Thursday | June 21st, 2007
#7: What is real friendship?
I like shoes.
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I like shoes.
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That’s right. Don’t use my art without buying it or if you feel the need to use part of it, give me credit. Feel free to help a “starving student artist” out :]
some music I like:
regina spektor–ok, I’ll be honest, I haven’t listened to any of her other music yet, but the song Fidelity is about as perfect as music gets. And the music video is about as perfect as music videos get–watch it to the end, please, or don’t bother at all.
a perfect circle–the album eMotive is their tour de force (so far!! who knows what they may come up with yet), and it’s beautiful rock’n'roll with an aging hippy tone to it. Listen to the last track to get chills or if you like harmonizing.
death cab for cutie/the postal service: have you heard any of their songs? some are better than others, but basically they’re all AMAZING. same singer for both bands–do yourself a favor and play postal service before bed.
justin timberlake–i know everyone’s on the “sexyback” train, but futuresex/lovesounds is a fucking awesome CD. listening to the whole thing is like an hour of female orgasmic fantasy. there boys, now you know the truth. THAT’S why we love justin. go memorize “my love” NOW.
christina aguilera–i’ve always been a fan of her vocal ability and feminist attitude, and now that she’s matured (happily married) past her pop princess years and “growing phase,” christina has presented a really polished album. which i don’t remember the name of, but the whole thing is good and some tracks are REALLY fantastic. Definitely a 40s sound, which I love (i’m a b&w movies fan), and some of the old “dirrty” stuff which is always fun.
some celebrities i think about:
ok people, let’s boil it down to basics. britney spears and paris hilton are pretty young women who make careers out of being cute and famous. let’s be honest, lindsay lohan is in the same league. So is every other “controversial” young celebrity, to some extent. THAT’S. IT. Get it? Ok, good. MOVING ON.
some movies i think about:
ok, there ARE no movies i think about. everything out right now isn’t worth $10. and yes, that includes Borat.
How Islam and Islamic Culture
influenced the development of Jewish Culture
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Islam and Islamic culture influenced the development of Jewish culture dramatically, allowing the Jews to live as equals within the sphere of Islam. This resulted in various forms of acculturation of the Jews. Islam specifically influenced Jewish culture in the areas of philosophy, linguistics, and literature. A Muslim-Jewish symbiosis occurred, allowing Jewish culture to flourish in the golden age of Sephardic Judaism.
In the article “Merchants and Intellectuals, Rabbis and Poets,” by Raymond P. Scheindlin, a story by the poet Judah al-Harizi serves as an example of the apparent acculturation of the Jews into Muslim society. In the story, a group of Jewish youth identifies themselves as Jewish through the wording of a question, not by their physical appearance or any other identifier. Scheindlin explains that “The story’s depiction of the Jewish characters as externally indistinguishable from the Muslim masses, circulating confidently among them without being aware of any need for caution, corresponds with the reality of Jewish life in the Muslim world…at least during the era of Islamic supremacy, from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries.”[1] Jews (and Christians) under Islam were called Dhimmis, and given protection under Muslim rule, as defined by the rules known as the Pact of Umar[2]. Dhimmis were allowed to govern themselves and practice their religion freely in exchange for paying a special tax, and as long as they followed certain behavioral rules. Much of the Jewish community prospered with this relative freedom, and literary sources from the period typically were written by the wealthy, educated elite. In fact, “the Jews of the Muslim world were the world’s leaders in wealth, culture, and intellectual achievement.”[3] Additionally, they constituted an estimated 90 percent of the world’s Jews, living in a region called
al-Andalus (composed of Western Asia, North Africa and Iberia)[4]. Although the Jews of al-Andalus resembled their Muslim neighbors in most features of their culture, they retained a strong religious identity.
