's also a good cook, but not so articulate.

As for the people who went home - I'm sad for Jennifer, but I wasn't so impressed with her authority. I could do what she does. Otherwise, I don't miss anybody.

Go Lisa go!

A change of heart for Netflix

2008-06-30T21:32:00.000-04:00

Hooray.

Netflix ending profiles - why?

2008-06-29T15:32:00.003-04:00

Bureaucratic BS from Netflix, who emailed last week:

Dear Aliza,

We wanted to let you know we will be eliminating Profiles, the feature that allowed you to set up separate DVD Queues under one account, effective September 1, 2008.

Each additional Profile Queue will be unavailable after September 1, 2008. Before then, we recommend you consolidate any of your Profile Queues to your main account Queue or print them out.

While it may be disappointing to see Profiles go away, this change will help us continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers.

If you have any questions, please go to http://www.netflix.com/Help?p_faqid=3962 or call us anytime at 1 (888) 638-3549. We apologize for any inconvenience.

- The Netflix Team

Netflix, a publicly traded company, wants one thing: more money. I am happy giving them some of my money in exchange for goods and/or services that are worth the price. The happy freebie of Netflix profiles is that each person gets the DVD he or she wants when he or she is finished with the previous one.

I know for certain that in my home, and many across the nation, if I return a Jane Austen biopic and my husband gets a zom-rom-com (zombie romantic comedy), I will be rather put out. But who has time to micromanage the queue so closely to make sure that the returner gets a new movie and not his or her spouse/roommate/sibling?

For Ari and I to add an extra DVD for him to my account when we got married, it cost only about $5. What Netflix is hoping is that to save our marriage, Ari and I will buy him a separate account at $9 a month. That way, they can make extra money from thousands of Netflix-addicted families across the nation.

It's not worth it for us; Netflix won't be getting more of my hard-earned money anytime soon and if they carry through with this poorly explained, bogus cash grab, all they will do will make people angry enough to cancel or downgrade subscriptions or switch to Blockbuster.

Hooray for "improving the Netflix website for all customers"!

------------------
To read more rants on the topic, see Greg Albrecht, Stephanie, and Netflix community blog.

The conversion crisis in Judaism

2008-06-17T15:56:00.002-04:00

Still buried in piles of ungraded papers, at least until Friday.
More of my favorite reading material:

The below article is by Rav Riskin, and though I don't always like his style, his point is super-critical:

MY TORAH is crying because these judges have, in the name of Torah, disrupted and possibly destroyed hundreds if not thousands of families of converts, whose children and even children's children were brought up and accepted as Jews - only now to learn that their forbears' conversions have been retroactively nullified.

Welcome to my life!

2008-06-10T21:39:00.003-04:00

As I head into finals grading period and "blog regularly" gets shoved way down the priority list again, I refer you to an article I consider "worth reading" for teachers: (From Education Week, by Lesley Guilmart.)

With the above in mind, I guess I could just frame my career as a “calling” and be all pious about the sacred work I’m doing, smile beatifically, and expect no substantial reward. But I keep running into a wall: Again, I like nice things.

Happy birthday Israel - Four major reasons to be proud

2008-05-04T12:04:00.004-04:00

Israel, a miracle of our times, is about to celebrate its 60th birthday.
A cool new blog, called Tzipiyah.com, has launched a challenge to list Israel's four greatest accomplishments.

Yikes. Only four.

As a Zionist in semi-permanent exile, I remain attached somehow to the homeland I love, which is not where I choose to live.

1. Judaism without compromise. As a truly religious person, I covet a life in which I don't have to worry or choose between being myself and being Jewish. To that end, attending a university that doesn't schedule finals on Pesach and graduation on Shavuot, or being able to attend "weekend" events without them being on Shabbat, is a godsend. I don't apologize for Israel's Jewishness as Maclean's thinks I should - after all, Canada and the US, despite some level of separation of Church and state, are nonetheless fundamentally Christian countries. But being Jewish in Canada and the US requires some level of compromise - food we can't eat, cooking schools we can't attend, events we miss because of holidays, having to convince the ID card people at Harvard that I have to wear my hat for my photo, etc. etc....

There are problems with the religious aspects of Israel, the Rabbanut's stranglehold on marriage being one of them, but at the end of the day, it's nice to not be a minority somewhere.

2. Sanctuary - "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." (Robert Frost.) Many people would not choose to live in Israel, but what about people who don't have a choice? Three of my four grandparents fled hostile countries some time around WW2, and Canada's legacy at that time ('none is too many') was only slightly more harsh than the prevailing anti-Semitism here in the US, which kept many refugees out. After the Holocaust, many countries still tried to keep Jews out, and only the creation of the State of Israel solved the problem of homeless Jewish refugees in DP camps in Europe. Even recently, the mass Ethiopian migration and the fall of the Soviet Union are examples of cases where many Jews who had nowhere else to go were brought safely to Israel.

At times, as well, Israel has accepted small numbers of non-Jewish refugees from other countries, like in 2007, when Israel initially wanted to send back Sudanese refugees but then eventually let them stay.

3. An almost suicidal attachment to civil rights and free speech.
While not every aspect of our relationship with our Arab neighbors is praiseworthy, for the most part, Israel honors the freedom of speech it believes in by allowing MKs from certain parties to expressly call for Israel's destruction, yet retain their Knesset seats. Israel's Supreme Court hears cases from enemies of the state of Israel willingly. The IDF minimized civilian casualties at the expense of its missions. We cling so fiercely to liberty and life, it seems as though we lead by glorious example to the world around us in terms of how to treat those we disagree with.

4. If you will it, it is no dream.

Israel is one impossibility after another. Eliezer Ben Yehuda resurrected a dead language. Ben Gurion supervised the partial settlement of the Negev desert. Refugee Jews running from the Cossacks built bustling kibbutzim where there was sand. The smallest of armies held back multiple enemy forces. Tech start-ups were responsible for important technological change and advancement. In 150 years, the land of Israel went from swamp to the place where everyone has two cellphones. Israel's existence has been about making the impossible possible.

"Harachaman hu Yivarech Et Medinat Yisrael, Reishit Tzmichat Geulateynu."

Canadian sausage

2008-04-07T19:54:00.002-04:00

[Aliza's note: This article was timely in January when it was commissioned "on spec" by a Canadian paper that shall remain graceless. I rewrote it twice for them, and they responded by ignoring me. Curse be the laws of supply and demand that free editors from the obligation to be polite....]

There is an old adage that laws are like sausage – you don’t want to see how they’re made. Canadians have extended this cliché to party leadership contests - while in the US, candidates declare their intention to seek nomination two or more years in advance, Canadian leadership selection is “quick and dirty” and sometimes borderline invisible.

It’s nine months until the 2008 US election, and most Americans have already cast their primary ballots. Many states, like Michigan and Texas, have open primaries, where any citizen can vote in any primary. Other states have semi-open primaries, like Massachusetts, where if you register as “unenrolled”, you can show up on primary day and pick which primary to vote in without becoming a member of that party. If I want to be a Canadian party decision maker, I need far more advanced planning, and I need to commit.[1]

A Canadian wanting to help select the new leader for the Liberal party in 2006 would have had to join the Liberal party three months before the vote. This commitment just doesn’t happen on a major scale. The Liberal party brags that they have over 100,000 members[2], but that isn’t much to brag about. If every single party member participated in the choice of Stephane Dion in 2006, then fewer than 1% of Canadians selected the man who might be Canada’s next Prime Minister. No wonder CTV reported in January that his approval rating is only 39%.[3] The choice of Dion involved so few Canadian voters that it is neither representative nor meaningful.

I’m sure there are party stalwarts from all parties who don’t want the non-committed participating in “spoiling” their primary by voting for a leadership candidate who they think would be easier to beat. But the system that has evolved in Canada is so restrictive that it makes American closed primaries look open by comparison.

So why don’t more Canadians join political parties? It is a simple task – just go to Liberal.ca, click on the large “Join the Party” icon, and fill out the simple online form. Just don’t forget your Visa or Mastercard. The Conservative Party of Canada also has a “Join” button on their webpage, with one key difference – they also take American Express.

And they call the US the most materialistic country on earth. But the two most substantive differences between Canada and the US involve money and hassle – Canadians have to pay to join a party, and they can’t just do it by checking a box on their voter registration form.

Canadians who join can have their voices heard, as Liberal voting is proportional - their constitution sets out a system where riding members pick candidates, and delegates are assigned proportionally. This favors the parts of Canada where the population is greater. The Conservative party gives each electoral district an equal number of “points” that are divided proportionally among the candidates based on the votes. This means that a voter in a riding with half the members gets twice the say. However, it gives Canada’s more neglected provinces a greater voice. But nothing compares to the much-hyped early American decisions in Iowa and New Hampshire.

What these early primary contests say about democratic ideals is too important to miss. Imagine if Paul Martin had had to visit dozens of living rooms across Saskatchewan, selling his policies to farmers and nurses and teachers, one vote at a time. Would he have defeated Sheila Copps so handily?

Political parties here are still making their decisions in the back rooms. Canadian politics are set up so that insiders make decisions and voters get to choose from the lesser of many evils, little of which they can influence without a concerted effort.

The American system puts the job of running primaries and recruiting voters on the state, and many do their job aggressively. The Canadian system places early decisions in the hands of the party, who can change the rules as often as they like. Like in the US, these parties have elected delegates and “super” delegates (such as MPs and party candidates and former leaders) but the people doing the electing come from quite a small pool. Presumably, the party members are culturally and politically aware and willing to part with a few bucks – a self-selecting group that may exclude the poor, new Canadians and the apathetic youth that our leaders bemoan.

It is the independent, uninformed, and easily disenfranchised voters who get lost in the shuffle. Since it takes greater effort in Canada to participate, too many decisions are made based on the “party faithful”. An elitist might mock Americans interviewed on CNN who say they make their voting decisions based on how a candidate’s speech made them feel, but at least the common people are the ones making the decisions. Every multimillionaire who wants to become President has to go out and stump for votes. As Iowa showed Mitt Romney, voters can’t just be bought with millions of dollars in TV ads.

Though the best first step would be for leaders and decision-makers to make party membership free and easy, ordinary Canadians have to do their part by refusing to be sidelined from decisions of major significance. No one can ignore the messy American system, which brings representative democracy to life. If Canadians want popular involvement, perhaps we have to be willing to get our hands dirty.

- Aliza Libman is a freelance writer and teacher in Brookline, MA. She can be found online at alizalibman.blogspot.com.

Ontario hates Jews - it's official

2008-03-31T21:20:00.003-04:00

Ontario has had for many decades a policy of educational discrimination - only Catholic schools get government funding, not other religious groups.

Now the human rights commission has decided it's discriminatory for the school to close on Yom Kippur. (Of course, it's not discriminatory to close on Christmas.)

This entire crusade goes to show why tenure is bad. David Noble, a particularly unpleasant person, has tenure. Among his particularly illustrious projects my senior year were a newsletter "exposing" all of York's Zionists (I was honored to make the cut) and a letter to the editor to many newspapers (the Varsity published it) attacking Sean Palter's and my editing of the Excal. (Unlike the current editors, we never had to issue an apology.)

I'm not sure who's the bigger villian: Noble, for causing trouble for anyone who dares to believe in God and the state of Israel, or the Ontario Human Rights Commission, for continuing to treat Jews like second-class citizens.

Blaming the victims

2008-03-19T21:25:00.000-04:00

(Aliza's note: When I was around, we published opinion pieces, not blather disguised as a number from "Chicago" - "They had it coming/they had it coming/they only had themselves to blame...)

Jewish attack not a surprise

Written by Lama Aggad, Contributor

Wednesday, 19 March 2008

It’s no wonder why Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav Kook School was attacked.
I’m not surprised that Ala’a Hisham Abu Dhaim targeted Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav Kook School in Jerusalem.
Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav Kook School is described as a religious camp that links Judaism with Zionism. This makes it very different from any other anti-Zionist Orthodox school in Israel.
This institution established a program known as the “yeshivat hesder”. The word “hesder” means the settlement of a curriculum that combines Talmudic studies with military service.
In other words, this school has direct connections with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and its graduating students are those whom are committing a holocaust in Gaza in the Palestinians eyes.
This school strengthens the idea on its students and graduates of the land of Israel from the Euphrates to the Nile, as well as the need to make this land a “religious land,” which means there should not be any right to return for the Palestinians that were expelled from their land.
The school has around 500 students aged 18 to 30. Many of its past graduates went on to found other similar religious schools in the West Bank settlements which are described as racist among the Orthodox Jews.
In the eyes of the Palestinians, it was the IDF who started the holocaust in Gaza, and the Palestinians are simply targeting the source of that attack.
After this incident, thousands went out protesting in Jerusalem cheering “death to the Arabs”. Note here that they’re wishing death to all the Arabs whether they are Palestinians or not. This makes many understand, or at least assume, that the teachings of many of those whom have protested are against the Arabs as a whole, not just against the Palestinians.
Let’s not forget the famous quote from the former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin in his speech to the Knesset on June 25, 1982: “[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs.”

