Separate But Equal

New York City metro area

(Hat tip: SaraK) Slate has a really fascinating piece analyzing the census data which has come out for the United States, focusing especially on the de facto segregation that still exists today. The slideshow, which has mapped images of the top 10 most segregated cities, is really cool.

The most segregated are:

1. Milwaukee
2. New York
3. Chicago
4. Detroit
5. Cleveland
6. Buffalo
7. St. Louis
8. Cincinnati
9. Philadelphia
10. Los Angeles

I've lived in three of these cities, and can't say the results are too surprising. Milwaukee had a nice swath of white supremacists, but that alone obviously doesn't tell the story. (For instance, the Cleveland expert feels Cleveland's split demographic has more to do with people leaving Cleveland, period, than specifically leaving communities blacks are moving to.) One point that I think is interesting is that the cities which are heavily segregated all voted heavily for President Obama in the last election - and not just the urban sections of mostly minorities, but the suburban sections of whites as well. I recall having this discussion with people before, but New York City for example for all its supposed diversity simply isn't truly diverse at all - everyone lives in a community with "their people", not with one another.


I wonder if this segregation impacts how people approach government's intervention into various aspects of their lives. In integrated cities, people know one another and view each other as individuals, and feel that they all already have equal opportunities to succeed in life - it doesn't matter if you're black or white, Latino or Asian, it's about what you put into it (coupled with a fair amount of luck). In segregated cities, people view each other far more in a "group" context, and think that government intervention is the key to equal opportunity (or outcomes, anyway). Ironically, it is specifically those areas which pursue interventionist policies that end up segregating themselves further as those policies often keep people exactly where they are, whereas without such policies people are more likely to move and seek out better opportunities rather than stay to pick up various benefits.

A Sense of Community, Perhaps

Recently, we have noticed an interesting phenomenon when talking to some of our friends who are single. It is not necessarily "new", but it has raised some questions and ideas that are worthy of more discussion.

One of Serach's best friends has been planning a move to the New York area, and was discussing various options with us. Her most important desired quality wherever she goes is that there be an "established community" - she does not want to be part of a "singles scene", though having some singles around is nice, but prefers to be around an actual community. She wants to be around families, she wants there to be shiurim and the like available to attend and be a part of, and she wants there to be a sense of stability among the people there.

Meanwhile, a really good friend of mine who is single recently finished his schooling, and decided that rather than move back to the tri-state area, he was going to move back to his hometown and work there (and only three and a half days a week to allow for travel among other things). He is living at home for now, and calculated that even if he moved out and got his own place, his cost-of-living savings would be enough for him to afford to fly into New York every weekend if he so desired, and still come out ahead. As he put it, "Why should I move to New York? So I can live near [Shul X] and be one of hundreds of singles there in the same stupid meat market and kill myself to work and sit in annoying traffic or on dirty subways and have no money left? I'm much happier this way, thanks."

More recently, another friend interviewed for a position in Cleveland. She, too, is single, and asked if there was anyone "young and single" there. I replied "Young, yes; single, some". After spending a weekend in the area, she's apparently considering it strongly enough that another friend tonight was asking me what I thought about her moving there as well. Interestingly, we had just spent the weekend at the Lander Alumni Shabbaton with a lot of friends, and there's a decent possibility that some of our closest friends will be moving to Cleveland soon - on top of the ones that are already there.

I replied to the friend tonight that Cleveland is a great place to live. That said, you don't go there as a Single to be a part of a Singles community, but you go there to be a part of the community. For a single concerned about dating, there is almost certainly a large negative impact which is obvious that comes from moving away from the central hub of New York dating; there's possibly a small positive impact that comes from exposure to new people, to people with different mindsets and approaches to dating and life in general, and just the way those people may be able to help you with dating when they can. Certainly overall from a strictly getting dates perspective, though, moving away from the tri-state area would seem to be a net negative for most people.

But thinking about these various friends and how they would be impacted on a personal level by living away from the tri-state area, I couldn't help but wonder if it still would make sense for them, even as it pertains to dating. There's something - a lot, really - to be said for being happier and feeling more accomplished, and it seems obvious that those traits would positively impact a person as they date. Particularly for those who maybe feel a bit lost in the sea of singles in the New York area, living elsewhere and saving up some money and moving up in life a bit can help someone stand out a bit more both in the world of shidduchim and more importantly, on dates themselves. Rather than being viewed and viewing themselves in the lens of just another guy or girl being stacked against the dozens of people around them, they are able to think of themselves differently, which in turn lets their dates see them differently.

