The battery in my camera died so I couldn’t post photos of Shalom School’s Tu B’Shevat (“the Jewish Arbor Day” lesson, which included planting little broccoli sproutlings (little trees, get it?), but I really wish I could upload the audio ’cause it was the kind of hilarious philosophical discussion that can only be overheard in kindergarten classrooms.

I feel like this holiday was one of my most successful lessons thus far as a Sunday School teacher. We walked around Monterey square collecting magnolia seed pods and pinecones and followed roots to branches with our pointer fingers and delved into the sacred geometrical attributes of God’s creation…

Teacher Yenta: So, check it out, you’ve got an apple, it’s got seeds inside. And oranges have seeds. And what about the giant one? It’s an avocado seed…

Kindergartener: I hate avocados.

Teacher Yenta: Fine, well, I promise never to bring guacamole for snack. So, see all these seeds are different, but each of them has all the information to make a whole big tree, which in turn grows more fruit, which has more seeds that pass on the information. Isn’t that cool?

Kindergartener: God is really smart.

Teacher Yenta: I know! What a great system, right? God made it so everything is made from seeds and can keep going on and on…

Kindergartner: Is everything made from seeds?

Teacher Yenta: Yes! It’s a pattern, see? Even though these are all different things, they grow in the same way!

Kindergartner: Am I made from a seed?

Yenta (sweating): Um…yes….

Kindergartner: How did I get planted?

Yenta: Ask your mother. Now, who wants apple slices?

The Yenta is busy blogging for her day job today, but I must direct your attention to the art of Mordechai Rosenstein. His combination of rich colors, Talmudic wisdom, Hebrew script and three-dimensional cutouts are just rocking my world right now.

For you locals, take a few moment to take in his show this month at the JEA before you sprint onto the treadmill!

Good Shabbos to all!

I don’t know who Sam Hoffman is and how he got his mom to use the F-word on camera, but he’s my new favorite Jew. Why? Because his site OldJewsTellingJokes, is the best idea EVER.

Storytelling is a Jewish tradition…Jokes are like stories, but shorter and funnier… Humor was and is the ultimate anti-depressant. My father gathered twenty of his friends to share their favorite jokes. We set three rules for the production: the joke-tellers were to be Jewish, at least sixty years of age and they were to tell their favorite joke – the one that always kills.

I’m just glad someone is videologging old Jews telling something other than Holocaust stories.

Not that those aren’t important, but after Iran bombs us all into oblivion shouldn’t future generations know what a freakin’ hilarious people we were?

Sorry. I drank cynicism for breakfast today.

I’m back from Charleston (fabulous city – well, the block and half I saw of it, anyway) and am still catching up. But, please, behold the glory of last Sunday’s homemade havdalah candles:

You can see our snazzy salt shaker spiceboxes there in the background – that six dollar package of tissue paper has got to be the best investment ever.

Adorable as my little Shalom School babelehs are, I have to say it’s starting to get a little frusturating being a Jew around here. First off, when I asked the children this week how many of them actually celebrated havdalah (the short ritual that closes Shabbat) at home with their new candles and color-copied handouts, they looked at me like I was nuts. One kid told me he’d unraveled his beeswax candle and sculpted a robot out of it.

Then there’s the whole Israeli boycott business and synagogue attacks from Maine to Venezuela.

As if threats of global anti-Semitism and Hugo Chavez’s moronic machismo weren’t enough to make you sweat, apparently it’s going to get even hotter for the Jews of Savannah come summer: Plans to close down the JEA pool were announced in this month’s Savannah Jewish News.

El Yenta Man and I not thrilled about this turn of events (we’ve always welcomed the JEA pool as a wonderful opportunity to shock people with our inappropriate tattoos) and I’ve gathered from snippets overheard on the elliptical that people are VERY pissed about this. There’s a meeting on February 12th at 7pm for folks to weigh in, but I’m wondering: If the JEA board knew about the issues of the pool filter and resurfacing, why didn’t they spring into action right after the summer? That pool has been tearing up my kids feet for two freakin’ years and y’all are going to tell me no one knew a major overhaul was due? Puhleez.

