Mishkafayim!!

I got glasses today.... not sunglasses that make me look like Jackie O... regular old make-you-see-better glasses. I'm getting old. Will post photos when I take some.

Packing update

I sold my bed in minutes flat, craigslist, craigslist, how do I love thee, let me count the ways.....

Most of my stuff went home to P-town with my bro, and the other stuff will be boxed by tonight for holding until I can get it home mid July.

One of my roommates is taking my furniture for long-term loan and my other roommate is going to relieve me of all the household things that I'm not taking with - the coffeemaker, ironing board, pillows, etc.

By Thurs night, I should be out of the Broadway flat. Yep, I'm sad about it and sort of cranky with my roommates (I wonder if it's related). We made a repeat performance dinner last night where I actually used plantains in addition to the bananas in the recipe.

Small grants, Philanthropy and News

As every major news organization reported yesterday, Warren Buffet pledged the better side of $31 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. From my limited (but intimate) experience working in philanthropy, Gates seems to be the industry leader in its ability to give money efficiently and effectively. My guess is that they have evaluators in place that gauge the impact of the funding and they have top operations specialists making their process smooth and swift. I don't have any personal knowledge of this, but it's the word about town, as it were.

My concern is about small grants, something that we have struggled with here as well. There are two conflicting pressures on foundations. On the one hand, they have legal payout requirements. I think California (the Feds?) requires 5% of the corpus be spent on charitable giving or face steep taxes. Basically, this is a governmental definition of the minimum charity a foundation must give in order to maintain their status in society. While this makes perfect sense, it means that for foundations with a growing corpus, are each year presented with an increasingly large payout burden. This is MUCH harder when a corpus grows quickly, like if a billionnaire decides to plunk a collosal chunk of change in the coffer.

On the other hand, foundations face pressure from the media, watchdog groups, and auditors to have the greatest impact with their funding. This is also completely understandable. If foundations are constantly sending money down the drain, it represents terrible inefficiency, poor due dilligence, and possibly even lack of vision. A foundation should accomplish something (or many things) with their donations.

These two pressures, which don't intuitively conflict, lead to a situation where foundations struggle to kick money out the door and end up funding large capital campaigns. These are the easiest grants to make in thie situation because they are paid in huge blocks over long time horizons and therefore pad the disbursement levels for years in the future. But buying a new building for X, Y, or Z non-profit may or may not have the most effective impact. Even if the foundation manages to give other large grants aside from capital, they will be under more pressure to forego small grants alltogether. Small grants, and grantees, require more oversight, due dilligence and hand-holding. Foundations like Gates may not be able to make them anymore. I think this is a dangerous path and may create barriers to entry for smaller non-profits around the country.

One solution is to consciously dedicate staff within the foundation to making smaller grants. This would be different than the classic "docket-subject divide" which our foundation uses. Another solution might be for the foundation to support community foundations directly. Either way, these big charitable giving organizations must think creatively about keeping some grantmaking small.

Letter of the Day is B: Black Beans and Bananas

Yesterday had me craving for something spicy, Caribbean-tasting for dinner.

Here's what I made (mmmm.... pareve yumminess!):

Ingredients:
Red Snapper (I wanted halibut, but the store didn't have any)
Lime
Onion (yellow, because it carmelizes fast)
Banana
Black beans
Cumin
Cayenne

• Preheat broiler
• Sautee half large onion
• Cover red snapper filet in lime juice and pulp of 1 lime.
• Take onion out of pan and sautee 2 sliced bananas
• Throw snapper under broiler. Turn over. Don't leave in too long.
• Remove bananas when golden, sautee 1/2 can of black beans
• Mix onion, banana and beans all together. Season with cumin and cayenne to taste.
• Squeeze lime on your dish to taste.
  
• Throw your mixture over the fish and VOILA - YUMMINESS!!

I paired this dish with white rice and steamed brussel sprouts tossed with margarine and vinegar.

[My roommies insisted that I make this the next day for them. I modified a bit adding plantains with the bananas. It added a more potato-y texture that I liked and wasn't as sweet!]

Goals for Israel, Part 1

I hope this series on goals is ever-changing and I hope I'm able to actually accomplish some of them. I'm also starting with the low-hanging fruit, meaning the things that I can articulate the most easily and completely will get first billing. The order does not necessarily conform to priorities.

1. BECOME A PRAYER RINGER

I never realized that this was important to me until I was finally in a Jewish community where people are so much more knowledgeable than I am. Up until now, I could lead services however I wanted to and often the "congregants" were so greatful that someone was excited and enthusiastic, they could care less about the mechanics of my own davenning. But now I want to be more than that for a community. I want to be counted on to lead prayers of all types with no preparation.

