Here's a Celebration of Judaism, or at least the Orthodox religious variety as expressed in the idiom of American gangsta rap and hip-hop, parody and pop rock, with an emphasis on irony, mockery, contradictory and satirical sensibilities rather than the usual secular variety we mostly get shoved down our media-saturated throats in bicoastal cosmopolitan America. Hooray for Max Blumenthal, Dr. Gabor Mate, Aaron Mate, Medea Benjamin, Amy Goodman, and others who keep it real in a biased media landscape of apologists, propagandists, complicit aiders and abettors, and secular Zionists hungry for self-righteous war.
Bezz Believe: "Jew Not Like Us (Synagogue of Satan Diss)" [Official Video]
(Bezz Believe Music) Summer 2024: BezzBelieve.com Super Zionist Ashkenazi rapper @BezzBelieve Shot by: Bryan D & @CrackaLackTV[It is the custom of hip-hop culture and rap to borrow tracks and spit original lines over them, so this track takes Kendrick Lamar's "They Not Like Us (Drake Diss)" and repurposes it as is standard practice. It is not a rip-off but a derivative original work with a strong message. Respect. Sorry, Satan (the Adversary), but what's up, B*tch?]
Shalom Auslander: Foreskin's Lament
(mekelladmb) The funniest guest at Jewish Book Week 2008. Have a look at this preview of Shalom Auslander's new American Orthodox Jewish memoir, Foreskin's Lament.
Hanukkah(also Chanukkah) is a Jewish festival commemorating the recovery of Jerusalem and subsequent rededication of the Second Temple at the beginning of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BCE. [The genocidal God of war and domination is never satisfied but keeps his soldiers fighting for empire and control.]
The Jew in the Lotus is a 1994 book by Rodger Kamenetz about a historic dialogue between rabbis and the 14th Dalai Lama, the first recorded major dialogue between experts in Judaism and [Tibetan] Buddhism [1, 2]. The book was a popular success and became an international best-seller.
Writing in The New York Times, Verlyn Klinkenborg cited its broader relevance as a book "about the survival of esoteric traditions in a world bent on destroying them" [3]. The book was primarily potent in capturing an ongoing engagement in the U.S. between Jews, often highly secularized (nonreligious), and Buddhist teachings.
Kamenetz popularized the term JuBu or Jewish Buddhist, interviewing poet Allen Ginsberg, vipassana ("insight meditation") teacher Joseph Goldstein, Ram Dass (Harvard Prof. Richard Alpert, Ph.D.). and other American Jews involved with bringing Eastern traditions to the West.
The book also made prominent a Jewish mystical response to Eastern spirituality in the Jewish renewal movement, led by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, and Jewish meditation as taught by Rabbi Jonathan Omer-Man.
The title is a pun on the famous Vajrayana Buddhist mantra Om mani padme hum, which is frequently interpreted as "hail to the jewel in the lotus."
First published in 1994 by Harper San Francisco, it is now on its 37th reprint. In fall of 2007 the paperback was reissued with an afterword that updated readers on Jewish-Buddhist dialogues.
The Jew in the Lotus inspired a PBS documentary of the same name produced and directed by Laurel Chiten, released theatrically in New York, Los Angeles, and Boston, and subsequently on Independent Lens on Sept. 1, 1999 [4].
Rabbi Dr. Jay Michaelson writes, "Outside the academy, by far the most influential text on Buddhism and Judaism is Rodger Kamenetz's 1994 bestseller, The Jew in the Lotus.
"On one level, Lotus is a travelogue, recounting a historic (or quixotic) meeting between an assortment of rabbis and the Dalai Lama.
But because Kamenetz perceptively and astutely detailed the participants' varying ways of relating to Buddhism, including his own, it became a kind of BuJu Bible. It did not recount history so much as make it. It would not be an exaggeration to divide American Buddhist Jewish life into the time before and after Lotus's publication." More
From Drugs and Guns to Orthodox Judaism | Gangsta Rap International - Israel
(Noisey) Winter 2019: In the latest episode of Gangsta Rap International, Noisey host Chuckie goes to Israel to investigate a unique story. D Black was a drug-dealing gang member and gangsta rapper in Seattle, USA, who then became a devout Jew, moved his family to Israel, and became a successful artist out there. He still raps but rather than speak of his upbringing around criminality, Nissim Black (as he’s now known) has a more spiritual message now. Watch more Gangsta Rap International: The World’s Wildest Rapper | Gangsta... Find out more about Nissim Black: nissimofficial
"Black and Jewish" ("Black and Yellow" parody)
(Funny Or Die) Aug. 2, 2011: Become a fan on facebook: funnyordie. "Bridesmaids" Kali Hawk & "Vampire Diaries" Katerina Graham shout out Drake, Lenny Kravitz, Lauren London, and hot Rashida Jones as they pay homage to Black and Jewish celebs in a new Funny or Die video. See the original at: funnyordie.com.Black and Jewish
The Ultra-Orthodox vs. The IDF: Israel's Other Religious War
(VICE News) Oct 23, 2014: Since Israel's inception, the Haredi — religious ultra-Orthodox adherents of Judaism — have been exempt from Zionist Israel's military conscription laws.