Dersh is right, yet again

2008-03-11T22:19:00.004-04:00

On CNN today, Alan Dershowitz (yes, one of the men who got OJ off) said that Gov. Spitzer should fight prosecution, and NOT resign. After all, he points out, Bill got away with it.

My husband also noted that Eliot Spitzer did very little in comparison - the police chief of Tehran got caught in bed with six hookers.

Ari: "What happened? They all rolled over and one fell out?"

And I thought that Ahmadinejad said there were no hookers in Iran. Oh wait, that's gay people.

My final thought is about Hillary, of course. Given that she's senator and he's governor of the same state, at some point she's going to have to comment. She isn't right now. But he's not on the list of people who've endorsed her, anymore.

Freedom v. reckless endangerment

2008-03-01T19:33:00.002-05:00

For all that the British press get criticized for terrorizing their celebs and royals, it was an American who let the cat out of the bag that the man third in line for the British throne was fighting in Afghanistan, defeating a press embargo agreed upon by many British news outlets, AP and CNN.

Freedom of the press may be a right, but it must also be a responsibility. The press doesn't exist to self-glorify, to make Matt Drudge a mint, or to spread tall tales, kindergarten-style. If your goal to inform the people means you're willing to recklessly endanger the life of troops, you should find another career.

Perhaps all Drudge is worthy of scooping is Mint Chocolate Chip.

San Francisco, day 7: Poof-worthy conduct

2008-02-24T21:17:00.000-05:00

When Ari and I got to the airport on Saturday night, we noticed going through the security line that they had one of those newfangled machines that puffs air at you in an attempt to detect bomb-residue or something.

I had seen them before in action at Heathrow in London and the Buffalo, NY airport, but this one wasn't really in use - we were in line for 15 min and we didn't see anyone go through it.

What follows is a rough transcript of what happened when Ari and I got to the front of the line:

Security gal to me: Ma'am, can you come this way please?
Security gal to security dude, re: Ari: Should we screen him, too?
Security dude to security gal: No.
Security dude to Ari: Can you remove your beanie, please?
Ari removes kippah.
Aliza giggles while being puffed with air.
Ari to me, in Hebrew: They're screening you because of your hat.
Me: So?
Ari: You know what I call that?
Me: What?
Ari: Racial profiling.

All I can say is that if airport security can't differentiate between Orthodox Jews and Islamist terrorists, or for that matter, between Sikhs and Islamist terrorists, what's the point in racial profiling? Pacifist Sikhs are about as likely to blow up planes as 80-something grandmas in Arizona.

Doesn't that make you sleep better at night?

San Francisco, day 1: Mass transit and mass confusion

2008-02-19T10:18:00.003-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen, the editors of USA Today will now state the obvious:

Taking mass transit is healthier than driving door to door. Duh! Even a 3 or 4 minute walk to the bus and/or a daily trip up or down some subway stairs is better for you than a daily drive through the Timmy's drive thru.

Access to the easily affordable car makes Americans (and Canadians) lazy. Then we move to subdivisions where we can't function without cars, keep our kids indoors away from the scary strangers and poof! we have an obesity epidemic. But that's bemoaned all over the media.

What I think isn't said often enough is that quick, efficient mass transit is healthy for cities. I happily jumped out of smog-and-traffic-jam laden Toronto, which had a thoroughly adequate transit system, because who wants adequacy when you can have excellence?

Boston's transit system isn't quite excellent all the time, but it gets super-duper points for having many subway lines and decent buses. However, I am uber-impressed at the speed and frequency of San Francisco transit. The F trolley comes about every 4 minutes (or did yesterday) when it was on a holiday schedule. The buses ran quickly, too. And I'm in love with those cable cars.

But one thing was just bizarre - they have two different transit systems interspersed with each other that aren't harmonized well. If you take a bus to the subway or the subway to a bus, you have to pay with two different sets of tickets. It would be like needing separate preloaded Charlie cards for buses and for subways.

I'm sure some San Franciscan policy wonk can tell me why it's so super logical, but I'd say that if your transit system confuses tourists and your city relies on tourists for the economy, you will soon be losing market share to Hertz and Avis.

It's not my holiday

2008-02-14T00:49:00.001-05:00

I can't handle people who wish me "happy Valentine's day." If Saint Valentine were here, he'd try to convert me or convince me to be Christian or whatever. This is not to say that I don't like Christians, but I'm happy being me, and that means not being one of them.

My husband and I don't need a patron saint, especially a Catholic one (not that there are any other kinds). We don't even need a dead Roman to remind us of our love for each other.

But we still have to call Grandma and thank her for Valentine's Day card. (Hence the rant.)

Britney's fall....

2008-02-13T23:44:00.002-05:00

Too bizarre - to add to her indignity, Britney's been cut out of "Spamalot".

A more perfect union?

2008-02-12T21:22:00.003-05:00

As a semi-Republican and semi-libertarian, I'm supposed to hate unions. As a teacher, I'm supposed to love them. Now that the WGA has "won" its dispute with the studios and will be bringing back network television, I am as torn as ever. Should all workers be unionized? Or do unions just protect the weak?

I think everyone who went to a Jewish day school in this part of the world must have learned about Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911, when 145 seamstresses died because they couldn't escape the flames because the escape doors were (allegedly) locked. Who can hear stories like this and not believe in the labor movement? After all, if all employers have power and all employees do not, how can any employees get a decent deal? All they can do is band together to negotiate for better deals.

It works well in theory. When your job is industrial in some way, when higher-educated bosses can manipulate less-educated employees, when the work involved is somewhat uniform, there is little downside for a union. You build your cars or lay your bricks or sew your shirts correctly and the union will protect you.

Auto workers and construction workers, especially those who could potentially be risking their lives at work, need unions. Only the most radical of Republicans would want to return to the sweatshops of 1911 .

But fundamentally, unions run contrary to the spirit of capitalism. Any person with human ambition will take advantages of opportunities to succeed, given things like time and ability. In normal English, I'll work harder knowing I could hypothetically get fired or get promoted. Most people don't want to get fired and do want to get promoted. So people who might otherwise have these incentives that are taken away by unionization have been harmed.

My best example is my two back-to-back job offers after college - one with a union school and one without. The only difference? No salary negotiation at a union school. The pro-unionist in me notes that if I were at a union school, I'd automatically get a raise when I finish my masters. The anti-unionist in me notes that in theory, if I'm awesome enough, I could earn a raise through excellent performance, not just jumping through graduate hoops.

Every writer employed by the WGA has the protection of the WGA but the incentive to write better so that their stuff gets on the air. Bus drivers getting written up if they show up late and I'd guess that even the best union rep in the world can't save a construction worker guilty of habitual shoddy work.

I don't like unions for two reasons: the first because I think that they are occasionally too absorbed in self interest to realize whomever they are harming. As a York U student journalist, I snuck into a graduate students' union meeting (CUPE something or other) and was shocked at how they talked about "the employer" in terms that made it sound like they were talking about Wal-Mart. The more $$ they get from the university, the less there is for professors' salaries, books and electricity. It's not like public universities turn a profit! And the WGA won an important victory, but how many restaurants and hairdressers went broke when the industry shut down?

I also get upset when I hear about bad workers with seniority (teachers, public employees, or any other white-collar unionized workers) getting laid off and/or "bumping" out younger workers simply because they've been there the longest.

We value antique furniture more the older it gets - but no idiot would consider a 500-year-old chair sturdy enough to sit on.

For further reading: NYC teacher's union head will likely run for leadership of the American Federation of Teachers, not a bad thing given that she has been ok in the past with merit pay.

Why I'm endorsing John McCain

2008-02-04T06:52:00.000-05:00

Though I'm still busy being eaten alive by report cards, I think it's critical to add my voice to the many in this discussion over who should be the next POTUS. (I just like saying "POTUS".)

As an unenrolled voter in tomorrow's Massachusetts primary, I can choose which primary - Democrat or Republican - to participate in. Though I've occasionally laughed at my in-laws' urging to "vote in the primary where you can do the most damage" my choice is predicated on which one I care more about.

I've watched both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama speak. I've read a bit about both of their platforms. I don't think they're that different. Though the election sometimes feels like a third-grade popularity contest, I've vowed never to stoop that low, given how much hangs in the balance. (More on this tomorrow if I finally manage to finish my "lessons from the 1800 election" blog post.) Hillary? Barack? Whatever. I don't like either, but I could live with both.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is not someone I could live with as president. If he ran against Hillary (someone I used to say I hated), I'd probably vote for her. Mitt Romney smacks of opportunism. He rejects John McCain's claims that he's a flip-flopper and says it's natural and normal and even a sign of enlightened thinking to change your position on issues. That's true - if you transition from 4th grade to 5th or from college to the real world. That's not the case here. Mitt Romney has changed his positions because it's politically convenient. Huckabee, a man I respectfully think is nuts, spoke yesterday about Romney trying to buy him and buy the election*. I have to say, I worry that Romney's just a big overgrown kid who wants a newer and bigger train set to play with, and will spend what he has to and say what he has to to do so. I don't think Romney is a qualified enough engineer to drive this great American train set. I might be a Republican, but that doesn't mean that I think a country should be run with the same principles as a business. I don't trust Romney on Iraq, and I don't like him on illegal immigration. He says such inane things like "America doesn't need more work visas" when businesses on Cape Cod and other touristy places are begging for them.

McCain, on the other hand, has integrity. He's compassionate but firm on illegal immigrants, he's realistic on the war in Iraq and he understands that government spending has to be cut. I don't like the situation in Iraq, but you break it, you bought it. We can't just walk out and leave them to destroy each other. I think it's almost disingenuous for Obama and Clinton to suggest this because it won't be fully their decision not to.

John McCain seems to be a man of integrity whose positions on foreign policy and the economy are not too far from mine. I am confident that the electorate will be similarly clearheaded. Or as his devotees would chant pithily, "Mac is back."

Postscript:
Oh, and my husband, also unenrolled, **might** vote for Obama. That would make us Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwartzenegger. What do I have in common with the Governator, you ask? Well, neither of us can ever run for president - we're not born in the USA.

*Source: NPR

Whether or not the fame is worth it

2008-01-27T13:46:00.000-05:00

I've always fundamentally believed that almost everyone, if given the option, would want to be famous. Millions of people crave fame (along with money and power) but few really give a thought about whether or not it's worth it.

This new generation of dead, dying and screwed up young stars are my generational peers. I turned on the TV one morning to CNN to check the scores in the only sport that really matters (politics) and found, along with returns from NH (I think), video footage of Britney Spears being taken out of her house in an ambulance.

That was right around the time they found Brad Renfro dead, who was discovered at ten, and did a brilliant job as the troubled pre-teen Mark Sway in the Client when he was only 11. He eventually messed up his life with drinking and drugs. Like Heath Ledger, they still don't know what killed him.

Heath Ledger's death a week later has been reported far more, likely because of his role in Brokeback Mountain, his former relationship with Michelle Williams, and the tragedy of him leaving a two-year old daughter with no father.

What I keep thinking about is how Heath almost went broke after 10 Things I Hate About You and nearly had to throw in the towel and go back to Australia. (I read that in some teen magazine in the 90s.) It's dangerous to play the what-if game, because if he had, he wouldn't have Matilda, but maybe he'd still be alive.

I am sure there are some stars who'd rather be famous for a short time and then die suddenly and tragically, but how can it be worth it? Britney may have smooched Madonna on national television, but she doesn't have access to her own children because of her hijinks. Is it at all clear that she'll live to a ripe old age, surrounded by family and friends? Or will she go bankrupt, be hated by her children and, God forbid, be the next tragic, inexplicable and probably pharmaceutical death?

