July 17, 2008
 Not only does the air in Savannah feel like a Turkish bathhouse today, it smells like one.
Of course, if it were a bathhouse, no one would have to bother with t-shirts, but you could use this to sit on instead of putting your naked tuchus on the marble. Buy it here.
Posted by: admin
July 15, 2008
 So listen, I’m serious, I could get into a lot trouble if this gets out, so keep it entre nous, ‘kay?
Here it is: Because of circumstances I never dreamed would come to pass, let’s just say I had the opportunity to make good on a threat this morning.
Posted by: admin
Got a little writing experience? Dig the Jewish Federation? Like chicken, children and old people? Then the Savannah JEA wants you!
From Jewishjobs.com:
The Savannah Jewish Federation and Jewish Educational Alliance (JCC) are seeking to hire an individual to assist with all aspects of our programming including fundraising, community programs and the Savannah Jewish News and Centerpiece. The ideal candidate will possess excellent communication and organizational skills to help plan and provide logistical support for all community programs, will be flexible enough to change roles depending on current initiatives, will have the creativity to initiate change and will demonstrate understanding of the missions of the JEA and SJF.
Basically, there’s a full-time job in sunny Savannah (just named one of the Top Ten cities in the U.S.!) for a person (Jewish or Judeophilic) who can help with the editorial duties of a monthly newspaper, shoulder some of the load from the hard-working directors and hit folks up for a little tzedakeh. I don’t know what the salary is, but I’ve been told it’s competitive enough to draw from the entire country.
I’d be going for it myself if I didn’t already have a fabulous job. Though I think at this point with both kids at camp using their outside voices indoors, me and the mother-in-law yukking things up at the Thursday Senior Lunch Bunch and El Yenta Man taking over the gym with his bubbemintzen, they’ve had enough of the Family Yenta over there…
Posted by: admin
July 11, 2008
 My dear former colleagues at the j. in San Francisco saw fit to publish my op-ed this week on - what else? - the being Jewish in the South. Some days I sure do miss taking the ferry across the Bay and walking to work through the Financial District…
Friday July 11, 2008
Y’all wouldn’t believe the good life of a Southern Jew
by jessica leigh lebos
We Jews are an adaptive bunch. Put us beyond the Pale, in the dusty Negev or on the streets of San Francisco, and we’ll set up shop and shul and do just fine. Yet a couple years ago when I informed my Bay Area friends that my family and I were moving from the foothills of Mount Tamalpais to Savannah, Ga., I got some pretty freaked reactions.
Some folks were mystified: “They allow Jews in the Deep South?”
Some had watched “Deliverance” too many times: “If you find some people burning a cross on your lawn, don’t panic. Just start speaking in tongues, and they’ll think you’re one of them.”
Some were just clueless: “Georgia? Like, Russia? Dude, the housing prices are gonna be so cheap.”
My husband grew up Jewish in Savannah, so I knew better than to think our neighbors would expect us to have horns. Still, I had reservations about leaving. Where else but the Bay Area can the entire family dress in drag for Purim? Would taschlich ever feel as meaningful as it did under the redwoods? Would I be able to find a corned beef sandwich as good as the one at Saul’s?
Read the rest at jweekly.com!
Good Shabbos from the Family Yenta!
Posted by: admin
 There’s a fab article in the current NY Jewish Week by Carolyn Slutsky on Jewish Savannah’s 275th anniversary, calling the city “an island of stability in a boom-or-bust South.”
Maybe I’m a little sensitive, but that sounds like a veiled blow to the sloooow pace of the Hostess City. I hear all kinds of comments about how nothing ever changes in Savannah, and I’m sure that’s how it seems to a fast-paced New Yorker. But I have to say, plenty of things have changed - for the better - since I moved here two years ago (to the month!)
First off, mid-week Hebrew for grade school students has been efficiently reduced from two afternoons to one (more time for Yenta Boy to practice piano.) And the city’s green movement is flying - the new organic farmer’s market headed by Jewish hipster agrarian Farmer D Joffe at Trustee’s Garden was packed last week. Plus, the meshuggeneh-making intersection of Derenne and Abercorn (one could spend a half an hour trying to get home from Publix before the ice cream melts) is buzzing with bulldozers to make a right turn lane as I write! How can anyone accuse this place of resisting progress?
No, for real, it’s super exciting to be a part of the 275th festivities at Mickve Israel this weekend. Yenta Boy is reading a section at tomorrow’s Shabbat service (we’ve been practicing how to pronounce “iniquity”) and I’m particularly proud of how gorgeous the glossy commemorative journal turned out. I volunteered to edit all the articles on the congregation’s history and first families, and now I feel like I’ve been bestowed insider status - which don’t come easy ’round these parts. My father-in-law likes to joke he’s still a newcomer to Savannah because he’s only been here 40 years. I feel pretty blessed to have been welcomed into this community so quickly.
Well, it might be that I pushed my way in. But no matter, I’m here to stay!
Read the NY Jewish Week article here.
Posted by: admin
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