It’s helpful for planning holidays, etc.
It’s also typical for the organization to choose Jewish or Israel-themed pictures for the calendar.
I was particularly struck by the choice that Danzansky-Goldberg Memorial Chapels made this year when their theme was “The Dead Sea.”
Not sure this would have been my first choice, but there’s no doubt that it’s probably the strongest Israel-themed idea which directly connects to their brand and core business.
If you are looking for spiritual invigoration and a renewed sense in the strength of the human spirit, I may have a book for you.
Heading into the High Holidays, I said to the NFO, “I really need a few books to read-particularly one that I won’t feel guilty reading in synagogue when things get slow-or else I won’t make it.”
She responded in a big way and selected Out of the Depths: The Story of a Child of Buchenwald Who Returned Home at Last
If that’s all he had done, that would have been a notable achievement, but the story of the man and his struggle is one of the most remarkable I have ever read.
Israel Lau was born in pre-WWII Poland. His father was the rabbi of their town, the 29th generation of rabbis in their family.
The Nazis invade, do an Aktion (a rounding up of all the Jews) and all but Israel and his brother, Naphtali, end us surviving the war.
But surviving doesn’t even do that justice. It’s incredible moment upon incredible moment…and all of this done at the ages of 7 and 8 with indomitable will to survive and the never-ending dedication of his older brother.
Circumstances, luck, miracles, divine intervention…call it what you will, Lau is the youngest survivor of Buchenwald, makes his way to pre-state Palestine, and eventually becomes Chief Rabbi, where he is in a position to affect not just Israeli politics, but world leaders like Pope John Paul II.
Jewish or not, you’ll have a difficult time putting this book down and when you do, you’ll reflect on what makes people persevere in the face of atrocity and inhumanity and our obligation to ensure that such events never happen again to anyone, anywhere.
There are a number of powerful stories in the book and a surprise appearance by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but the quote that stuck out for me came when he talked about the trail of Adolph Eichmann and Lau confronts another survivor who had testified.
“You coined the phrase, ‘Auschwitz as another planet’-but it is not accurate.
If Auschwitz were indeed another planet, it would be easier to accept the Holocaust. But in truth, the disaster of Auschwitz is that it happened on the very same planet where we had lived before, where we live now, and where we will continue to live.
Those who carried out the cruel murders of the innocent were ordinary people, who returned home from their murderous acts to water the flowers in their manicured gardens. They tended the flowers lovingly and carefully so they would blossom, just after they had torn infants to pieces and shattered the skulls of men and women. Just after shoving thousands of people into the gas chambers to their deaths, they came home to play with dolls together with their little girls, and listen to classical music, eyes closed, engrossed n the uplifting spirituality of Bach and Beethoven.
They knew exactly what was going on in the camps, but were able to continue enjoying life as if unaffected.
Is that another planet? Absolutely not.
Those were people just like you and me, and that’s the whole problem.
When you transfer all those horrors to another planet, you minimize the issue. You are saying that something like the Holocaust can never happen to us again. In my humble opinion, you are wrong.”
For traditionally observant Jews, we’ve just finished a marathon month of holidays. No fewer than 7 days (all during the work week, I might add) were set aside for various religious activities, festivals, and the like.
My work colleagues were understanding and supportive, but I sensed a slight misconception stemming from the word “holiday.”
While I’ve never attended Christmas or Easter services, my sense is that those days are somewhat different that Jewish holidays, hence the misconception.
We spend an average of 3-4 hours in synagogue on each of the holidays (in some cases, more). The services are followed by meals which are usually elaborate and lavish and can take anywhere from 1-4 hours. Now, this sounds great, but having hosted them (and the NFO having prepared them), I can tell you…it’s a LOT of work.
But, as they say, “wait, there’s more.”
You have to remember that while all of these holidays are occurring, you are operating under the traditional prohibition of using electricity, operating motor vehicles, or phones, etc.
So, while you don’t sit in the dark, you can’t exactly load up your dishwasher and push “start.”
Yes, there are ways around this, but even that is an effort to figure out an appropriate loophole that enables something that is forbidden.
Some might say “well, what’s the point,” and I can see where the cynic or skeptic might offer that opinion, but the mental challenge is half the fun.
But, let’s set that aside for a moment, shall we?
Essentially, you’ve got 24-48 hour periods where you can’t use your phone, email, TV. You can’t drive anywhere, so you are limited by walking distance. If you have visitors staying with you, they are homebound (in your house) if it’s raining, for example, and “sleeping in” is done, but the idea is you should be in synagogue.