Every time I start to think about this, I can't help but think of my good friend and how he would be viewed versus how he is viewed. If he were here, he'd be just another Jewish guy who does pretty well and you may remember meeting him once. But where he is, he's not just another guy - he's a guy who "everyone knows" is hilarious, who "everyone knows" is tight with his family and great with kids, who "everyone knows" is really personable and on top of all that, "everyone knows" he's also successful and putting away for the future and has a real leg up on life. And "everyone knows" this because everyone knows him. He's a part of the community, just like everyone else.

Perhaps there's something to be said for community; perhaps it's not so crazy for singles to move away from the hubbubs of single-dom and into established communities (whether in New York or outside of it, though I believe it is easier to integrate away from large groups of singles). As another friend said recently, the "shidduch crisis" can affect you regardless. Perhaps having singles who are happy and fulfilled is the best solution of all - after all, even if it's no better than now, at least you're happier and more fulfilled in life.

Perhaps.

ShulLists.com

Via Josh Lintz, ShulLists a great site which condenses the posts from many of the various tri-state area shul listings (TeaneckShuls, FiveTownShuls, KGHShuls, etc.) and puts them all in one, organized place. This is really useful for people who know what they're looking for and is a lot easier to skim through, and can be sorted by area as well as type. All in all, very nice and very useful.

From their About Us page:

Shullists was created in 2011 with the aim of providing a consolidated and simplified inbox of shul and community message boards in order to facilitate the wider spread of information in the Jewish community. Some of our services include:
-Numerous flexible search capabilities
-Posts can be consolidated by subject matter across multiple geographic locations
-Live Twitter feed with hash tags to follow sources of interest in real time.
-A facebook profile you can choose to "friend"
-Privacy settings that prevent personal data from being scraped by web marketers or search engines
We have attempted to maximize ease of use for the benefit of our users. If you have any suggestions on how to improve our services, we would love to hear from you. If you have a bulletin board you would like us to add to this service, we would also be interested to hear about it. Please feel free to contact us.
Sincerely,
The Shullists Administrators

Quote of the Day

Made my day:

I can tell you're not from New York. ~ said to me after a brief meeting.

(I replied with a Thank You, of course.)

Related: SD's top ten ways to spot a tourist, which are mostly the classics, but a couple really good new ones.

EZ Reads 2/14/11

There's a reason I'm mostly putting up links for now, and not yet writing; hopefully that will be able to be made more clear soon enough. Meanwhile, here are some interesting and enjoyable links for today - many of which are flying all over on Facebook, et al:

• The NYTimes had a nice piece on the YU Seforim sale - the schedule of which is on Josh's Parshablog here.
• The Wall Street Journal discusses the possibility of seeing a Walmart in New York City in the near future. The most fascinating part to me was the first line:

  Last year, New York City residents spent $196 million at Wal-Mart... That's a pretty remarkable sum, given that there isn't a single Wal-Mart in New York City.

  No kidding.
• A video on what the OU does that I've been meaning to link to for a while. Well done.
• Ariella of Kallah Magazine has an interesting piece on Examiner about how GroupOn's handling of the negative reaction to their Super Bowl (and other) ad(s) is both impressive and a good lesson for marriages.
• RafiG with a clip about the first African-American in the Israeli Army. The history of how he ended up there is what I found most interesting. 
• The HuffPo has a great breakdown on the potential NFL lockout and how that all came to be and how it works, and what options are available to each side. It's fascinating in terms of how one thinks about business, freedom, entertainment, and how those all intersect and interact with one another.
• A hilarious Family Feud clip on "something that gets passed around."

Atomic Tom Live on NYC Subway

This is pretty cool (despite my overall meh attitude toward Apple).

Gentiles & Mezuzahs

Interesting piece in the New York Times about mezuzos and the Gentiles who keep them up.