With this kind of goal you might wonder whether I am secretly preparing to become a member of the rabbinate. First off, my mother, a rebbetzin, would disown me. She knows intimately how hard it is to be a rabbi, what a drain it is on one's family and private life and how consuming it is as a career. More importantly, however, I don't want my holy space to be all mixed up and entangled with my place of employment. Where would my sanctuary be if it was also my office?

Leading services as a member of the congregation is good for me and the people around me. On a personal level, I like determining the speed and feeling of a particular service. I find meaning in leading a group of committed Jews in their connection to the Divine. For the community, it can become dull to have the same "professional" leading all the time. Lay leaders can offer welcome diversity. Moreover, when lay leadership takes on the davenning enterprise, the concept of communal responsibility is enforced. (So much more on this later.)

So, in Israel, I plan on attending services all the freakin time, so that I become more comfortable with the liturgy and even develop a style that is all my own.

Gifts for ME!!

If you ever feel the urge to give me a present because I've fed you dinner, given you directions, made a shidduch or just shared the air you breathe - go right ahead. I'm sort of obsessed with books and if you want to know my real desires, click here - https://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/wishlist.

You can find my wishlist by using this email address "myrrhmades" at "yahoo" dot "com".

I'm looking forward to it... I'm sure you are too.

Life in Jail

If people are truly judged by the company they keep, let's just say, I'll do fine in front of the jury. One of the many interesting people who has crossed my path here in San Francisco is Yoav Potash. He is a critically acclaimed filmmaker, excellent Purim costumer (he was a shushan shiner complete with his own "moonshine" to distribute,) and regular MM davener and he's even a good guy to boot. So when he invited me to a fundraiser for his newest project, I was eager to participate.

The new film is called XXXX [edit note: name of film and other key identifying features have been scrubbed at the request of Yoav] and it is a documentary about a woman, DP, serving a life sentence for first degree murder of her husband? boyfriend? who beat her and forced her into prostitution- among other disgraceful and abhorrent things. The reason the case is so interesting is because apparently in California there is a rule that if abuse was part of the equation of a case and it wasn't brought to light at the trial, there may be room for re-evaluation. This case never went to trial because DP plead guilty.

So, some pro-bono attorneys reviewed the case and found an internal document from the D.A.'s office acknowledging that the evidence against the woman was weak. (She had only plead guilty to the first-degree murder charge because she believed that the D.A. would seek the death penalty against her at trial.) When the lawyers presented this document back to the D.A.'s office, they admitted that DP probably shouldn't have served anything longer than a 6-year manslaughter sentence. (DP has already served something close to 25 years!!!) Shortly thereafter political wrangling in the D.A.'s office pushed them to sing another tune and today they deny making an agreement with the DP's lawyers.

The most astonishing fact is that this woman, victim of abuse, wrongfully serving a life sentence, is a model prisoner, leader of prayer circles and the gospel choir. She even holds the highest paying job at the largest women's correctional facility in the country. She could be broken - but she isn't.

The lawyers working on the case are also impressive. One, an Orthodox Jew, and the other, an ultra-runner, they both embody the kind of fortitude and sensitivity along with drive and determination that this case deserves and requires. They are land-use lawyers by trade and have put aside 1/4 of their normal practice to pursue this thankless (so far) pro-bono work. They were trained and supported by the California Habeas Project to take on this case.

The story of Sodom teaches us that if we can save even one innocent life, it is equivalent to saving the entire world. Behatzlacha!!

Truth: New Developments

I expressed my distress and confusion here by this situation in Gaza, where I didn't know who to trust and what to believe. As the story unfolds here it gets a little bit more complicated. JPost reports that:

While sticking to its demand for the establishment of an independent inquiry into a blast on a Gaza beach 10 days ago that killed seven Palestinian civilians, the Human Rights Watch conceded Monday night for the first time since the incident that it could not contradict the IDF's exonerating findings.

Who to trust? What to believe?

Vassermelonie

Is it so wrong to want my watermelon to actually have seeds? Is that too much to ask for?

My IPO

Since I will most likely never bring a product to market, this is my only chance to do an "Initial Public Offering". Yes, I'm going public with this blog by leaking to my friends and family that I've started blogging with full identity on view.

A few ground rules:

• I still don't think I will use my name on the blog - this is more to keep away google's eyes than anything else.
  
• Also, I will try not to use the proper names of any friends or family members.
  