The point I am trying to make here, I suppose is that the holiday is really a lot of work and effort.
In some cases you end it feeling refreshed and relaxed, but in other cases, you end it as tired (if not more) than when you begin.
Then, of course, you log-on to your email after having been away for 2 whole days and find 267 messages waiting for you.
The big idea?
Take a 24 hour break from technology. No TV, phones, computers, etc.
While I’m all in favor of it, it just didn’t feel like an innovation.
Particularly when she said “from Friday night until Saturday night.”
Following up on yesterday’s post on the burial society, I wrote that one of the things I appreciate about it is:
the serious dose of perspective that it provides you on the ultimate end of your (all of our) lives.
The interesting part about that is the question that it raises for me.
Should you “go all out and, as Thoreau said, ‘dare to live the life you’ve imagined’” or (and they may not be mutually exclusive), do you just slow down and act with even greater humility for the life you have and the responsibilities/obligations you have to others?
One of the community tasks in which I am involved is to serve as a member of the Ritual Burial Society, aka the Chevra Kadisha.
The ritual process of preparing the deceased for burial is fascinating in and of itself, but I find two elements of it gratifying in particular.
First, the serious dose of perspective that it provides you on the ultimate end of your (all of our) lives.
Second, the comfort in knowing that, down the road, someone will treat your remains with the same respect you show them.
As I am fascinated by the topic of the Attention Economy, I recently watched "Crackberry'd: The Truth About Information Overload" while on the treadmill.
Definitely some sobering insights re: texting/talking while driving, but I think it could be a good marketing ploy for observant Judaism (where use of electronics is prohibited on the Sabbath-and people actually follow that rule!), as the show emphasized the benefits of “checking out” from the constant technology.
Something I do every week for 25 hours.
If, as they say, “Internet Addiction” are the recognized top social problems in China and S. Korea, then a system (one that costs less than the $27k/3 month retreat they profiled) with a built-in support community might be of value
I’m sure they re-run the show a lot, so see if you can find it on your DVR…you can skip the commercials and text me when you do.
(The show is a little dated since we all know BlackBerry is lame now, but the larger point still stands).
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There’s a concept in Judaism known as “Lashon Hara” which literally means the “evil/bad tongue.”
It refers to gossip.
And, it is considered one of the worst things in which you can engage…or encourage.
There’s a woman I know who is particularly adept at this, unfortunately.
And, I will admit, in the past, I was guilty of indulging her and even encouraging her.
Like everyone, I have my less than savory sides to my personality.
Recently, I discovered that I was the object of her “Lashon Hara.”
I felt bad and hurt. Not only because I realized the damage that was going to occur (or has already) to my reputation within her circles, but now because I realize how others have been affected by it as well.
Better late than never to learn this lesson.
And, sometimes, you have to learn the hard way.
I apologize if this is a bit of an exclusionary post since you need some background in order to understand why I think this is groundbreaking (and I can’t really go into all of it right now).
This video shows two Orthodox rabbis in an Orthodox synagogue providing musical accompaniment to a Bat Mitzvah girl leading the service during a women-only, women-run service.
The men, meanwhile, are occupying the seats/sections which are usually reserved for the women.
The NFO and I were in Nashville for this service and the two rabbis there just AWESOME.
For those of you in the egalitarian fold or not familiar with the politics of women’s issues in the Traditional/Orthodox world, this may not seem like a big deal.
But, it is.
I have so much respect for how Rabbis Strosberg and Levitt pushed the envelope here to give women as much opportunity to participate as is possible under halacha, traditional Jewish law.
I really don’t know if this is the first time something like this has happened, but it was the first I’d seen it and the first I’d heard of it.
I’ve long heard that the Chinese equate “Jew” with “business acumen.”
Heck, I actually thought that Jews could run seminars in China teaching the key components. Thing is, we don’t know. Or do we?
Well, in China, there’s a drink called “Jew’s Ear Juice” which is kind of like Gatorade for business, I guess.
On a more practical level is a recent gift I received from my buddy, Jeremy Lustman, called Jewish Wisdom for Business Success: Lessons from the Torah and Other Ancient Texts
Now, you’ll probably get faster results drinking the beverage from China, but for sustained performance, you may want to consider some of the ideas offered by Brackman (a Rabbi) and Jaffe (a business writer).
They demonstrate how many of the traits that are rewarded in business are actually the morals of stories in the Old Testament.
How we learn to deal with failure (from Moses’ mistake of hitting the rock in the desert instead of talking to it) is just one of them.
