Upcoming Events

Congratulations to Be'chol Lashon member, Dennis Ybarra, who will be called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah on Friday evening, May 25, 7:30pm at Sha'ar Zahav, San Francisco.

Save the Date
Israel in the Gardens
June 3, 2007

10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco

Join Be'chol Lashon and more than 15,000 people unite once a year to rejoice and commemorate Israel's Independence.
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Be'chol Lashon launches Abayudaya Community Health Project

Be'chol Lashon launches Abayudaya Community Health Project
The Abayudaya Jewish community in Uganda is one of the many Jewish communities around the world in partnership with Be'chol Lashon.

The Abayudaya Executive Committee, the democratically elected community council, requested that Be'chol Lashon coordinate the planning, fundraising and execution of a number of projects in the Abayudaya community including water, electricity, health, education, and economic development. These projects will also benefit all residents of their sub-county: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim.

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Herron: Nappy Hair is Beautiful, Calling Names Isn't
By Carolivia Herron, Special to CNN, April 24, 2007, CNN.com
Uncle Mordecai was sitting on his front porch where his garden was going to be when I walked up. Do you remember Uncle Mordecai? He was the one who told me the story celebrating his niece, Brenda, in my book "Nappy Hair."All of us in the Kenilworth neighborhood were curious to hear his thoughts on these insults that have been flying around. Before I could get through the gate he had already started complaining. "My, my, my, have you heard what's happening about nappy hair?"

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Black Jew Illuminates Diversity of Judaism
By Dianna Marder, April 5, 2007, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Much of the study of African Americans and Jews relates to relationships between the two groups. But Lewis Ricardo Gordon, a Jamaica-born, Yale-educated author and Temple University professor, is studying African-Americans who are Jews. And he's not just talking about people of color who became Jews as a result of their parents' inter-marriage or conversion.

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Video: Rabbi Capers Funnye and Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation
By Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Staff, March 2007, bethshalombz.org

On Thursday March 29, 2007, Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken E.H. Congregation was featured on Channel 11's Chicago Tonight program.

Watch the Video here...

Taste of Uganda: Rabbi Reaches out to Children Through Music
By Sara Cunningham, March 24, 2007, Courier-journal.com

Gershom Sizomu shared his musical message in English, Hebrew and Lugandan yesterday with schoolchildren and members of a local synagogue. "Behold it's a good thing and pleasant for brothers and sisters to sit together," he sang. For Sizomu, language can cross all boundaries when it's set to music. Sizomu is Rabbi of the 750 Abayudaya Jewish tribe members in Eastern Uganda

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Indian Jewish Congregation Newsletter Features Family Indian Recipes
By Sara Cunningham, March 24, 2007, Courier-journal.com

Rice Chapatis: Recipe from Noreen's Kitchen
Preparation for a typical Bene Israel kitchen for Passover would start right after Purim. Special cooking utensils of copper and brass would be brought down from the loft and scrubbed. The Bene Israel make rice chapatis especially for Passover. Among the Bene Israel, goat or lamb curry is a common dish.

Additional Recipes:

Mutton Albaras: Recipe from Stella Benjamin's Kitchen
Tuna Pancake Wraps: Recipe from Abigail Daniel of London

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Using Language to Cross an Israeli Divide
By Nicky Blackburn, February 1, 2007, Israel21C.com
More than 9,000 Jewish schoolchildren across Israel will have a unique opportunity to learn spoken Arabic this year as part of the 'Language as a Cultural Bridge' project initiated by The Abraham Fund. "One of our goals is to strengthen Israeli society as a multi-cultural society and the issue of language is a critical one," says Amnon Beeri-Sulitzeanu, the executive director of the Abraham Fund, a non-profit organization committed to advancing coexistence and equality in Israel.