8.4 Million New Yorkers Suddenly Realize New York City A Horrible Place To Live

Hat tip: A lot of people who e-mailed with various versions of "this made me think of you" and "I thought you'd appreciate this". Thanks, everyone - I'm flattered that people understand me so well!

What's awesome about this Onion piece on the entire NYC deserting it for greener pastures is how true everything in it really is:  (warning: really bad language; after all, it does quote lots of New Yorkers)

NEW YORK—At 4:32 p.m. Tuesday, every single resident of New York City decided to evacuate the famed metropolis, having realized it was nothing more than a massive, trash-ridden hellhole that slowly sucks the life out of every one of its inhabitants.

With audible murmurs of "This is no way to live," "What the hell am I doing here—I hate it here," and "F*** this place. F*** this horrible place," all 8.4 million citizens in each of the five boroughs packed up their belongings and told reporters they would rather blow their brains out with a shotgun than spend another waking moment in this festering cesspool of filth and scum and sadness.

According to residents, the mass exodus was triggered by a number of normal, everyday New York City events. For Erin Caldwell of Manhattan, an endlessly honking car horn sent her over the edge, causing her to go into a blind rage and scream "shut up!" at the vehicle as loud as she could until her voice went hoarse; for Danny Tremba of Queens it was being cursed at for walking too slow; and for Paul Ogden, also of Queens, it was his overreaction to somebody walking too slow.

Other incidents that prompted citizens to pick up and leave included the sight of garbage bags stacked 5 feet high on the sidewalk; the realization that being alone among millions of anonymous people is actually quite horrifying; a blaring siren that droned on and f***ing on; muddy, refuse-filled puddles that have inexplicably not dried in three years; the thought of growing into a person whose meanness and cynicism is cloaked in a kind of holier-than-thou brand of sarcasm that the rest of the world finds nauseating; and all the goddamn people.

Read the whole thing, it's brilliant. What scared me is that I agree with every single logical reasoning in the piece, and yet... I'm still stuck here. {shudder} It's a bit unbelievable... so much so, that this is a great way to announce the following: Moshe, you won.

For those unaware, about five years ago Moshe and I made a bet; the loser of the bet would take the winner to the restaurant of his choice in New York City for a nice, expensive dinner out (with Mike's Bistro being the likely choice). The bet: Would I still be in New York City in September 2010? I was *sure* there was no chance we would still be living here; Moshe was convinced that I was "just talk". This is the saddest bet I've ever lost in my life, but also possibly the funniest (and certainly the longest).

Moshe, congratulations! We'll go out when things are a bit better, be'H soon! :)

Reason #579 to Hate NYC

Assist to Special Ed

A penny saved is two pennies earned.

...and it's not much better in most other places, either. (And likely to get worse under President Obama.)

Moron

You know you're in bad shape when even most YW commenters think you're nuts:

“When Americans are suffering economically and millions need jobs, it’s shocking that the Administration is focused on its ultra-liberal militantly homosexualist agenda forcing the highlighting of homosexuals and homosexuality on an unwilling military. This is the equivalent of the spiritual rape of our military to satisfy the most extreme and selfish cadre of President Obama’s kooky coalition.

We agree with Eileen Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness that this will hurt the cohesiveness of the military, cause many to leave the army, and dramatically lower the number of recruits, perhaps leading to the reinstatement of a compulsory draft.

“Thirteen months before 9/11, on the day New York City passed homosexual domestic partnership regulations, I joined a group of Rabbis at a City Hall prayer service, pleading with G-d not to visit disaster on the city of N.Y. We have seen the underground earthquake, tsunami, Katrina, and now Haiti. All this is in sync with a two thousand year old teaching in the Talmud that the practice of homosexuality is a spiritual cause of earthquakes. Once a disaster is unleashed, innocents are also victims just like in Chernobyl.

“We plead with saner heads in Congress and the Pentagon to stop sodomization of our military and our society. Enough is enough.”

Whether gays should or shouldn't be in the military is a decision that military commanders have a better understanding of than anyone, and let them debate this with the White House and Congress. But this is just insanity.

