Cranky Complaints-Lady Plans a Trip!

To: Ottawa JCC, Cc: Israeli Embassy in Ottawa

Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 10:39 PM

Subject: Upcoming Events

Dear [her name]:

While planning a visit to Ottawa, I noticed two upcoming musical events listed on your website (http://www.jccottawa.com/pages/upcomingevents.html): the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival and "Soaring Beyond Expectation - Women in Composition".

These events are being held next Tuesday and Wednesday, during the nine days leading up to Tisha b'Av, which is next Thursday. These nine days are widely recognized throughout the Jewish community, as a time of mourning for the original loss of our spiritual and physical homeland (losses not yet entirely regained through the "reishit tzmichat ge'ulateinu," the modern-day State of Israel).

I'm surprised that the Israeli embassy, regardless of religious affiliation or lack thereof, would sponsor such an event at this time (would they do it on Yom Hashoah or Yom Hazikaron, also national periods of mourning for the entire Jewish people?).

In future, sensitivity to Jewish issues such as these might be appropriate from what is essentially the sole voice of the Jewish community in our national Capital Region.

Thanks for listening!

[moi]

Toronto

Comments

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page. As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi! If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You,...

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi! If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah : the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science : Plants, Animals, Human Body Math Ambleside : Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature Science General Poems for Elemental Science . Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful....

What do we tell our kids about Chabad and “Yechi”?

If I start by saying I really like Chabad, and adore the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, z"l, well... maybe you already know where I'm headed. Naomi Rivka has been asking lately what I think about Chabad. She asks, in part, because she already knows how I feel. She already knows I’m bothered, though to her, it’s mostly about “liking” and “not liking.” I wish things were that simple. Our little neighbourhood in Israel has a significant Chabad presence, and Chabad conducts fairly significant outreach within the community. Which sounds nice until you realize that this is a religious neighbourhood, closed on Shabbos, where some huge percentage of people are shomer mitzvos. Sure, it’s mostly religious Zionist, and there are a range of observances, for sure, but we’re pretty much all religious here in some way or another. So at that point, this isn’t outreach but inreach . Convincing people who are religious to be… what? A lot of Chabad’s efforts here are focused o...

Adventures in Mama-Land

Search This Blog