Jewish academia flourished under Muslim rule, generating great teachers known as Geonim, such as Saadiah ben Joseph, gaon of Sura. Scheindlin describes Saadiah as being pivotal in the intellectual sphere, and after his death “the Jewish community of Iraq gradually declined in importance…as the Islamic empire broke up.”[5] Saadiah pioneered the genre of biblical commentary.[6] He wrote in Arabic, as did the scholar Maimonides in his most famous work Guide of the Perplexed, and Judah Halevi in his work Kuzari.[7] Saadiah was “the first rabbinic leader to make Arabic his main language for scholarly writing, and thus he may be considered the founder of Judeo-Arabic literature.”[8] Arabic became the language used in most scholarly writing and ordinary correspondence, although Hebrew continued to be studied as the language of the Bible, and was used in the writing of liturgical poetry. This reflects the Jewish identity of the time, that despite accepting Diaspora culture and nationality, still identified strongly as Jewish and thus preferred the Hebrew language. Additionally, it was a way to express pride in their culture and language, as being as sophisticated and beautiful as Arabic.
The religious experience of the Jews in the Muslim world is reflected most notably in the literature they produced. Classical Arabic was a poetic language, and was used “more to impress with a display of linguistic virtuosity than to convey concrete information.”[9] As such, the literary influence of Islamic culture on Judaism started with liturgical poetry, followed naturally by non-liturgical poetry, which explored themes of love, pleasure and luxury. Literary stylings, such as the long odes called qasidas, were adopted by authors such as Moses ibn Ezra and Judah Halevi.
Islamic culture influenced Jewish religion through other means, imparting a reverence for sacred shines and tombs, encouraging philosophical exploration—specifically Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism[10]–and allowing the further development of liturgical poetry known as piyyut.[11] Piyyutim became common as early as the Byzantine age, and continued to flourish under Muslim rule. Piyyutim were popular in individual Jewish communities, some of which developed traditional Piyyutim for every week of the year.[12] Scheindlin explains how “The emergence of piyyut is closely connected with the early development of liturgy…formulas emerged as the fixed liturgy that would eventually be canonized by the geonim.”[13] Muslim influence continued to be apparent in Jewish literature; even Maimonides had a Jewish ritual that included the Muslim custom of washing one’s feet in his Mishneh Torah, a ritual that was exclusive to the Jews living under Islam.[14]
Non-liturgical poetry developed as an entirely new literary genre for the Jews, primarily in al-Andalus.[15] Although the Jews retained their literary traditions, they “added to their native repertoires new techniques, themes, and attitudes adopted from Arabic.”[16] Once again, Saadiah was the leader (although not the groundbreaker) of the genre.[17] Al-Andalus experienced a cultural flourishing when it became an independent caliphate in 928, causing what is known as the Golden Age of Hebrew literature.[18] Furthermore, what we learn from Hebrew poetry reflects “a larger pattern of acculturation,”[19] where the wealthy Jews of Spain adopted the social model of the Muslim upper classes. The Hebrew poetry depicts a Jewish world of luxury, “that resembles the Muslim one in every respect but religion.”[20] However, Scheindlin makes it clear that such cultural adaptation was only surface deep, and the Jewish community was highly autonomous. The Jewish world was complete within itself, allowing the Jews to “be as Arabized as they wished without compromising their Jewish identity.”[21]
Interestingly, in his article “A Letter to a Wayward Teacher,” Benjamin R. Gampel takes a slightly different stance. Gampel explains how “Having been fashioned in Islamic al-Andalus, Sephardic culture had little difficulty tolerating the taking of more than one wife.”[22] However, this practice that was less than acceptable to their Ashkenazi counterparts. Whatever the specific level of acculturation the Jews under Muslim rule experienced, they clearly thrived in literary realms. Moses ibn Ezra wrote a treatise on Hebrew poetry that is now one of our main sources of information on poetry of the time.[23] Judah Halevi was the “most prolific of the Golden Age poets,”[24] writing late in his life poetry that did not belong to any existing genre, a major achievement of the age.
Unfortunately, ibn Ezra and Halevi also represent the end of the Golden Age, when “The Almohad persecution cut Andalusian Jewish culture off at the root.”[25] Arabic as a language went out of use in Jewish literature from the mid-twelfth century on.[26] Yet the Golden Age of Andalusian poetry lived on, imitated and reproduced elsewhere. Scheindlin tells how “As early as the end of the tenth century, the poems begin appearing in the East.”[27] Scheindlin ends his article with another selection by al-Harizi, in which al-Harizi laments the passing of the Judeo-Arabic age. Al-Harizi is described as having his heart remain in the Judeo-Arabic East, and Maimonides identified himself as Andalusian despite spending the rest of his life in Egypt.[28] These authors, famous throughout the ages, continue to highly influence Jewish culture to this day. And thus, even modern Jewish culture is unwittingly influenced by Islam and Islamic culture.