They further expound that much of the knowledge extended from the Torah and the teaching of the Rabbis build off of that, such as one of my favorits, “The whole world is a narrow bridge. The important thing is to have no fear.” (Rabbi Nachman of Breslov).
If I were Brackman and Jaffe’s marketing advisor, I’d tell them to get the book translated into Mandarin.
I enjoyed it as it gave me yet another angle on the books of the tradition and proves that, even on the Sabbath, it’s ok to never stop marketing :-)
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I really enjoy listening to the HBR Ideacast podcast on my iPad (though, frankly, the Knowledge @Wharton series is, imho, of higher quality.)
I’ll just have them playing while I’m doing something like washing dishes, packing for a trip, etc.
The other day, I listened to one called “Making Time Off Predictable—and Required”
After a few minutes, I couldn’t help but start laughing.
The Boston Consulting Group had done a study with a client (and presumably made a lot of money in doing so) to prove the point that when people take regularly scheduled time off, they are better, more productive people.
As the interviewee went on and on, however, it became obvious to those who are familiar with the rules that Sabbath-observing Jews follow that she was basically describing what they/we/I do every single week.
I thought, “this is great. We’ve got one of the world’s largest and most respected consulting firms validating what God told Moses on Mt. Sinai."
I’ve met a few folks over the year who dismiss Twitter out of hand. They deride it for its frivolousness.
Here’s a nice story of how one guy put the Western Wall on Twitter (@thekotel)
Funny post from my friend David Berkowitz’s blog…
Originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider
It's one of the most critical, controversial issues of our time. It's been the subject of more columns than MySpace. Even the Talmud, the great repository of Jewish debate and wisdom, is at a loss to comment on it. Yes, in what's undoubtedly the greatest miracle since the time the Maccabees kept their temple menorah burning with a small jar of oil, the gift of Jewdar continues to shed light on how marketers are targeting their ads.
I've wanted to return to this for months, ever since Jeremy Bloom reached out to me in August about his business KosherHam.com, a humorous T-shirt site that claims, "Wearing anything else just isn't kosher." He even noted that my new BFF Perez Hilton has been spotted in his gear.
I was intrigued when Bloom said that he's been honing his Jewdar - in this context, the act of targeting Jews through advertising, specifically on Facebook - and that he'd be willing to share all his secrets with me. He wrote, "I am constantly behaviorally targeting different demos, but the most receptive audiences with some of the highest click-through rates and lowest CPMs seem to be Jews." He tests religiously, trying different subject lines, ad copy, targeting, and models and T-shirts in the photos.
He's able to reach Jews largely through the keywords field in Facebook's self-service ads that target users based on their interests. Facebook won't target users by religion specifically, but if they list "Jewish" or Jews" as interests, they're fair game. Bloom further targets users in major cities with large Jewish populations. This will inherently mean some non-Jews see the ads -- but hey, they're welcome to buy shirts too.
So what keywords does Bloom use to find Jews? The eclectic roster includes: Jew, Jewish, Hebrew, Israel, Hillel, Sigma Alpha Mu, Zeta Beta Tau, Annie Hall, Brooklyn, bagels, deli, Chinese food, Matisyahu, Phish, jam bands, being Jewish, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Seinfeld, Hebrew Hammer, Heeb Magazine, and Fiddler on the Roof. If you don't know what some of these mean or what they have to do with Judaism, you're probably out of the target demographic.
After perusing the list, I wondered how some of these would do head to head. Bloom indulged me and ran some trials in four different brackets: City, Comedian, Cuisine, and Music. Bids were set at 34 cents CPM. The top performing ads were those with the highest click-through rate (CTR) and lowest cost-per-click (CPC). And the winners are...
Bracket 1
City: New York vs. Los Angeles
Subject Lines: NY Jews Love Kosherham, LA Jews Love Kosherham
Winner: LA gets the Oscar, with 18% CTR and 16 cents CPC, coasting past NY's 12% CTR and 23 cents CPC.
Bracket 2
Comedian: Seinfeld vs. Woody Allen
Subject Lines: Seinfeld Fans Love Us, Woody Allen Fans Love Us
Winner: Woody Allen kvetches up the clicks, with 33% CTR and 8 cents CPC, while Seinfeld's 13% CTR and 21 cents CPC showed signs of shrinkage.
Bracket 3
Cuisine: Bagels vs. Deli
Subject Lines: Shirts for Bagel Fanatics, Shirts for Deli Fanatics
Winner: Bagels win by a shmear, with 13% CTR and 19 cents CPC, overstuffing Deli's tournament-worst 6% CTR and 44 cents CPC.
