News Round-Up

• I will weigh in on the rabbinic ban on leasing homes to gentiles in Israel within the next day. Until them, look at this.
• Adam Kirsch reviews a new anthology of Middle Eastern literature and criticizes it, inter alia, for not including any Hebrew literature. Based on what I wrote in my review of Sabato (which Kisch missed in his review of the same), he probably would have been a near-ideal author to include. And he's Egyptian-Israeli. Too bad.
• Some Egyptians are blaming Jews for shark attacks.

• Over 300 people attended our annual Kabbalat Shabbat Hannukah at the ancient synagogue at Umm al-Umdan, including the city councilman in charge of tourism and heritage sites. Last year there were about 150. One day soon, Shabbat Chanukah in Modiin will be a "thing to do."
• I had a post planned entitled "the top 8 Chanukah songs besides the Maccabeats, Matisyahu, and Adam Sandler. Then DovBear came and did that and more (I had Lehrer, Stewart/Colbert, South Park, Hannukah Harry, and Oy Chanukah) - but he missed some good ones. Here they are:
•  

 

The LeeVeees: How do you Spell Hannukah?

 

Fountainheads: I Gotta Feeling Hannukah

Peter Paul and Mary: Light one Candle for the Maccabee Children