It's Uncle Time

Here are the highlights from my extended stay in Dallas:

-Having the Blums and their adorable and friendly kids over.
-Lots of laughs with former Jerusalem roommate DT and his very much Texan dad (like father, like son).
-Drinking a Shiner or 6 with the old elementary school-era 3 Amigos: Andrew and Evan.
-Catching Bedford Blues Fest with the awesome Smith family, and catching the legendary Taj Mahal with Eli.
-Wonderful conversation imbued with a lot of meaning with old friend Lauren Eastburn and some amazing commonalities with my religious Christian friends--the Smiths and Lauren.
-An amazing Rosh HaShana long weekend with Amy and the Davidson boys--blue Ben smothered in his 1st bday cake and teaching Jake “On the Road Again” on the way to the pond for tashlich (find link).
-Cheering on the Rangers with Mom as Cliff Lee swept the loathed Yankees out of Texas, and catching another nice Rangers win with Evan.
-Going for a swim with Lexie--dear friends Natalie and Jason’s dog. I better hit the pool--I sadly kept losing in a race with a golden/poodle.
-Good times with all the family/family friends--the Davidsons, Cohens, Kramers, Blums, Browns, Habermans and more.
-Taking the DART light rail downtown for lunch with Stephen and meeting his incredibly good match of a girlfriend.
-Experiencing Jerry Jones-World with the incredibly generous and kind Kamans. The only appropriate word for the place: ridiculous. After being paraded as gods, replete with great balls of fire to welcome them onto the field, the “team” laid an enormous egg and were put in their place by da bears, who played a great game. Most of all, this cast of grossly overpaid characters just made me reminiscent of the good ol’ days when Dad and I had season tickets starting in ’92 to witness Aikman, Emmittt, Jay Novacek, “Moose” Johnston, and some real teams just go out and dominate the NFL for a few years. This place is one giant display of misplaced American values. I did notice that the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders are very serious about tzni’ut (modesty)--religious Jewish women generally wear sleeves to their elbows in public. “America’s Sweethearts” take it one step further in covering their entire arms! Wait a second...looks like that’s about all they’re covering. Anyway, I’m glad I made it to the show once, but can’t imagine I’ll return.
-Celebrating with Mom and Dad as the Rangers clinched their first division title and playoff berth in 11 years. What a treat! I implore you boys to keep on winning for my dad!
-The incredible depth of Jewish knowledge and Torah that Rabbi Aryeh Rodin passes on to nearby Ohev Shalom synagogue every day (but in particular over the slew of holidays we’ve just celebrated). Wonderful hosts for Sukkot meals, Shiner in the sukkah (the one time when it’s a mitzvah to simply drink beer--man, I love G-d!), the Sukkah-hop which took us to eight neighborhood sukkot (and had me direct a herd of Members of the Tribe crossing bustling Hillcrest).
-The significant amount of Hebrew I heard (and joined in on) at our local kosher restaurants, and at the Dallas Jewish Film Fest for the fantastic Israeli flick, “A Matter of Size.”
-Watching so much great stuff with Dad--Gershwin biopic “Rhapsody in Blue,” finally seeing “West Side Story,” a great PBS documentary on Jerusalem, a fantastic Fred Hersch documentary, and footage of Ray Charles’ performance in Israel and tour of the country (including a meeting with David Ben-Gurion) shortly before the Yom Kippur War.
-Enjoying with Dad the sublime new Kurt Elling tribute album to John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman--one of our all-time favorite albums rejuvenated by one of our favorite tandems of singer Elling with his pianist and arranger Laurence Hobgood. Oh and of course our old favs such as Mel Lewis-Thad Jones' Central Park North.
-Just sitting back and witnessing the musical genius that is my dad.
Listening to his high school performances and feeling his excitement leading up to the 50th Woodward High reunion this weekend in Cincinnati.
-Catching the fascinating exhibit on Mayan connections to the sea at Fort Worth’s Kimbell Museum.
-Listening to the audio tape of my bris (!) and hearing my sis (age 3 then) say she loved me, as well as a lost track Dad composed for me, which happens to be a fantastic tune!
-Sitting in on several of Dad’s doctor appointments and getting an even better sense of the incredible angels taking care of him and guiding him to recovery.
-Standing next to Dad as the scale finally told him he was gaining some weight back (those 300-calorie servings of Cincinnati’s own Graeter’s ice cream are finally doing the trick).

And now I’m back uncling away in Connecticut for another long weekend before heading back home to Jerusalem early next week.

To catch up on old news, Eilat’s annual Red Sea Jazz Festival cemented its position at the top of my jazz fests list. I had another spiritual moment at Danilo Perez’s show. He fed heavy doses of his infectious energy to his trio, as well as the crowd, and afterwards this pure spirit got on the phone with Dad to wish him a quick and complete recovery (they had met in Dallas in the spring when Dad mentioned that a line from Rhapsody in Blue in Perez’s version of Bright Mississippi sounded awfully familiar). Gary Burton and Jeff “Tain” Watts’ groups killed, and the choir of Chicago at-risk youth, “Soul Children of Chicago” uplifted the crowd like something you’ve never seen before. Then a finale of fest artistic director Avishai Cohen jamming with Danilo (just as when I was first introduced to both with Dad at the 1997 International Association of Jazz Educators convention in Chicago) at the jam session (that went til sunrise) was the absolutely perfect bookend for the perfect festival at the stunning setting in Israel’s port city.

To catch up on politics, here’s a barrage of overdue links:
Barry Rubin on the prospects of a two-state solution. The mother of Sbarro massacre victim Malki Roth writes an impassioned plea to Israel to take the pressure off of Netanyahu to remove Hamas prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit. Here's friend Elana Kieffer on the 210 humanitarian aid trucks that entered the Gaza Strip from Israel one Sunday. Here's an interesting Arab look into the Palestinian street's resentment of the PA. David Horovitz urges Israel not to underestimate our enemies here. Here's some great news on strengthening U.S.-Israel military ties.

Here's a great George Will editorial on my Prime Minister Netanyahu's nationalism in a post-nationalist world, another censuring those who urge us to take "risks for peace", plus another on the mirage of the peace process.

Dershowitz says it well here as to the challenges of achieving a peace deal with the Palestinians. Here's Rubin again, on the "Blame Israel" phenomenon.

During my visit, Time managed to add themselves to the “dead to me” list for their pernicious, misleading magazine cover, an article which among other heavier faults depicted the life-blood of my existence, Jerusalem on Shabbat, as a mausoleum, is now off the team. Hats off to Ambassador to the US Michael Oren and David Horovitz for eloquently expressing my sentiments (links to come).

In Israeli music news, a summer of many stellar concerts included this phenomenal Gidi Gov duet with Rona Kinon
“הריקוד המוזר של הלב”

On the way to hear incredible song-writer and one of the torch-bearers of the young generation of Israeli rock, Aviv Geffen, I heard the legendary Jethro Tull. Unbelievable city I live in. Here's "Keren Or" by Achinoam Nini.ומידע אליה בויקיבדיה. Here's a really cool piece about the inclusion of religious texts into Israeli music.

And here's an interesting piece on gerontology demographics and the compounding effects of the economic slowdown

Um, can't say I've run across GloZell until I saw this, but my goodness she and SK are a riot here as they prepare for their maiden voyage to a synagogue.

With that, I wish a festive Shmini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, and a year imbued with Torah learning and values (if that's what you're into, of course)! Much love,
Eric/אריק