There is a famous painting, a piece of Jewish art, entitled "Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur".

The art museum in Haifa has a display that has upset many people's religious sensibilities. The display is one entitled "McJesus" and has what looks like a Ronald McDonald figure being crucified.

The Christian community is upset about this, understandably so, and has gone out to protest the display. 200 protesters showed up, and the protest got physically violent at some point as protesters tried to force their way in to the museum in order to remove the display.

According to the museum, this display has been up for 6 months already and is set to come down in about 3 weeks as the entire exhibition comes to a close. the exhibition is about the culture of consumerism. McJesus has already been on display in other countries around Europe.
source: Ynet

Why this caused a ruckus now after being up for half a year already I do not know.

In general it is not really a good thing to scoff at or make fun of other people's religions, just as nobody would want their own religion to be scoffed at. Personally I also think that people need more of a sens eof humor and even if we should not scoff at other people, we should not take ourselves so seriously that we have to get upset at every little thing that might be offensive.

The City of Tel Aviv is giving an award for exceptional artistic creativity to some artist who stuck the Israeli flag in his tuches. The prize this artist will receive from this award is 9000nis.
source: Maariv

Now, I can be fine with a decision that defacing the flag is not illegal but is a protected freedom of expression. No problem. But the State should fund such a thing? The state should award such a display and consider it great artistic ability and creativity? That's ridiculous. Let this guy go fund his own work.

I wonder if the judges would have declared him a winner had he defaced the flag of Tel Aviv rather than that of the State of Israel.

How do these things start?

JTA and Yediot are reporting about a statue, a piece of art, located, on loan, in Ramat Gan that has become a focal point of women looking for divine assistance in conceiving a child and giving birth.

The piece of art in question is a piece entitled "Birth" and is a statue in the shape of a woman laying down with a smiley face on her tummy. The artist, Menashe Kadishman, died last year at the age of 83.

The report says that women gather around the statue and take turns laying down on the statue and reciting chapters of tehillim and other things.

How do these things begin? How did women think, and how did word spread, that this statue has mystical powers and the ability to somehow help them conceive?

When a rabbi is involved in creating the story, like the story of the chair of Rav Kaduri in a shop in Ashdod,  at least it is somewhat understandable why some people ascribe spiritual power to it. In this instance, nothing is mentioned as to why people believe this or how it began.

At what point does it become avoda zara, and at what point does it become cheating on one's husband?

why do they keep it secret and underground? I don't get it

The image of The Three Wise Monkeys represents "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".



A local artist caught a striking image on camera when photographing a hafgana in Mea Shearim.


What these kids are doing, it seems, was trying to avoid the camera... the artist saw some similarity to the Three Wise Monkeys and entered his photograph into a gallery display under the title of "The Three Monkeys". He didn't even have the decency to call the "wise", as the monkeys are called in the original.

This image with that title surprised and shocked viewers. The condemnations were fast in coming from both the public and Haredi MKs. Racist, degrading, disparaging of the entire Haredi community, etc.

The artist, Mark Roth, defends himself by saying he had no intention to be disparaging to the Haredi community and it was just a call to the original art. Roth refused to change the title, as did the gallery. Eventually they agreed to change the title but denied any anti-haredi sentiments. Roth is a descendant of Holocaust survivors, is connected to the Sanz hassidus, his own son is Haredi.
(source: Mynet)

Anti-Haredi? probably not. Stupid and thoughtless? Probably. Could he possibly really not have considered that people would not see it quite the way he saw it and would not be insulted by it?

And in a touch of humor, perhaps Roth was trying to depict the image of evolution... and maybe that is relly what the Haredi protesters were more upset about..

Getty Images posted the following picture from yesterday's Nefesh b'Nefesh flight to Israel bringing 350 new immigrants. Of all the pictures posted by variosu media, organizations and individuals, this si definitely the most unique, and the strangest.


the poor kid should have called the cops on the photographer taking a picture of him at the urinals.... it just seems so inappropriate, and even criminal, to photograph somebody relieving himself, unless the person gave written consent (and in the case of a kid, he would need written consent from the parents).

art, shmart. photograph yourself on the toilet for art, not other people.

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Someone pointed me to a fabulous story on the Haredim WAP site, and I found the source on the COL site.

Baruch Nachshon is an artist who lives in Kiryat Arba - Hebron. Nachshon is an amazing painter, using brilliant colors in his paintings of Eretz Yisrael.

This past Tuesday, Nachshon received a phone call from the head of the local regional council, Malachi Levinger, informing Nachshon that Levinger is on the way to his house with the Finance Minister, Yuval Steinitz.

A few minutes later he receives another call and is told to be ready, as the minister is downstairs and will momentarily be coming in. Nachshon was sure someone was pulling a prank on him.

Sure enough, a couple of moments later, he hears knocking at the door. He opens it to discover the Minister of Finance with his entire entourage. Minister Steinitz walks in and gives Baruch Nachshon a warm hug and asked him how he is..

Nachshon's son, who related the story, said it was a strange situation - Steinitz is acting as if they are best friends, and Nachshon has no idea why or what is going on.







They sit in the salon and Steinitz explains that when he was 15 years old he and a group of friends spent Shabbos with Nachshon. The Nachshon family always hosted a lot of guests for Shabbos, and that is why he didnt remember Steinitz from so long ago. Steinitz related that Friday night before they went to sleep, he was leaving the room and he shut off the lights in the salon. Nachshon reacted saying it is Shabbos Kodesh. Steinitz said when he heard that he immediately turned the lights back on, to which nachshon said that that too isn't allowed.

Steinitz continued that Nachshon had sat with him and explained pleasantly about Shabbos and not doing melacha and also about exile and redemption, and those moments made a deep impression in his heart.

One never knows when and how he is influencing others, and should always try to be pleasant and make a good impression.

Moshe in his studio

(I received no compensation from highlighting artist Moshe Braun and his work)

NOTE: I was not paid to review this calendar. It is an unbiased and objective review. If you have a book, magazine or calendar, or anything else, with Jewish or Israel related content and would like me to write a review, contact me for details of where to send me a copy of the publication.

Kehillas Shivtei Yeshurun of RBS published a calendar for the new year 2010/2011 and 5771.

I just saw someone selling some silver plate items for the holidays coming up. There was a very interesting item in the pile that made no sense.

It was a cake cutter. It was very nicely designed. The handle was designed beautifully with banners saying (in Hebrew), "Remember the sabbath day to make holy" and "Guard the Sabbath day to keep holy". I would guess the designer felt that most people eat cake on shabbos. Or at least would use a fancy cake cutter for shabbos.

The funny thing about it was the handle. He made the handle in a way that you pull out of the handle a lighter. Very kitchy. I am not sure what the lighter is for. Maybe to light the shabbos candles with.

So, you will use a cake cutter on shabbos that is muktze because it has a lighter built into it! What a ridiculous design! The artist who designed it must have been ignorant of Jewish tradition.