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Two Conservative Rabbinic Seminaries Open Doors to Gays

Conservative Seminary Moves to Allow Gay, Lesbian Students
By Ben Harris, March 26, 2007, JTA.org
After months of deliberation, the Jewish Theological Seminary has decided to accept qualified gay and lesbian students to its rabbinical and cantorial schools. The move was enabled by a December decision by the Conservative movement's legal authorities to reverse the movement's traditional ban on gay clergy.

West Coast Seminary Opens Doors to Gays
By Rebecca Spence, March 9, 2007, Forward.com
In the wake of Conservative Judaism's historic vote to permit the ordination of gay and lesbian rabbis, the movement's West Coast seminary has accepted its first openly gay students. Two gay applicants - one man, one woman - have been accepted for the fall by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles.

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Yemeni Jews Face Growing Sectarian Troubles
By Ginni HIll, April 4, 2007, Christian Science Monitor
Yahya Yousef Mousa is one of the several hundred Jews still living in Yemen. His grandparents refused to join the mass evacuation to Israel that followed anti-Jewish riots in 1948. Instead, they opted to continue a traditional life that their ancestors had peacefully pursued in Yemen for generations. But, in January, that peace was shattered when Mr. Mousa was confronted by masked gunmen from a Shiite sect that accused him of spreading vice and corruption. He and his neighbors were told to leave their homes in the northern province of Saada or lose their lives.

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Montclair Identify Expert to Explore Growing Awareness of Multiracial Jews
By Johanna Ginsberg, March 2007, New Jersey Jewish News
I have to figure out my Jewish identity in a way my husband doesn't have to," said Lisa Williamson Rosenberg, who identifies herself as black and Jewish. "If he says, 'I'm Jewish,' no one debates him or gets into an argument with him. It was the same for my mother. No one says, 'Oh, how did you get to be Jewish?' Everyone asks me those questions."

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The "Old Jews" of Mexico Come Out after 500 Years
By Staff, Mex Files, March 18, 2007, MexFiles.wordpress.com
When I started studying Mexican history, I was surprised at how many of the early colonial leaders were "conversos"... Spanish Jews (or their children) who had to convert or leave Spain after Isabel’s conquest of Granada in January 1492. A good chunk of northern Mexico, including what’s now Texas and New Mexico were settled by Tlaxcalan and Converso pioneers (the New Mexico "Spanish" are nearly all of Jewish ancestry, according to recent DNA studies).

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Shades of Gray
By E. B. Solomont, Jan/Feb 2007, American Jewish Life Magazine
The problem was the boxes on her college application. The ones where you check white or black. Lacey Schwartz didn't know which to check, so she sent a picture instead, which led the school administrators to enroll her as a black student, one who inexplicably had two white Jewish parents. That's how she made it 18 years before blowing the lid off the family secret: That her mother had an affair with a black man, that she was the product of their union.

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Anne Frank on the Reservation
By Anthony Boadle, January 22 2007, Reuters
The recent discovery of a trove of letters from Otto Frank to American officials may have returned attention to the wartime plight of the Frank family, but, as an exhibition set to open in the American Southwest next month shows, Anne Frank has never really strayed far from the collective imagination - and not only for Jews.

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A Model Israeli
By Jessica Steinberg, November 29, 2006, Israel21C
Esti Mamo is exquisitely beautiful, with cocoa-colored skin, enormous almond-shaped eyes and full, shapely lips. She has poise and presence, and as she strides into the Tel Aviv Hilton wearing the de rigueur belted trench coat, it's inevitable that faces turn. Mamo, 23, is Israel's first Ethiopian-Israeli model. And after several years on the Israeli modeling circuit, she has high hopes for strutting on the global catwalk.

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Not a Nice Jewish Girl
By David Kaufmann, March 16, 2007, Forward.com
British singer Amy Winehouse's new album, "Back to Black" is a fine album. More importantly, though, "Back to Black" shows that Winehouse is turning into an artist to watch. No, she is most decidedly not a nice Jewish girl. And that, of course, is the whole blessed point.

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