The Week In Review from The Jewish Channel

Take 7 minutes to learn about how pop culture loves the Jews.

• Israeli tennis player not allowed to play
• New boss for the Reform movement
• Bravo's Jewish Housewife of NYC
• Newark's Mayor wants you to observe the Sabbath
• Rare Jewish books at Sotheby's
  

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Or visit The Jewish Channel News Desk.

Progressive Jewish Alliances Virtual March for Marriage Equality

PJA Continues "Love Thy Neighbor" Campaign at March for Marriage Equality

Send your thoughts about LGBT civil rights to join PJA's Virtual March for Marriage Equality!

On President's Day, the people of California will gather on the steps of the state capitol to stand together for equality. PJA's new Executive Director, Elissa Barrett, her wife and other PJA supporters will stand with them, carrying your words and thoughts about this vital civil rights issue through the streets of Sacramento.

To participate, send a sentence or two showing your support for marriage equality to PJA at bayarea@pjalliance.org. You can also send a photo of yourself or your family to be included.

Get a Dose of Jewish Life in 6 Minutes or Less

The Jewish Channel has a new segment: Week in Review. The approximately six minute video is an easy, entertaining way to stay on top of what is happening in Jewish culture & politics around the world. Hosted by Steven Weiss with special reports by sharp TJC team members Rebecca Honig Friedman and Christian Niedan, these are fresh (if not deep) segments.



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Or visit The Jewish Channel News Desk.

Tu Bishvat or Tu B'Shevat or Hebrew: ט״ו בשבט‎

As green living gets more popular so does the celebration of the Jewish New Year of Trees which takes place on Tu B'Shevat (the 15th of the month of Shevet).

Many Jews celebrate Tu B'shevat by honoring and educating about conservation. Celebrations often include a seder (which means order) with ritual and prayers involving the "seven species", fruits of the earth mentioned in the bible and native to the land of Israel: pomegranates, dates, barley, wheat, figs, olives, and grapes.

The Mystical Origins of Tu B'Shevat

The original Tu B'Shevat seder was a Kabbalistic Jewish mystical practice in the 17th century. To mystics, the seder is a reparation of the Tree of Life and an expression of four different planes of existence that are believed to make up the world.

Lowest Level: Assiyah, action, represented by hard shelled fruits such as pomegranates.

Second Level: Yetzirah, formation, represented by fruits with soft outside and hard insides such as dates and olives.

Third Level: Briyah, creation, represented by soft fruits with no protection or pit such as grapes and figs.

Highest Level: Atzilut, godliness, has no fruit to represent, but is itself kindness and beauty.

(Hey, I said it was mystical... but isn't it interesting how creation is most vulnerable.)

However, for most modern Jews, the seder consists of drinking wine, eating fruit, praising G-d for creating these things, and reminding ourselves that we are stewards of the Earth.

Links to help you perform your own Tu B'shevet seder:

• Modern Jewish Mom outlines a simple but meaningful ritual you can do with your family to honor the Earth.
  
• A spiritual but concise seder by the The Jewish Woman's Center of Pittsburgh.
• Babaganewz has a family seder for you to download.

More In Search of a Jewish Wedding Brand That Doesn't Suck

Copyright Allebach Photography

Continuing from yesterday's post, here are some other resources I found in my search for independent bride imagery. Bust Magazine, the magazine of record for the indi-woman, in which we advertise ModernTribe, sponsored an event called Unbridaled in Philadelphia on January 10th. Now, this is the kind of wedding expo I wish was around when I was planning my wedding. If you live in Philly, they have a list of Unbridaled vendors for you to check out: everything from independent bakeries, florists, photographers, dress designers, stationary designers -- all, I assume -- who will cater to your off-beat style and won't try to sell you bows and roses (unless, that's what you want, of course).

I clicked through some of the photographers and was most impressed with Allebach Photographers (a photo of theirs above) whose style is definitely edgy even when they aren't shooting tattooed brides (although, this seems to be a favorite of theirs and they have a blog for photographs of their tattooed brides.)

Also, somehow I found myself here at Offbeat Bride whose tagline is "Alter your thinking." Ariel Meadow Stallings, the founder of the site, has a book too: Offbeat Bride: Tafetta free alternatives for Independent Brides and an alternative community to The Knot: Offbeat Bride Tribe.

In search of the Indi-Jewish-bride

Plastifiée // Plasticized // מנויילנת, originally uploaded by Natoosh_Tatoosh.

Moderntribe's Spring initiative is to branch further into Jewish Weddings. We want ModernTribe to be the place that Jewish brides go to register for Judaica for their homes and buy wedding favors and ceremonial Judaica. We also want to be the place people shop for Jewish wedding gifts. Of course, we are a different kind of Judaica shop so our marketing needs to reflect this: our wedding imagery can't be the same ole' you see in every Jewish simcha spread.

In search of alternative wedding images and branding I've tripped across some interesting things this morning. One is an Israeli performance artist, Anat Guthmann, who ironed plastic bags onto herself to form a wedding dress. She wears red lingerie underneath and serves red wine to her audience thus, "Eve and Lilith can live alongside in the garden of Eden."