Words By Which to Live

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind. 

~ Dr Seuss

Hat tip to @bethanyshondark. 

Chavi Out.

On a break until I have something worthwhile and unoffensive to say.

Peace and have a good Pesach.

VIDEO: I'm Not Judgmental, I'm Just Funny.

Sigh. Maybe I should go on Sabbatical.

A Pig Called Traif. Seriously?

Not that I want to give press to folks dishing out non-kosher foodstuffs, but I can't pass up mentioning this. I'm incredibly amused about this new restaurant opening in New York, and I have to hat tip @MarkSoFla for posting it up on Facebook. I mean, the restaurant is called Traif, and I don't even want to begin the discussion on the transliteration (trayf, trayfe, traife, etc). The chef/co-owner of this establishment is Jason Marcus -- yes, he's Jewish. He admits on his blog that although he's Jewish, he's "obviously not good at it."

I'll say!

No judgments passed on observance or kashrut or anything here, but really? The most ancient attributions that defined Jews, no matter where they were living, consisted of two things: circumcision and not eating pork.

The funny thing is most non-Orthodox Jews I know won't even eat pork as a matter of principal in sticking with ancestral tradition. I don't even know when the world became obsessed with pork, but I think it sucks. Why the obsession with bacon? With pork? It doesn't even taste good and of all your meaty options, it really isn't that great for you.

And from the comments from both frum and non-frum Jews on Facebook from just having posted this link, the reaction is one of disgust. Should this be happening? Why couldn't the guy just call it the Pork House or something. Why integrate the Hebrew word? Why sort of chuck such an integral cultural/halachic no-no in people's faces and on their radars?

I mean, to each his or her own, but it just seems a little ... unnecessary. I wish Marcus all the luck in the world, but I also secretly hope people turn up their noses at his attempt at kitsch in the face of "tradition." Thoughts?

Gluckel of Hameln: The Original Blogging Jewess

Gluckel of Hameln, a late-17th century and early-18th century businesswoman and diarist in Germany, wrote her life's story down in a memoir, providing for historians and Jews the world over a glimpse at the everyday life and dealings of a simple woman going about her business. I read this book during my undergraduate career (circa April 2004; wow I'm old) and wrote a short paper on it, highlighting how focused this woman was on proper etiquette in business dealings, privacy in internal family affairs, living justly and rightly in order to obtain a place in the world to come, and other lessons on life. She wrote her memoires largely for her descendants, but what it provides us with today is an intimate look into what I'd like to call the Original Blogging Jewess.

Of course, she wasn't blogging, but reading what she has written is amusing from the perspective of a modern-day woman blogger. Here's this woman, with a bounty of children that she's worried about marrying off, talking about the people who run the synagogue, her business dealings, rabbis and how excellent they are, the internal strife of her family that must be kept private, and more. Obviously when Gluckel was writing her memoires, she never envisioned them being publicized to an audience as widely as they are today. You can hop over to Amazon and buy a copy and read the laundry list of names she provides her reader with. However, much like me, she only includes names when the topics to which they are connected are positive and praiseworthy.


It's extremely fascinating for me, especially being in an environment as a frum Orthodox woman blogger that has certain expectations and understandings of modesty and privacy, to watch Gluckel say something like the following, in regards to those battling over the spot of what essentially was synagogue president.

The community prospered during the presidency of my father ... I do recall, however, while I was yet a child, certain scoundrels rose against my father and his fellow officials, and sought to insure the community. ... Now that they are dead and stand in judgment before the Most High, I will not name them, but everyone in our community well knows who they were.

Now, if someone was blogging this today, they might suspect that no one in their community even reads their blog. The point, then, is without problem. But for those who do read the blog, they would know who she's talking about and might find it offensive or, on the other hand, amusing. Those reading the blog with no connection to the community would be completely uninformed and she's saved face by not naming them! I recall writing something like this on many occasions, such as when I wrote about a synagogue in Chicago (of the Reform slant) that was X, Y, Z. People in Chicago who had been to the shul were well aware of what shul it was. But was I crass enough to talk about the shul by name? No. I mean, come on. Privacy and respect folks!

I really think that if Gluckel were alive today, she'd be rocking a blog like myself and @hsabomilner. Talking about the tough issues of being a frum woman, talking about all the ridiculous situations we get ourselves into, raising kids and husbands (har har). She was a woman outside her age, I think.

