Tzedakah lishma, so to speak

United States taxpayers will probably face a new reality as of next tax season:  Our deductions for charitable donations will disappear.  So any payments to tzedakah will have to be lishma ( for their own sake), just because it's the right thing to do.  Let's keep up the good work, which will, if anything, be more and more necessary as the tax cuts for the wealthy bleed the rest of us dry.

An Elvis Chanukah

Enjoy this video!  My husband, an Elvis Presley fan, got a kick out of it.  My personal favorite is "You ain't nothin' but a latke"--I found the lyrics unexpected and amusing.

This video is not Chanukah-related, but I think it's really cool.

Chanukah greetings from New York City

Here's the Empire State Building lit up just for us.

(Shot from 23rd Street and Fifth Avenue,

across the street from Madison Square Park.

Sorry for my poor photographic skills.)

Recommended reading

~ Better late than never--a few months ago, the Jewish Week published an opinion piece positing that intermarriage is a result of assimilation, not a cause.

~ Those of us who are light-skinned Jews would be well advised to check our white privilege at the door--according to this black activist, racists are coming for us Jews first, because, of course, they think that everything that makes them mad is our fault.

~ A little satire goes a long way:  Men Can’t Make Decisions For Women, But Jews Can’t Decide What’s Antisemitic.