Oy Mendele! is a radio show that focuses on Jewish thought and culture(s).
Check out our current show, featuring Tiffany Shlain, director of The Tribe, along with co-writer Ken Goldberg, and Abby Levine of Progressive Jewish Alliance, plus great music from Abe Schwartz, Jamie Saft, Koby Israelite, and The Fugs.
We're releasing all our new material via podcast.
. You can also enter http://tinyurl.com/btqj7 under 'Advanced->Subscribe To Podcast' in iTunes.
You can listen to some of our past content in our audio archive. We also welcome all comments and submissions of music, event info, and story ideas, so feel free to contact us!.
A Tickle in the Heart tells the story of the Epstein brothers, Klezmer musicians from New York (where they were the house band for the Satmar Chasidim in the '60s), living and playing music in their twilight years in South Florida.
It's a sweet film, and a down to earth tribute to a generation that's rapidly disappearing (Max and Willie are no longer with us, in fact). I just got back from South Florida, and I think I'm going to go see this film again to keep the feeling alive.
I heard a report on NPR that Ehud Olmert said that Israel would be supplying Fatah with weapons to bolster Fatah-controlled forces in their escalating conflict with the Hamas government. Even in the realm of my-enemy's-enemy-is-my-friend realpolitik, it's hard to see what good could possibly come of this.
In David Grossman's book, The Yellow Wind, he describes a tactic dubbed starling that was used by Israeli administrators in the Territories. Basically it goes like this:
Locate emerging Palestinian leader
Show up at his house one day and invite him outside where others can see
Act all buddy-buddy; put your arm around him, be super friendly, etc.
The intent of this action was to cause the Palestinian to be viewed as a collaborator; and usually it worked. Not long after a starling the activist would often leave town in fear that he'd soon be assassinated by his neighbors.
Reflecting on this, I thought, even if Israel was going to pass some guns to Fatah, why would they say so in public? Plausible answer: to utterly discredit Fatah in the eyes of Palestinians.
This may sound like the stuff of conspiracy theory, but I tend to think that it fits in with a long series past Israeli actions that worked to strengthen radical elements on the Palestinian side, ostensibly to make the we have no partner to talk to shtick sound more convincing and grease the way to a unilateral territorial settlement.
Hello! I've received numerous emails from listeners asking about Oy Mendele! and wondering why we haven't posted any new episodes lately. First off, let me express how moved I am by your messages; I really think the world needs a show like OM, and I'm glad that some people out there feel the same way.
The bottom line regarding future programming is that I recently started a new job and have been, in a word, swamped. In the long-run, there's nothing I'd like more than to take OM to all the places it can and should go; to do that, for better or worse, means that I'll have to figure out some way to finance it/me. Any ideas/donations welcome.
In the medium-term, I'm starting to work on a new episode, I'll post details here as they become available. And, read the comments for this post to see some of the nice messages I've gotten lately.
There are more Jews in Israel than outside it. This Haaretz article emphasizes Israel and Tel Aviv passing the US and New York, respectively, as the country and city with the largest Jewish populations. But it's even more astounding that, for the first time since the first century C.E. (and maybe earlier), most Jews live in Israel. It's due only in to part kibutz galuyot (returning of exiles); Jews outside Israel also have very low birth and high assimilation rates -- but it's neat.
Israeli researchers looking at the mitochondrial DNA of Ashkenazic (European-descended) Jews have come to the conclusion that 40% of all Ashkenazis currently living are decended from 4 matriarchs from the Middle East. This would appear to indicate that Jews migrated to Europe from the Middle East as families, thus dispelling prior assumptions that Jewish men only migrated from ancient Israel to Europe, and married and converted natives European women.
It's not exactly clear to me why that was the earlier assumption, given that Judaism has been matrilineal at least since Talmudic times. One would expect that committed members of a matrilineal culture (especially those who begat surviving branches of that culture) would tend to migrate in family units and not individually. The current research seems to support that.
From Yahoo News (multiple articles referenced at page).
Arik Sharon had a massive stroke and is breathing only thanks to the aid of a respirator. Ehud Olmert is currently acting as Prime Minister.
Achora, Kadima: all near-term predictions of the future in Israel and Palestine are off as the last of the generation of '48 likely exits the political stage. (I know Shimon Peres is still hanging around, but...)
The best coverage is currently, not surprisingly, at Haaretz
BBB are a hot gypsy funk outfit -- think Boban Markovic hanging out with Cheb Mami, Gogol Bordello and Charming Hostess, and getting really drunk and sweaty in honor of the memory of Nusrat Fateh Ali-Khan.
Garth Trinidad of KCRW spins around the sets -- his Chocolate City gig is one of the hottest radio shows around, and you count on shaking yer booty to at least one massive Fela Kuti Afrobeat jam.
Methinks this is not a show to miss, and I can't think of a better idea for a Chanukah party (at least one that's not actually on Chanukah). Unfortunately, I'll be in Bangalore that day, so I won't be there, bit I will be jealous of you if you are.
Speakers include Rabbi Lavey Derby, Lola Vollan of the Life After Incarceration program, death penalty lawyers, the Jewish chaplain from San Quentin, and JT Gottlieb, a former San Quentin inmate.
Congregation Kol Shofar is at 215 Blackfield Drive in Tiburon. Buses will be heading down to San Quentin for a vigil afterwards.
It's not too late to call Governor Schwarzenegger at 916-445-2841 to urge him to grant clemency to Stanley Tookie Williams.
Late notice: David Krakauer's Klezmer Madness with Socalled @ the McKenna Theater on the SF State campus, out near the ocean in southwestern SF.
They're on tour promoting their new album Bubbemeises, Lies My Gramma Told Me. And, while you might call their local venue selection curious (they were at the Herbst Theater last night, quite possibly the uptightest, least dancing-inclined room in the entire city), this is a great chance to see some potentially great music for free. The live and recorded thangs aren't really the same; if you're familiar with their records you might not get exactly what you're expecting, but hopefully the beats will be strong and variety is the spice of life, right?
The McKenna theater is at 1600 Holloway, SF, on the campus of San Francisco State University. Show's at 3PM.
