June 30, 2011 | 8:20 am

A Shabbat Tent Diary

Posted by Rabbi Yonah Bookstein

I often ask myself, what would Abraham and Sarah do today?

Where would they set up their tent?

One of the places that I am sure they would be is this weekend, is in Watkins Glen, New York, hanging out with tens of thousands of groupies of the band Phish.

I’ll be helping to lead Shabbat services and hospitality somewhere in the midst of Phish Super Ball IX, one of the summer’s biggest music and camping festivals. 

There will be tents of all shades and colors and sizes. Large colorful flags flying in the wind. Streams of people in all manner of costumes and garb, will be winding their way through a maze of cars and canopies, BBQ’s and drum circles, and enough tie-dyes to make the 60’s jealous.

The festival is built around the band Phish, a touring rock band, that can only be compared to the Grateful Dead in terms of the scope of their influence. But you can read about Phish online.

The Shabbat Tent — also known as Shabbos Tent to those Ashkenazically inclined — was born at Phish’s New Year’s Millennium Show on Big Cyprus Indian Reservation, FL in 2000. Jews from all walks of life participated in the inaugural year, and a tradition was born.

Shabbat Tent’s profile was raised through the roof when MATISYAHU hosted Shabbat Tent at Bonnaroo in Tennassee, and subsequently at Wakarusa in Arkansas, Langerado in Florida, and other festivals. The Shabbat Tent team has also created Shabbat hospitality at Southern California’s premier festival, Coachella, Gathering of the Vibes in the North East and dozens of Phish concerts around the country.

Our Shabbat Tent at Watkins Glenn will provide the overly represented number of Jews at Phish shows a place to celebrate Shabbat in whatever capacity they find meaningful.

We’ll provide a vegan and kosher food for the Friday night dinner for 300 to 500, a Saturday kiddush, a third meal for 200 to 300 people and continuous snacks. There will be a Carlebach-style Kabbalat Shabbat, Torah reading on Saturday and a musical Havdalah.

I will join a dozen other friendly volunteers from around the country “that love music and Judaism,” in the words of one volunteer, “and want to help make the world a better place.” (There are actually more volunteers and willing participants to do this around the country than there are funds to coordinate and sponsor.)

I picture our mission as creating a mobile Abraham & Sarah tent, a place for people to share Shabbat, with food, song, prayer and good vibes as part of the general festival experience.

Unlike Christian missionary tents, buses and installations, our Shabbat Tent is not a place for preaching of religion or Jewish missionary work. Shabbat Tent is also open to anyone, without regard for religion, ethnicity, or background, who wish to spend time in the tent.

We will let you know the exact location of the Shabbat Tent on our Facebook page, website, and via Twitter.

Then there is the obvious question: Why are so many Jews seem drawn to festival-friendly music and Phish in particular?

My research shows that Jews are drawn to transcendent collective experiences. Really, it makes sense because our collective Jewish consciousness began 3,500 years ago in the Sinai desert — at a camping festival —and it’s continued throughout our history.

The three major Jewish festivals — Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot — were times of mass pilgrimage, camping, and music too. So it’s not surprising that we are drawn to these festivals in great numbers, because it is a part of being Jewish to want to connect and transcend our individuality with others.

Jewlicious, the organization that I direct, started a Jewish camping and music festival last summer called Camp Jewlicious at Brandeis Bardin. The aim of Camp Jewlicious is not unlike other festivals, and we will be hosting hundreds of people in bunks, tents, and cottages throughout the Brandeis campus for four days of music, outdoor activities, and camp fun. Our goal is to create the biggest Jewish music and camping festival in America. Israelis have many such festivals, Bombamella being the biggest with 20,000 or more people annually.

If you are interested in more of the history and philosophy and logistics of our Shabbat Tent, check out a great article about this year’s Shabbat Tent at Phish Festival published by Josh Fleet in The Jewish Week.

Stay tuned for another update soon.

Peace and Blessings.

June 24, 2011 | 9:50 am

Got Jewish Kids That Love Bedtime Stories?

Posted by Rabbi Yonah Bookstein

If you want to help those children learn Hebrew, then sign up today for Sifriyat Pijama , a new program delivering Hebrew children’s stories to Israeli-American and other Jewish-American families to read at bedtime.