At any rate, if you have a free moment, it's a really quick read and it will blow your mind how modern some of the situations are. There's even an incident in which the author's son, Joseph, sends his mother a letter requesting money (despite having been told by the rosh yeshiva that no money was required). At first read, it reminds me of those sneaky phishing schemes that started on phone and have advanced to emails (even Joseph Telushkin's account got hacked, and an email was sent out to the masses of his mailbox saying "help! I'm stuck in London without funds!").

Peace and good books!

Oh Academics, You Slay Me!

I'm busying struggling to catch up on reading and preparations for two papers and comp exams. After all, I have merely 6.5 weeks until my semester is up, and part of that will be eaten up by Pesach, so yeah. Madness is what we're looking at. I've got a binder full of about 215 pages worth of documents that cover basically all of the great academics of their subject and period (from ancient to modern and social Jewish studies) and how they felt about what, as well as another binder full of texts about Medieval versions of Tobit and a few texts on Herman the Jew (still developing this idea, concerned it's going nowhere), not to mention a binder in progress on am ha'aretz, which, let's be honest, I haven't really started on.

Heaping spoonful of sigh.



The upside is that there are lots of little amusing morsels of academic wisdom (or ridiculousness) that I get to share with my interested readership. You see, academics are hilarious. They're sarcastic and snotty and snarky at every turn, and it makes me giggle. I get it. I get the jabs, and I get the sneaky scripted way they present them. The over-arching statements that poke at revisionists or classicists ... they're beautiful. Here's a gem, from William Dever, from "The Crisis in Historiography" from John Collins The Bible After Babel.

But what if ancient Israel was "invented by Jews living much later, and the biblical literature is therefore nothing but pious propaganda? If that is the case, as some revisionist historians now loudly proclaim, then there was no ancient Israel. ... The story of Israel in the Hebrew Bible would have to be considered a monstrous literary hoax, one that has cruelly deceived countless millions of people until its recent exposure by a few courageous scholars. And now, at last, thanks to these social revolutionaries, we sophisticated modern secularists can be "liberated" from the biblical myths, free to venture into a Brave New World unencumbered by the biblical baggage with which we grew up. (p. 40-41)

Oh that was good. Do you feel the knives and jagged edges in those words? Look out revisionists, you just got your tush handed to you on a platter by Dever.

And then there's this, which is less sarcastic than it is a brilliant approach to this question of historiography. This comes from the mouths of Iain Provan, V. Phillips Long, and Tremper Longman III, again in Collins "The Crisis in Historiography."

"Why," they ask, "should verification be a prerequisite for our acceptance of a tradition as valuable in respect of historical reality? Why should not ancient historical texts rather be given the benefit of the doubt in regard to their statements about the past unless good reasons exist to consider them unreliable in these statements? ... Why should we adopt a verification instead of a falsification principle? 

I tend to agree with these guys when it comes to the idea of revisionists that it's all a bunch of ballyhoo. I also am a big fan of the benefit of the doubt theory, because more often than not academics assume that absence automatically suggests non-existence. This, of course, is ridiculous. However, I think their statement fails in one way, because who is to say what a "good" reason really is when it comes to deciding what is reliable and what isn't.

Anyhow, those are my gems for now. Eat them up, swallow 'em down, and get your brain all juicy with smart-stuff goodness.

Passover Haikus -- An In-Transit Project

1.
Tiny Specks of Dust
Hiding in my Books and Shoes.
Burn Chametz, Oh Burn!

2.
Oh, Plagues a'plenty!
I Lament and Nosh Matzo.
Pass the Maror, Please.

3.
Manishewitz, Why?
We Need More Maxwell House Now.
Product Placement; Oy.

4.
Sea of Reeds, Red Sea,
Tambourines Shake, Ladies Dance,
Pre-Exodus Rave.

5.
Sixth Plague, Boils and Puss.
Alicia Silverstone
Says Milk is Puss, Ew.

I've only just begun. I kind of want to write 40 of them, actually. 

Stay tuned for more (and write your own!).

Pesach Cometh, Have You Shaken Your Books?

While looking on Chabad.org for a place to sell my chametz (I sort of hate this ritual, but I suppose it helps cover all the bases), I happened upon a pretty useful Q&A on "Passover at the In-Laws." The particular line that I felt I needed to share?

...It is incumbent upon every Jew to drive their rabbi nuts before Pesach.

