Whole Phamily Takes the Crew on the Road

In case you might have missed our most recent gig Camping with My Kids & a Whole Bunch of Jam Bands  last June, you all have a second chance to join up with the Whole Phamily crew in just a few weeks!

We are so thrilled to be a part of Blues for Challah:  The Second Set, a "weekend-long workshop exploring the spiritual and mystical aspects of the Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan," writes Seth Rogovoy on his Rogovoy Report.  Whole Phamily is heading up the programs for children on Friday night and Shabbat morning.

In case you were wondering, my friendly friends, this is a pluralistic event, welcome folks of all persuasions (but a love of the Grateful Dead is sorta the point...). You don't have to be Jewish, but it don't hurt to be, neither. And, in case you were wondering, my frum friend or relative (yep, Heshy, I'm talkin' to you), this is, indeed a shabbaton.  Just different than my 8th grade experience.   I have desired to attend an event at Isabella Freedman and its affiliate Elat Chayyim since the mid '90s, living as a single working woman on Upper West Side.  It is finally, baruch hashem, coming to fruition!  And on the cusp of mine and Stango's 11th wedding anniversary and right after my birthday, no less.  Someone is surely watching over us for the good.

 C'mon Children! Shabbat Fun for Kids

Pipe cleaner creations and a fun food craft are among just the many exciting things we have planned for kids of all ages.  Concealed Light, The Wolfman and the Wolfman's Brother will be there ready to have a whole lot of fun with all the kids.  We'll sing classic tot-shabbat tunes, do puppet shows and read stories.  We will talk about that week's torah portion, Vayishlach, in an interactive way and maybe even make up a skit about it!  Who knows, maybe kids will even get to borrow their very own Pez dispensers as a shabbat treat on Friday night.  Parents, just be chill with the food coloring, ok?  It's 12 tiny pieces of candy!  And if the goats are willing, maybe we'll take a walk over and say 'mehhhhh!  So much more can and will happen.  Anyone under the age of 21 who is shlepped along for this epic shabbaton is a lucky one and for sure should be grateful!

Stango will likely be found during those times in the shul, but off-the-record will be available for any brain-talk-walk therapy and of course discussion of chassidus and Jerry that folks might be interested in.

For more info, read what Seth Rogovoy wrote on his blog regarding the event.
(remember when I reviewed Rogovoy's book on Dylan?)

Or what Josh Fleet wrote in his Huffington Post coverage.

All-inclusive prices, which include farm-to-table food and wine and lodging, begin at $233 for the 2-night event.  EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION DISCOUNT EXTENDED UNTIL TODAY NOVEMBER 9, 2012!

For more info check out Blues for Challah:  Second Set.

Have a good Shabbes, have a good show!

Nor'easter this week...Cold, Rain & Snow

My heart goes out to those folks who are still without power due to Hurricane Sandy.  The conditions are unfathomable.

And now we're expecting a nor'easter in Philly?  I'd rather be where those chilly winds don't blow.

Here's a little ditty from 32 years ago, almost to the date...

Baruch Dayan Emet: Larry Bloch

The man who created the club the Wetlands in lower Manhattan, Larry Bloch, passed away on Sunday of pancreatic cancer, the Bratteboro Reformer reports.  The Wetlands was a place that allowed me to get my own feet wet in the jam band scene.  Admittedly, I didn't go nearly as much as I should have, but I knew that it was the place to be and wished I went more.  Still somewhat in-the-box and not having a group of friends to venture with to Tribeca from the Upper West Side, I saw just a handful of shows in my early 20s at The Wetlands.  But these shows provided a foundation from which I was able to build and grow strongly in the appreciation of live music.

Larry Bloch was a trailblazer and built an institution in a neighborhood that, at the time, was so undesirable that who knew Tribeca would become what it is today.  He created a space that allowed people to learn more about two great things in life:  environmental activism and good ole' fashioned rock-n-roll.

May Larry Bloch's, son of Ephraim and Miriam, memory be for a blessing.

I loved flipping to the ad section of The Village Voice and looking at the bands where were playing that week.   Usually it was the Zen Tricksters.  Often it was bands I had never heard of and never went to hear.

Thank you for being an enabler.
Larry enabled folks to hear great music.
Larry enabled folks to care about the earth.

These are two very good things, and for those who are in the know, you know what I mean.

Come Together, Right Now, Judæo-Tat

Y'ave heard of Yiddish.
Y'ave maybe heard of Ladino.
Ya've less likely heard of Judæo-Tat aka Juhuri.

My friend Zita came to this country at the age of 3.  Her family is from Azerbaijan.  This is where Jews of the eastern Caucasus mountains lived.  She grew up speaking Juhuri.  Not Russian, as I mistakenly thought.