Just today I was speaking with yet another couple about Hebrew, or rather, the lack of Hebrew, in their lives. They feel alienated from furthering participation in Jewish religious life because they don’t know Hebrew, and feel unable to pass on their love of Judaism — or Hebrew – to their kids.

For centuries we have worked very hard to pass on Hebrew from generation to generation. And Hebrew has persisted against all odds because it binds together the people who have defied all the odds.

Today Hebrew is THE international Jewish language. The largest single Jewish society in the world, Israel, uses Hebrew. More Jewish books are published each year in Hebrew than in any other language. More Jewish music is released in Hebrew. Most Jewish newspapers in the world are written in Hebrew. More movies with Jewish themes are released in Hebrew. Nuf said, you get the picture.

In my upcoming book, Teach Your Children Well: 50 Reasons To Send Your Child To Jewish Day School, I focus on the importance of teaching your kids Hebrew from a young age. One of the reasons is because Hebrew is the key to understanding who we are, what we believe in, and where we are going.

Thanks to Sifriyat Pijama , the Israeli counterpart of the American PJ Library which has been distributing Jewish values-based books to kids and parents, thousands of Jewish families and kids will have a better chance to grasp Hebrew. If the popularity of PJ Library is any yardstick, this program will be very popular. Jewish parents want to educate their children Jewishly more than any time in the last two generations. PJ Library is so successful that it has franchised across the country, with approximately 170,000 subscribers.

Adam & Gila Milstein, creative and passionate philanthropists who are major sponsors of our Jewlicious Festival, saw the success of PJ Library, and saw a great opportunity to spread the concept to Hebrew. They have launched Sifriyat Pijama from Los Angeles, home to the largest Israeli ex-pat community in the America, together with the Israeli Leadership Council, and the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.

Until today most of these Hebrew bedtime story books were only available in Israel. Thanks to Pijama, they will be distributing Hebrew bedtime stories for free starting this school year to 1,000 families.

The reason they are handing out free books? To strengthen Jewish identity in children.

“We believe that by learning about Jewish values from a young age, and hearing stories in Hebrew,” said Adam Milstein said, “Jewish children are more likely to share a strong appreciation and affinity for their shared Jewish culture and language.”

How do you qualify? If you have children ages 3-5 year old kids in the United States that wish to read books in Hebrew to their young kids before bed time — you qualify.

Deadline for registering is July 15th, in order for the registrants to receive the entire set for the 2011-2012 school year.

I’m signing up right now for my kids.
———————-

Yonah Bookstein, a leading voice of the next generation of American Jewry, is an internationally recognized expert in Jewish innovation, founder of the Jewlicious Festival, and executive rabbi at JConnectLA. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiYonah

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June 21, 2011 | 5:26 pm

Can We Help the Mavens of Disaster Relief?

Posted by Rabbi Yonah Bookstein

Nechama volunteer during Hurricane Katrina cleanup efforts. (Photo by E. Isaacs, October 2005)

When tragedy struck in Birmingham, Ala., a few weeks ago, killing scores of people and leaving thousands of residents destitute, a group of Jews saw a chance for mitzvot. Heading out from their home base outside of Minneapolis, a team of disaster relief and recovery experts drove their emergency trailers 1,000 miles to Alabama. They were joined by dozens of other Jewish volunteers who raced there from other parts of the country. While most of us watched on CNN, these volunteers were on the ground helping repair and clean up, providing skills, hard work and comfort — nechama — to the badly damaged city.

Along with a few friends, Minneapolis-based financial planner Steve Lear started Nechama in 1996 as a voluntary organization providing cleanup and recovery assistance to homes and communities affected by natural disaster. Since then, Nechama has dispatched thousands of volunteers and has five to 40 volunteers out in the field on any given day. Nechama maintains a database of 3,500 willing disaster relief volunteers and relies entirely on private donations.

Today, Nechama’s professional staff is busy in Birmingham helping recovery efforts after the deadliest tornadoes in American history wreaked untold damage. The volunteers are sleeping on the floor of an Orthodox synagogue and are being fed by local volunteers.