Love it! Poor rabbis, however. I've had minimal questions for my rabbi this year, and most of the questions Tuvia has passed along (e.g., what's the difference between a convection oven and a regular oven?). But I am, in a way, heading to the in-laws for Pesach. Future in-laws that is. We'll be in Florida strictly for the first two days of the chag, which means flying down, doing the seders, and then coming back. No vacation time, no time to drive down to Boca, nada. We're staying with family friends (who aren't kosher, and I mention this only because I worry about refusing something so simple as a cup of water because of issues of kashruth), and I'm hoping that things go smoothly. Last year, Tuvia and I were still getting into our observance around this time. We were still lenient on our kashrut, functioning kosher in-house and watching what we ate out of the house, so going out to eat with family or driving around on Pesach were no big thing. Now? Yipes. We're in a different boat.

I think the hardest thing about becoming frum -- or more observant/more shomer -- is how your observance comes to affect those around you and how it affects situations with friends and family. Where you can eat, where you can't, how you address the issue of food and Shabbos. Dealing with being told you've become "too religious" or the like. All ba'alei teshuvah and converts deal with these kinds of things, and the issue is very delicate. For me, I can't expect my non-Jewish family to figure out what I need or to understand next to anything that comes along with being Jewish. But with Jewish in-laws? It's a whole other story sometimes.

So we'll go to Florida, hopefully get through the seder with the other shomer cousins, and tread delicately and thoughtfully with my future in-laws. I'll sport my prescription sunglasses, a dozen books, and hopefully enjoy some R&R wandering around the golf course.

In the end, logic must always prevail (just think: common sense), and, as the Chabad website says, there is halakah and doing only what you have to do in the presence of those who are uncomfortable is probably best. And most of all? "Passover is a festival for goodness sakes! Festival=time to bring families together in harmony, love and goodtime fun. What's desperately needed here is some education, sensible priorities and common sense."

I suppose I couldn't say it better. It's difficult to present myself to the in-laws sometimes; I worry they worry that I've transformed their kin in a unique and unnatural way. My spark of influence helped spark something in Tuvia's neshama and allowed him to develop himself in observance. To the in-laws, it easily can look like I've forcibly transformed him, and that's the last thing I want them to think. After all, it's the farthest thing from the truth.

What are your tips on staying with non-frum in-laws? Or hey, those of you out there who aren't frum, what gets your goat most about your frum friends or family when they come to visit or when you organize social events? Let's dialogue this. I want to help you help me, and, you know, vice-a-versa!

NOTE: I use the term "frum" to signify individuals who consider themselves strictly shomer mitzvot (observant of the mitzvot, such as shomer kashrut and shomer Shabbat). I avoid using terms like "more observant" or "more religious," because of the diversity of my readership. I think saying "more" anything can rub people the wrong way. After all, there is no scale.

Prescription Sunglasses FTW.

_DSC1097
Originally uploaded by mobius1ski

This is me at the SXSW Interactive Kosher BBQ at UT-Austin Chabad.

I love my prescription sunglasses. Thanks for the photo @Mobius1ski!

The Book Winner is ...

So I was kind of really disappointed that more people didn't enter my awesome Marc Angel book giveaway of "The Search Committee." But at any rate, the winner of the AWESOME book is ...

IZGAD!!

Email me with your address and I'll get this book sent off to you as soon as humanly possible.

Ugh. Starbucks Kosher Confusion.

I know, I know -- Ask your local Orthodox rabbi. But I like to get a feel from my readership how they roll, and I know plenty of my readers have smichah, so why not?

Here's the deal: Monday is free pastry day at Starbucks, and me being Jewish and a lover of sweets and free things and pastries and Starbucks, I want to take part. The problem? I'm getting some seriously mixed signals about kosher pastries at Starbucks! Let's begin.

The OU website says that the following Baked Goods and Mixes are kosher:

Lemon Poppyseed T & S Muffin

Blueberry T & Muffin

Cranberry Orange T & S Muffin

LF Blueberry T & S Muffin

LF Cranberry Orange T & S Muffin

Carrot T & S Muffin

Carrot Zucchini T & S Muffin

Raisin Bran T & S Muffin

Chocolate Creme Cake Base

Muffin Base Mix Starbucks

Scone Base Mix Starbucks

Okay, now that that's done, KosherStarbucks.com tells me that "Majority of the pastries at Starbucks are not kosher. In some Starbucks stores the bagels are under the OU, and the original packaging should be checked for a certification." This notice is followed by a bunch of pre-packaged items that do contain the OU label.

I know that for many, it's that these baked goods are placed in a display case that holds other, questionable items (you know, like that bacon/egg/cheese muffin), so asking an employee for a fresh item from the back is always an option. But is that really an option? Are there any pastries at Starbucks I can freely ask for?