But their growing population, coupled with their high unemployment rate and dependence on state benefits [a country they were in and living in peace before Ashkenazi invaders came with the West to take over Palestine to further colonial British and imperial American Christian-Zionism to promote Western influence in the Middle East/North Africa and oil-extraction, militarism, Big Pharma, weapons manufacturing, and geopolitical full-spectrum dominance], sparked outrage within the country's secular majority.
After years of demanding that the religious Haredi share the secular responsibility of serving in the offensive armed forces (euphemistically called the "IDF" while no one dare speak of the secretive Mossad and Shin Bet war promoters), the Israeli government passed an unprecedented law in March 2014 that requires Haredi males to serve in the military.
The decision resulted in major opposition from the Ultra-Orthodox community, from violent protests to religious leaders demanding that no one should comply but instead dissent and engage in civil disobedience.
ABOUT: VICE News travels to Israel to speak with hardline members and leaders of the Ultra-Orthodox community as well as soldiers in the Netzah Yehuda, the IDF's Ultra-Orthodox Battalion, to get their take on the government's decision. War Games: Israeli Urban Warfare: bit.ly/1oykW0C. Israel's genocidal extermination of Palestine: Rockets and Revenge: bit.ly/1wv2PK2. Check out the VICE News beta for more: vicenews.com. Follow VICE News here: Facebook: vicenews. Twitter: vicenews. Tumblr: vicenews. Instagram: vicenews. Subscribe to VICE News: bit.ly/Subscribe-to-VICE-News.
Ah, the hippies and free love movement were renewed on Freak Street in old Kathmandu
Passover Seder in Kathmandu, Nepal, incorporated Buddhist and Jewish traditions
American JewBu (E. Sigalow)
(Forward) Buddhists are Jews? Wait a minute, Jews are Buddhists and they play bluegrass music? There is an old phenomenon from at least the 1960s in the U.S. (see The Jew in the Lotus) and the 1st century B.C.E. in Palestine (see Jesus Lived in India), when Jews born into Judaism (raised in a very secular way, often with a phobia about too orthodox and strict an interpretation of this Semitic school, given that many Middle Eastern and North African peoples are Semites, not just German Ashkenazi Jews and other Palestinians in the geopolitical but otherwise nonexistent "Middle" East) sought spirituality and like the Buddha and Jesus sought it in the mystic East.
Many Jews former beat poets love Zen Buddhism
The lure of India for young people on a spiritual quest is hard to underestimate. It is very old. Sure, Judaism has its own form of mysticism (just the same way regular Islam has mystical Sufism), but Kabbalah is creepy and more European-occultism than the magic and mystery of ancient India and its neighbor Esoteric Buddhist Tibet.
Jewish? Do I look Jewish? I'm All Religions
Ram Dass (formerly Harvard's Dr. Richard Alpert, Ph.D., who almost singlehandedly started the Sixties along with Howard Bloom, who claims he did singlehandedly start them), famously said, when asked if he was Jewish (because he dressed and wore his hair like his groovy Hindu "love guru" Neem Karoli Baba), "I'm only Jewish on my parents' side."
Prince Siddhartha (Gandhara)
Prince Siddhartha was born in Scythia (Saka) in ancient Gandhara, in the northwest frontier of proto-India; he traveled east on a quest for spiritual enlightenment.
King Jesus (humble Yeshua the Nazarene) was born either in pharaoh's Egypt or a small Podunk town known as Nazareth in Palestine (popularly sold to us as "Israel," which is located in North Africa, although this is obscured by ages of propaganda that forces the imagination to ignore that what is called "Israel" today is all on the African continent and in ancient times may have extended throughout Kush and Ethiopia, which at that time included Eritrea, in Kemet).
Foreskin's Lament (Shalom Auslander)
The Man will lie to us and separate us, pit Jew (Chosen) against Christian (Gentile) and play the ultimate victim with everyone against the self-isolating, exclusionary Jews. The work of Shalom Auslander is eye-opening in this regard. Eric Dubay (ericdubay.com and at bitchute.com) says the world has historically hated "the Jews" and not for nothing. They have been thrown out of country after country, leading to the saying "wandering Jew." This is blamed on the God of the Jews, who is punishing them for their sinfulness (lit. "missing the mark") and wickedness (evil) and most of all their kvetching (murmuring which really means bellyaching and endless complaining). The God just won't stand for it.
Our troubles did not begin in...
But will Buddhists be pitted against the Jews? If Jews behave the same way they have in other countries, sure. But just look at Thailand and other places with secret Jewish enclaves as they set up businesses, network, try to form monopolies that would be illegal elsewhere, keep others out of certain industries, and clean up all with government help and protection.
Every country wants a piece of the financial pie. And Jews, particularly the secular ones, are like the Jains in India, a tiny fraction of the population with disproportionate wealth and influence for their numbers.