There are some celebrities who live normal lives, and even some child stars who don't mess up their lives completely. But when it all boils down to it, who would risk that kind of life and death for themselves or for their children simply to be the next poor sap pursued by paparazzi?

Perhaps that famous patriot ought to have said "give me anonymity or give me death."

Security at York

2008-01-21T16:34:00.001-05:00

Last week at York U., my beloved alma mater, some people got assaulted, a custodian was attacked with a weapon, and the fifth sexual assault of the year was reported. York will try to throw money at the problem, and Excal's doing an awesome job covering the stories.

This rash of crimes goes to show more than ever how critical investigative journalism is to modern society. Way back in 2000, the "dirty dining" expose in the Toronto Star cast a public eye on health inspections in the city of Toronto and shamed the city into inspecting restaurants more frequently.

Here is Massachusetts, the Boston Globe frequently investigates all manner of public affairs, from cheating in the military to protectionism in the fire department.

In September and October 2004, Excal's then-Editor-in-chief Sean Palter and writer Maryam Behmard wrote a four part series on security at York, shining a light on how few security patrols actually covered the campus and how little they could do in emergency. York's response then was to defend their minimalist approach to security.

Now that the recent events have made the national news, York is finally acting. But York should be ashamed that they took so long - after all, they've known about this for years. York is a wonderful school, but they should care more about their students and less about their PR.

Cloning: What's the big deal?

2008-01-17T00:00:00.000-05:00

I'm not saying I wouldn't be creeped out if scientists took some of my husband's cells and grew me another one. In addition to being creeped out, I'd probably be dismayed at having twice the laundry and dishes.

But people ARE NOT fundamentally the same as animals. Animals are not sentient. They don't have souls, organized religion, private property or complex financial systems. What's the big deal if we clone and eat them? (In deference to animal rights activists, who argue that they are sentient and have souls etc, I would note that activists wouldn't eat meat anyways.)

Yesterday, the FDA declared that meat and milk from cloned animals is safe. One official called it "indistinguishable" from standard animals. Yet bloggers and ordinary Americans all over the internet are going nuts over this decision. What's the big deal, people?

Countrywide's respective heads planted firmly in the sand, or possibly their own rectums

2008-01-12T22:47:00.000-05:00

Home ownership, the big American dream, took a massive hit last year. I've already written about "subprime" being word of the year, and The Boston Globe named a housing advocate Bostonian of the Year:

Marks came along and argued that people of limited means and imperfect credit could, in fact, become good mortgage bets if they were just given a proper education and a fair deal. Over time, he succeeded in shaming a host of big banks into committing millions to NACA so his organization could write reasonable loans for the banks, getting tens of thousands of working-class people across the country into the ranks of homeownership.

As an aspiring homeowner (although given the current market, not for three years or so) I know what the dreamers are thinking. I feel that my rent cheque is just throwing money out the window, and I wish I could build equity in something I could call my own. I believe this will happen one day. There is no doubt that mortgage lending improved before it tanked.

From a political standpoint, the question is, who helps the homeowners who are going to be losing their homes? Do we do it because they are deserving of salvation, or because we don't want the economic consequences of crumbling neighborhoods and toppling housing prices? Do we say it's not the job of the federal government to meddle with the housing market?
As an avowed opponent of political posturing too early to make a difference, I will reserve my comments on the primary until the eve of "Super-Duper Tuesday" and my comments on the election until November. By the time whomever is elected, a year will have elapsed and many more people will either have been helped or booted out onto the street.

I will not spare the idiots of Countrywide and similar companies, though. As far as my non-economist mind goes, they lent too much money to too many people who could not pay. They now need to be bailed out by BOFA, a bank that I liked until an inane phone monkey told me that it's illegal to postdate cheques. (My attorney assures me that the phone monkey is an idiot, and his statement is false. But I digress.)

The screenshot below (click on it to see it enlarged) is of the CNN article on "What the Countrywide deal means for consumers" and seems to be worth reading. I didn't finish it, because I was distracted by the "Ads by Google" box on the right, which prominently features a Countrywide ad. Of course, it figures Countrywide would advertise next to articles about their near-demise.

The ad says: "Countrywide® Home Loans
No Closing Cost++ Refinance Loan. Ask the Experts at Countrywide®."

Last I checked, the experts at Countrywide were updating their resumes. I assume their response to any question would be "Would you like fries with that?"

Starbucks and its small, caffeinated place in my heart

2008-01-09T19:31:00.000-05:00

These days, not all the buzz about Starbucks comes from caffeine. The former CEO, Howard Schultz, returned to the company on Monday, making share price rise. Last January, they got named to Fortune's list of 100 best companies to work for, and in September, Michael Gates Gill wrote a book called "How Starbucks Saved My Life" chronicling how a sixty-something former ad exec (himself) got a job at Starbucks when he needed health insurance and quick cash. (Despite getting panned by Publisher's Weekly, the book is supposedly being made into a movie, possibly by Tom Hanks.) At the end of December, Slate noted that mom-and-pop coffee shops sometimes thrive right down the street or across the way from a Starbucks.

Next to Wal-Mart, Starbucks is one of those companies that people love to hate. Liberal-minded people who want to shop local and independent often feel guilty feeding the corporate America cash cow. There's also economic sense. In his series of books on wealth, David Bach tells people to think about their "latte factor" (the amount of cash they waste in a day on coffee and fast food) and save that money, noting that in the long run, it will make a massive difference.

My New Year's resolution last year was to buy from more independent, locally-owned small businesses. Except, of course, for Starbucks. Alison Lobron's recent piece in the Boston Globe was entitled "confessions of a Starbucks regular" - the use of the word 'confession' indicating that she has something to be ashamed of.

It struck a chord with me especially because she was clearly (I deduced from geographical details) talking about my former Starbucks at Shepherd Post (I don't know why it's called that, but it always said that on the receipt) on Mass. Ave., right up the street from the indie place Simon's.

There exist laughable articles and people suggesting that McDonald's is a threat to Starbucks, and that the world will come to an end if Starbucks markets to kids.

It has always shocked me that some suggest that we junkies could remove Starbucks from our lives without consequences. On some frigid mornings when I faced a one-hour commute last year, the prospect of a Starbucks stop was what propelled me out of my warm bed. In college, when the car I was driving broke down three kilometers (what's a mile?) from school, I drank an uber-chocolatey beverage while waiting for my dad to arrive. I have sunk into comfy chairs to grade papers I didn't want to grade and read books I didn't want to read. I once even encountered an old ex of my father's while reading Marx at Starbucks. (Yes, the irony is great.) In Europe, coffeehouses used to be called "penny universities". Now, ones in affluent suburban neighborhoods might be called "four dollar study halls". They create warm, welcoming (and even exclusive?) environments for people to do what they need to or want to do.

I will continue to buy children presents at Magic Bean and towards the end of my time in Cambridge, I eschewed Shaw's in favor of the Evergood Market. But Starbucks regulars won't quit Starbucks for the same reason that Obama supporters say "I voted for him because his rally moved me to tears." It's not logical, it's emotional.

Or as a wise friend once said, "Comic books will get you through times without food better than food will get you through times without comic books."

What would you do for $3300...

2008-01-06T21:32:00.000-05:00

Here in Boston, there are always ads in the Metro free paper looking for subjects for research studies. I've always been sorely tempted. Compared to what I do all day, answering a few questions or having blood drawn seems like a piece of cake.

In this week's New Yorker, there is an article (don't get excited, it's not online) about the practice of guinea-pigging - being a human guinea pig. Apparently, college students, illegal immigrants, low-wage workers and other people who have time on their hands will participate in invasive research studies in order to get cash.

The downside, in addition to boredom, is occasional risk of debilitating injury or death. Yikes. Maybe this is less sexy that I originally thought.

From Guinea Pig Zero, I bring you the story of a woman who lived in a research facility taking meds used to treat bipolar disorder, depression and schizophrenia. In exchange for 23 days in the facility, she earned $3300.

For $3300, I might:

Write a bunch of articles.
Allow someone to draw blood, presuming they were not a lousy phlebotomist.
Teach a bunch of kids something vaguely educational (that's what I do.)

I would NOT:

Take any medications that could suddenly kill me.
Pee in a bedpan (just too gross).
Share a squalid room with 7 or 8 others.
Take on crazy diet or water restrictions. (They banned CAFFEINE!)

This leads me to ask: What would you do for $3300?

On fun words of 2007

2008-01-06T12:27:00.000-05:00

This year's "word of the year" was apparently subprime.

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Even the American Dialect Society knows how risky home mortgages are these days.

The group of wordsmiths chose "subprime" as 2007's Word of the Year at its annual convention Friday.

"'Subprime' has been around with bankers for awhile, but now everyone is talking about 'subprime,"' said Wayne Glowka, a spokesman for the group and a dean at Reinhardt College in Waleska, Georgia. "It's affecting all kinds of people in all kinds of places."

About 80 members of the organization spent two days debating the merits of runners-up "Facebook," "green," "Googleganger" and "waterboarding" before voting for an adjective that means "a risky or less than ideal loan, mortgage or investment."

The choice signifies the public's concern for a "deepening mortgage crisis," the society said in a statement.

"Facebook," as a noun, verb or adjective, was popular with younger linguists, Glowka said.

One of the thing the article noted is that some of these slang terms have been around for some time. "Facebooking" and "friending" have been part of the college lingo since at least 2004. "Green" is as old as the hills, or at least as old as the hippies.

But what is HOT is a different question. Facebook is massive right now - lots of forty-somethings have accounts, as well as most middle schoolers. CNN even had a story of a guy who called in sick, and was outed by Facebook photos (here). In Canada, the police tried in vain to keep people from discussing the names of two underage homicide suspects, but everyone was writing about it on Facebook.

I know people who advertise yard sales and parties on Facebook, but also small businesses. I posted wedding pics (as did my sister and brother-in-law), my friends posted pictures of their newborns, and those of us who broke up found plenty of ways to use Facebook info to share that with the world.

I'm reminded of an exchange from Shakespeare in Love:
Nurse: It is a new day.
Gwyneth Paltrow: It is a new world.

57 people in a living room (sort of) matter

2008-01-04T15:59:00.000-05:00

I suppose blogging pundits are all saying that Iowa doesn't matter, and to an extent it is true, but it's nice to know that the position of "Leader of the Free World" isn't one that can easily be purchased.

What I kept hearing from the talking heads on CNN last night is that Romney spent TONS of money. Both Clinton and Romney tried to portray their candidacies as fait accompli, but clearly neither were.

Their spin people keep saying they can still win, but I like what the caucuses say about America. Even if a political machine rolls into town and steamrollers everyone, the people still get to speak, and they will not always be bought.

How nice.

Unplanned pregancy week

2007-12-30T21:29:00.000-05:00

This week, I watched three movies about unplanned pregnancy - Juno, Saved! and Knocked Up.
While each was enjoyable in its own way, I did find myself wondering a number of times how people let this happen. In Saved!, the pregnant teen in question hasn't been taught about sex ed - the implication being that she didn't realize that sex = potential human.

I don't get that. I went to a sheltered religious school, too. I just read YM and Seventeen. When I was twelve I knew about teen pregnancy.

In Juno, it's not clear. The directors doesn't explain how an intelligent and literate 16-year-old gets pregnant. The best explanation the characters come up with is that she was bored, had sex, and whoops! (Side point: Juno is probably the funniest movie I've seen this year. Go see it.)

In Knocked Up, the pregnant woman in question isn't a teenager, and intends to use a condom, but there is a drunken mishap, and whoops again.

I just find it fascinating that just as teen pregnancy rates are at their lowest in 30 years*, there are two hit movies this year about unexpected pregnancy. Memo to teens: Sometimes, people get pregnant through two forms of birth control. So wear a condom. But the only surefire way not to get pregnant is to not have sex!

Anybody got a banana?

*Source: The Guttmacher Institute. http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/09/12/USTPstats.pdf

On complicity and why we don't care

2007-12-25T19:17:00.000-05:00

Yesterday in NYC, I bought a stunning party dress (retail price $120) and a pretty patterned skirt (retail price $90) from Ann Taylor Loft. If you know me, you know that I did NOT pay full retail. price. If you know the retail industry, you know that both were made in China.

I've been thinking for some time about why everything I own was made in China - except, of course, for my china. Some blame big-box retailers like Wal-Mart, but I know that the truth lies somewhere in that great messy thing we call capitalism and the white elephant of the American dream.

