Just received a notice about an upcoming weekened retreat “for secular and religious Jews–and everyone in between.” Taking place July 17-19 in Hopewell Junction, New York, it will be a weekend “of dialogue, self-exploration, celebration, and study.”
Rates vary with accommodations ($100-$175 per person per night, including meals). Download the conference poster here.
The latest issue of Lilith (spring 2009) features an excellent article about Jewish women’s writing groups. From the table of contents: “From Austin to Boston and everywhere in between, Jewish women in writing groups are learning to take seriously their skills, themselves, and the bonds that emerge from these homegrown groups. The groups have become safe, intelligent places full of debate, ribaldry, neurosis, semi-colons, and food. Edited by Susan Schnur, with reports from the field by Karen Propp, Shelly R. Fredman, Mara Sokolsky, Esther Mizrachi Moritz and Michelle Brafman.”
All the contributions are worthy, but I have to confess that reading Michelle Brafman’s dispatch from Washington, D.C., I found myself envying the structure provided through the local JCC, which annually sponsors a four-day writers’ retreat. Brafman, who is on the faculty, tells us that after completing the retreat (where the fabulous Faye Moskowitz also teaches), “participants are eligible to join the ongoing writers’ workshop that meets every six weeks at the JCC.” How wonderful does that sound?
And guess what? Lilith has made the article available for download (and discussion). Click here to be on your way.
From a notice in The Jewish Week:
“We are pleased to announce that applications now are being accepted for ‘Write on for Israel,’ an extensive and exciting two-year program to train a select group of high school juniors to become advocates for Israel through journalism.
A project of The Jewish Week, ‘Write on for Israel; teaches students about Israel, Zionism and the Arab-Israeli conflict and empowers them to become effective advocates through writing, broadcasting and public speaking.
Qualified sophomores entering their junior year of high school in the fall of 2009 are invited to apply for the fellowship. Applications can be downloaded from our website at www.writeonforisrael.org.”
Application deadline is May 22, 2009.
I can think of at least one of this blog’s regular readers who will be very happy to hear this news from Moment Magazine: “Moment Magazine introduces Talk of the Table, a lively and intelligent look at Jewish food. In our inaugural section, we explore why charoset—the traditional blend of fruits, nuts and spices—landed on the Seder plate and how coffee giant Maxwell House got into the Haggadah business.” Intrigued? Click here to read more.
Disappointing news for fans of the online cultural magazine Jewcy: The Fundermentalist reported last week that Jewcy’s primary funders have pulled financial support from the magazine. “The staff is now looking for new funders and will continue to sell ads, but will not take a salary for now, nor will it be able to pay its 60-70 contributors.”
Once I read about Jewcy’s problems, I did wonder about the fate of Zeek, which has partnered with Jewcy for the past year. Here’s the text of an e-mail message from Zeek’s editor, addressing the issue:
Dear Zeekers,
If you read Jewish newspapers or blogs, you may have heard that the online Jewish magazine, Jewcy, just lost their funding and will have to shut their offices.
For the past year, Zeek has partnered with Jewcy at www.jewcy.com/zeek. This partnership has brought a lot to Zeek—it has quadrupled our number of readers, given us multimedia capabilities, and brought us much more attention from the mainstream Jewish world. The staff of Jewcy particularly have been great partners: I’d like to single out Tahl Rahz, Jewcy’s founding editor; Craig Leinoff, Jewcy’s techincal guru; and Tara Rice, Jewcy’s art director, as true menschen.
The staff of Jewcy plans to continue to maintain the Jewcy site, and you will find Zeek there for at least the next month. We are currently looking at partnering with other Jewish media or at returning to a redesigned Zeek site. We will let you know as soon as we make a decision. To be honest, one aspect of our decision is funding—to maintain our own Zeek site, we would need to locate at least $10,000 in funding per year. If you or someone you know would be interested in making that kind of tax-free donation, please contact me.
In the meantime, please keep your browser tuned to www.zeek.net. It will automatically take you to wherever Zeek lives online. Visit soon. In the next two weeks we will feature a new short story by Riad Baidas, a revised Freedom Seder from Rabbi Arthur Waskow, a piece on affordable housing from David Gottlieb, an autobiographical essay from Jay Michaelson, poems by Maya Bejerano and Courney Druz, and of course, Angela Himsel’s Wednesday column, Angetevka.
Jo Ellen Green Kaiser
Editor, Zeek magazine
Executive Director, Zeek Media, Inc.P.S. We are searching for a few angels to help us transition our website. If you can help, please email me at joellen(at)zeek(dot)net
Stay tuned.