JCast Network

Your Source for High Quality, Diverse On-Line Jewish Content

April 27, 2012

On Counting

This is the season of counting. We count how many more days of school, how many days until camp, how many more shabbat celebrations in our child’s current classroom, and how many more days we need to bundle our children in jackets before Spring emerges for good. It is also the season of counting in […]

Ilana Ruskay-Kidd
Filed Under: Eat, Play, Love

April 27, 2012

Yom HaAtzmaut, 5772

A variety of important/inspiring/challenging things have made it through across my screen for Yom Ha’Atzmaut. I’d like to share some with you. A truly inspiring figure and one of the great rabbis in Orthodox America, R. Yosef Blau – the “Spiritual Guide” or Mashgiach Ruchani at Yeshiva University’s rabbinical seminary – spoke a year ago of […]

Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky
Filed Under: Honest To God

April 25, 2012

How Do We Mark Yom HaShoah?

Another Yom HaShoah has come and gone, now 67 years since the end of World War II. Not that in all those years we’ve gotten it just right when it comes to marking these most overwhelming events in all the 4,000 years of the Jewish people. I think about this a lot, as a synagogue […]

Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky
Filed Under: Honest To God

April 23, 2012

Metzora Limerick

When studying parshat Metzora You learn to never ignore… a peculiar emission Or painful condition That’s explained in detail in the torah

Rabbi Joe Black
Filed Under: Torah Limericks

April 23, 2012

Tazria Limerick

If your skin is scaly and sore And is oozing with grossness and gore You’ll be labeled “unclean” Till the priest intervenes And dunks you in water that’s pure

Rabbi Joe Black
Filed Under: Torah Limericks

April 20, 2012

You Get What You Get…?

Welcome back to school. I hope that everyone had a restful vacation and a meaningful Passover holiday. I appreciated the time off and my own Passover celebration. I was particularly moved this year by the ways in which my own children have become increasingly engaged in this holiday and the multiple ways that their involvement […]

Ilana Ruskay-Kidd
Filed Under: Eat, Play, Love

April 18, 2012

Shemini Limerick

This week we read about the final dedication of the Mishkan.  Aaron offers up the priestly sacrifce and it is accepted.  Then his two sons, Nadav and Abihu offer up an addition al sacrifice that wasn’t in the game plan.  The text says that they used:  “Aish Zarah” – strange or foreign fire and were punished […]

Rabbi Joe Black
Filed Under: Torah Limericks

April 17, 2012

Reaching Kitah Gimel: Personalizing Prayer

During a recent class, my Kitah Gimel students received a gift from the religious school, a gift that would have been unthinkable, even shocking, decades ago when I was in the 6th grade of a classical Reform “Sunday School.” Each Kitah Gimel student received a copy of the Journal Edition of the Reform siddur, Mishkan […]

Ronni Sims
Filed Under: Kfar HaMorim

April 16, 2012

Level vs Flat: The Revenge- Continuing Adventures in Home Improvement

You’ve probably seen the commercial. A pretty young woman wakes up in her young person’s cheaply-decorated apartment bedroom. She smiles, stretches and leaps from the edge of the bed and in one effortless motion she pulls off an unsightly lighting fixture from the ceiling and reveals the stylish ceiling fan hidden underneath. She returns to the room, dressed as a bride, carried over the threshold by a handsome groom. She spins out of his arms, peeling off all the ugly old wallpaper and revealing the attractive yellow paint job underneath. In a graceful cascade of never-ending movement, they flash through their lives- dad lifts the young kids off a dingy, toy-strewn rug, mom pulls up the rug and, with the help of her now-teenage boys, rolls out a new carpet and serves them lemonade without missing a beat. Her gracefully aging husband comes down the stairs and joyfully dances as he pushes the kitchen wall back, opening up the space and revealing French doors.  The scene shifts and the much older couple are hosting a family gathering on the patio. The husband asks the wife to dance, evoking the courtship of their youth, and as they tenderly move around each other, their two grown sons dance around the perfect green lawn with wives and children of their own. The camera pulls back and the sun begins to set on a perfect American day as the Lowe’s logo appears on the screen along with the slogan “Never Stop Improving.”. Throughout it all, that song keeps playing- you know the one cause it sticks in your head like gum under a theatre seat (trust me, I’m an expert): “Don’t stop doing what you do”

It’s a great commercial, right? Brilliant and inspiring and a total crock of shit.