China (the dishes, I mean) are luxury items. You will spend $100 - $160 for a five piece place setting made in England (or Germany or Luxembourg, if you're buying certain brands). If you're like me, you might get china as a wedding gift. You might also inherit it from a dead relative. If you're an ordinary working class American, you can't afford china.

I understand why working-class Americans buy products from Target and Wal-Mart made in China. Wal-Mart's claim that they make potential luxury items affordable for less affluent is quite compelling. Equally compelling is the theory posited by economists who argue that Wal-Mart likely helps keep inflation down. For minimum- and low-wage workers, it's easy to understand why Wal-Mart may seem like a modern day Messiah.

The behaviour I question is that of the professional class. Why don't we put our money where our mouths are? Most hip urban 20-somethings I know care, or pretend to care, about slave labor and China's human rights record. They probably care to some extent about the minimum wage in America and about the person who sold me the dress. Even those of us who are adamant about the subject still buy Made In China. The irony is that these people - doctors and lawyers and nurses and teachers - could probably afford to spend a few more dollars per item to have their products made under ethical conditions in democratic countries.

It's not just Wal-Mart. Mainstream retail stores outsource their textiles to compete. Victoria's Secret lingerie is made in Sri Lanka and China. The pants from the Gap I'm wearing right now were made in the Philippines.

So why do we put up with this?

I can posit a few reasons:

Information - I really don't know what working conditions are like in Sri Lanka. If the person who made my $5 panties was paid $0.50, what really matters is purchasing power. What a fair wage is in random Third World countries is not information that most yuppies have.

Apathy - Let's face it, we all just want cheap stuff. This allows us to trade up an extra step. The working-class go to Wal-Mart to afford middle-class stuff. Similarly, the middle-class use discounts at stores like the Gap and Victoria's Secret to save money and potentially afford products that would otherwise be the provenance of the wealthy.

Lack of identification - Not everyone really agrees that Made-In-China is a bad thing. Globalization is certainly a complex and controversial topic. Why should America be insular when we can send our dollars abroad to buy things that will stimulate foreign economies and simultaneously raise the standard of living in ours?

Lack of options - I honestly don't know where I'd buy Made in the USA clothes. I certainly wouldn't buy clothes that were less stylish or attractive to make a political point. Which brings me to my closing thought - capitalism is based on the principle that people look out for their own self-interest.

Any thoughts? I'd love to hear from other 20-somethings with thoughts on why they buy Made In China.

On schooling....

2007-12-18T22:04:00.000-05:00

“We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control. Hey! Teacher, leave those kids alone!” – Pink Floyd, “Another Brick in the Wall”

Every student going through Maimonides at some point learns about the Socratic method; every student at some point thereafter complains about it. At its core, though, almost all Maimo students grasp the idea that debate and argumentation are critical skills to be developed, and develop them by arguing with their teachers about grades.

Ask a group of students to discuss, debate and argue about ideas, events and concepts in class, though, and many will immediately protest – especially if their in-class discussions and participation will be graded.

Students who don’t wish to exert themselves by participating in class tend to advocate for grades composed entirely of test and quiz scores. Students who are naturally chatty generally don’t complain much, but even some of them don’t understand why participation needs to be graded.

To answer that question, one must also ask – what is the goal of education? After all, the ends must dictate the means. Many students labor under the misapprehension that the end is the only thing that matters. Why do they go to class, write papers and take tests? To get a 90. Why do they want a 90? To get into a good college. Why get into a good college? To get into a good grad school. Why get into a good grad school? To get a good job. Why get a good job? So you can pay your future children’s Maimo tuition and have a vacation house at the Cape. (This, of course, will be a vacation house you never use since you’re too busy working long hours to pay it off.)

No wonder many Maimo students feel like hamsters on a wheel, running endless loops and never getting anywhere.

News flash: You’re not another brick in the wall, and neither is your education.

Education is about expanding who you are as a person. You have thoughts and ideas and opinions that are based on your experiences and upbringing. When you share your ideas with others, you contribute to the collective by raising new ideas and viewpoints. When you disagree with someone else in a class discussion, you force them to rethink their ideas. Maybe they’ll give in to your way of thinking or maybe they’ll think about it and come to realize that their opinions are reinforced by having withstood your scrutiny. Ask any one of your teachers what the purpose of an education is. Most will answer that education serves to test-drive skills and expand your ability to be articulate both in writing and in speech.

The course material you cover just gives you something to talk about and write about. Fat lot of good it will do you if you can’t speak or write coherently.

Do yourself a favor. Stop taking notes obsessively – in a year they’ll only be kindling. Close the laptop, stop playing Tetris on your cellphone and start actually thinking about what your teacher is saying. Jump off the grade-grubbing hamster wheel. Who knows – you may actually find that you are glad you live in a world where you’re encouraged to think for yourself.

First published in the Maimonides School Spectrum, Monday, December 17, 2007

On Hannukah and gift-giving

2007-12-06T08:08:00.000-05:00

They say everyone remembers their first kiss. And their first love. Since getting married three months ago, I’ve discovered a series of new firsts – the first time my husband and I experience a calendar cycle together. When we first got married, I thought that since Ari and I were both Orthodox Jews of Eastern European descent, our traditional practices would be remarkably similar. However, as the Jewish high holidays passed, what was remarkable was how each religious celebration brought a clash of family traditions that we had to navigate, from choosing a Rosh Hashana prayer service to determining the appropriate foods to eat before and after the Yom Kippur fast.

With the Jewish holiday of Hannukkah quickly approaching, my husband and I prepared for the next in our series of firsts – the first battle over Hannukah presents. Ari’s close knit but frugal Americanized family has always been one for small Hannukah gifts – candies, books, CDs and knitted scarves. Last year, he and his siblings did the Jewish equivalent of a secret Santa – each sibling bought a gift for one other.

Gift policy in my family has always been hairy, especially since most of us are hard to shop for and we rarely exchange gifts face-to-face. In contrast to Ari’s family, my three siblings and I spent last winter in four different countries.

A few weeks before Hannukah, one of Ari’s siblings suggested a change to gift policy. Perhaps the married-and-working siblings should buy each person a gift at Hannukah (and be done with it) while the single-and-in-college siblings should buy birthday presents only, spreading out their cash outlay over many months, and dispense with Hannukah presents entirely?

For reasons known only to God and Adam Sandler, the ensuing battle lasted eight crazy nights. Why, I asked, were we buying Hannukah presents at all? Didn’t my husband know that they were a Christian tradition and to be truly Jewish we’d have to give gelt (Yiddish for cold hard cash), and then only to children? Why would we spend hundreds of dollars on useless clutter we were not certain our family members would like, when we could spend it on such useful things as food and shelter?

My husband was quick to note that four or five ten-dollar gifts weren’t going to bankrupt us, and that I always gave actual presents to my small cousins. Wasn’t I being hypocritical by playing the “it’s not really Jewish” card?

My best argument led to eventual slammed doors and both of us going to work fuming. Since Ari’s brother and my sister, by ridiculous coincidence, were next-door dormmates in a rez hall of a local university, if we gave Ari’s siblings and sister-in-law presents, we’d have to extend the same courtesy to my siblings and brother-in-law. Add shipping charges to Canada, and you’ve got a tidy sum. No wonder many North Americans get second jobs this time of year.

Fortunately, Ari and I put our marriage first, and consensus second. Sighs and begrudging apologies led to a ceasefire of sorts. In the grand spirit of Hannukah gelt, childless siblings would get gift cards, and married-with-children ones would get gifts showered upon their children. Siblings in foreign countries would get gifts eventually, and Ari and I would keep our credit cards paid off as our Hannukah candles burnt.

Eventually, I know, there won’t need to be debates about whether we should stand or sit for certain blessings and whether the Shabbat candles should be on the table or on the sideboard. We have battled over some of these clashing traditions, and some were just not worth fighting over. But as the dust settles after our latest match, it’s clear that Ari and I are not oil and water, and somehow, with time, our traditions will mix.

Aliza's biography

2007-11-02T23:10:00.000-04:00

Aliza Libman grew up in Toronto. She studied religious studies and education at Toronto's York University. Aliza began writing as a high school student and has contributed articles to many publications, including the Toronto Star and the Canadian Jewish News. Aliza developed her writing and reporting skills at York's Excalibur newspaper, as a staff writer, assistant news editor and news editor from 2003-2005. Aliza was sucked into the black hole of novice teachers from August 2005 - June 2007 but recently emerged from under a pile of red pens and ungraded papers. Aliza teaches math and biblical literature in Brookline, MA. She's always looking for her next great article.

Aliza's trip, part 2 – More of the same, only elsewhere, plus Tel Aviv adventures and the worst restaurant ever

2007-02-21T15:33:00.001-05:00

The flight to Israel was short, and would have been nice had I slept much over an hour. Instead, I watched Armageddon ("Get off the nuclear warhead!") When the plane landed, I bought an expensive SIM card (I was too tired to care what it cost….) and got in a sherut to J-lem. Woke Shawn and Yaffa up, since they figured I'd be arriving at 8 and I got there at 7. Couldn't call, cuz the cell wasn't yet working. Then I took a 3 hour nap (planned on two, thank goodness Yaffa woke me or I might be sleeping still) and called all the people I still am in touch with in Israel. Then I walked to Emek and graded papers while sipping a coffee. Quoth my father when I called him "how is that different than when you're in Cambridge?" Also wrote postcards to small children who cannot read and grandparents. Had to go to a second coffee shop in order to get online. Said coffee shop was creatively named "Coffee Shop". Then had the official dinner with Shifra and Dani and Avi in Burger Bar, where, due to communication problems with the server, ended up having steak salad with mayo, which was shockingly yummy. After Avi and I left Shif and Dani, Avi's need for a bathroom ever 6.3 seconds took us to a majorly sketchy mall which had not one, but two!, competing sex shops in the basement. Hooray for the capitalist market driving down prices for the consumer.

Then, as per usual, watched DVDs in bed.

Tuesday was a very different sort of day. Avi and I met at Holy Bagel for breakfast, where a very great tragedy ensued when Avi forgot to get his frequent bagel-eater card stamped. Then, we took a bus to Tel Aviv (to the Tachnat harakevet, not the extremely sketchy tachana merkazit) and tried to be wise Israelis and decode all the bus signs and maps. Of course, this led to us taking a bus in the wrong direction, because with my 2 university degrees and our 95^th percentile SAT scores, neither of us thought to ask the driver of the 27 if we were going in the right direction. Fortunately, we were soon on our way to the Bet Hatzfutzot on the Tel Aviv U campus, which is absolutely stunning. Avi and I took pictures with lush greenery, palm trees, etc. and then found a bus to take us to Allenby, where the Nachalat Binyamin craft show was going on. Avi and I went to this really clean and nice shwarma place, where I got schnitzel with a side of the classic Israeli "couscous and random vegetable mush". Ran into a random coworker, bought presents for Rachs and G and my small cousins, showed Avi all the things I wanted him to buy for me, etc. Then we caught a bus back to the tachana (train station) and ran to J-lem to meet Yoel at 5. He, of course, showed up at 6. In the meanwhile, we went to every store in the mall and I bought NML a very inexpensive surprise.

Dinner was a comedy of errors – we walked out of the Tachana, up aggripas to a restaurant that seemed nice, but that Yoel declared overpriced (note: we got steak for less than $20 a person). Then, a large group of preteen boys overtook the upper level. Then, a large office group overtook the main seating area. Soon, it was just us along one side after some other people left. Then the management started setting up our side of the restaurant for another group. Soon, they came and asked if we were done. We weren't. Then they came back and offered us the bill. This being Israel, they told us relatively tactlessly that they needed us to leave. (Although there was a table at the other side of the restaurant we could use if we wanted tea.) We said no thanks, and left a minimal tip. Then Yoel decided it was scandalacious that I hadn't been to the Kotel (Galinda's word, not Yoel's) and we headed off. When we got there, I went to daven. When I was done, I had time to make 4 different phone calls before Avi and Yoel returned, lending credence to my theory that they were composing their own prayers, or possibly building their own chairs out of wood chips. Then we headed back out the way we came, through the deserted Muslim quarter. When Avi opined that he wouldn't want to be there without someone carrying a gun (I had decided that an M-16 goes well with my shoes) Yoel waxed eloquent about the comparative safety of the Muslim quarter, and how the old city had more security cameras per square metre than anywhere else, and how the only terrorist incidents there tended to be perpetrated by outsiders, and how the local Arabs only want to eke out a living. Then we took pretty pictures of the gate with its mezuzah, as a visual aid for my students when we study Rashi's commentary on Deut 6:9.

