Anyway, as far as the Hermann Cohen project goes, let me know if you find it (I assume you have my email from the site), I think its an important document particularly with the rebirth of a German Jewish community.

Klee, Wir sind Helden, Juli etc. tend to be socially progressive and usually stay away from politics altogether. There’s little commercially successful political rock / poprock, even more successful punk bands (Die Ärzte, Die Toten Hosen) deal with social issues at large rather than distinct policies.

cf. hagalil.com/01...

hagalil.com/01...

As I said, I’d only just scanned through the article, but found the ideas introduced partly somewhat absurd historically and theologically. There are still more affiliated Catholics in Germany (German-speaking parts of Europe) than Protestants, Catholicism and Judaism share the principle of the recognition and reception of scripture, teachings & tradition whereas Protestantism relies on scripture alone (“sola scriptura”) and argues that belief, and not good deeds (comparable to mitzvot), alone would lead to salvation (sola fide). The list could be continued.

Chasidishe teens listen to German-language rap because they understand most of the language. It compares to, e.g. Turkish and Russian youths here listening to cheesy Turkish and Russian pop music because they understand the language. It adds to the feeling of identity, positive recognition and personal value and gives them less of a feeling of being outsiders to the “normal” world. It’s an issue of conflicted souls, torn between what they want to be perceived as and what the majority of their environment perceive them as (worse even, what their differently affiliated / less religious co-religionists perceive them as). The question that should be raised is not that of assimilation (which is actually impossible; in German, the period English speakers commonly to refer to as “Jewish assimilation” is called “Jüdische Aufklärung”) but a matter of successful integration. Integration means preserving my personal and cultural identity while understanding and accepting the core values of and functioning in my surroundings. Integration is a two-way-street; a society has to be willing to integrate others into their midst just as much as those “others” need to show willingness and effort to integrate themselves in their surrounding environment. That is where many Chasidshe yeshivas and seminaries (Monsey even worse than BP and Willi) fail at large scale; they turn kids into insecure outsiders instead of self- and culturally confident members of society.

Also, Tim Horton’s coffee is fantastic.

In terms of the essay, the argument about Protestantism is Hermann Cohen’s, trying to convince the American Jews to oppose US intervention against Germany during WWI, arguing that the true allies of the Jewish people in history are the Germans with their creation of Protestantism, etc, not that of the author or Derrida. Anyway, its an eerie view of German-Jewish relations just before WWII, and had it not been for the nazis, it might still be arguable, as the presence of German rap on Chassidishe teen ipods attests…

I know this is way off topic, but I have to say, that having grown up in a Jueddisch/Deutsch speaking household, listening to bands like Klee or Wir Sind Helden is strangely calming. I was with relatives in Boro Park (the Chassidic area) and apparently the hassidic kids around the age of 20 buy ipods preloaded with music, and apparently they are very into Bushido (probably for the same reason). Its one of the strange paradoxes which are described in this essay: tikkun.org/rab...

And will somebody finally enlighten me about Canadian coffee? According to Muffti, it’s about time I tried out Canadian men.

Which area is that?
I suppose a motto like “Europa wird kulturell sein oder es wird nicht sein” wouldn’t work in the USA, though, of course, the Jews were traditionally negatively labelled as “cosmopolitans” (which wouldn’t be such an insult now after Sex and the City), so I suppose we’re supposed to know more about the world. While I still think many people know who Johnny Halliday is, I suppose in the US anything in a foreign language is verboten, which is different than Europe (though I don’t anticipate a big Udo Jurgens fan club in the US under any circumstance).

Hockey has become pretty brutal but bloodies and most violent of all time? Have you never seen a boxing match?

The Great Bagel Bake Off. $1 Admission. $1 gets you sample bagels and the right to cast a vote. All proceeds go to the Jewlicious Foundation Fund for Beer.

The only reasons that the Canadians (British) beat the Americans in several War of 1812 battles were (1) New England states failed to provide troops, and (2) that was the year the Americans were busy studying for their SAT exams.

How is hockey the bloodiest and most violent sport of all time?? I thought that honour went to the sport of “Feeding the Christians to the Lions.”

Anyone enjoy the song I embedded by the angry worms?