Neither Ashkenazi nor Sephardi:  Zita is of Mizrachi descent, from a country that was Arab-ruled.  Her family comes from no place of European origin:  like Indian, Iranian, Syrian and other locales, she comes from a community of the East.

Having studied in Israel during college, I learned of mizrachim years ago, but it is a sad state of my affairs that I have simply forgotten about them.  It has just been too long, and perhaps I have become so America-focused to my detriment.  Plus, the presence of mizrachi Jews is overshadowed in the United States greatly by the prevalent Ashkenazi culture.  Most Americans know about matza balls.  Savvy New Yorkers (who aren't so strict with their kashrut) certainly know of the scrumptious chicken in the pot at 2nd Avenue Deli.  But who knows about tchorba?

Remember when Amit Women used to be called Mizrachi Women's Organization of America?  I wonder and sortof doubt that any of my new friends at the recent Amit Women Saks' event discoursed about this.  Why would they?  Belts and bags are a lot more interesting!

For thousands of years we have been dispersed.  We have so many various cultures and customs.  All this is nice and dandy, but isn't it time we just merge back together so we're just Jewish?

Teach Your Children Well

Thanks, David Crosby, Steven Stills and Graham Nash for that reminder.  My latest and greatest fear?  Child predators.  I can't shake the infamous Diff'rent Strokes molestation episode from my childhood.

Why, then, you might ask would I slap my sweet children all over the Internet with yesterday's post that I might consider posting a video a day of them on Whole Phamily?

Because I'm worried not about the Internet psychos but the folks we already know. We all know by now that kids are often abused from within - the pervy family friend, coach, teacher or uncle.  Or, in this case, the Bicycle Man.

In the past few years, numerous stories have surfaced within the Jewish community, mostly in New York that I have heard, and my thought was:  what are people doing to spread awareness among Philly frum Jews?  By now, we have heard the plights of Chaim Levin, Deborah Feldman (both of whom were distanced from Yiddishkeit and were sexually abused)  and The Agudah's attempts to downplay any mention.   I applaud the work of Rabbi Mark Dratch and Jsafe (Rabbi Dratch was my first teacher of gemara - excellent at that - we learned Baba Mitziah with Cabbage Patch Dolls as the example); indeed there are those who are addressing the issue.  (btw I realize a lot of my info comes from the NYTimes and therefore I have a wacky, warped view of the world especially when it comes to sleazy men who touch innocent children's bodies and covet pictures of them from disgusting, pathetic child porn sites that, baruch hashem, I have never laid eyes on.  Yuck.  Big yucky stuff.  Can't I just get cozy with a bowl of split pea soup and flanken under my flannel sheets?).

Since Philly frum is a traditionally a heavily Agudah-influenced community (I have zero desire for my sons to study at the Talmudical Yeshiva of America, the  "Harvard of yeshivas," as it were.  Considering they are a legacy at the Harvard of Harvards, they have a better chance of getting in the Cambridge, Massachussetts institution anyway), my concerns aren't unfounded.  The Agudah pushes controversial issues like this under the rug, encourages its community to follow the herd and erect higher fences behind which to live as frum.  Now there are more "modern" people here, and you know what happens then:  people have ideas.  Uh-oh, time to get thee to Pier 1 Imports for a larger rug.  (Note:  I know of zero cases and I hope and pray that no kids are getting abused or have gotten abused in the Philadelphia frum world, I'm just saying it is a statistical possibility.  Just sayin'.)

(By the way, I gotta say I love that line that my husband went to the Harvard of Harvards.  I love that I daven for the day my husband will learn at the Yale of yeshivas in Israel, or, chus v'shalom, the Princeton of Yeshivas.  Perhaps the Gush qualifies?  I imagine he will seek out the revered and very learned Rabbi Daniel Sperber, a Talmud chacham in his own right.  Or perhaps Rabbi Weiss-HaLivni.  Or perhaps he will find a chavrusa  in mamaloshen in Meah Shearim, which would really float Stango's boat!   Please god one day we will make it, and it's too bad he'll never get to the Harvard of Yeshivas but they wouldn't want him anyway because his wife is too much of a rabble-rouser.  Anyone reading this drek, anyway?)

Which leads me to a wonderful article which appeared last week by Lenore Skenazy where she recommends her always-level headed approach.  Her central idea is to teach our children to:

Recognize it:  no one can touch you where your bathing suit covers
Resist it:  Scream.  Fight.  Run
Report it (and that we will never be upset if they do)

Leave it to Lenore to put it all in perspective...my kids have a greater risk of (god forbid) dying in a car crash than being sexually abused.  Reminds me of our pediatrician's similiar thought process that kids have greater risk of dying in a car crash than getting chicken pox (we still gave varicella because PA law requires it).