After Yoel left, some singing and dancing messianic Chabadnik lunatics started promising miracles, eternal salvation, etc. At the bus stop. At 11pm. Just like evangelist Christians, but with longer sidecurls.

Fun people count – Shawn, Yaffa, Chana K., in Café Hillel, Shif, Dani, Avi, Galit from work

Sleep count: 6 hours a night – my college schedule. I need a nap.

Aliza’s trip part 1: London, baby

2007-02-19T15:29:00.000-05:00

It's only someone who annually flies directly to Israel who could call a 6.5 hour flight "short" but such was my experience. On the plane, one appalling airline meal, one mediocre Robin Williams movie and two hours of sleep later, we were almost in London. I was amazed at how quickly it went, and then we landed on schedule. And sat on the runway for 45 minutes. Eventually, though, they let the plane taxi to the terminal, and I arrived to an extraordinarily short customs line. As late as I was, though, NML was later.

Since I didn't know if I could find her, I sat near the mothership (Starbucks in airport terminal), and knew she'd be able to find me. (That's not exactly how it happenened, but a funnier recounting of events.) When Hami arrived, I scared her to death by jumping out from behind her. We sat, had coffee, tried to figure out how to best the evil foreign exchange people who take a too-large commission for their surly attitudes, and ate yummy tuna sandwiches. (Being women on Rosh Chodesh, and all, benching was in order.)

Then NML introduced me to the vagaries of the tube. I was fine; she was not. We discovered this with me inside the nice gates and her on the outside of the nice gates. Fortunately this was resolved quite quickly, and I discovered how lovely the tube really is, and how stereotypically British some British people look. We took the Picadilly line to Knightsbridge, and walked briskly and efficiently around Hyde Park long enough to comment upon the length of the line for the men's room, the man-made-ness of the little lake called Serpentine, and to discover that my camera's battery had died a short and hopefully painless death overnight. Baruch dayan haemet. Thank goodness NML brought her camera. After Hyde Park, we walked towards Buckingham palace, and took more pictures. We also tried to figure out who the various women represented on the huge statue in front, and decided that if it were Florence or Cracow, they'd be the virgin Mary, but here in England, at least one was Queen Victoria. The other three remain a mystery. We then walked via St. James Park to Big Ben and Parliament, and I had NML take pictures from afar. Then, when we got to the tube station there, I pronounced us "done". N inquired "Don't you want to go closer?" I asked why and she replied "to see it from closer." I really don't get the tourist thing some times.

Then we headed off, from Westminster to my favorite (right near Nehama!) King's Cross station, whose wise officials have lately taken to putting up a fake platform 9 ¾, complete with a trolley that's supposed to be half through the wall. Now I can die happy, as I have been to where Harry Potter was. Just kidding, poo poo poo, ad meah ve'esrim and punch the evil eye in the nose, etc.

Of course, though it was only about 1:15, we were hungry and headed off for lunch to Golders Green. Then, after an unexceptional meal, we went back to NML's place so I could take a much needed nap. While NML wrote a paper, I slept and got ready to head out, then we caught a double decker bus to the subway and took shameless tourist photos en route, stopping at Covent gardens to see the open-air market, some semi-talented buskers and the royal opera house. I saw there was a theatre museum, and was sad we didn't go, until we saw that it had been closed for renovations since January. Then we got to the airport at long last (an outdated New Yorker and crossword puzzle later for myself and Hami respectively) and we parted ways. Oh, and Nehama solved my battery problem. Now I am no longer carrying a lens-laden paperweight. Tourism is fun.

Biggest challenge today: Getting my purse and all its contents into my backpack. Now, a la Gordon Korman, my next challenge is to cram a Jeep into a teapot.

Sleep count: 4 hours today

Fun people count: 1 – Hami!

On cooking, reading and BTVS

2007-01-01T16:19:00.002-05:00

Most people who know me know that I'm alternately obsessed with many diversions - this week 24, Law and Order and scrapbooking - but two of the most steadfast ones in my life have been Buffy the Vampire Slayer and cooking.

I saw the subtitle of the book below, which included the word recipes, and thought, this sounds good.

The book, "Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen" was first the blog of a very funny woman who loves BtVS, hates Republicans and lives in New York. (Ah, well, one out of three ain't bad.) Her blog eventually garnered enough attention to generate a book deal, and you can still check out the blog itself.

I suppose that much of what I find fun about the book is that it's chicklit, but much brainier. She is funny and sarcastic, but she's talking about something. It's not like Shopaholic or Bridget Jones, in which I find myself wanting to smack all the characters for exhibiting lunatic behaviour and poor decision-making skills. Julie Powell seems like a real person. And airbrushed as the picture may be, in theory she is.

It sounds ridiculous at first - who, when eating a nice dinner of potato leek soup, would decide to cook through an entire 524 recipe cookbook in a year? Without real breaks or exceptions? Who wants to cook mussels and sweetbreads? But the book is nonetheless the clever end result of someone getting a idea that's so crazy, it's brilliant, and then following it through. It almost makes me hate her - her project is the kind of thing I think I might be tempted to try if I had any free time at all.

Anyhow, if you like chicklit, or if you've ever tried to flip an omelette properly, the book is certainly worth a first read. The proverbial test, of course, is whether I would read it again. I'm not sure yet.

But now, I must confess, when I make a hideous mess of my kitchen and find myself shouting really loudly about the improper birth of various kitchen implements (I don't use the F-word as freely as she does) I feel that I am certainly not alone. Somewhere else, someone else is trying to turn ingredients into a lovely, pleasant-smelling and yummy work of art and is likely having as much difficulty as I.

On Jewish day schooling

2005-07-14T02:04:00.000-04:00

So a random discussion on the always exciting LookJed list led me to a post about Jewish Education on a site called Jewlicious.

Knowing absolutely nothing about this site, I found the discussion really interesting. "themiddle" (the poster) writes:

It ain’t easy to provide Jewish education to your child because there are so many compromises involved.

The problems involve cost, quality and the general benefit.

No one in Toronto is unfamiliar with the excessive costs of providing your child with a Jewish education. I think my brain's probably got a good $150,000 in it (including York and Lindenbaum). USDS is being forced to consolidate its campuses. Eitz Chaim boys is bringing in Thornhill Talmud Torah. In Toronto, we are slowly realizing that we can't sustain as many schools as we currently have.

Other schools have found donors to subsidize education, coming up with programs to make it cheaper for parents to afford/choose Jewish day school for their kids.

But fascinatingly enough, the writer of the above piece doesn't think cost is the only problem.

Under "benefit", he argues that the quantity and quality of Jewish experience that one gets is not sufficient to make it worthwhile to send your kids to Jewish day school; forgive me for thinking that if you're sending your kid somewhere for 6-8 hours a day, the kind of place it is really matters. They going to remember the calculus? Not bloody likely. But the way their classmates dress, act and what they do on Christmas and Holloween is going to become the way your kid acts, dresses and sees the world. So if you accept society's social and moral mores, then send your kids to public school. But for parents who don't believe in today's society of moral relativity, a good Jewish day school can help protect fundamental human morality and the Jewish values we espouse.

Let's not even get started on the "quality" argument - there are bad teachers and teachers who don't challenge students everywhere. Especially in public schools, where teachers' unions discourage performance and encourage mediocrity.

But it is sad, knowing that in generations where the trips to Cancun get more frequent and the pools get bigger and the necklines plunge lower, the one thing parents can't be bothered to invest in is their child's soul.

Rock on...in praise of things random

2005-06-17T02:19:00.000-04:00

Today, Adena heard a song on the radio and decided she needed to go hear Adam Cohen - son of Leonard Cohen - play at the Horseshoe. A swell pub. I said, cool, let's go. No idea who Adam Cohen is.

I'm usually up for random fun.

We got there and they started playing "Eleanor" and I figured out that Adam Cohen is the lead singer of Low Millions, a great young band. He's also much cuter when you're only five feet away.

They were opening for Stabilo, who were able to answer for me the question of "who is that band?" because I always hear "Everybody" and never know who it's by. Also really great.

Two good bands. One random night. We even left with Stabilo posters for the apartment in Boston I don't have yet.

I've missed live music.

On the cover of the Star front web page .... oy.

2005-06-03T15:41:00.000-04:00

Unpaid fines a ticket to no York degree
School says pay up or don't graduate
City says parking tickets are illegal
CATHERINE PORTER
CITY HALL BUREAU

Aliza Libman is a model York University graduate. She's won two academic awards, a scholarship, been elected to the university senate and helped edit the campus newspaper.

But up until this week, she wasn't going to graduate.

The reason: $150 in unpaid university parking tickets that the city considers "illegal."
Libman was among a number of York graduates surprised by letters from the university warning that if they didn't pay their outstanding parking fines, they wouldn't get their degrees or transcripts this month.

The surprise came because those fines are considered illegal by the city, which passed a bylaw last summer stating private lot operators and institutions could only punish parking violators with City of Toronto tickets — meaning the city, and not the private company or institution, gets the money.

"They're not legitimate according to the bylaws of the city. You can't just disregard the laws," said 21-year-old Libman, who swallowed her principles and paid the fine, so she could graduate and get her transcripts, which she needs to land a teaching position in the fall.

"It's bullying," she says. "York is fighting a war of attrition. It has time on its side and it's going to keep bullying people until they pay."

The university sees it as regular business. Its founding act, issued by the province in 1965, exempts it from the city's bylaw, said Nancy White, York's director of media relations.

"It gives York authority in a variety of areas, including controlling university property," White said, adding that the university has a long-held policy of withholding degrees from students for any outstanding fines, including library fees as well as parking.

"We have the authority, by law, to issue parking notices."

That's news to the woman in charge of enforcing the city's laws.

"If you live or own or do business in the city, we would expect you to abide by the rules the city sets out," said Pam Coburn, the city's executive director of municipal licensing and standards.
Her staff has not started enforcing the bylaw yet. They are waiting until the courts rule on a legal challenge launched by a private parking firm.

But Toronto Councillor Howard Moscoe urged students to take their own legal action.

"The university has a mandate to issue degrees to people, not to withhold them for phony parking tickets that are clearly illegal under the city's parking bylaw," said Moscoe (Ward 15, Eglinton-Lawrence), who spearheaded the new rules at city council last summer. His office assistant has been fielding calls from concerned students about the letters all week.

"(The university has) disregard and disrespect for the students and disregard for the law," Moscoe said.

Saddled with looming debts and tight time frames, few students have taken his advice.
Geography graduate David Terrell doesn't even have the $395 to pay his nine parking tickets.

"Graduation has just passed me by," said Terrell, 33. "I feel like I'm just a small fish in a large pond."

For Christian Rizea, it's just another lump on his mounting $11,000 student debt. The 22-year-old psychology student racked up 60 tickets over the year, assuming he wouldn't have to pay them in light of the city bylaw. In fact, he started driving only after the bylaw passed. He took the bus the previous three years, because he couldn't afford the $9 daily parking fees.
Then came a bill for $2,400. He settled with traffic services for $1,130.

"I felt they're holding my degree at ransom," he said. "People should be reimbursed, definitely."

York University has its own parking services, which regulates parking on the campus's 12,000 spots. Tickets average about $40, but can run as much as $250 in some cases.

The university is willing to come up with a payment schedule for students who can't afford the fines, White said.

"We don't want to prevent anyone from graduating," she said. "That's clearly not our intention."
The University of Toronto has a policy of withholding students' transcripts until they pay their outstanding fees — but those don't include parking tickets, which are official City of Toronto tickets issued by officers trained by the Toronto Police Service.

Aliza's epilogue: I was going to fight them on this, but my dad paid the tickets and ended the fight for me, so I graduated with my class. As far as I know, Nancy White no longer works at York as of Dec. 2007 and Howard Moscoe remains a prominent and outspoken member of Toronto City Council.

Not in My Name

2005-05-18T17:18:00.000-04:00

First published in Excalibur, May 18, 2005.

Jewish left focus of documentary

Written by Aliza Libman - Senior Staff Writer

Wednesday, 18 May 2005

With controversial flicks like Women for Sale, about Israeli society's legalized prostitution industry, and Channels of Rage, a documentary headlining two rival rappers caught in the middle of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this year's Toronto Jewish Film Festival (TJFF) is not the lox-and-bagels of Jewish cinema.