Nechama complements the work of the Red Cross and other agencies in disaster areas. These relief mavens provide tools and equipment and manage volunteers who are not affiliated with any organization. This element of volunteer supervision is essential because without it, volunteers can create additional problems for communities that have just been hit by a disaster.

While each response is unique, Nechama tries to find volunteers housing in synagogues, churches and community centers, and then find other volunteers to feed the group. Their multiple trucks and trailers and trained staff can be dispatched at a moment’s notice.

Inspiration can also be found in recent college graduate Elie Lowenfeld, who founded the Jewish Disaster Response Corps (JDRC) after spending a summer in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with AmeriCorps. While helping there after record flooding in 2008, he noticed that all the volunteer groups were Christian and went on to create the JDRC in Tennessee.

The American Jewish community’s response to global disasters from Haiti to Japan has been generous and largely focused on what is really needed in those disaster zones: money. Millions of dollars have been raised to help when disaster strikes. What is unique about Nechama and JDRC is that they are mobilizing volunteers who leave their lives and families at a moment’s notice and will dedicate days, weeks, even months to hands-on cleanup, recovery and relief here at home.

We need more.

We need Nechama chapters established across the country as local community disaster response teams that can also be recruited to other regions of the country when large-scale tragedies strike. With a precarious economy and a poor job market, the time is ripe for the establishment of chapters of volunteers across the country.

According to Jim Stein, executive director of Nechama, this is what it takes: funds to hire an operations coordinator, donated office space for a response and planning center, and $100,000 to buy and equip a disaster response trailer.

The operations coordinator will be responsible for coordination with local disaster relief agencies, educating the community, and recruiting and managing volunteers. Also helpful is the creation of a local volunteer committee that can assist the coordinator and multiply the effectiveness of the chapter.

“We are also expanding our services to disaster victims by recruiting Jewish professionals who can help victims navigate insurance and government bureaucracies,” Stein said by phone from his office in Minnesota.

Nechama is also in the process of “creating a national board, a division dedicated to rebuilding efforts and a chaplain division to provide pastoral resources to victims,” he added.

Nechama is just the kind of grass-roots organization that American Jews need to support and grow so that it can engage multiple generations. It needs to be kept free of politics, prejudice and power struggles.

As the Talmud teaches, when a person is trapped under a building, screaming to get out, it doesn’t matter if he is a Jew or a non-Jew, whether it is Shabbat or a weekday, or whether he voted for Obama or McCain. What matters is the preservation of life and human dignity.

In my address to college graduates (“Graduates, Your Mountain Is Waiting,” Jewish Journal, June 2), I mentioned the great need for volunteers to help in places ravaged by natural disasters. From Pierre, S.D.,  to Birmingham, Ala., and from Joplin, Mo., to Greer, Ariz., American communities lay in ruins and their citizens need a hand. Nechama is the Jewish answer to disaster relief, and I believe part of the solution to the broader issue of building Jewish unity and opening new ways for young Jews to connect.

Yonah Bookstein, a leading voice of the next generation of American Jewry, is an internationally recognized expert in Jewish innovation, founder of the Jewlicious Festival, and executive rabbi at JConnectLA. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiYonah.

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June 19, 2011 | 9:21 am

Dear Kids, Happy Father’s Day! Love, Dad

Posted by Rabbi Yonah Bookstein

My two youngest sons, aged four and eight, hid some notes for me under the decorative challah cover Friday night. As I went to make the ceremonial blessing over the challah, in front of a dozen guests, five letters slipped out onto the table. My little angels were beaming at me, excited that I would be reading these notes at that moment perched between the benediction over the wine, and the bread. At that awkward moment, between washing our hands, and blessing over the bread which mark the start of the traditional Sabbath dinner, Father’s day arrived.

The notes, written in crayon on paper, were expressions of love, even claiming that I might in fact be the “Greatest Dad in the World.”

“Really?” I think to myself, “what have I done lately to deserve that kind of accolade and recognition?” As if there were such a metric to be measured, some kind of nationwide American Dad competition.

I start running through things I did recently. Yes, I fixed the broken window that had been shattered the previous weekend when a stray fly-ball smashed through the second floor bedroom window.

