Akablog
Once More With Feeling
The script and sheet music for
Once More With Feeling, the musical episode of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has just been published, and I picked up a copy yesterday. I do recommend it for any huge fans of the episode (like me) but the text accompanying the script reads like an eighth grade research project. It does include some nice tidbits, and a look behind the scenes.
It'll do until the DVD is released. I really wish they would release a DVD of just this episode with commentary and the behind-the-scenes footage, and not make me buy the rest of Season 7 just to get it.
Arab intellectuals will appeal for Sammy to depart...
(Hat tip to
Rantburg.)
I tell you, this is all going to end with Saddam sharing an apartment with Idi Amin.
"IDI! Did you drink the blood I had in the fridge? I was saving that to write a copy of the Koran!"
"Sorry Sammy, I was hungy."
The Breadth of Jewish Practice
On
Kesher Talk Rami Genauer discusses Shinui, a relatively new Israeli political party, running on a single issue of anti-Haredism. I'm no expert in Israeli politics, but it does speak to an issue I've given some thought to.
What's at stake with the Haredi issue in Israel isn't just the question of government money. It's the question of authentic Judaism. For the last two centuries, the dominant idea within Judaism has been that the more restrictive the interpretation of Halacha (jewish law,) the more authentic. I hate to use lefty academic jargon, but the Orthodox have
captured the narrative of Judaism and convinced the (%90) non-Orthodox that in the (mythical, rose-colored
) past all Jews were as observant as the the Orthodox.
The truth, from what I can see, is more complicated. I think there's always been a spectrum of Halachic practice. But when there's one shul in the shtetl, you go to that shul. When the butcher is Jewish, you buy kosher meat. If no-one is looking in your window, who's to say what time that candle was lit on Friday night? Reform and Conservative Judaism did not come into existance without fulfilling a need in the community.
But prior to the existance of Reform, the less observant didn't become Rabbis, and therefore didn't write about their Jewish lives.
I think Shinui is a symptom of Israeli Jews getting tired of being told that the're not Jewish enough, that in the past, people who lived like them wouldn't have the temerity to call themselves Jews, especially by those who don't put their lives on the line to defend the Jewish state.
Am I still here?
Testing, Testing? I can get into edit mode for Akablog, but I can't view it. Maybe posting and publishing will remind Blogger that it exists.