Agh! I need a too-many-calories and way-high-fat muffin! Stat! It's free, you know.

New Google Group: Conversion Conversation

Just a quick note.

If you want to join the new group, you can click here and fill out the appropriate information! Here's to a lively conversation.

A Pasta-licious Shabbos Menu

My gratin didn't looks this scrumptious, but it came really close!

Another cooked-up Shabbat, and another menu to present to my readers. I like to venture outside the traditional box and mix up some milchig (dairy) treats, so this week I went the route of the cow! Its byproduct, that is.

Friday Dinner

Challah (store-bought, come on people, Pesach is coming!)

Boxed Butternut Squash Soup (I do have a life, after all)

Brown-Sugar Roasted Salmon with Maple-Mustard-Dill Sauce

Cajun Steak Frites

Cinnamon Streusel Cake n' Cup kit (an impulse by at Burlington Coat Factory, of all places)

Saturday Lunch

Challah (store-bought, FTW!)

Vegetable Pasta with OurBestBites.com's Guiltless Alfredo Sauce

Vegetable Pasta with Trader Joe's Pasta Sauce

Sweet Potato and Butternut Gratin (Note: I obviously didn't include the pancetta!)

Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

The sauce with the fish was to die for. I could seriously eat that sauce ... I mean wow. It really blended well with the sweetness of the fish, too. I used Cary's Sugar-Free Syrup to help keep the badness down, too.

I was a little disappointed in the gratin, but it was my first time making something as such. I think next time I'd probably leave out one of the three main ingredients and settle for just plain potato + squash or plain potato + sweet potato. There's just too much going on in this dish!

The Guiltless Alfredo sauce, however, was a huge hit. Such a huge hit that even I, who absolutely loathes white sauces, loved it. There's some kind of special kick to it, and the fact that it's so easy and not horrible for you helped, I think. As a note, I did substitute the milk by using SKIM milk, and it turned out fine.

For both pasta dishes, I made the noodles, poured the sauce over it, put some mozzarella on top, and baked it for probably 10 minutes to get the sauces to thicken up for reheating on Shabbat purposes. They both came out amazing! The nice thing about using "vegetable" pasta is it gets Tuvia to eat his vegetables without shoving them down his throat!

Until next time ...

Quick Query to my Readership!

Hey readers! Would anyone be interested in me creating a private group (via Google Groups probably) geared toward a Conversion Conversation? You could ask me anything you want in private (that is, not in the comments here if you're concerned) and ask other converts similar questions. This, of course, includes converts in training and those simply curious.

Let me know if you're interested!

Shabbat Shalom!

A Pro-Convert, Pre-Shabbos Anecdote

Shabbat cometh, so I thought I'd share a cute little "yay convert!" anecdote with everyone. ready?

While in Austin, standing in line at the kosher grill at H-E-B, a little old man, who also is a professor at the university there, turned to me, looked at my SXSW Interactive nametag, and said, "Chaviva? Are you Israeli?"

I responded that I was not, and left it at that.

He replied, "Are your parents Israeli? Such a weird name to give an American girl!" I responded, hesitatingly, "Nope, I chose this name myself, actually." The little old man grinned broadly, saying, "Ahh! A convert! I love converts!"

At first I wasn't entirely sure how to react. It was funny to me how typically I anticipate people experiencing my "I'm a convert" moment through asking me where I'm from (Nebraska, there are Jews there?!) or where I was bat mitzvahed (no where). Never before, although perhaps it will become a more regular occurrence, has my name become the topic for my "coming out." Although, now that I think about it, Chaviva is a very Israeli name. In the U.S. the names Ahava and Aviva are much more popular to express the same idea.

So the little old man went on to tell me stories about the converts he knows, how he "adopted" their children, how authentic and genuine the converts he knows are. He was giddy with love for gerim! So I stood, smiled, nodded, and was pleased to experience the happier side of convert acceptance.

Later, as I sat eating with a friend and two Israelis we'd bumped into, the little old man came over and said something along the lines of, "It was good to meet you all. But it was especially good to meet her (pointing at me); SHE is something very special."

This left me glowing, feeling special, and the Israeli guests puzzled as to what was going on (they didn't know, of course, what the little old man was so excited about). Surrounded by Israelis and kosher food and friends, I felt utterly loved and, as the little old man said, special.

Shabbat shalom, friends!