Don't Pass Over

From the time I was born until I finished high school, I spent every Pesach at my parents' home in Cleveland, with fond memories of my sister somehow getting drunk on the four cups of wine and singing "Who Knows One" in a drunken yell, or the constant re-stealing of the Afikoman by my father, brother, and myself, or the hidden notes planned a year prior by Vervel for when she'd be in Israel asking if we missed her. The next two years, I split the sedarim in Israel: One at my cousins with many other cousins (figure 17 kids + the adults) and my aunt, and one with my friends from OJ at one of the rebbeim. Since then, it's been a mix of Cleveland and Monsey as we shuttle between my parents and Serach's - enjoying the dramatic difference between the two styles (my father-in-law is Sephardic, my father Litvak-American) and weather (like the drop from 80 to 28 + 8 inches of snow in one day in Cleveland).

One thing I've never done, however, is go to a hotel for Pesach... and neither have either of my siblings... until now. My dear older sister Vervel will be spending this Pesach at the stunning Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Resort by Chesapeake Bay, Maryland (I just found out the hotel is only 7 years old - wow). The company she works for started an annual Pesach hotel there and from what I've heard from people it's absolutely amazing. In one of those 'all worlds come together' things, one of the owners of HLF Leisure Tours is an old friend who went to OJ shortly after me and who has done an amazing job of putting this together with his partners. Perhaps interesting for regular readers here is that R' Yaakov Horowitz of Monsey is a main draw and will be spending the whole Yom Tov there. I also really like the whole presentation and approach - I was told it's a really family-friendly hotel and people really get to feel like they're a part of everything, and when my sister was telling me about the place and asking me to tell people about it I couldn't help but notice how they presented it - from their families, and from themselves:

Dear Friends,

HLF Leisure Tours is excited to once again host Passover at the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Gold Resort, Spa and Marina in Cambridge, Maryland. We look forward to having you and your family join us for Passover. Please contact us with any questions or concerns. We can be reached at 877-HLF-TOURS or info@hlfleisuretours.com. Please check out our website at www.hlfleisuretours.com for more information.

Sincerely,

Ed Hoffman Josh Lewis Jacob Fader

Anyway, the place looks absolutely gorgeous, the food is supposed to be amazing (anyone who has ever had Hoffman Catering knows this to be true), it's such a relaxing, fun getaway, and perhaps more importantly, the people who go that I know are all really great, nice people. It's not far from New York/New Jersey or Baltimore, and the prices are really reasonable for something like this. There's even a Facebook page (which already has over 100 fans - geez) for it. Plus, if you go there for Pesach, you can probably keep an eye out for my dear old sister and her grape-juice buzzed shenanigans. Trust me, it's worthwhile entertainment.

Meanwhile, I'm hoping it won't be snowing in Cleveland again.

Here's the PDF for those interested [click to enlarge]:

Reason #1 To Not Live in NY(C)

It's the unhappiest place in the country. (Duh.)

NY Times Article on Abuse in Frum Communities

(Hat tip: Harry-er) Good piece in the New York Times on sexual abuse (particularly of children) in the Orthodox Jewish community.

Of some 700 child sexual abuse cases brought in an average year, few involved members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community — about 180,000 followers of Hasidic and other sects who make up the largest such cluster outside Israel. Some years, there were one or two arrests, or none.

But in the past year, there have been 26. District Attorney Charles J. Hynes has brought charges against a variety of men — yeshiva teachers, rabbis, camp counselors, merchants and relatives of children. Eight have been convicted; 18 await trial.

If the sudden spike in prosecutions is startling, even more surprising is the apparent reason: ultra-Orthodox Jews, long forbidden to inform on one another without permission from the rabbis who lead them, are going to the police and prosecutors on their own.

[...] Now, a growing number of haredi Jews in Brooklyn say they do not think they can get justice from the rabbinical courts, which in several high-profile cases have exonerated people who were later criminally convicted of child abuse.

One of the best aspects of this is that it forces Batei Dinin to shape up their own approach to handling issues - if they aren't handling things properly, then people will simply go to the local or federal authorities who will. Hopefully, this will encourage Batei Dinin to take a more responsible approach to various issues within the community.

Stray Thoughts

• Funny lines heard over yom tov:

  Little boy to his father: "We're luckier than the goyim. They only have one day of nosh, and we have two - Purim and Simchas Torah."
  