I bought a big balloon that said “CONGRATS!” for the kids when they finished the school year. (Really that balloon was for my wife, who survived another year of homework.)

“What have I done to deserve any recognition of my contribution to Fatherhood,” I contemplated, ”Beyond ensuring that they are clothed, fed, safe from harm, consoled, encouraged, nurtured and…”

And then it hit me this morning. “...I’m proud to be your Dad.”

Yes, I am proud of you when you mess up, and when you hit a home run. I’m proud of you when you smile at the frozen yogurt machine, as the delicious dessert starts oozing its way from the machine, and when you are inconsolable after the Lego ship was smashed into little pieces when I stepped on it on my way out of their bedroom.

I’m proud of you when you refuse to be cowed into submission by irate adults who take out their own parenting issues on you, and then can’t be grown-up enough to apologize.

I’m proud of you when they show self-restraint as you pass by candies and delights that don’t bear a kosher symbol, and I am proud of you when you can’t stop pleading with me for what you say you need most in life — another one of those $7 plastic toys made China that transform from a ball to monster and back.

Kids, I’m proud to be your dad, and always will be. But I wonder, what have I done to deserve your pride in me?

That you continue to be proud of me — 
with me losing my temper,
working too hard,
missing graduation from Kindergarten,
having to make time for pastoral counselling at all hours of the day,
marking you as the rabbi’s kids without your consent,
imploring you to not punch one another,
to be nicer to your mom,
making you brush your teeth,
being allergic to dogs, cats, and other furry pets,
withholding from you the Disney Channel, cheeseburgers, Heelys, motorized scooters, BB guns and other potentially lethal influences—
is the greatest gift in the world that I could ever have.

Kids, thank you for continuing to believe in me, as much as I believe in you.

Happy Father’s Day,

Love,

Dad

_____________________

Yonah Bookstein is a proud father of four. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiYonah.

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June 17, 2011 | 10:38 am

Matisyahu Brings Message Of “One Day” To Auschwitz

Posted by Rabbi Yonah Bookstein

Matisyahu is headlining the 2011 Life Festival, at MOSiR Stadium in Oświęcim.

What is the world’s most famous Jewish musician doing in Poland this weekend? He is bringing the message of “One Day” to Auschwitz:

“One day this all will change
treat people the same
stop with the violence
down with the hate
one day we’ll all be free
and proud to be
under the same sun
singing songs of freedom”

“One Day,” a world-wide anthem of peace, was NBC’s official song of the Winter Olympics, and played at the World Cup concluding ceremonies.

Matisyahu’s performance in Oświęcim, the Polish city renamed Auschwitz in 1939 by the Nazis, is the brainchild of Darek Maciborek, a radio DJ for Poland’s most popular station for young adults. Maciborek has built a three-day music and camping festival to promote tolerance called Life Festival, which attracted 15,000 young Poles last summer. The Festival is dedicated to battling anti-Semitism, racism, and other forms of xenophobia and to send a message of peace and tolerance from Auschwitz/Oświęcim.

This mega-music Festival is the latest incarnation of efforts to offset the immense evil perpetrated there. Oświęcim is home to a German educational center. Young Germans who choose to perform their national service at the Auschwitz State Museum reside and study there. The Auschwitz Jewish Center is also located there. This precious museum, built by American Jews, the Polish Government, and the city of Oświęcim, resides in the ancestral home of the Kornreich family to commemorate hundreds of years of Jewish life in Oświęcim before the war.

There are some who feel that Auschwitz should be condemned forever as a place of evil, and that efforts to bring a festival, a tolerance center, or visitors’ center are misplaced, if not sacrilegious.

Others believe that the way to prevent another Auschwitz is to draw the world’s attention to what happened here, and use this as a means of teaching tolerance.

One thing is certain: Saturday night’s concert will be one of the most emotional performances of this young musician’s life. Last year during his performance in Krakow, Matisyahu was overwhelmed by his audience. “During my show in Krakow last year, I kind of lost it,” said Matisyahu, “I got very emotional, and had to leave and the come back. There were a lot of Survivors at the concert and it was very emotional.”