Bracket 4
Music: Phish vs. Matisyahu
Subject Lines: Shirts for Phish Fans, Shirts for Matisyahu Fans
Winner: Phish hoists up its tournament-best 55% and 5 cent CPC, out-jamming Matisyahu's 27% CTR and 10 cent CPC.
I asked Bloom if he could explain why Phish has so much mazel in hooking Phacebook -- er, Facebook -- users. He cited a number of reasons: the right age demographic, the loyal Phish fan base of liberal Jews, and the shared interests in certain botanical exploits reflected in Kosher Ham's apparel.
More importantly, I asked about conversion rates. It's great to get a lot of clicks, but do Jews on Facebook convert? (It's just getting too easy, sorry.) He says he was able to track a couple sales from the Phish ads directly, and he also notices spikes when running ads from people who go directly to KosherHam.com or search for it. With search, Google has performed especially well, as has AIM Search -- Boom thinks people find shirts they like and share them via instant message.
So it turns out Jewdar is a little easier to understand than the Zohar, Maimonedes' "Guide to the Perplexed," and my fourth-grade Hebrew teacher's accent. And it's not foolproof, as there are probably a few Woody Allen fans in New York who didn't go to a Jewish sleepaway camp. But if a guy can start a site called KosherHam and sell T-shirts about getting the munchies for unleavened bread to Jewish Phish fans on Facebook, I've got to think he's on to something.
Post was written while listening to...Elton John, Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word
Forwarded to me by Elizabeth…
#1
"Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has appeared in the world."
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-#2
"The Jew is that sacred being who has brought down from heaven the everlasting fire, and has illumined with it the entire world. He is the religious source, spring, and fountain out of which all the rest of the peoples have drawn their beliefs and their religions."
-- Leo Tolstoy
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-#3
"It was in vain that we locked them up for several hundred years behind the walls of the Ghetto. No sooner were their prison gates unbarred than they easily caught up with us, even on those paths which we opened up without their aid."
-- A. A. Leroy Beaulieu, French publicist, 1842
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-#4
"The Jew gave us the Outside and the Inside - our outlook and our inner life. We can hardly get up in the morning or cross the street without being Jewish. We dream Jewish dreams and hope Jewish hopes. Most of our best words, in fact - new, adventure, surprise, unique, individual, person, vocation, time, history, future, freedom, progress, spirit, faith, hope, justice - are the gifts of the Jews."
-- Thomas Cahill, Irish Author
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-#5
"One of the gifts of the Jewish culture to Christianity is that it has taught Christians to think like Jews, and any modern man who has not learned to think as though he were a Jew can hardly be said to have learned to think at all."
-- William Rees-Mogg, former Editor-in-Chief for The Times of London and a member of the House of Lords
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-#6
"It is certain that in certain parts of the world we can see a peculiar people, separated from the other peoples of the world and this is called the Jewish people....
This people is not only of remarkable antiquity but has also lasted for a singular long time... For whereas the people of Greece and Italy, of Sparta, Athens and Rome and others who came so much later have perished so long ago, these still exist, despite the efforts of so many powerful kings who have tried a hundred times to wipe them out, as their historians testify, and as can easily be judged by the natural order of things over such a long spell of years. They have always been preserved,however, and their preservation was foretold... My encounter with this people amazes me..."
-- Blaise Pascal, French Mathematician
--#7-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Jewish vision became the prototype for many similar grand designs for humanity, both divine and man made The Jews, therefore, stand at the center of the perennial attempt to give human life the dignity of a purpose."
--Paul Johnson, American Historian
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-#8
"As long as the world lasts, all who want to make progress in righteousness will come to Israel for inspiration as to the people who had the sense for righteousness most glowing and strongest."
--Matthew Arnold, British poet and critic
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-#9
"Indeed it is difficult for all other nations of the world to live in the presence of the Jews. It is irritating and most uncomfortable. The Jews embarrass the world as they have done things which are beyond the imaginable. They have become moral strangers since the day their
forefather, Abraham, introduced the world to high ethical standards and to the fear of Heaven. They brought the world the Ten Commandments, which many nations prefer to defy. They violated the rules of history by staying alive, totally at odds with common sense and historical evidence. They outlived all their former enemies, including vast empires such as the Romans and the Greeks. They angered the world with their return to their homeland after 2000 years of exile and after the murder of six million of their brothers and sisters.
They aggravated mankind by building, in the wink of an eye, a democratic State which others were not able to create in even hundreds of years. They built living monuments such as the duty to be holy and the privilege to serve one's fellow men.