  Sis-in-law to nephew, balancing on a chair he placed on a couch, who already lost a couple teeth in a fall recently: "Don't do that, if you lose any more teeth you won't be able to eat anything anymore!"
  Nephew (5): "It's okay, we can turn everything into slush and I can drink it."
  

• Fun meetup: ~Sarah~, Holy Hyrax, and myself at Le Sushi (which is excellent) in North Hollywood, CA. Talk about bringing a big world together and making it tiny.
• Elianna & Kayla are super cute. Too many stories to tell, but a good one just now - Serach moved Elianna's head, which was off her pillow, back onto it, and gave her a kiss. In her sleep, she says "Princess kiss!"
• At a family we ate at, the mother commented how she found Koheles so uplifting (which started off a whole series of interesting discussions). Ironically, I had noticed myself feeling something along those lines, albeit a mix of uplifting and despondence, when reading through it during the kriah. In really short, I think its acknowledgement of what is or can be so frustrating/depressing in life is comforting, and its subtle refocusing of one's approach to life is fantastic and therefore incredibly uplifting.
• Pobody's Nerfect's baby is super cute - and so big, it barely fits into a 9x13. :)
  
• Cleveland is pretty gray. LA is pretty sunny. The Empire State Building doesn't let me notice the weather in NYC.
• Great friends are the best. To be able to crash at midnight at friends after driving 7 hours from Cleveland to Akron to Teaneck is nice - B & JB, y'all rock.
• AirTran, its employees, and its passengers all get huge thanks. After spending first days in Cleveland, Serach flew to LA with the girls from Akron, via Atlanta, while I drove back to work for a couple of days. The pilot held Kayla while Serach folded/set up the stroller coming on and off the plane. A nice man insisted on assisting Serach while she walked to the gate even though she had a good system going with the girls and stroller and carry-ons. The man next to them on the plane objected to the idea that he should remove Elianna's sleeping head from him, noting that children are a huge blessing, and who prayed when the plane took off noting it's a manmade object under God's control. There's apparently a law barring more than two people in a bathroom (parent/child), since there are only two masks in case of an emergency. When Serach needed to take Elianna to the bathroom, the steward volunteered and carried Kayla with him as he made his rounds. The stewardess offered to get hot water so she could clean Kayla's bottle. A woman getting off the plane ended up being the last person off because she insisted on holding Kayla while Serach got their stuff together.
• I flew JetBlue direct from JFK to Burbank with a lulav as my carry-on. I got a few stares. I'm sure it was just as hard as what Serach went through. :)
• A month ago, I drove 19 hours and 1,200+ miles in one weekend when my grandmother passed away. Then came Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Over Sukkos, I'm driving about 1,000, flying about 6,000, worked until midnight both erev yom tov before driving to Cleveland at 630am the next morning on 3 hours sleep and over Chol Hamoed for two nights before packing up and driving to JFK at 6am on two hours sleep, then spending most day hours e-mailing and calling the office. It will be amazing to finally have a normal rhythm starting sometime this week... after our red-eye flight back, followed by a full day of work, and a wedding in Lakewood that night. ZZZZZZ....
• Finally, a postscript of sorts: Unfortunately, there's a ton of crap that goes on in various frum communities or in the frum community at large. We are in the unfortunate position of knowing all too many of these stories on a personal level, and the sickening approaches people take to them, whether covering them up, denying them, fighting those who try to effect positive change, and the like. At the same time, however, it is wonderful to know that despite all the politics, all the pressure, all the dirty games, that many, or most, of the people who are stuck in those games at least have a sense of what is and is not right - even if sadly, they still feel they cannot "fight the system". More importantly, it is heartwarming to know of those who do do whatever they can to battle on behalf of those who are placed into horrible situations, who themselves are horrified at what does and does not happen. And it is incumbent on the rest of us to consistently pressure our leadership to always do what is right, and not to get caught in the traps of politics and messy relationships. While changes will not happen overnight, the more pressure that is placed on people to own up to doing what is right the faster we can untangle the mess that is Jewish community leadership and re-establish it as the respected force it should be to help the community.
  

Hope everyone had a wonderful chag!

On A Hot August Day In The Heights

You know how sometimes you could do something so completely jerky, you wonder how you had it in you? Well, maybe you don't know. That's what happened to me yesterday, anyway.