This Saturday night, just a few miles from where a million Jews were murdered, Matisyahu will sing his anthem of a peaceful future for tens of thousands of young Poles. “All my life I’ve been waiting for, I’ve been praying for,” sings Matisyahu in “One Day”, “for the people to say, that we don’t wanna fight no more, they’ll be no more wars, and our children will play.”

And while we will not know how the message of “One Day” will influence these young people right away, we can appreciate what it represents. Matisyahu is writing a new chapter in Polish-Jewish relations with his music.

Shabbat Shalom
_________________________

Yonah Bookstein, a leading voice of the Next Generation of American Jewry, is an internationally recognized expert in Jewish innovation, founder of Jewlicious Festival and Executive Rabbi at JConnectLA. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiYonah.

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June 16, 2011 | 1:59 am

Ninel’s Samovar

Posted by Rabbi Yonah Bookstein

Photo by Kasia Psoda

I first met Ninel in 1991 when I was introduced to Ninel by her son Mati. Mati was a young, charismatic student leader at the forefront of the resurgence of Jewish life in post-Communist Poland. Ninel’s renowned, book-lined apartment, which graced the pages of a 1986 National Geographic, had made her famous five years before I got to Poland. I felt that I knew her already. “Remnants” they had called them, “The Last Jews Of Poland.” Ninel was no remnant.

Ninel was a printer for the Solidarity movement and risked arrest under martial law for distributing hand-printed newsletters and books whose goal was to bring down the Communist regime that her parents helped establish. Her name Ninel, is Lenin spelled backwards.

During the anti-Semitic purges of 1968, when thousands of Jews fled, Ninel remained in Poland to tend to her sick father. Ninel worked for 25 years at the Jewish Historical Institute, cataloging minute by minute more than 1,000 movies depicting Nazi atrocities during theHolocaust. Each film was like a dagger through her heart, but she felt “she owed it to them because she survived.”

Ninel’s tiny, pre-WWI apartment on Jagiellonska — my refuge in Poland during my first two summers there, and during my first year living in Poland —  was a rendezvous point for artists, writers, revolutionaries, musicians, and actors who crowded around her wooden table and its shiny samovar, for strong tea and shots of peppered vodka.

Ninel became an accomplished Jewish writer. She authored Święta i tradycje żydowskie, Jewish Holidays and Traditions, still one of the best selling Jewish books in post-war Poland. Ninel’s respect for Jewish tradition rubbed off on her younger son, who had the first post-war public Bar Mitzvah in 1985. Currently, Rabbi Mati Kos, one of only a handful of post-Communist ordained Polish Rabbis, serves as a Jewish chaplain in Durham, UK.

Ninel’s kind eyes looked with compassion on all those who had suffered. In the meantime, she herself endured her own private exile in her own land, surrounded by a civilization that had been obliterated, and determined to keep their memory at the forefront of the world’s conscience. Her epitaph should read, “Died of a broken heart for the victims of the Holocaust and Communism.”

I will always cherish those days around Ninel’s samovar, translating for my mother and Ninel as they carried on great discussions about art and life, laughing till we cried. Ninel was a painter too, and her art hung from every corner of her home in solemn witness to her work.

Ninel passed away on June 4th, after loosing a long battle with illness, on the anniversary of the fall of Communism in Poland that she successfully fought. She is survived by her two sons and five grandchildren, and her samovar.

_________________________

Yonah Bookstein, a leading voice of the Next Generation of American Jewry, is an internationally recognized expert in Jewish innovation, founder of Jewlicious Festival and Executive Rabbi at JConnectLA. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiYonah.

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June 6, 2011 | 8:34 am

Why I Drink Beer On Shavuot

Posted by Rabbi Yonah Bookstein

“Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” — Benjamin Franklin

Tonight Jews around the world celebrate the holiday of Shavuot, the Summer Solstice Harvest Festival and anniversary of the giving of the Torah. So why do I drink beer?

While conducting some research on Shavuot a few years back, I came across an important footnote in the Netei Gavriel, a encyclopedic series of books on Jewish laws and customs. The Netei Gavriel, amid discussions of customs and practices around Shavuot — eating dairy food, decorating the shul with plants, flowers and grass etc. — mentions the custom of having a keg of beer at synagogue for Shavuot. Yes, a keg of beer.

