Well, the “shalom service” was either very wonderful or very weird, depending on whether you want to think about it quantitatively or qualitatively. From the former perspective, it was weird because — either despite or because of or having nothing…
Author: Neal Ross Attinson
Neal Ross Attinson is one of those text-compulsives who feels naked without a keyboard, or at least a a pad and pen. He is unafraid of adverbs, loves astronomy and gastronomy with equally unabashed passion, and lives with/in an eclectic library in Sonoma, California.
Meeting Himself Coming the Other Way
Sometimes, to take a step forward, it’s necessary to take a step back. I’m sitting here having lunch at the desk I occupied for three years as a city, fire, religion and state developmental center reporter. The Sonoma Index-Tribune rehired…
Fringey Blue
from a pre-Blogger blog Tzitzit under blue jeans feel like nothing, and yet feel like everything. They feel like nothing because the four-cornered cotton garment to which they’re attached is extremely light. I forwent the type which snap or stitch…
Haiku 911
IT’S ALL DIFFERENT, NOW. But as the smoke palls the sky The flowers still bloom
Why We Teach
from a pre-Blogger blog Conversation with a 12-year-old bat mitzva candidate, who I’m tutoring by probing the meaning of the prayers: Okay, read me the first part of the Sh’ma in English. “Hear O Israel, the Eternal is G-d, the…
Rockin’ at the Beit Tefilah
from a pre-Blogger blog What happens when you turn back the clock 2,000 years to add creativity to Jewish worship? Erev at the Improv, that’s what — an experiment in structured liturgical spontaneity which, happily, was enthusiastically embraced by the…
Rumpled Colleagues In Truth
from a pre-Blogger blog ATTENDING A DINNER FOR THE Society of Professional Journalists’ Northern California chapter, as a co-recipient of their annual James Madison Freedom of Information Award, I’m in the presence of real journalistic heroes: men and women quietly…
The Name’s Panim … P.A. Panim.
from a pre-Blogger blog One of the cool things about being a teacher is watching the students connect the dots I sprinkle, as happened Tuesday. Our previous class touched on Shabbat observance, and my kids expressed disdain at the possibility…
The Eternal Refrain: Hello World
“FEAR NOT, BUT TRUST IN Dollinger For he will fetch you through.”