It was my first day in the Heights. I got to my apartment a little before 12. A guy from Ikea was supposed to come and build my Ikea furniture, but I wasn't sure when exactly he was coming. Because of that, I could not leave my apartment.

However, since it was only my first day there, I did not own any food. None of my apartment mates were around. I figured the Ikea guy would come soon enough anyway, (he was supposed to come between 12 and 2) so I stuck around the apartment instead of going to Key Food to buy stuff to eat.

The Ikea guy came at three and left at five. By that point, I had basically fasted the entire day, aside from my quick bowl of cereal at nine in the morning. I literally felt like passing out. Luckily, my good friend D2 invited me for dinner.

On the way to D2's apartment, I passed a young Jewish guy, probably around my age, lugging two big chairs along the sidewalk. Now, not only did the chairs look heavy, but the heat that day (like every day recently) was overbearingly oppressive. "Humid" is an understatement. The guy stopped for a rest and looked like he could really use a glass of water, or a bed, or a personal air conditioning installed in his clothing (wouldn't that be an awesome invention?), or, I dunno...some HELP, maybe?

My gut instinct said, "Ask him if he needs help!"

Meanwhile, there were still a number of feet between us - too many for me to say anything to him just yet. It was like...you know that really awkward situation where you see someone you know all the way down the street and you both acknowledge each other with a smile or something, but then you have a minute or two of walking before you can actually start talking to each other, so you both walk towards each other and you don't know if you should keep smiling at the other person or not look at them for a minute or what? Or when you're both waiting for the light at an intersection, but you're on opposite corners so you keep looking at each other but you're too far away to talk, and you're just standing there looking at each other for way too long?

Anyway, it was like that.

By the time I reached him, my brain had enough time to convince me that he might be insulted if I ask for help. What if he's one of those guys who thinks he can handle a simple thing like moving chairs? What if he'd never accept help from a girl because he's strong enough to do stuff like that by himself? Or what if he got the wrong message? What if he thought it was weird that I was talking to him? We don't know each other at all.

I gave him a sort of half smile when I got closer, and he nodded in acknowledgement (well, at that point we had both been staring at each other for at least two minutes, we might as well have acknowledged the fact), and then I walked passed him like a complete jerk, when he clearly could have used some help.

As soon as I walked passed, my gut instinct kicked in again (seconds too late - as always) and wiped away all the overthinking. "Get back there!" it said. "Help him!" But I felt too weird. The opportunity felt already missed.

And for the past two days, I have felt like a jerk. I wish I could apologize, but I have no idea who he is.

Things I learned from this experience:

1. My gut instinct is GOOD. It knows what it's talking about. Listen to it once in a while! (Or more often than that, if I really want to be smart.)

2. No matter if you know someone or not, always ask if someone looks like he/she needs help. Besides, you'd want help if it was you.

3. Don't overthink!

4. Don't overthink!

5. Don't overthink!

6. A missed opportunity will always remain missed. You can't go back. All you can hope for is another opportunity to make amends for the one you missed. And you only get those once in a while, if you're lucky. So take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way, especially if it's one that allows you to be a nice person.

7. It's okay to talk to people who don't know you.

8. Being shy can sometimes come across as being cold, so don't be so shy all the time!

9. Stop thinking everything is weird. Just do what you feel is the right thing.

10. Call your apartment mates if you're stuck in the apartment and starving. They just might let you eat some of their food.

Anyway, if, by any miniscule chance, the guy in this post reads this blog - please accept my apologies for not helping you yesterday. I'm so sorry - I'm really not that much of a jerk. And I hope you were able to get the chairs to wherever they had to go!

...Do I get to stop feeling bad now?

Emerging Jewish Communities

Hat tip: Jack

This coming Sunday, June 14th, is the OU's (Orthodox Union's) fair on emerging Jewish communities around the country. For those interested, you can register in advance at www.ou.org/communities, for the chance to win a laptop computer and other valuable prizes. For more information call 212.613.8188.

One of the primary purposes of the Jewish Economics Survey I've been carrying out is to gauge costs of living in different communities around the country, including smaller towns such as the ones listed. Obviously, data is harder to come by in those communities, but my guess is that those smaller communities which wish to pitch the idea of relocating to their communities would gain tremendously by being able to demonstrate just what their actual costs of living are.