They had their hands in every human progressive endeavor, whether in science, medicine, psychology or any other discipline, while totally out of proportion to their actual numbers. They gave the world the Bible and even their "savior."
Jews taught the world not to accept the world as it is, but to transform it, yet only a few nations wanted to listen. Moreover, the Jews introduced the world to one God, yet only a minority wanted to draw the moral consequences. So the nations of the world realize that they would have been lost without the Jews.. And while their
subconscious tries to remind them of how much of Western civilization is framed in terms of concepts first articulated by the Jews, they do anything to suppress it.
They deny that Jews remind them of a higher purpose of life and the need to be honorable, and do anything to escape its consequences. It is simply too much to handle for them, too embarrassing to admit, and above all, too difficult to live by.
So the nations of the world decided once again to go out of 'their' way in order to find a stick to hit the Jews. The goal: to prove that Jews are as immoral and guilty of massacre and genocide as some of they themselves are. All this in order to hide and justify their own failure to even protest when six million Jews were brought to the slaughterhouses of Auschwitz and Dachau; so as to wipe out the moral conscience of which the Jews remind them, and they found a stick. Nothing could be more gratifying for them than to find the Jews in a struggle with another people (who are completely terrorized by their own leaders) against whom the Jews, against their best wishes, have to defend themselves in order to survive. With great satisfaction, the world allows and initiates the rewriting of history so as to fuel the rage of yet another people against the Jews. This in spite of the fact that the nations understand very well that peace between the parties could have come a long time ago, if only the Jews would have had a fair chance. Instead, they happily jumped on the wagon of hate so as to justify their jealousy of the Jews and their incompetence to deal with their own moral issues.
When Jews look at the bizarre play taking place in The Hague, they can only smile as this artificial game once more proves how the world paradoxically admits the Jews uniqueness. It is in their need to undermine the Jews that they actually raise them.
The study of history of Europe during the past centuries teaches us one uniform lesson: That the nations which received and in any way dealt fairly and mercifully with the Jew have prospered; and that the nations that have tortured and oppressed them have written out their own curse."
--Olive Schreiner, South African novelist and social activist
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-#10
"If there is any honor in all the world that I should like, it would be to be an honorary Jewish citizen."
--A.L Rowse, authority on Shakespeare
Post was written while listening to...Robert Cray, Sleeping In The Ground
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The other day, I was invited to give the sermon at my synagogue for the portion of the week known as Chayei Sarah (lit: the life of Sarah). It corresponds to Genesis 23:1-25:18
What I did was analyze the tactics used by Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, in his quest to bring Rebecca back as Isaac’s future wife and put them in the framework of social psychologist Robert Cialdini’s book “Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion.”
Following up on the Unprepared Jewish Generation, we have this video of current day activity.
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A few years ago, my friend, Rabbi Josh Feigelson and I were discussing the historical anomaly that our generation of Jews entered.
Never before in Jewish history, we surmised, had a generation come of age where political equality was a given, so many of our peers were so well-educated (in a formal/secular sense) and where a huge percentage of our co-religionists were economically affluent.
Since we had essentially “been born” into this era, this was our reality and what makes experiences like outright anti-Semitism on a plane in Atlanta so shocking to the system.
Of course, 20-30 years before we were born, many Ivy League institutions had Jewish quotas. Now, many of them have classes that are 20-30 percent Jewish.
In some respects, this is great.
In other respects, I think it may be the source of a potential problem in the future.
That problem is that we live in a bubble that is divorced from the reality going on in the rest of the world.
And that reality is growing, virulent, and dangerous anti-Semitism.
Whether it is the Halimi case in France, Mahmoud Abbas’ ongoing refusal to recognize the right of Israel to exist, denial of Jewish claims to the Temple Mount, and the appeasement of the Muslims Student Union at Cal Irvine by the President of the University after a number of incidents (here’s one), (and I’ve left out doozies like Ahmadinejad, Chavez, etc.), in most places around the world we are seeing a big uptick, one that, I think we haven’t seen in a LONG time.
And I don’t think most Jews (at least those who still care/identify after assimilation is taken into account) are really ready for it.
To say that this relative security and prosperity among Gen X/Gen Y Jews has made us “soft,” may be a stretch, but at the least, we’re definitely not “in shape.”
What’s more, as the generation of Holocaust survivors dies out (my kids, for example, will only know them through videos), those who would deny it will be emboldened.
I don’t know what to do about it, but I am concerned.
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