Last night of Chanukah

[xiphias]

I went over to my parents tonight. A few other people showed up as well . . .

Let's see. undauntra was at a G&S play, so she wasn't there, and was missed. But her fiance showed up. tendyl was there. cheshyre was there, because, well, we kinda go everywhere together. My rabbi was there, and her husband, and one of their kids. Tobin, who's Yet Another One Of My Mother's Adopted Kids was there, and so were Jill-Laurie and Joseph Crane (Jill-Laurie's been a friend of Mom and Dad's since they were in college, and she and Joe are the people who zap my brain twice a week to make it work better. I'll probably post about that some time.)

I'm leaving some people out. . . um, Ruthann was there (another friend of the family), and a friend of Jill-Laurie's and Joe's, who we'd not met before. Oh, and the Cranes' dog.

We had latkes, and chili, and we played Apples to Apples. And we lit Hannukah candles and sang songs, and I served cheesecake and chocolate pie for desert.

It was really great to see my rabbi. I don't see Cherie anywhere near often enough, because she's currently working as the rosh yeshiva of some yeshiva in New York. Everett, her husband, is one of the preeminent English-speaking Bible scholars in the world -- he's done the only really significant new English translation in the past hundred years or so, which is published as the Shocken Bible. He's also a hell of a musician (vocal and piano) -- he went to the New York High School for the Performing Arts when he was a kid (that's the school in FAME.) I think Barabara Streisand was a year or two ahead of him.

And Cherie is My Rabbi and just a really wonderful woman who's been like a second mother to me for most of my life. She was the principal of the Hebrew school that I went to as a kid.

What else. . .Tobin's finishing up her dissertation, and is interviewing for professorships. Way too many people are going to end up on the Wrong Coast (defined as "a coast on which I do not live.") Tobin's a Valley Girl (she once published a paper talking about the Valley Girl culture from the standpoint of a Jewish feminist researcher, since that's what she is), and she's gonna go back to the Valley. Tendyl is gonna be on the Wrong Coast in a couple of months.

I dunno what else to say. People seemed to get along well with each other, which suprises me not in the least. Am tired. Should sleep. Losing pronouns. Sentences . . . turning into sentence fragments. Fragments. Sleep.

Comments

[copperpoint.livejournal.com]

Cherie and Everett! I wondered what happened to them.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The board forced Cherie out as principal and rabbi of Congregation Eitz Chayyim, the congregation SHE FOUNDED.

This was really hard on her, but she eventually started looking for work, and became the head of a yeshiva in New York, instead. She's the interem president of The Academy of Jewish Education.

Re:

[copperpoint.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember hearing about the whole forcing out thing. How are their kids doing?

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

It's not a synagogue I've heard of before but I would appreciate hearing the tale of what the board did. I don't like the sound of a board doing that.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Akiva's nearly out of college, I think Princeton but I don't remember; I forget where Leora is at; Ezra's just mailed off applications.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Um, that's basically the story. The board forced Cherie to retire. The board had tried to do that once before, but my father organized the whole community to force the board out, instead.

Re:

[copperpoint.livejournal.com]

O neet.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

You mean, the replacement board which had just seen the old board get booted for trying to oust the rabbi then went ahead to do the exact same thing? Over the annoyance of the shul community??

What a bunch of wankers!

[goljerp]

It's interesting that you describe the Acadamy as a yeshiva; I've had it described to me as a non-denominational rabbinical school. A cool friend of mine (now living in Canada) got smicha there last year.

[goljerp]

Everett is also a really good speaker. He was a "scholar in residence" at my shul one weekend; I really enjoyed his lectures. (I also enjoy his translations)

he's done the only really significant new English translation in the past hundred years or so

This is more debatable. I would agree that he has done a really significant new English translation; however, I think that there have been other English translations in the past hundred years which have also had an impact, or been significant. Still, it wasn't until I read that line that I knew who you were talking about. (I tend to think of his last name in connection with his translation).

[cheshyre]

To be fair, AFAIK, it had been many many years between the attempts.