Easier said than done, and I'm still worried, but I will heed CSN's advice and remind myself that as a parent I am my children's most important teacher.  Instead of writing to rabbis and community leaders to be aware of the issue of child predators and what are you doing in your Orthodox environments to protect the kids, (I wasted a whole morning and afternoon collating, formatting and putting together the 10-page contact list of Philadelphia rabbis and shul executive directors), I will worry about my own daled amot and attempt to teach my own children well.

Glad to "whisper words of wisdom" and just let this issue be  (see below).  And if you don't like "Mother Mary" just substitute in your own mind the words "Mother Miriam".  Since this blog is an Internet whisper anyway.  Though I do think my ideas are full of wisdom.  Consider that, talmudic scholars.  That includes you, Rabbi Kaminetsky (no implications, again, however the organizations with which you align repeatedly seem, at least to my innocent bystander eye, to want to not let the cat out of the bag).

Oh, I forgot to mention:

GOOD SHABBES!    Shabbat shalom.  May it be gevaldik, leibidik, the holiest, the most menuchadik, any -dik (just don't tell that to the child molester) sabbath that you have ever experienced.  May it give you a taste of m'ayn olam haba.  Yeah, right, all that jazz.

Perhaps I can learn from this week's parsha Va'era where Abraham our forefather, Avraham Avinu, had the ultimate commitment to and belief in God, when Hashem said jump, Avraham said, "how high?" and was about to sacrifice his own son just because the holy one above said said.  Maybe I should just have more faith that this will all be ok and my children will be protected and safe and good and even if they don't get into their father's alma mater that is ok, too (trust me, the legacy comment earlier was somewhat ridiculous...it's not like we're blue bloods or have a long legacy, and don't they even say now that legacy doesn't really do diddily squat anyway, and yes my oldest is is 4th grade and no I am not a helicopter parent and I disdain all of the homework out there these days and tell my children don't do it all if it's too much).

They could always do what I did, anyway, which is marry in to the ivy league, to which I honestly do believe, what is the BFD?  In all honesty to tell you the truth I prefer what James Altucher believes which is college ain't that great anyway.  Make a buck and be able to pay your bills (those are my words).

I just hope they never get molested.

Whole Phamily Features Her Family!

Original content is always coveted...

till now Whole Phamily has been my original ideas, connections, etc...

maybe that's not working.

How about featuring short videos of my family?  Who the heck is interested in that?  I mean, my children's art teacher *did* recently write how wonderful they all are...




And for those of you who didn't catch the "gum gum" reference...
(note;  poor quality, likely not fer realz on YouTube due to copyright issues...

Rachie, I Got a Feelin' We Ain't in Kansas Anymore

This lovely catalog arrived at my Philadelphia suburb door today.  More than a year out of New York City living, and I have never seen Stanley and Saul Zabar looking so geshmak.

From the cover of the Zabars catalog

With all of the stories today of the post-Sandy hard times people are having getting around via mass transit (what?  you're riding around in a Lincoln Town Car?  Escalade?  fuhgetaboutit), I admit I am glad to live in relative ease on the Main Line.  I told my own sister, Reba, just to stay home and don't even consider her 4 hour commute (yes, one-way) from Brooklyn to the Bronx for her pre-grad school course at Lehman College today.

Still, I miss The Big Apple tremendously, and the arrival of this piece of mail from the iconic New York food store brought a huge smile to my face.  I can almost smell the freshly-sliced Jarlsberg.

Times They Are a Changin'

Just read that Fire Island was devasted.  No storm since 1938 has caused more damage than Sandy.  I can't help but think that this hurricane is a reminder that we are in a period of change.  Call it climate change, call it whatever you want.  The times, they are a changin'.

Here is Stango doing a Whole Phamily cover of that iconic tune when we were apple picking a couple of weeks ago.

Rubin "Hurricane" Carter

An industrious Gen-Z-er is liveblogging the hurricane here, where I read a post that Dylan's tune Hurricane is the best hurricane song ever.  Except that it is a protest song, nothing to do with the weather.

Still, check it out. And remember how good we've got it when put in perspective.

Thank you, John Travolta.

In all seriousness, keep safe and sound as we weather what Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy stated tonight as "the largest threat to human life our state has experienced in anyone's lifetime."  I hope and pray for my family who lives there, as well as for everyone in the vicinity of Hurricane Sandy.

And now it's time for some Greased Lightenin'.