The festival, a 13-year veteran featuring dozens of films from many countries, has among its edgy offerings a movie that has generated particular buzz this year. Not in My Name, a film by Chutzpa Productions' Igal Hecht and co-produced by Talia Klein, looks at the Jewish left and its relationship with Israel. Live footage from protests, interviews with leftist activists and segments with famed academics Norman Finklestein and Alan Dershowitz insulting each other help the filmmakers ask the question, ‘Who today speaks for the Jewish left?'

The answer from the producers is clear: The extremists do.

"This film shows what the left has turned into," filmmaker Hecht tells me. He says that in contemporary Jewish circles, many moderates are being silenced. "We've allowed extremists to take over both political beliefs [left and right]."

The title of the film is one used by many on the Jewish left who object to the state of Israel's policies, as the state of Israel purports to speak for all Jews. Viewers of the film meet non-Zionists and anti-Zionists as well as ardent Zionists who simply reject Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and criticize alleged human rights abuses in the territories.

For better or for worse, the filmmaker says, these activists are still Jews.
"If you are against the state of Israel, it does not mean you are a self-hating Jew," Hecht states.

"They're part of the Jewish community whether we like it or not," adds co-producer Klein. She notes that many activists in the film have family members who disagree with their politics. A chief example is International Solidarity Movement activist Avi Zer Aviv, whose father Shimon Zer Aviv, a right-wing ex-pat Israeli, found out about his son's interview and asked to do a rebuttal. The result is a poignant mix of footage of a son firmly rooted in his convictions and a father trying to make sense of who his son has become.

The film's thesis, extremists are dominating the Jewish left, has angered many, including some of the activists appearing in the film.

Making Not in My Name had Klein and Hecht criss-crossing the map, filming in Brooklyn, Jerusalem, Vancouver and Toronto. They also took a trip up north to Camp Shomria to film the training of the camp staff. The late-teen and twenty-something counsellors in the film come from the Hashomer Hatzair youth group. The leftist Zionists of Hashomer, whose predecessors in the movement helped found the state of Israel and the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943, came to the screening expecting to be misrepresented.

Before the film, Northern Secondary student Eli Zeldin was among the Hashomer group who were handing out leaflets that proclaimed "Images in film can be taken out of context."

"We're just here to make sure that our good name is not discredited," he said, adding that his youth group is a "very progressive" movement and stating that he felt a strong Palestinian state alongside a strong Jewish state would ensure peace in the region.

The film's footage of their camp's training was not the whole story, group members say, and they are upset at the suggestion that they can be linked to anti-Israel individuals and groups.

"We felt we were presented very inaccurately," Hashomer Hatzair representative Tom Chervinsky tells me. His point echoes that of Avi Zer Aviv and other interviewees who thought that their interviews were edited in such a way as to make them more extreme than they actually are.

"To say that Hashomer in any way integrates any kind of anti-Zionism is so preposterous, it's almost sad," says Chervinsky, a graduating student from the University of Waterloo and the president of the Waterloo Israel Public Affairs Committee. "You don't have to support the policies, but you have to support the state to be a part of Hashomer."

The screening at the packed Bloor Cinema was host to a score of objections from self-proclaimed members of the moderate left who resented the film's implication that Zionist activists against Israeli government policies "provide a shield of legitimacy" to those who truly hate the Jewish state.

Klein and Hecht contextualized activists' statements by showing footage of the actual situation, complete with shots of Palestinian Arabs crossing checkpoints and interacting with Israeli soldiers. They balance a scene of an activist Passover seder talking about the crimes of occupation with footage of the 2002 Park Hotel massacre in which a Palestinian suicide bomber killed dozens of Jews having their Passover seder.

More than anything else, the film is real. Interviewees say what they think, debate internal conflicts and ponder their own role in the big picture. Hecht and Klein capture shouting matches between protesters and mainstream Zionists. They include grisly footage of the aftermath of bombings in Israeli cafes and on buses seconds after activists mention the Palestinian struggle.

Objections of the moderate left aside, the point made by Hecht and Klein is well taken. In many spheres, the voice of the moderate left is overshadowed and out-shouted by the extreme left. The result is a blurring of lines between the moderates and the extremists, so much so that it becomes difficult to tell who is who.

For all those in the moderate political sphere, whether on the left or the right, the harsh reality is simply that if they haven't been speaking out until now, perhaps they should be.

On Torah Study...

2005-05-08T01:49:00.000-04:00

When a small group of high school students decided they wanted to try something different six years ago, Bnei Akiva, the international religious Zionist youth group, was known for being a fun place for Zionist kids to socialize. A group of grade twelve students tried to kick-start a weekly Torah study program that year, but could only get five or six students to show up every week, Arye Sokol remembers.

“Two years ago, we struggled to get a minyan [of ten],” the UofT student says, surveying the packed room with pride. “This year we get 70 people a week.”

The program’s premise is simple: High school students get paired up with university students and learn in pairs and small groups. They come for an hour of group study, a brief speaker, the evening prayer Maariv and refreshments. Not where you’d expect to find a student when prime time TV is on. But this year, the popular program has swelled far beyond expectations.

The high school students who come every week often finish their classes as late as five or six pm. The university students come during midterms and even during exams. Most can’t imagine doing otherwise.

“When I walk into this room full of high school students learning together, it’s uplifting and it makes it fun. It’s nice to come to a place where learning is not for marks and it’s a positive atmosphere,” says Sara Yeres, an Ulpanat Orot student in grade 12. She, along with Sokol and two other students, coordinate the weekly program, which is called “Beit Midrash”, or ‘house of study’. Together with UofT student Sara Greenwood and Or Chaim student Ezra Javasky, they are responsible for creating the atmosphere of a house of study, something they attribute to the students who have begun to come in large numbers this year.

The program’s vibrance depends on older students drawing in younger ones, which is how Ulpana grade nine student Chaya Solomon was recruited this year.

“My older brother and older sister came [weekly in previous years],” she says, “so I decided to come, too.” Solomon, who says that she appreciates the opportunity to study Torah without being tested on the material, is like Yeres and Javasky in that respect – they too began attending because their older siblings did.

The record numbers of students have posed a challenge for the organizers, who hold the program weekly at the centrally-located Congregation Bnai Torah. For each new student who comes, the organizers have to find a regular study partner or group. Duos have become trios and groups of three now have five or six studying everything from Bible to Talmud to Jewish philosophy.

In addition to pairing up people with study partners, the organizers line up a weekly speaker, and over the years have hosted scores of interesting people, like Rabbi Charles Grysman from Netivot Hatorah, Rabbi Glenn Black from NCSY, and York University’s Rabbi Dr. Marty Lockshin. Some weeks, the students themselves do the speaking, Javasky says, while other times, it’s the B’nei Akiva shlichot Ayala Shalev and Avital Goddard who share brief words of Torah. Javasky, a grade eleven student, says that his favourite speaker was York student Noam Lockshin, who spoke about the lesson to be learned from Aggadic passages in the Talmud.

And the studying isn’t confined to the weekend – due to popular demand, the four organizers, collectively known as the “Beit Midrash Crew”, have begun Torah study weekly emails, journals for the holidays of Hannukah and Pesach, and they are planning, along with a lot of alum, to complete the entire Torah, Mishna, and Talmud branch of Nezikin in time for their all-night Torah study program on Shavuot. After a year of such tremendous growth, Bnei Akiva has its work cut out for next year, but the students say they are excited to just be doing what they’re already doing.

“It makes me proud to be a part of this,” Yeres says.

- Aliza Libman is a fourth-year religious studies and education student at York University. She has been studying Talmud at the Bnei Akiva Beit Midrash for three years. Published in August 2005.

Things I found when cleaning for Pesach

2005-04-22T01:32:00.000-04:00

1. Knee-length beige skirt from Gap Outlet when I was 17.
2. 2002-2003 Student Price Card
3. OAC Chemistry molecular cheat sheet - AB4E1 is called a "seesaw" shape.
4. "Legally Blonde" poster in Hebrew
5. Wedding invitations from 2 years ago
6. Terry Fox Run receipts
7. Boarding Pass from TFTF 2003 flight to Frankfurt
8. Dust bunnies
9. Pair of glasses I lost behind my bed weeks ago
10. "Subway to York" button
11. Amazon.ca receipt from "One People, Two Worlds"

Ah, Pesach - God's way of getting revenge on pack rats.

(Cross-posted to www.livejournal.com/~reporteraliza)

Not Your Grandmother's Jewish Music

2005-02-16T22:32:00.001-05:00

Hollywood and the world have typically told the story of the Jewish people as that of an eastern European people. Never mind that there have been Jews in Iraq continuously for about 2500 years.

Until fifty years ago, there were 900,000 Jews in middle eastern countries like Libya, Morocco, Yemen, Iraq and Iran. In 1977, tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews were discovered when they began walking to Sudan in an attempt to join their brothers and sisters in Israel.

Their story has rarely been told.

Twenty-something singers Cabra Kasai and Avi Wassa are both Ethiopian Jews who came to Israel as small children. They grew up Ethiopian and yet also grew up Israeli. A decade ago this paradox would have forced them to turn their backs on their Ethiopian culture, explains Israeli star Idan Raichel, the 28-year-old composer and musician who wrote all the songs on his double-platinum album, the Idan Raichel Project.

“I was a [counsellor] in a boarding school in Israel,” he says, explaining his early experiences with Ethiopian culture. “I guided there the Russian community, the Ethiopian community, and the Israeli [mainstream] community.”

“I noticed that the Ethiopian community, they changed their names,” he says. One such example is Avi Wassa, whose first name is really Wogperas. “They don’t keep their roots.”

Raichel explains that listening to their cultural music, both popular and traditional, inspired him to create music synthesizing Ethiopian tradition and modern reggae.

The result? A double-platinum album with four hit singles, the Israeli song of the year award for the ballad “If you go” in 2002, and a cast of characters which features 30 different singers and musicians. The follow-up, released less than three weeks ago, has already gone gold with similar collaborations meant to reflect the music of contemporary Israeli society.

Thursday’s performance at the Danforth Music Hall by Raichel and seven of his performers, including singers Wassa, Casai and Israeli solo artist Maya Avraham, kicked off the group’s first major coast-to-coast North American tour. The show, which precedes similar ones in Boston, Miami, Washington and Montreal, was not your grandmother’s Israeli concert.

In front of a packed house, Raichel and band performed their hits, which combine Hebrew, Arabic and the Ethiopian dialect Amharic. Behind his keyboard and decked out in a Rastafarian ‘do, Raichel led his mixed bag of bandmates in songs as they all danced barefoot across the stage in front of the adoring crowd.

Audience members didn’t have to understand the Amharic lyrics mixed with evocative passages from the biblical love story “Song of Songs”. The beauty of the lyrics of the famed ballads “Come” (Come, give me your hand and we will go; Don't ask me where…) and “If you go” (If you go, who will hold me like this) were clear despite the many different languages in the songs.

Most of the songs were not quite the same live, as many of the original musicians of the songs were not present (Raichel tours with only 7 of his 30 collaborating musicians), but the music was nonetheless brilliant and stirring. Though the most die-hard of fans might argue that “If you go” was performed better on the CD, the emotion the musicians put into their singing, dancing and playing made the concert experience breath-taking.

While the sounds and sights of Idan Raichel are surprising to the first-time viewer, he believes that they should be nothing but natural.

“For me, they are the Israel of 2005, which represents the immigration and the colours of Israel,” he says. The distance their group has come in three short years is amazing, he says, explaining how it felt to perform in Tel Aviv’s biggest opera hall for the first time.

“I was thinking to myself, ten years ago, Avi Wassa came from Ethiopia and Cabra Kasai was in Sudan,” he says. Today, he says, “they can walk really proud.”

By Aliza Libman, first published in Excalibur during February 2005. Reprinted in Afterword's Summer 2005 issue. Photo of Maya Avraham by Aliza Libman.

Marching up to Zion

2005-02-04T18:52:00.000-05:00

Marching up to Zion

Written by Aliza Libman - News Editor

Friday, 4 February 2005

Ethiopian Jews in Israel struggle for opportunities

An Ethiopian Israeli recounts that when his family reached Israel from Ethiopia in the '80s, his father didn't believe that the Israeli people they saw were in fact Jewish - he had never met a white Jew before.