If there’s no pool for camp, I have no idea what will happen to our summer plans.

*Sigh* But I’m positive we won’t be vacationing in Caracas.

Outer space got a little more kosher in 2008, courtesy of Dr. Garret Reisman, the first Jewish astronaut to have lived in the International Space Station.

“The mission went pretty well, I did not break anything that was too expensive,” he says. When he got to the space station, via the space shuttle Endeavor, he was quick to put up a mezuzzah in the bunk where he slept. “I did not consult any rabbi, so I hope I did not get into any trouble,” he says. Full story.

The hilarious and cute Dr. Reisman (check out his interview with Stephen Colbert) was in Israel last week for the Ilan Ramon International Space Conference; it’s heartening to know Israel still wants its hat in global space endeavors after losing the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Roman, after the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas in 2003, killing all seven crewmembers.

But let’s just hope they don’t let Mel Brooks on the strategic planning committee:

(Hint: The Jews get to space around :50.)

Tip o’ the yarmulke to FailedMessiah.com.

I was planning on blogging on something really deep and spiritual today, but while searching for material I got hung up on HEEB’s interview with the fantastically trashy Courtney Love.

Who claims she’s Jewish. On her adopted grandmother’s side. Or something. Right before she bitches that “Every time you buy a Nirvana record, part of that money is not going to Kurt’s child, or to me, it’s going to a handful of Jew loan officers, Jew private banks…”

It really is a glorious trainwreck of a read if you’re looking to make yourself feel terrific about your own life – especially your parenting skills.

I’d always admired Courtney – “Celebrity Skin” is a great freakin’ album and her role in “The People vs. Larry Flynt” was brilliant” – but all the Xanax and Botox seems to have turned her brain to mush.

Frankly, as much I love other wacky Jewish mothers, I’m not in any hurry to extend and invitation for Shabbos dinner – I’m afraid she’d ask my mother-on-law to drip candle wax on her nipples or start lecturing on how the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is her favorite religious text.

Here’s to a drama-free Shabbat!

Tee hee hee, la la la…I’ve been dancing a jig ever since Tuesday’s rawkin’ inauguration festivities. Itzhak Perlman in da house!

Actually, I’ve been toe-tapping since Sunday’s HBO “We Are One” Lincoln Memorial concert – though we were all wondering what the hell Shakira was doing there with boobies hanging out. (Not that we don’t love our Colombians – peace, Ctraffik!) I did have to wince Bono paused during “Pride (In the Name of Love)” to address the “Israeli dream…and the Palestinian dream”? Ballsy, I thought, but not inappropriate. And yay for cease-fires, no matter how fragile.

Anyway, I’m still riding the high of watching the door slam on eight years of Bush and this giggly slogan from Green Turtle Shirts speaks to my dizzying happiness and plain old dizziness:

Besides it being that time of the month again (I’m talking about the work deadline, but El Yenta Man keeps wondering why that seems to coincide with PMS), I’ve got a big business-y summit to plan for next week, as well as a Havdalah lesson plan for Shalom School (I’m thinking roll-up beeswax candles and spice boxes made out of plastic salt shakers scored for pennies at Dollar Tree.)

On the not-so-fabulous side of things, I am also working very hard on forgiving my father-in-law for inviting non-relatives to clean out my mother-in-law’s closet. I’ve spent the last year removing things in phases as to not upset her and also replaced things in larger sizes so she’d be comfortable. Apparently he got impatient with my process and for reasons I cannot comprehend, decided to ask these people to come by, guess what fit and remove the rest. I don’t enjoy airing family laundry here (and there is a BACKLOAD, lemme tell ya), but as delighted as I am about our new president, this incident has me so riled I can barely breathe. My MIL might be permanently out to lunch (speaking of which, I need to go pick her up right now for the JEA) but she ain’t dead yet, and there were things that are now gone that I thought she might want to pass on to her granddaughter. They took the Mary McFadden gown she wore to my wedding to Good-freakin’-will, y’all.