Seriously, the guy who made this commercial should fucking die. He should be beaten to death with his Clios or forced to eat them all, so that his stomach explodes and he dies really painfully and then gets eaten cock first by a gluttonous gangster and, by the way, if you haven’t seen The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover then do yourself a favor and DON’T. It’s soooo not worth seeing just to get that reference. Wikipedia if you must or just pretend I made a Hunger Games reference or something else current and that I’m not just some weird aging freakazoid who’s pop-culture reference points are still stuck in the 90’s (“Hunger Games”­ that’s a thing, right? I can’t keep up with all these new-fangled “books” you kids are reading today. Back in my day we didn’t bother with any of that “reading” nonsense. We just watched Ren and Stimpy on VHS in our dorm rooms and we liked it!)

Eric Sims
Filed Under: DiaTribe

April 9, 2012

Reaching Kitah Gimel: A Seder to Remember

Inspired by a Torah Aura Productions webinar* on experiential Jewish education, I prepared a “condensed” Seder** for Kitah Gimel. In our 60 minutes together, students blessed, told, sang, questioned, answered, dipped, and ate. Desks pushed end to end and covered with white cloths formed the Seder table – the children’s table , to be exact! […]

Ronni Sims
Filed Under: Kfar HaMorim

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • …
  • 55
  • Next Page »
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Ilana Ruskay-Kidd
Ilana has been serving the Jewish educational community in New York City in multiple capacities for the past twelve years. Most recently, she served as the Director of The Saul and Carole Zabar Nursery School at the JCC in Manhattan. Prior to being named to this position in 2006, she worked at the JCC as Director of Young Families and then as Senior Director of Family Life, supervising programs serving families and children from birth to eighteen years old. Ilana began her teaching career at the Central Park East school in Harlem and went on to become a founding teacher at the Ella Baker School, an alternative public school in Manhattan. She then worked as an Early Childhood Curriculum Consultant for the Children’s Aid Society where she developed curricula with directors and teachers in day care, Head Start and private nursery school programs throughout the city.

Ilana received her B.A. from Harvard College and a Master’s Degree in Education from Bank Street College. She was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and now lives there with her husband and three children.

Latest posts by Ilana Ruskay-Kidd (see all)
  • Gratitude – October 31, 2014
  • The Tower Of Babel – October 24, 2014
  • The World Was Created For My Sake… I Am But Dust And Ashes – October 3, 2014

Podcasts

Amen Corner
Amen Corner
Behind The Ballot Box
Behind The Ballot Box
Daily Daf Differently
Daily Daf Differently
JCast Journey
JCast Journey
Kvetch
Kvetch
PopTorah
PopTorah
Sermons
Sermons
Shtender
Shtender
Smorgasbord
Smorgasbord
Taste Of Romemu
Taste Of Romemu
This Weeks Torah
This Weeks Torah
Tisch
Tisch
Two Minutes of Torah with Rabbi Danny
Two Minutes of Torah with Rabbi Danny

Retired Podcasts

Abba Camp
Abba Camp
Ask The Rabbi
Ask The Rabbi
Beyond Chelm
Beyond Chelm
Fallow Lab
Fallow Lab
From Dreams To Deeds
From Dreams To Deeds
Isabella Free Radio
Isabella Free Radio
Jewish Food For Thought
Jewish Food For Thought
Jewish Hour
Jewish Hour
Meet Me At The Tzomet
Meet Me At The Tzomet
NYC Jewish Tech Meetup
NYC Jewish Tech Meetup
Oy Vey! Isn’t A Strategy
Oy Vey! Isn’t A Strategy
Re-Arranged
Re-Arranged
Rega Shel Ivrit
Rega Shel Ivrit
Schmoozer
Schmoozer
Two Jews On Film
Two Jews On Film
Verse Per Verse
Verse Per Verse
WORD
WORD

Blogs

DiaTribe
DiaTribe
Eat Play Love
Eat Play Love
Fifth Child
Fifth Child
Honest To God
Honest To God
Ish Ben Partzi
Ish Ben Partzi
Kfar HaMorim
Kfar HaMorim
Parsha, Parsha, Parsha
Parsha, Parsha, Parsha
Torah Limericks
Torah Limericks

Contact Us

305 Riverside Drive, Suite 2C
New York, NY 10025
Phone: 785.579.9558
eMail: druskay@jcastnetwork.org
Facebook
Twitter

Search The Site

Donate

Copyright © 2026 · Education Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in