I Know Y'all Love Me

I want to win some yummy tech stuff for being all silly at a SXSW Interactive party (Alltop), so do me a favor. Click on one of the photos below and VOTE for me to win. Pretty please? I'll love you forever :) Plus, the more free stuff I get, the more free stuff I give away. We all win, right?

Jews Gone Texas

or

Texas Schmexus, I'm from Nebraska!

Todah rabah!

The Sabbath Manifesto

I'm a sucker for viral web projects, and I just happened upon one (okay, they started following me on Twitter) today. The project? It's called the Sabbath Manifesto. The tagline? "Slowing down lives since 2010."

Listen, when I started going shomer Shabbos, the first thing I tried (keyword: tried) to do was unplug entirely. I did it cold turkey. No internet, no phone, no tv, no iPod. And believe me, it was hell on wheels. But now? I honestly -- and I'm not trying to lift you up and drop you in the dark side of "strict observance" here -- can't survive without Shabbat. My week used to turn into another week and another and months flowed together into years and there was no break; it was a continuous flow of noise and mess and chaos. But when I figured out how to make a day of rest from technology work, it turned into a day of rest from a ton of other things, which turned into a big day of rest from all of the stuff I do every other day of the week. It allowed me to read books for pleasure, talk with people, rest, just sit, to watch life go by around me while I rested, sound and relaxed in mind and thought.

And, you know what, a sabbath -- while it has a loaded "religious" tone -- really is for everyone. I think now about people who function on a 24/7 schedule of Twitter and blogging and Facebook and their phone and text messaging and fidgeting with worthless apps and my face hurts. In a world burdened with noise, I think everyone could take a day to step back and just say "wow, there's more to life than all of this other stuff." I hear from people all the time how mystified they are at the idea of a day without technology, and then later from the same people how they sincerely wish they had the will power to do so.

Of course, the question people always ask: What if there's an emergency? What if someone needs to get ahold of you?

The answer? Nothing is so important that it can't wait a few hours. Someone calls me from Nebraska to say there's an emergency, it's not like I can hop a flight instantly and help it get better. Someone has a pressing question? It can wait. Imagine how things were a hundred years ago -- you had to wait, you didn't have a choice. Did people survive? Heck yeah!

So listen, go to the website, give it a gander, and make it happen. We all need a break; we're on overload; we're liable to implode. Give yourself new life, and wrap yourself around the Sabbath Manifesto.

SXSW Interactive: A Wrap-Up

Everything's bigger in Texas, including the fake hair on their airport bathroom mirrors!

Here I sit, coming to you live from BWI Airport near Baltimore, Maryland, with heavy thoughts on my mind. The most pressing, of course, is why on earth this airport doesn't have Kosher Vending machines. After all, the Baltimore/DC Jewish community is massive, and the kosher crowd in Baltimore alone calls for such amenities, right? Alas. I'll pull out my horribly squished PB&J (made in my hotel around 10 p.m. last night) and pray for tastiness. One thing's for sure: I can't wait for a home-cooked meal. And another thing's for sure: Next year, SXSW Interactive better prepare itself for some serious, rocking, Israeli and Jewish folks who will be chowing with a vengeance on kosher food every day of the week. Believe me, the vision is there, the passion is there, the drive is there -- we just have to start planning, and by that, I mean planning starting today. SXSW Interactive is big doins, and you have to represent early. More on the vision later, however. Right now? More on the past four days!

Last night, we ventured to H-E-B, a grocery store in Austin that touts a little kosher grill (something we don't even have in West Hartford). These folks, in addition to having a crapton of kosher goodies (again, more than we have in West Hartford), they have a grill where you can order fries, burgers, chicken wraps, pastrami, and more. It's like an actual restaurant in the grocery store, and there's even seating! What a novel concept, right? So I opted for the Spicy Buffalo Wrap with some Spicy Fries. Stay tuned for a Yelp! review. The coolest thing about eating there, however, was running into some Israeli musicians who also were getting dinner. They sat down with us, and we ate together, talking about SXSW and those darn dairy Wal-Mart bread crumbs (no good for schnitzel, you know). The funniest thing about last night eating there with them, however, were two things they said. One was that my Hebrew accent is French, and the other was that I don't look outright Orthodox with my "Sex and the City" haircut. That made me want to roll on the floor giggling, but I maintained my composure. I'll be honest: No one has EVER told me my haircut is Sex and the City. What do you guys think?

