Rabbi Zelik Epstein, Of Blessed Memory

Yesterday, the Jewish world lost a spiritual giant (good article worth reading). Rabbi Zelik Epstein, Rosh Yeshiva of Shaar Hatorah in Queens passed away. He was 97.

R’ Zelik was a relic of the past. He studied Torah in Europe with some the greatest Torah scholars of recent American Jewry, including Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and Rabbi Yaakov Kamanetsky.

Perhaps even more significantly, he was above the fray. He did not get involved in politics and instead, studied, taught and advised and preached Torah and its values.

Filed under: All Posts, Musings & Observations, 660, Beis Medrash Elyon, Dov Kramer, facebook, history, Jewish, Judasim, mourning, politics, Rabbi Zelig Epstein, Rabbi Zelik Epstein, Shaar Hatorah, sidney greenwald, social-networking, Torah, twitter, WFAN

A Happy 2009 Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday.

I am not huge “birthday guy”. I love my children’s birthday more than my own birthday and my mother loves my birthday more than I do.

A lot of people know my birthday. Co-workers, family and friends all know my birthday. This year I got a ton of birthday wishes.

But itwas different.

Filed under: All Posts, Musings & Observations, birthday, facebook, fun, happy birthday, social-networking, technology, twitter

Onymous Blogging

This post has been cross-posted to DovBear. – more discussion there.

Social Networking has been around for a long time. The term is nearly two centuries old and the concept perhaps 30 times that.

With the internet explosion around the new millennium social networking became all the rage on the world wide web. MySpace and others blazed the trail. Now, blogging, Facebook and Twitter are an integral part of our social landscape.

Naturally, I was drawn to these new age ways of using technology to create social networks. I’ve been on Facebook since its inception five years ago and joined Twitter a while ago and have only recently begun to blog.

Over the last few weeks some incredible things have happened that are direct results of social networking online.

Filed under: All Posts, Musings & Observations, My Links, blogging, dovbear, facebook, family, fun, Pacific Jewish Center, social-networking, technology, twitter, Venice

Where Is The Outrage? | The Plight of Middle Eastern Jewry

This post has been cross posted to DovBear – great discussion there.

Do Anglo/American Jews care enough about our middle-eastern Jewish brothers and sisters?

Yesterday DovBear posted a really great Op-Ed piece from the NY Times.

In fact. before checking his blog I even emailed the article to him as I assumed he would find it interesting.

Of course, I was too late as it had already been posted!

What occurred subsequent to his posting of the article was even more interesting.

Filed under: All Posts, Musings & Observations, My Links, anti-semitism, Herman Neuberger, iran, iranian, Ner Israel, New York Times, persian, politics, tolerance, twitter

Your Unique Voice and A Kafkaesque Experience

Last week, Facebook disabled my account. No explanation, no reason, no apology, just gone.

There are terms that each member of Facebook agrees to abide by and I have not violated any of those terms. I have emailed Facebook asking for an explanation or at the very least an acknowledgement that my account has been disabled. So far… nothing.

Filed under: All Posts, Musings & Observations, facebook, ridiculous, social-networking, technology, twitter