Since 1977, tens of thousands of Jewish people made aliyah - which means immigrating, or literally going up to Zion - to Israel from Ethiopia. Their incredible story is in fact 30,000 incredible stories, all stemming from a desire for the personal and religious fulfillment that would come from journeying home to the land of their forefathers.

"The Ethiopian Jews, called the ‘Beta Israel' or house of Israel, always remembered the hills of Jerusalem even as they lived in the mountains of Gonder," says Leah Biteolin.

Biteolin, a young Ethiopian Israeli, tells me her story by phone from London, Ontario where she works with the Jewish students of the University of Western Ontario.

"I came to Israel 20 years ago when I was three years old," she says, describing life with three siblings in rural Ethiopia.

"We used to live in a village. We had a small farm; my father was a farmer. We lived with a lot of Jews surrounding and that's what took up most of our lives."

The Judaism practised by the Beta Israel is distinct from the European and Middle Eastern Judaism practised by most of the world's Jews. Its origins predate the Talmud, which determines much contemporary practise. So while Ethiopian Jews might celebrate Passover, which is a biblical holiday, Hanukkah, which comes much later, is something with that they would not be familiar with.

The community in Ethiopia is certainly Jewish, but how they wound up in Ethiopia is a matter of conjecture. Some believe them to be descendents of the ancient tribe of Dan, who defected from ancient Israel thousands of years ago when the Jewish kingdom was split into two - Judah and Israel. Tradition has it that these people left during the ensuing civil war, preferring exile to the possibility of fighting against their brothers.

In the Kebra Nagast, the book of Rastafarian religion, a legend gives a different understanding, which has them even more closely related to modern Jews as the descendants of the wise and great King Solomon and his wife, the Queen of Sheba, whose son Menelik becomes the father of Ethiopian Jewry.

Though either story puts the Ethiopian Jewish community in exile from Israel for 3,000 years, nonetheless they longed to return. Leah describes this longing as a major part of their eventual departure.

"My parents started to hear that people are coming to Israel," she says. "The rumours in the village start."

"Most of our community really hoped and dreamed to come to Israel," she adds.

With Ethiopia under a communist dictatorship, emigrating was a risky and complicated proposition. Between 1977 and 1984, approximately 3,000-4,000 of the Beta Israel made the gruelling journey to Israel.

"My parents basically left their whole life and went for their dream," Leah says, explaining that they could not arouse suspicion by packing their things and leaving.

"We left everything in the village, [and walked] with everything we could carry."

The only way out of Ethiopia was to go via Sudan, and the only way to get there was to walk.

"We did it by walking in small groups," she says. "Part of the family stayed in Ethiopia ... all the family was in different places."

Leah, her parents, her two sisters and brother took three weeks to make the trek from their village to the Sudanese border.

"When we arrive to Sudan's border, we just say we are refugees."

At this time, there were a lot of refugees - Jewish and otherwise - streaming across the border.

"A lot of Ethiopians had been arrested there, so we changed our names," she says, adding that they did not tell people they were Jewish or that they were hoping to get to Israel. Figuring they'd wait and see, the family found a local outlet of the Red Cross.

"Fortunately, they helped us," she says.

Her childhood memories include standing in line for hours at the Red Cross to wait for vital supplies, such as water. Her efforts, though, were not always productive.
"Sometimes there was, sometimes there wasn't."

Leah's family sat in the refugee camp waiting for six months, not sure of what was next.

"There wasn't any Israelis that contacted us," she says, adding that they lived in what she calls "terrible conditions".

In 1984 alone, 8,000 Ethiopian Jews attempted the same journey Leah and her family did. Around 4,000 died in the Sudan desert.

As it turned out, her parents made the ultimate sacrifice.

"Unfortunately, my little brother did not survive. He was one-year-old and there was pollution and not enough food."

After six months, Leah's family was contacted by Israeli officials.

"Suddenly, some people started saying, ‘We are Israeli,'" she recalls.

For Leah's family, the challenges did not end when the Israelis found them and flew them to Israel.

"There is a huge gap between the Ethiopian community and the Israeli community," she says.

Though Leah now speaks fluent English, Ethiopian Jews came to Israel speaking only their native Amharic.

"We had to adjust to everything," Leah says. "For my parents, it was very difficult to start again. It was really an effort by our community."

Culture shock was a huge problem for the Ethiopians, who came from a rural agrarian community into Israel, an urban information-driven country.

For the Ethiopians, says Leah, it's been a challenge to catch up.

"We are people who came from a third world country, from small villages, from traditional life, to a high-tech country" she says.

Their families, struggling to learn a new language, feed a family and cope with a culture shock, had tremendous difficulty in Israeli society.

"Most of our society came from a society that don't know how to read and write and here [in Israel] everything is about knowledge."

While Leah is a proud Israeli, she makes it clear that her family's journey was a choice, not because they had any need to leave Ethiopia.

"Life in Ethiopia wasn't that bad," she says. "Our status was that of equals," she adds, lapsing into Hebrew. Her community is happy to be in Israel, she explains, but she wants people to be aware of how much they sacrificed in order to have personal religious fulfillment.

"We came because this is the only place we belong," she exclaims, sighing when she mentions the challenges.

"Living in Israel, immediately you are different because you look different," she says, adding that traditional Ethiopian culture is different than Israel's louder and more brash culture.

In their culture, she explains, valuing politeness and respect leads to a less in-your-face culture.

"In Israel, it looks like a weakness."

The largest influx of Ethiopian Jews happened in the late 1990s during what became known as "Operation Solomon", when the situation had reached a critical point and Israel sent 34 planes to airlift 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 36 hours. Some of the challenges have been as a result of Israel taking in so many new immigrants in such short periods of time.

"It's really difficult to know how to deal with that much immigration," Leah explains.
She notes that the way Israelis deal with the immigrants has shifted over time.

"Today in Israel, they understand more the need to transmit to children the culture of the place from which they came," she says. "In the beginning the approach was the melting pot ... everybody needed to be Israeli."

For students attending the boarding schools common to many high school students in Israel, that meant they had to become Israelis and that they might end up turning their backs on their Ethiopian heritage.

"Now, it's changing. Everyone knows the need of a child to know his family and his culture."

Twenty years after they started coming, the Ethiopians are slowly becoming more successful.

"Our family is now 20 years in Israel and we make our way somehow," she says. "You can see the change over the years."

But with the community still suffering from low socio-economic status and with its extremely high unemployment rate, Leah knows there is a long way to go. Some of that change will be effort on the part of mainstream Israeli society.

"In Israel, society's need to change is really acknowledged ... but it takes a lot of time," she says. "The Israeli government did a lot to bring us. Some of the Mossad agents risked their lives. It was a major effort and we really appreciate it."

But Leah stresses that the journey did not end when Israel brought the immigrants over.

"There is more to be done."

Leah thinks that the most important thing is for the community to see its own strength through programs where Ethiopians help Ethiopians. She tells me about an after-school centre where she used to volunteer, helping Ethiopian immigrant children with their homework so that they could have the head start she didn't get.

"It takes some time," she repeats. "It's hard to start life over with nothing."

But the powerful dream which saw the Ethiopian people brave harsh deserts, squalid refugee camps and the threat of imprisonment or death has also seen them begin to overcome the cultural gaps, the grasp of poverty and the mounds of red tape they need to brave living in Israel.

Every year, she says, there are "more and more people who succeed", adding that Ethiopians are becoming professionals - doctors, lawyers and professors.

She is certain that the future holds good things for the Ethiopian community in Israel.
"I can see the difference from 10 years ago."

2005-01-06T18:19:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I take artsy pictures.

Don't ignore intolerance

2004-11-24T17:09:00.000-05:00

First published in Excalibur, November 24, 2004.

One year ago, I used this editorial space to entreat my peers at the University with a message of “less talk, more action”.

While appreciating and exercising the freedom of speech that allows me to write that message in 15,000+ hard copies, I am saddened to say that one year later, I have discovered that we have free speech in spades at this school – but we’re sorely lacking the ability to protect those who choose to speak freely yet depart from the party line.

On Thursday, a University professor handed out literature targeting a large number of influential York Foundation board members, stating – effectively – that it was problematic for so many members of York’s fundraising foundation to have a political position that is different than his.

While the direct practical impact of such an activity is minimal, professor David Noble’s actions indirectly help cultivate a culture of fear, which, to York’s detriment, resurfaces every time an event like this occurs.

While most Jewish students at this campus are aware of the benefits of being Jewish at such an open and pluralistic university such as York, the direct focus on whether or not York is too influenced by people with a “pro-Israel orientation” is a personal affront not just to the 14 individuals mentioned, but to all of us who are proud to be pro-Israel.

It is now my third year on York’s Keele campus, and I have become accustomed to having my views challenged and debated. I’ve often been happy to rise to such a challenge and engage in such debates. But vitriol of the sort that reared its ugly head on Thursday defies definition as constructive.

When it is suggested that the pro-Israel lobby is the tail wagging the dog, I just can’t help but feel personally attacked. Will my presence as news editor at Excalibur be used to allege that the pro-Israel lobby is taking over here? On more than one occasion, it has been made clear to me by groups and individuals that I am considered infinitely less able to be news editor than my two Portuguese Catholic predecessors, who taught me most of what I know about good journalism.

As a Jewish Zionist, I occasionally feel that I am only tolerated as long as I don’t advertise who I am or what I believe.

This fact is outrageous. For a sincere, hard-working, capable individual who does good work on behalf of the university (such as the members of our foundation do) to be told that they are extraneous simply because they are pro-Israel is discrimination, plain and simple.

York’s president Lorna Marsden as well as York’s Hillel and Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights groups should be commended for immediately acting to distance themselves from Thursday’s events and condemning these statements.

Discourse, not discrimination, is the foundation of the university.

Five presidential regulations exist to regulate the activity of students and protect them from acts of discrimination by other students. Where are the regulations governing the conduct of professors and staff of the University?

I commend president Marsden for the show of support she has displayed, because on more than one occasion in the past, high-ranking University officials have willingly and knowingly turned a blind eye to professors who use their status in the classroom to target those students whose political views are different from theirs.

President Marsden must act to show that her moving words of support are not empty platitudes, but stem from the true desire of the University to protect their students from verbal attacks and targeting based on their beliefs.

2004-11-03T18:46:00.000-05:00

The honourable Stephen Harper, leader of the official opposition, and he's not even looking at me.

2004-11-03T18:44:00.000-05:00

Aliza is thinking: I'm standing next to the Prime Minister. Liberal wanker.
Martin is thinking: Dear God, this one's a neo-con.

Gil Troy on Zionism

2004-10-04T07:52:00.000-04:00

Five years ago, Israel seemed to be slowly heading towards peace, a free trip to Israel was in the planning stages, and our generation's challenge seemed to be simply remaining Jewish. That's all changed.
Since Rosh Hashana 2000, terrorism has claimed hundreds of new victims in Israel. Anti-Semitism is springing up all around the world. And five years after its launch, birthright Israel has given a free trip to Israel to 70,000 young Jewish adults, many from Canada.
The key to understanding all of this, says McGill history professor Gil Troy, is changing the way we define Zionism.
"We have to look at Israel as a source of inspiration for us, not just a headache," Troy writes from Jerusalem, where he is spending his summer. His name is becoming a household name in the Canadian Jewish community since he wrote an article in the Montreal Gazette on Yom Ha'aztmaut 2001 entitled "Why I am A Zionist." Amid accolades and hate mail, Troy expanded the essay into a book, which argues that we need to revive a form of Zionism called "identity Zionism" which changes what it means to be a Zionist.
Gil Troy isn't a very Jewish name, he reminds me. An American history professor who specializes in US presidents, first ladies and presidential candidates, he says that he has always personally had a strong Zionist identity, though he never advertised it.
"I decided to 'Come out', as it were, as a Zionist in spring 2001," Troy writes, "because I felt that the entire Jewish community was too defensive about Israel and Zionism, and needed to embrace the positive, not just react to the negative - and I'm very glad I did."
Troy has been visiting campuses, writing columns and speaking at conferences in the past few years, encouraging Jews of all ages to think about more parts of Israel than the bad news.
"It's very important that Israel advocacy not simply be defensive -- or offensive -- we have to celebrate Israel and delight in our Jewish identity," he says. When he travels to visit college campuses and speak to students, he brings with him his background as a history professor at McGill.
"This is a conflict steeped in history, distorted by those who don't know the history or willfully ignore it -- my training as a historian, makes me sensitive to the context," he writes, explaining that usually when discussing the conflict, a broader context is needed.
When he speaks on campus, he combines in his discussions the history as well as motivation to continue creative Israel programming on campus.
"Thou shalt not be obsessed with Israel's grave image problems" is just one of the Ten Commandments for Zionist activism he passes on to students involved in Israel advocacy. He encourages them not to lose hope or be discouraged by the continued terrorism.
"It may not be getting easier on campus, but it's certainly getting easier in the world -- even the EU has begun to sour on Yassir Arafat," he says, encouraging those who care about Israel not to despair. It is his belief that the current Hasbara (pro-Israel) effort is creating the right conditions for recognition of Israel's right to exist.
"We are creating the right mood, the right line, the right explanation, so that when people have their 'ahaha' moment and start seeing the evils of terrorism, and the mendacity of the Palestinian authority more clearly, our interpretation will be already out there and familiar," he explains.
Troy writes to Afterword from his current trip to Israel, which he calls "the most healing thing I do on a regular basis." He suggests that it is trips to Israel which are the best medicine for those tired or jaded by Israel-Palestinian discord on campus.
"When I'm in Israel, when I see the vitality of the society, the warmth of the spirit, and the way Israelis are sticking to their routines -- and continuing to have fun, it balances out all the ugliness and justifies it all."
- Published in Afterword's Fall 2004 issue.