Yes, I was at a party with Ashton Kutcher, Evan Williams (of Twitter fame), and Gary V., and yes I missed the "secret" U2 concert that was played at a local bar (I don't even like U2, sacrilege, I know). I met longtime friend (FINALLY) @caro, and I spent a great deal of time at the @FourSquare party with Dave Weinberg and Leah Jones, among others, sipping mojitos (which some Israeli friends told me actually is pronounced "moCHito" with a chet) and talking aliyah and the height of Mr. Kutcher. I dropped names to get into parties, enjoyed my VIP status and the stack of free t-shirts I picked up, not to mention stickers and pins and free Starbucks VIA coffee mugs and free Skype goodies ... but is that why I went to SXSW Interactive? To get free schwag and party with celebrities at branded parties?

I met folks from Stickybits (software doesn't work on my phone), folks from Grizzly and StumbleUpon. I talked to folks at the Google booth and at Glass, and I even walked past the PayPal station to express my disconcern about my account issues (resulting in free beer). My time at SXSW Interactive was peppered with a mass of THINGS and STUFF and PEOPLE, all selling themselves and their brands. It was a big love fest of tech startups and tech giants. So?

I think it was the moments like those at the H-E-B grill that really stick with me. That and some of the panel moments. I was thinking in the shower the other night that what I learned in the community management session was true: You have to talk to your customers. Even I was saying that, but from the viewpoint of the customer, not the producer. So I realized something: I produce a product every week, and sometimes every day, that consumers -- that's YOU guys -- buy into. I've gotten kind of bad in the past about not responding to comments, and I realized that's bad customer service. I've taken months to respond to emails, that's also bad customer service. So I learned something: I gotta care more! I also came into contact with some amazing people with amazing ideas. We had Microsoft Israel in our Judaism 2.0 panel (check out more on that at www.bit.ly/judaism20), I met a social media god at HP, I listened to Gary V. preach the good word of customer service and building relationships and doing what you love. I met (finally) two rappers who schlepped around SXSW seriously rocking and making their presence known, simply by rapping questions!

Although SXSW Interactive was a flurry of STUFF and THINGS, it was also incredibly powerful in the way that it brought more than 15,000 people into a space and made them interact, whether on the web through Twitter in sessions or face-to-face in core conversations like ours. A lot of people call it a big circle jerk, big dogs like Evan Williams and Gary V. tooting their own horns, but isn't that what we can use as a model? People from nothing turning into something in a thriving world of Social Media and Web 2.0? Aren't they our role models for success in business and e-creation? I think so.

Overall, however, the thing just wore the heck out of me. I didn't go to the closing party last night because I was spent. I felt really old, really lame, and really tired. I don't know how some of these people do it; many of these tech folks are very married and very much parents. I walked away from the entire thing invigorated, excited, and ready to do more. Gary V. says don't quit your job and think you're going to change the world with your tech and social media, but I don't know how every person that listened to him talk couldn't really want to do that.

I know I did. (Thank HaShem I'm a student for life!)

So stay tuned for LOTS of photos, including probably my most favorite panel at SXSW Film, and the only Film one I went to, which included the cast of the NEW MacGruber movie. Seth Meyers showed up (awesome), and I have a picture with him. I'm such a Midwestern girl, unexposed to stars and stardom and celebrity. I'm a sucker for a picture with someone famous and hilarious. Oh, and Val Kilmer? Yikes. He's gone downhill, a lot. The upside? He's hilarious.

Watch Judaism 2.0 LIVE!

We're LIVE streaming our Judaism 2.0 core conversation at SXSW Interactive at 3:30 p.m. CST! Check us out below, or on the website (www.bit.ly.com/judaism20).

Live video chat by Ustream

KoshaDillz Drops a Beat at SXSW

I didn't get a chance last night to blog about the day's events, but they were aplenty, fascinating, and exhausting (but in a good way). The pinnacle of the day probably came in the evening, however, which started with our big Kosher BBQ at the Chabad House at UT in Austin. We probably had 15 people show up, including a bunch of Israelis (which gave me a chance to show off my mad Hebrew skills), and we noshed on hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, and Shiner. The best part of the BBQ? KoshaDillz, the illustrious Jewish rapper, showed up with his cohort and they dropped some serious rhymes, kosher style. You need to watch this entire video to get the full effect, and listen closely for my name -- yes, I am in the rap. Ahh, to be rapped about. This surely will be the first of many rap inclusions, of course. So enjoy the video!





More about the evening, including an encounter with the one and only Ashton Kutcher (okay, he was like, five feet from me, but I got a picture), the party where I name-dropped, and more!