Why? The religious rules they do not personally practice, but the very rules that made their community prosper, is the answer. Moses had a DMT vision (using Syrian Rue and seeing the burning bush) and said behave this way. Mahavira had a vision and said practice ahimsa, that is, abstain from doing any kind of harm (such as farming, soldiering, ranching, butchering, etc.), leaving only a few businesses to undertake, namely, banking and jewelry dealing. Remind you of any other small religious group?
(FOX 2 St. Louis) Passover Seder (a kind of Last Supper) is observed by Jews on the 15th day of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar. A local family invited FOX 2's crew into their home to show their [largely German Ashkenazi Jewish] beliefs and traditions.
ABOUT: St. Louis News channel FOX 2 covers news, weather, and sports in Missouri and Illinois. Read more about this story or see the latest update: FOX2Now.com. Social media: YouTube: fox2now
The Jew in the Lotus: What does Judaism have to do with Buddhism?
The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet's Re-Discovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India is a famous book by Rodger Kamenetz published in 1995. It has a 4.5 out of 5 stars after 247 ratings.
While accompanying eight high-spirited Jewish delegates to Dharamsala, India, for a historic Buddhist–Jewish dialogue with the 14th Dalai Lama, poet Rodger Kamenetz comes to understand the convergence of Buddhist and Jewish thought.
Along the way he encounters Ram Dass (former Jewish Harvard professor Dr. Richard Alpert, who got fired because of LSD then went tripping around India as a hippie and became a cultural icon after he met and became devoted to Hindu love guru Neem Karoli Baba in India) and Hollywood actor Richard Gere, and dialogues with leading rabbis and Jewish thinkers, including Zalman Schacter, Yitz and Blue Greenberg, and a host of religious and disaffected Jews and JuBus (Jewish-Buddhists).
This amazing journey through Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism and Judaism leads Kamenetz to a renewed appreciation of his living Jewish roots. The Jew in the Lotus
Text by Sheldon S., Shauna Schwartz, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly 2024; video by FOX 2 St. Louis; April 5, 2023; main video by Forward, April 10, 2023; author Rodger Kamenetz (amazon.com)
Malka Chana Amichai wants us to talk about sex.
The Jewish yogini headscarf-wearing Israeli-American religious mother of four has devoted much of her career to focusing on women’s reproductive health.
And in recent years – through her website and on Instagram – she has focused on breaking down taboos against publicly discussing such issues in many Orthodox circles.
Drawing on her experience as a doula for labor and postpartum, her training as a “kallah teacher” – one who instructs religious brides on family purity laws – as well as a prenatal yoga instructor and Lamaze educator, Amichai aims to get religious Jewish women talking about their bodies.
Amichai didn’t even own a smartphone for much of her life, but after opening an Instagram account for the first time in November 2020 she racked up 5,000 followers within the first year. Today she has close to 57,000 followers from all around the world.
“I’m a religious, Orthodox, Jewish woman who covers her hair [like a modern Muslim or old-time Catholic], and I’m speaking openly about sexuality and menstruation and birthing -- that’s super taboo stuff,” she said in a recent interview with The Times of Israel.
“I think it’s probably what I represent that is intriguing to a lot of people and normalizing it. Because I’m not a show. I’m going through all the same things.”
Calling herself the “Bohemian Balabusta” [Ball Buster?], a Yiddish word that generally means "homemaker," Amichai, 34, has pivoted in recent years from active work as a doula and women's coach to become an influencer, with digital workshops, seminars, workbooks, even a coloring book of the female anatomy titled “Sacred Womanhood.”
Amichai, who lives with her family in the Etzion Bloc [of internationally-illegally occupied Palestine], said she sees all of her work in women’s health leading her, as it were, backwards.
Shortly after she was married, she trained as a postpartum doula, coaching new mothers and families through their adjustment.
While she enjoyed the work, “I just kept feeling like I had to get to this woman sooner,” she said, before she was “depleted and not feeling supported.”
She then trained as a birth doula, “but the same thing – I felt like I had to get to them sooner.”
Coloring in her Sacred Womanhood (Chava Abrams/Simple Wonders/The Times of Israel).
.
She became a prenatal yoga teacher then trained as a childbirth educator and took a course to become a kallahteacher.
“It seemed like an organic, great fit: I’ve worked with women. Let’s keep getting to them sooner so that they’re already starting these lifecycle journeys from an empowered place.” More
How the president of a Tibetan Buddhist temple became an Orthodox Jew
(Jewish Learning Institute) Sept. 13, 2022. Rob Fashler was raised in an atheist home where Judaism was anything but trendy. On the contrary, Judaism was ridiculed, particularly the Hasidic (extremely sexist orthodox) kind.
The quest for spirituality and truth permeated his adolescent years, turning him to experiment with mind-expanding hippie drugs (e.g., LSD), sex-drugs-n-rock 'n roll, transcendental meditation (The Beatles' Hindu practice called TM), and eventually Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana).
From the president of a Buddhist temple to an Orthodox Jew, here is the journey of a man to whom the meaning and relevance of Judaism is nothing short of a miracle.
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Another Jew supporting Boycott, Divestment, Sanctioning of Israel (Jewish Voice for Peace)
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