On Western Civilization

2004-09-22T23:47:00.000-04:00

If you’re easily shocked, please sit down now.

Despite the fact that I am a twenty-something progressive educated Canadian feminist, I don’t hate America. Or Israel. Or Western civilization.

These days, it seems fashionable to sit in York classes (science, humanities, social science, etc.) and talk about how much we hate Western civilization. American arrogance is bad. American culture is bad. Western “colonialism” is bad.

Give me a break.

Newsflash: Despite its flaws, Western civilization is the best thing that has ever happened to this world. Though, like every civilization, it has committed injustice in the name of ‘progress’, it has also given birth to the most free and enlightened period in history.

At their core, Western democracies are founded upon principles of equality that by their very nature cannot exist under any other form of government. It is only in democracy that every person has equal say, vote and rights simply because we are all born human, regardless of age, ethnicity, religion or class.

As a woman, I am grateful to Western civilization for recognizing that I am as valuable as any man and have all options available to me. I can attend university, travel freely without a man, choose whom to marry and when (if?) to marry, whether or not I want children – options many of the women of the world don’t have available to them.

Similarly, the multiculturalism and diversity as well as the freedom of Western states such as Canada, the United States and Israel are based on fundamental respect for human rights of all people, something that many people in this world are denied. And of course, the freedoms we Westerners have, espouse and protect are despised by those whose “alternate world views” tell them that murder – intentionally taking the lives of civilians – is a legitimate way to achieve their goals.

Unfortunately, we need look no further than our own backyards for examples of how, in our own day and age, basic human rights are under attack. Abroad, over 300 schoolchildren in Beslan, Russia were massacred by terrorists only a few days after two bombers killed 16 people on buses in Beersheba, Israel. Closer to home, the 9/11 terrorist attacks shocked Americans who were certain they were immune from the hatred of their “liberty and justice for all.”

What is most appalling, of course, is that the United Nations, the body charged with defending the downtrodden has made itself irrelevant while 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered with machetes just a decade ago. Even now, they look away while the black African population of Darfur, Sudan is being targeted for ethnically-motivated murder, just as happened in Rwanda.

And if we stand by and do nothing, we become the guilty bystander, culpable for our inaction. Yet act we must.

There are those in this world who think that it is progressive to want to overthrow Western civilization for real or imagined transgressions. Perhaps, instead, we should lay off the one society that grants us the freedom to criticize it and take up the case of the truly oppressed people of the world, who, unlike us free Canadians, are targeted for discrimination, violence, rape and murder simply because they were born to the “wrong” group.

- Editorial by Aliza Libman, News Editor, published in York University's Excalibur on September 22, 2004.

YFS files multi-million dollar suit (abstract)

2004-09-22T08:54:00.000-04:00

The York Federation of Students (YFS) has filed a statement of claim against the Canadian Federation of Students, the National Students Health Network and two private health and insurance companies, alleging that while York students were enrolled in the CFS-operated National Students Health Network, the CFS and its affiliates allegedly cost York students hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The lawsuit asks for damages of $1.4 million from the CFS "for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, improperly holding itself out as an insurance broker and return of commission payments."
...
The statement alleges that during the years between 1995 and 1999, when the YFS was using the CFS's health plan, the CFS and the companies which it worked with, misused a health plan surplus, inflated commissions, and were negligent in their fiduciary responsibilities. The claim further alleges as a result of the York students paid premiums that were higher than need be.
...
The statement of claim, as procured from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, is dated August 23, 2004, and states that notice of action was issued on July 23, 2004.
However, CFS national chairperson George Soule claims that CFS was never contacted about the lawsuit and has not been served with any claim.
First published September 22, 2004. Excalibur only received a copy of the claim as we were going to print and could not investigate fully. Further details about the lawsuit will be printed in subsequent issues.

On modern Yiddish culture

2004-09-06T00:01:00.000-04:00

I owe my late grandfather an apology. About a year before his untimely passing last fall, we had a conversation over Sabbath dinner where the status of Yiddish culture and language was debated. It was his contention that Yiddish language, originally the vernacular of European Jewry, was flourishing. In the minds of my “progressive”, “educated” siblings and self, Yiddish was a dead language, relegated to the occasional exclamation in a Billy Crystal or Mel Brooks movie.

Lord was I wrong. Toronto’s annual Ashkenaz Festival, now in its fifth year, is the largest celebration of Yiddish culture in the world, and while it might be a tiny bit different than life in the stereotypical Polish shtetl (village), it is clear that in the modern world, Yiddish is alive and well.

As all old cultures must do to stay relevant, modern Yiddish culture is a wacky fusion of old-world tradition and new-age values. Taking place at Harbourfront over Labour Day weekend, Ashkenz highlighted the contrast and melding of the old and the new. Film offerings took note of the ever-present change rocking the culture, with the 1923 silent film East Meets West examining the need of Jews in the roaring 20s to update themselves to modernity. Later, crowds packed the auditorium for a screening of the award-winning documentary Klezmer on Fish Street, a film that examines how vibrant modern Jewish culture is in Poland today – despite the fact that Poland has almost no Jews. Wisecracked an interviewee, “They used to ask, ‘Can a white boy play the blues?’ Today, they’re asking, ‘Can goyim (gentiles) play the Jews?’”

One of the hallmarks of Yiddish culture is in fact the Klezmer music of the film’s title. Originally played at shtetl weddings, Klezmer bands are historically composed of fiddles and other light string and wind instruments – if only because Jews living under persecution in medieval Europe figured it was easier to pick up a fiddle and run than a piano, quips my dad. Dozens of Klezmer bands rocked on the many stages the festival had running, with most events being free to the hundreds of devotees in attendance. With four to eight events running simultaneously, the hardest part of the festival was figuring out what to do when, and what to skip.

High points were many, of course. The festival grounds were veritable eye candy, decorated with kitschy banners proclaiming in English and Yiddish, “love”, “respect”, “sing”, “dance” and many others; bright Yiddish letters adorning the dock posts; and 20s era shop signs reading “Switzer’s Delicatessen” and “Jewish Old Folks Home”. The world café offered not only traditional Yiddish foods, but also Middle Eastern fare. The vendor fair offered Jewish art, books and memorabilia. The bands were rocking – I felt as though this was the only festival where you might hear a musician say “Is there enough bass on this accordion?”

It was the kick-off, of course, that made the most impact, with the traditional opening parade being to the theme of the biblical tale of Noah’s ark. Stilt-walkers in animal costumes, doves, an actual ark with cardboard animals that were later given to the children, and flag-bearers waving rainbow flags to commemorate the rainbow the rainbow the ended the flood – all served as a reminder of the diversity that is modern Yiddish culture. It was this theme that welcomed the spectators of all ages and all cultures. Said a parade leader decked out in a blue-and-green bird costume atop a pair of stilts, “We enrich the world by our differences, and we are enriched by the world’s differences.”

Indeed.

- Published in the York University Excalibur on September 8, 2004

On Jewish education

2004-09-01T21:29:00.000-04:00

When you type the term “Jewish education” into the search engine Google, the first organization to pop up is CAJE (the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education). As a CAJE member for my entire college career, this makes me very proud. But when CAJE executive members tell me that half of North American teachers will retire in the next decade or so, this makes me very nervous.

Who will teach the students of the future? This is the question. The answer seems perfectly clear.

Me.

Well, not just me, but sometimes it feels that way. Too often, people tell me I’m too smart to “waste my brain” becoming a teacher. I think I’d be wasting my heart if I didn’t.

So when CAJE sent me a mailing about the Schusterman College Program(SCP) which would be held at its annual Conference on Alternative in Jewish Education (also CAJE), I jumped at the opportunity to go.

There I met people who thought differently, acted differently, taught differently and defined “Jewish education” differently than me. But our shared passion was what we all brought to the table.

“This program seeks to unite the totality of Klal Yisrael,” says participant Michael Fel. “Rather than focusing on our differences we focused on the similarities.” Michael, an Hispanic Jew, introduced himself to the group as being from “the voting-impaired city of Miami.”

Michael was the first Argentinean Jew I’d ever met. Judging from everyone’s reactions to me saying “kilometre” and “eh?”, they hadn’t met too many Canadians.

A primary goal of the 26-student program was for us to work together and talk together and experience community. Talking after the program concluded, third-year Columbia University student Mara Berde mused that “it was my first real experience in a pluralistic environment.”

Pluralism means different things to different people. To some participants at CAJE, pluralism is a theory that believes that we grant the validity of other religious denominations as well as our own. To keynote speaker Richard Joel, former director of Hillel International and current president of Yeshiva University, “pluralism means I am prepared to honour your right to be wrong.”

But pluralism isn’t a theory. It’s a practise. It’s asking ourselves whether the prayer services will have separate or mixed seating. It’s asking whether there will sing-a-long kumsitzes on Friday night with or without musical instruments. It’s asking ourselves how we accommodate those who are different than us.

One participant expressed dismay to me, because she found out the graduate school she was planning on attending did not accept openly gay students. During our “Think Tank”, where we shared lesson plans on Jewish topics, we explored this topic as we pondered teaching Jewish responses to homosexuality. We also contemplated how to teach about Jewish identity, Jewish music, cults and Jews for Jesus in classrooms, youth groups and camps. We grappled with the question of how to maintain tradition in a world rocked by change.

I answered that question in my vociferous pursuit of methods for the use of drama in my Torah classroom. I attended drama workshops, bought drama books and wondered whether re-enacting the splitting of the sea would make my students relate to it as a piece of their history. I was lucky that CAJE decided to invite representative of Storahtelling, a non-profit group that injects drama and storytelling into ritual services, such as the Shabbat Torah reading.

“It's important to bring life to such an important part of Jewish ritual,” says SCP co-chair and JTS student Lauren Twigg, who was attending her third CAJE. “The Torah is read every week, over and over again. Most of the time people zone out and don't pay attention.”

As students of Jewish education, it is easy to get discouraged. We feel that the community is zoning us out. We think no one is paying attention. At CAJE, it’s clear that that’s wrong.

The truth is, the passion I feel for Jewish education is alive in other people, too. It’s alive in the 1400+ people who came to CAJE this year. It’s alive in the 26 students of SCP who left CAJE vowing to come back next year. It’s alive in Lynn Schusterman and the Schusterman foundation, who believe that education is so important, they’ll bankroll our program.

The secret of Jewish education, of course, is that the material, the texts, the information is not enough. There has to be something more, something that makes parents pay tens of thousands in tuition and drag their kids to Hebrew school at nine on a Sunday morning.

That something more means that I am charged with much more than teaching words on a page. I am charged with teaching students – human Jewish souls who are holy no matter what their nationality, sexual orientation, ability or disability. And I define success by smiling and soul-searching, not dollars and cents.

So I’m glad that when searching for Jewish education, I found CAJE.

Aliza Libman is a fourth-year student of education at York University. She attended her first CAJE in August 2004. First published in the Canadian Jewish News on September 1, 2004; reprinted in the Jewish Educational News in Spring '05.

Aliza Libman writes on ...

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