The list of communities at this fair are interesting; some are obviously larger than others, and may have the advantage of being able to pitch "small but not too small" to people. I wish I could go, but alas, Serach is taking part in a fair in Brooklyn, selling her tichels and headbands. All the cities I've wanted to hear more about (Dallas, Memphis, Phoenix, et al) will be there, and I'm curious to hear how they each pitch their communities, particularly economically.

We'll actually be spending this Shabbos in one of those small communties, Harrisburg, PA, for my nephew's bris.

If anyone at the fair wants to mention/pitch my survey to representatives of different communities, I'd be really thrilled - the more this can spread, particularly to smaller communities, the greater the impact it can have in helping people determine where to live, understanding what things should cost, and hopefully improving how our Jewish communities run by making them more efficient and helping them learn from one another.

Communities that will be there according to the flyer:

Allentown, PA; Atlanta, GA; Columbus, OH; Dallas, TX; Denver, CO; Des Moines; IA; Fairfield, CT; Harrisburg, PA; Houston, TX; Jacksonville, FL; Malden, MA; Memphis, TN; New Orleans, LA; Phoenix, AZ; Providence, RI; Richmond, VA; San Francisco, CA; Southfield and Oak Park, MI; St. Louis, MO; Stamford, CT; Stony Brook, NY; Upstate, NY - Albany, Schenectady, Troy.

Fun Fun

It's been a fun week. We got a "swine flu" scare, when one of the students Serach works with was tested for it and Elianna and Kayla have both been ill; luckily, it turned out to be just fine and the kid is back in school today, as is Elianna (who went to a farm!). Kayla turns out to have just another ear infection (takes after her Daddy) along with mild pink eye (for which she has drops - joy and a half). All in all, nothing contagious, which is good, because this week starts a slew of goodbyes to friends making the (smart) move out of New York.

There are lots of posts I'd love to write; they'll have to wait.

Have a good day, everybody!

Cheap Places to Date in New York City

Friends of ours are always looking for good, yet not too expensive places to date or even to just go out with their spouses or friends in New York City; via Chana, here's a great list by Josh and Tamar Grun Vogel of places to go:

The 101 Date Guide for "New" Yorkers

It's mostly Manhattan-centric and not everything is necessarily cheap, and as they note, obviously not everything is on here, but it's a very good listing overall. Check it out.

Eliezer StrongBad calls the list "impressive".

EZ Reads 5/22/09

• G6 has the video of her son Joey on Who Wants to be a Millionaire - a nice kiddush Hashem, I must say. Seems like a really great guy.
  
• While I was reading a piece about the latest "American Girl" doll being a Jewish one, I stumbled on this interesting piece about an Israeli woman who won an Arabic literary prize. Impressive.
• (via Jack) Apparently, ABC goes to J-bloggers to get opinions on news stories, like this one about the first black female Rabbi in the US. It quotes R' Gil Student and Shlomah Shamos of VIN.
• BaltimoreJewish discusses ParnasaFest, coming very soon in Baltimore.
• Google is using an algorithm to figure out which of its employees might quit.
• New York has the worst drivers. Who knew!?
• The pic at right of the Milky Way is a tiny version of a beautiful one. Jack has the link to the full thing - wow.
• An absolutely wonderful piece on Cleveland and the Cavs in this week's Sports Illustrated by Joe Posnanski. Opening line:
  

  What are two things you will never see in Cleveland?
  A victory parade and the sky.

Have a wonderful Shabbos, everyone!

Kids and Smiles

A few smiles always make things a little better, so, via SIL:

So many funny Shen (2) stories, but this one beats all.
Shen was stuck in the high chair and she wanted to get out to go to the bathroom.
"I have to make." No response.
"I have to make, I have to make, I have to make." No response.
"Hello, I have to make."
That worked!
(Is it time to leave NY when your 2 year old starts saying "hello" to get attention??)

We were at the zoo in Cleveland, in the bathroom (hmm... seems like life revolves around a common theme these days) and Hen (5) needed to wash her hands but the sink was way way too high. Exasperated, I wondered aloud, "How do they expect kids to use this sink?" She replied logically, "It's for tall kids."