I hope my readers will read this and join me in signing this petition.
Category: Uncategorized
2014 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 130,000 times in 2014. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 6 days for that many people to see it.
Havdalah as a Light to the Community
As beautiful a study as I’ve ever seen of Havdalah! I am reposting it on Coffee Shop Rabbi as a vision of what’s possible.
Most Read Posts of 2014
This has been a very active year for this blog. Activity here as more than doubled since last year, and I thank you for your readership.
These are the ten most frequently read posts on this blog among the posts I wrote this year:
How to Succeed at Congregational Life: Ten Tips
What to Wear to a Jewish Funeral
Blogging While Black: Yeah, It’s a Thing
Prayer for the Opening of Baseball Season
“Blood Moons” and the Meaning of Prophecy
The five most read posts of all time (well, the five calendar years this blog has been online):
Bar and Bat Mitzvah Etiquette for Beginners
The goal of this blog has been basic information for newcomers and others who may feel awkward in Jewish community. There’s a tremendous amount of information available in books and on the internet, but sometimes it’s too much all at once. I hope that by offering topics in small bites they have been more manageable.
Mixed in with those “basic info” articles are posts about growing Jewish identity and about living a meaningful Jewish life. I am not interested in Judaism as an exercise in historical reinactment. The prospect of Judaism that gives meaning and purpose to real 21st century lives is much more exciting to me.
So here are my questions for you: Which posts have been most helpful or interesting to you? What would you like to read about in 2015? Is there a topic about which you’ve heard “enough already!?”
I wish you a happy secular New Year of growth and bloom!
Exodus: Gods and Kings
Hanukah – A Major Battleground for the Heart and Soul of the Jewish People
Hanukkah is a high stakes holiday: not minor at all.
What, You Mean I Have A Real Disease???
Bipolar Disorder is a physical illness: this blog post from “Bipolar for Life” will lead you to an article in Psychiatric Times that documents it. Bipolar is as “real” as Type 1 Diabetes, and those who suffer from it don’t deserve jokes or shunning, they deserve compassion and decent treatment.
Saul’s Deli, Berkeley, CA
Breast Cancer Behind Bars by Sue Allen
I read this, and I cannot move on without calling the attention of my readers to it.
Time for a Break
Dear readers, I’m going to take the next few days off. I’ll be back on September 29, after Rosh HaShanah and Shabbat Shuvah.
I wish you all a Shanah tova umetukah, a good and sweet year. May we all be inscribed for goodness in the Book of Life.