Your theme died. Make a new one, and include links and stuff. Go to http://sarah.koplowicz.com/wp-admin and stop forgetting your password. go to http://koplowicz.com to procrastinate.
 love,
yourself
This is work related. The Bureau of Jewish Education Teen Department (where I intern) runs the Diller Teen program.
 From two emails I received today:
Yesterday, the Diller Teen Fellows and a few dedicated community members gathered at the airport to greet and welcome 18 Israeli teens from the Manhigut Esreh program. The excitement was palpable and the atmosphere very emotional and intense. Camera crews, from every news channel, eager to tape the arrival and reunion of these amazing teenagers, interviewing as many teens as they could.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/15187456.htm
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here is my trip to new york!!!
friday: went to morningstar shabbat which was fine. picked up jenny and brandon, was on my way to get nicky, didn’t signal left (because i was in a freaking left turn only lane) and a mean davis cop pulled me over because he was looking for drunk people. so i got a $75 ticket and then he noticed my car’s registration was out of date because i hadn’t gotten money into my account yet to get it registered since that ticket a week ago. so i got an optional ticket or whatever it’s called, where if i don’t get registered in 21 days i have to pay a ticket for $4000 or something horrid like that.
fine. whatever. moving on: picked up nicky, picked up lev, flew to new york. when we got into new york it was already saturday morning.
saturday: walked to our amazing hotel, left our luggage, went for breakfast and then parted ways. i went to the MOMA and even tho i was there half an hour before opening there was a fat line. finally got in and got thoroughly and satisfyingly lost. sat for a while in front of my favorite paintings there, the water lilies. took pictures of all the pretties.
after the MOMA i went to carnegie deli and got a bowl of pickles and an amazing, gigantic corned beef sandwich. so of course i had to call jordan. had a fun chat with him and decided on his advice that i should go see RENT which i had never seen live. he started to give me directions but then my phone ran out of battery (and later when i charged it i had a message saying he was going to call the police. oh, big brothers.) anyways, i finally made it to RENT and got a pretty good seat for $45, and it was AMAZING AND BEAUTIFUL AND INSPIRATIONAL AND I DEFINITELY CRIED A LOT. i love rent so much.
after RENT i was pretty tired from walking all over new york, and considered not going to the Metropolitan. but you know me, when i have a rare chance i take it. how often do i go to new york? so i hauled my butt up there and did the short version. just went to the stuff i knew i liked best. and it was awesome and beautiful of course. so, super tired, i made my way back to the hotel and finally checked in, but the damn hotel didn’t have my name on their list so they had to create a reservation for me. which worked out well because i got a king bed and a room to myself. also, this famous actor whose name i can’t remember right now was in the elevator with me. awesome. oh wait! clive owen?
lev called me and came down to my room and we chatted for a while and then passed out on my bed for a couple hours. he left at one point and said he’d call when people were going out on the town. i slept through his call, but woke up 5 minutes before everyone was leaving and did a crazy fast job of getting dolled up and running downstairs. it ended up being jenna and two of her friends who live in new york, alex, lev and me. alex and lev just ended up going to times square or something. us 4 ladies met up with some guys they knew and went to a club. we danced the night away to amazing music. it wasn’t the most fun i’ve ever had because i wasn’t with people i knew very well, but it was fun nonetheless.
by 4am we were exhausted and my heels were KILLING me, especially after my day walking ALLLL over NY. so we got a cab and laughed our way back to the hotel, had some chinese, and went to sleep.
sunday: i definitely woke up exactly at 9:30 when the programming started, threw on clothes like lightning and ran like a crazy person to the conference room. we learned so much about hamagshimim, did ice breakers, learned about israel advocacy, listened to a debate on israel advocacy, learned about the connection betweeen hamagshimim and hadassah, and did all kinds of stuff. we had lunch in central park which was gorgeous and amazing and totally fun. there were about 20 or 25 fellows total, not including staff, from university of florida, u of michigan, stanford, some socal school i can’t remember, and about 8 of us from davis. fabulous group, all totally dedicated to israel advocacy. i love jews.