Let me explain.

The Jewish people had left Egypt, and traversed the desert, and were encamped at the base of Mt. Sinai in the stark harshness of the desert. There, at the base of the mountain, they encountered God. According to tradition, this is when we received the Torah.

One of the stories from the Midrash about the giving of the Torah relates how the Jewish people decided to accept the Torah. It was, as Don Corleone said in The Godfather, “an offer that [we] could not refuse.”

God lifted Mt. Sinai over the heads of the assembled People of Israel and then asked us if we wanted the Torah. If we said “no,” God would drop the mountain on top of us.

Lest one think that this Midrash is speaking in metaphorical terms, Rashi explains that God literally held Mt. Sinai over the heads of the Jewish people “like a barrel.”

In the middle ages a tradition arose in Eastern Europe, based on this Rashi, to have a barrel of beer in the synagogue when Jews stay up all night and study until dawn, in order to fix the mistake of our ancestors for sleeping soundly the night before Revelation, that we accept the Torah enthusiastically, and according to Kabbalah, that we enter into marriage with God with a full trousseau of Torah learning.

Today, having a keg of beer for Shavuot is within everyone’s reach thanks to the proliferation of mini “draughtkegs” for about $20. No need to worry about deposits and taps, these small kegs have enough beer to make a bunch of people happy.

After a few years with the smaller keg, I decided to go for an upgrade last year. We will have a 15 gallon keg of cold, fresh, locally produced, artisinal beer at our Shavuot program.

And while drinking your beer this Shavuot, remember the important words of Benjamin Franklin, “Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

L’Chaim, success and joy in your learning, Gut Yontef and Chag Sameach!
_________

Yonah Bookstein, a leading voice of the Next Generation of American Jewry, is an internationally recognized expert in Jewish innovation, founder of Jewlicious Festival, and Executive Rabbi at JConnectLA. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiYonah.

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June 2, 2011 | 11:32 am

Graduates, Your Mountain Is Waiting

Posted by Rabbi Yonah Bookstein

Mazal tov graduates! I have some sage advice that can make you rich. Broaden your horizons.

Not to be a downer, but according to the statistics, the job market for you is as low as it can go. I’m really sorry. The chance for a job that actually requires that major of yours? It’s even lower. So exactly how are you, the Facebook Generation, going to get rich? Expand your worldview.

Don’t waste your time in a search for a dead-end job or a career. The world is a big place, and you will never have this chance again. As one of our greatest teachers,  Dr. Suess said in The Places You’ll Go, “Your mountain is waiting, so get on your way!” 

Volunteer somewhere in this vast world where your help is really needed. A billion people want to learn your native language English. Impoverished communities from Guatemala to India, can benefit from your idealism and energy.

Here at home in America, communities ravaged by poverty and natural disasters need you to help pick up the pieces. Joplin, Missouri, alone could keep you busy for a year. Detroit needs an army of teachers to battle illiteracy.

Another way to broaden your horizons is by setting out for a spiritual quest. It’s no secret, but you don’t spend much time in college on the meaning of life . You are college graduates, with advanced secular educations, but few of you have explored your Jewish spiritual heritage since your Bar or Bat Mitzvahs. There is an ocean of knowledge and wisdom waiting for you.

How long should you spend on this quest to broaden your horizons?

Long enough so that you do not miss the comfort of your current surroundings.

Long enough so that you realize more about what you want to accomplish and where to use your God-given gifts when you return.

Long enough to open your mind and heart, and provide precious skills for your life’s journey.

Long enough to experience unforgettable often unplanned moments, where your soul is elated.

CEO’s agree, that the candidate with diverse and interesting experiences, makes a better hire for that job. Additionally, in your job and your career, you will be able to draw upon your experiences to find creative solutions that put you ahead of the rest.

So when you hang up your gowns and hat….pack your bags.

Graduates, members of the Facebook Generation, my message to you is:

Enrich your soul in spiritual quests.
Give to the world.
You will never have this chance again.

Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!

Yonah Bookstein, a leading voice of the Next Generation of American Jewry, is an internationally recognized expert in Jewish innovation, and Executive Rabbi at Jewlicious and JConnectLA. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiYonah.

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