If you think I’m gonna let him do the same thing with her jewelry, Jew craaazy.

Man, I just love those hilarious yids over at Bangitout. Their Top 10 Lists always bang, but this one is the bomb – uh, y’know, the kind that doesn’t sprew shrapnel. Shabbat Shalom to all!

Top Ten Facebook Status Updates from The Middle East

10. Israel and Hamas joined the group: “Cease Fire.”
9. Hamas left the group Cease Fire and received a gift from Iran.
8. Israel poked the United Nations, no response.
7. Israel created the event “Cast Lead”; Hamas is attending and has invited civilians.
6. Israel and Hamas are no longer in a relationship.
5. Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are now fans of Israel.
4. The world commented on Israel/Hamas status.
3. Hamas posted a new photo album and tagged civilians.
2. The United Nations posted an event, “New Cease Fire Resolutions.” The US may be attending; Hamas and Israel are not attending.
1. Hamas is no longer on Facebook. Palestinian Authority and Israel are now friends.

I’m a complete nerd when it comes to books, and my collection of signed copies is one of my most treasured possessions. If there was a hurricane on the way and I had to evacuate, Ken Kesey’s Sailor Song and Marge Piercy’s The Art of Blessing the Day would be in the same shopping bag as my wedding album.

That shopping bag just got heavier as of yesterday:

Geraldine Brooks, author of my hands-down favorite of 2008, People of the Book, was the featured speaker at USCB’s Lunch with Author series. If your book club hasn’t featured her yet, she’s a genius at spinning fascinating fiction out of existing materials: Year of Wonders is based on life during the Black Plague, and March, the story of the absent father in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women won the Pulitzer Prize.

I was extremely late to the luncheon so I didn’t actually get to break bread with Ms. Brooks, but I did find some standing room for her completely charming talk about her writing process, her past career as a war correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and interviewing Michelle Obama (read the piece at More.com.) She also alluded to her current project, Caleb’s Crossing, which delves into the Native American history of Martha’s Vineyard, and shared the news that Catherine Zeta-Jones has just bought the film rights to People of the Book.

Being last one in the door meant I was first in line to get my book signed, and Geraldine was patient and gracious with my request to snap a picture. But if I’m going to go bonkers over starting a collection of photos with famous authors, I guess I’d better plan to add my back-up hard drive to my evacuation shopping bag.

*To save the Yenta some precious time, the above is cross-posted at savannah.skirt.com. But there’s more:

So you probably know by now that I can’t go anywhere without announcing my Jewishness loudly and proudly. Because People of the Book deals in Jewish themes and history, I just had to mention to Geraldine Brooks that I write a Jewish blog and that as a Jewish person I was so impressed with the breadth of her historical research and her compassionate treatment of the materials and for a non-Jewish person, she really knows so much…

During all this sycophantic blathering her eyes were sparkling, amused. When my mouth finally sputtered to a stop, she laughed and exclaimed in her tinkling Aussie accent, “But darling, I AM Jewish!”

Boy, did I feel like schmuck. Why I assumed while I reading the book that she wasn’t Jewish, I’m not really sure, but since I didn’t question my own feeble thinking I didn’t bother to Google the subject and this Houston Chronicle interview about her teenage obsession with Judaism, her subsequent conversion and marriage to journalist Tony Horwitz.

Color me apologetic, Ms. Brooks.

Have y’all seen comedienne Jamie Sneider’s “Year of the Jewish Woman” calendar? Sure it looks like porn, but it’s got all the religious holidays and everything!

I’m sure someone will be outraged that I’m not outraged, but it seems to me combining the naked with the sacred seems like a fantastic idea, especially when you add cookies. Check out the entire gallery of Jamie’s artfully-hidden boobies here.

I know you’re ALL clamoring for a naked Yenta calendar, but sorry friends, there is not an airbrush artful enough to erase these vericose veins. But hey – I just had an idea – wouldn’t everyone like to see a racy spread exploiting the muscles of El Yenta Man?!