• I may write about articles I read, people I meet, random insights, comics, or sorrow, but I won't guarantee that this blog will be mind-altering, earth-shattering, or even interesting, so please read at your own risk and quit your whining.

Truth: Getting to the Bottom of it

For those of us who are out there following politics and current events with an ear to both being informed and possibly even doing something about the problems of the world, what do you do about a situation like this one? What does one do with this, when situations cannot be verified or confirmed from a distance? Who is a reliable source?

Much more to come on this topic.

That's Why I Love P-town

I was looking at epicurious, in order to prepare for a Shabbat lunch which I may or may not be holding this weekend - stay tuned. And I saw this. Yes, come to think of it, sushi does taste better when eaten off the naken body of a masked model. Seems like these kinds of places are proliferating in hotbeds of radical foodies like Portland (cheers, as the crowd goes wild).

And as the article states, "Oh, art. Now I get it."

Justice

Just in. Sometimes, it feels good to say "I told you so!"

Haaretz reports, "US born Professor Found Guilty of Libel"

Last night's meeting, followed by shots (the alcoholic kind!)

Last night, I facilitated my final meeting of leadership council (called the machers) of my minyan. The whole experience was a growing one for me, quite positive on balance and an opportunity for me to learn about group dynamics and about the individuals that comprise the group.

A few surprises:
- I had spoken to some people about the topic of the meeting the day before and they expressed opinions that they seemed to contradict in the group setting. Now, I expected them to tone down their language, make it more palatable to a larger group, but I never could have guessed that they would completely contradict their sentiments of 24 hours prior. I don't know whether this is because they changed their minds (this seems highly unlikely) or because they just felt like their own stances were too alienating to take in a public forum. Either way, as the facilitator, I was surprised.
- We really are a more diverse group than I had anticipated. During our review of the shavuot extravaganza (there really is no other way to describe it), it might as well have been a bunch of blind people describing the different parts of the elephant. Diametrically opposed experiences of the same thing. Interesting!
- It shouldn't have been a surprise, but I now know that the only way to accomplish something specific in a meeting like this is to define VERY NARROWLY what is the goal. And since I didn't have it totally clear in my own mind until after the meeting (good timing), it didn't happen. Here's the picture: Since we have intentionally avoided any grand declarations of who we are, we have a lot of ambiguity and therefore we have no basis on which to make decisions. When decisions are made, they come as a surprise to those of us who are operating under our own internal framework (which everyone is, whether they are conscious of it or not). So I wanted the group to acknowledge that we aren't just a diverse group of people who are working together, but that the purpose of the group is to create a model (not the right word, but I can't think of another one at the moment) where we diverse people can daven, eat and learn together. I want this to be the explicit goal of the group.

So, you ask: Why do we have to make explicit what we are already putting into practice? The fact is that we aren't all putting this concept into practice. Some individuals look to the minyan as a place they are creating where they, as an individual wish to be. That fails to acknowledge the idea of dynamic tension - definitely deserves its own post - that we must embrace so that we don't chafe under its discomfort.

Anyway, the point of the meeting was to open the discussion, which it did.

And toasts were made in my honor.

Leaving this city and this community is so bittersweet.

Getting the hang of this thing

I haven't quite figured out all the quirks of blogger. I edited some of the misspellings below and even though I republished the whole site, it isn't updating. So you are just going to have to believe me when I say that I know how to spell harangue and other such complexifications.

Inaugural Post, The Backstory

After much haranguing, coercion, bribery (oops) and other appealing persuasive pressures, I decided to go public and write a blog about my upcoming travels and adventures. This whole meshugas started way back with that subtle feeling from my boss that my job was going to be first on the chopping block (or not so subtle, I mean he did basically stop talking to me). All's fair, last one in = first one out. So I started looking around and decided to apply on a lark to a selective fellowship that will take me to Israel for a year. I had considered applying the year before, but with even more uncertainty about relationships and graduate schools, I just couldn't get my act together to submit it. (Plus, I wasn't sure if I really wanted it at the time anyway.)

PS. 4 months from that fateful day when I submitted the application, I heard that the selection committee had chosen me to be among the uberachievers in this group. I can't help but think that they made some sort of mistake... but we certainly won't tell them, eh?

So, I will be departing from my lovely San Francisco and heading to Israel. (Of course, not without the requisit stayover at the storage facility my parents' house in lovely P-town.) If you'll be there between July 19-30, hit me with your contact info and we'll join a yoga class and get some soy lattes or something. Or drink some of the tasty microbrews that I've been missing all these many moons in SF.

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testing, testing, one... two... three... testing.