Friday thought

I don't follow new movies like I did 20 years ago. But forthcoming documentary Food, Inc. has my attention.

To learn more about Food, Inc., listen to NPR's Steve Inskeep interview director Robert Kenner and food author Michael Pollan.

They argue that huge agro-conglomerates with powerful lobbying resources "deliberately" hide the "truth" about what we eat; that the food they shill hurts us and the environment; that they

• Market food to hide how they "manufacture" it
• Abuse animals, genetically alter crops, and mistreat workers
• Threaten the safety of the food chain

None of this is really news, but relatively few are either aware of or care about it. Hopefully Food, Inc.'s release will highlight this catastrophe in process.

Eat local. Eat organic. Eat vegan.

Shabbat shalom. Good shabbos.

Three for the road

Just spent a long weekend in an eerily quiet (and surprisingly cool) Scottsdale. The home-price meltdown there has taken a toll. Hopefully it’s a “darkest hour is just before the dawn” thing.

Three Jewish-related places/experiences of note:

• The New Shul—This wonderful experiment in traditional egalitarianism is maturing nicely. What Rabbis Michael Wasserman and Elana Kanter and their backers started in a nondescript rented warehouse several years ago has blossomed into a 125-family congregation with a beautiful, bright, self-owned facility. Despite its growth, the New Shul has kept its warmth, spirit, and sense of purpose. It was great to catch up with old friends; to take in the rare experience of a non-Orthodox Jewish community firing on all cylinders. I'm sad we've not yet found anything in Austin that even approximates the New Shul's vibrant intimacy.
  
• The Jewish Collection—When Terry Epcar died a few years ago, Phoenix lost a mensch and two great Judaica stores. But Nancy Brooks’ Jewish Collection represents a strong shopportunity. The store's stock is broad and attractively merchandised. It includes everything from Guatemalan kippot, through Sammy the Spider stuffed toys—and, for that matter, stuffed, or gefilte, fish—to Hebrew lettered ASU T-shirts. The store's website and ecommerce don't do it justice. But if you’re ever at the northeast corner of Scottsdale Road and Shea Boulevard, it’s worth stopping on by.
  
• Fresh Mint—In recent trips to Scottsdale, we've eaten delightful Asian-inspired meals at Fresh Mint, a vaad-certified Kosher-vegan restaurant. (Yes, according to some standards, it's possible to be vegan and not kosher. And no, I don't know how.) The food there is reasonably priced and wonderfully light, the "home-made" deserts are delicious, and the service is friendly and efficient.

Peace Now

If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends; you talk to your enemies.

Moshe Dayan

Shabbat Shalom. Good Shabbos.

Another fervent Zionist calls out Bibi/Barak's settlement charade

After highlighting Haaretz's Monday editorial, Yes, Freeze Settlements, I want to point you to Ambassador Marc Ginsberg's thorough exposure of the "natural growth" lie, and his explanation, as a "passionate Zionist," of exactly why and how an immediate freeze on ALL settlement building is essential to Israel's security.

Read Amb. Ginsburg's "Natural Growth": Netanyahu's Road Map to a Mid East Roadblock here.

To everything a season

Austin's Congregation Kol Halev, which we attended briefly, will likely not exist in its current form past its June 21 annual general meeting. (What braniac set that meeting for Father's Day?) In 49 years of being around shuls, I've never known a 125-family congregation (what's that, 300+ people?) to collapse so suddenly.

As I process details that have dribbled out since last week, at least three things stand out:

• No one accepts or will even share responsibility for the collapse. Various phone, email, and snail mail communications, both official and unofficial, point fingers at others, and never at the writer or caller.
  
• While not priced as highly as some shprawntzier (fancier) institutions, membership was not cheap for a shul meeting in a school's general purpose room, that has no cantor, requires significant volunteering, provides no real early childhood programming, pays no movement fees, and...well you get the point. Moreover, Kol Halev maintains substantial class B+ office space and hires staff to do the work clergy does in other small congregations. Perhaps money saved on office space and employees might have paid for a modest but more permanent and welcoming sanctuary?
  
• Reading between the lines of at least one communication (sent to us as recent non-members), I sense more at play. I sense that some—including those who've now volunteered for lay leadership positions, both executive and clerical—"anticipated" Rabbi Kerry Baker's resignation and the organization's demise with a view to helping "lead a re-invented Kol Halev, if the membership so votes." So they might, let's say, rebuild in their own image.

Whatever the causes and ramifications, a 12-year old shul is dead or dying, and several hundred Jews now have to congregation shop in a city of 15,000+ Jews notable for its paucity of synagogue choice. In many ways, that's sad. In others, it creates the chance—the space—for new inspiration to take root, for new shoots to spring.

To everything a season; a time to every delight under the heavens. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)