after the programming i figured i would work on my paper due tuesday and everyone else was going out, so i just went up to my room. not that there was much of anything i could really have done anyways, i pretty much have to be at the library for it. blahhh. also i accidentally had tea with caffeine at dinner and even tho i was exhausted ended up staying up til like 2am.
monday: at this point i had about 12 hours of sleep in 4 days and wayyyy too much walking around. somehow, i kept going. pretty much i’m magical. first thing in the morning we checked out of the hotel and went across the street to hadassah. there was supposed to be breakfast but the people we got it from delivered it like 2 hours late…and we had to leave. so we went to the UN, got a tour, met with the ambassador to palau, and met with the head speech writer for israel’s mission to the UN.
post UN we went back to hadassah where some of the head ladies came and talked to us. i love hadassah women, they’re hilarious and inspirational. i’m definitely interested in working for them. after the program ended, some people had to leave which was sad. some of us had late flights and went to the times square area. people slowly departed.
eventually it was time to go the airport…but we were sooo exhausted and confused by new york and were like 10 minutes late to get on the plane. uhhh….fuck? the lady felt sorry for us and even tho jet blue doesn’t usually do this, put us on standby for the next flight. which was in 24 hours. nicky and i were so exhausted and stressed that we just slept in the airport for a couple hours. we went to her friend’s apartment, had a fabulous deep conversation on the subway, got to his place and slept on a couch. woke up at 10:30 feeling like a human being again and not a zombie, although still freaking out about missing our flight. we went and got food, found a bookstore for a couple hours, got dinner, and left super early for our flight. aaand we finally took a plane home.
today, wednesday: took care of a lot of crap, called my mom to ask for money which she thank GOD is giving me, went to the library and worked on my paper and stressed out because not all the books i need are fucking THERE, did nefarious things. went to a sigma pledge event which was pretty fun, except emma and jenny didn’t go, or any of my real sigma friends. came back and tried to write my paper using the internet which was very not successful, and here i am.
tomorrow is gonna pretty much suck, unless i can magically pull this paper out of my ass. i’m kindof ready for summer. speaking of summer, i got the kohn internship and i’m working in SF at the BJE. i’m soooo freaking happy and excited, it’s an amazing opportunity.
so that was new york! crazy crazy fun and awesome, even with the rocky ending. want to hear more about anything? call/visit/email me 
check it out:
http://www.hebrewmamita.com/PMHM.htm
that pretty much is my new anthem.
I figured it was more than time for an update.
Spring break: Went home for a couple days, had lunch with Kianna, Karmen and company which was great of course. They didn’t want me to go 
neither did I! I miss this summer. Went home, got my MRIs, hung out with my mom and Amy which is always a joy. Then I went back to Davis, packed, and drove to the Sac airport and went and saw Maddy!!!!! We spent a fabulous 4 days hanging out and I got to meet all her friends and have fun. I even got to sit in on a class, and Reed is an INTENSE school, but she loves it, so it’s all good. in the hood. yo.
Spring Quarter: Sadly, break had to end, I had to leave Maddy, and I had to come back to school. The first two days of class were pretty painless and I was soooo excited for my new classes, which I still am. Got most of my books at the library which is exciting for my pocketbook. As always there have been some bumps in the road, but overall it’s been pretty smooth. The 3 day weekend was loads of fun, I’m loving all the new friends I’ve made. Woo friends! Yeah.
Sigma rush started for spring, and I’ve only talked to one of the new pledges. Whoops. She’s great though, a friend of Jenny’s. What else…I’ve been rereading Dune for the first time in like 5 years and it’s still amazing. And I’ve been going to the gym a lot which is nice.
There was a little confusion with my bank about getting my money transferred but it seems to have been sorted out, so I can go buy books now! Yayyy. So I need to go do that.
Love to all,
Sarah
I’m studying for finals. I had my Hebrew final yesterday, I think it went fairly well. Tomorrow at the crack of dawn (otherwise known as 8am) I have my comp lit final. I have to compare 3 texts and I get to bring an outline. Fuuun.
Then I’m visiting TL friends and SSU friends and having fun.
Thursday looks to be less fun. At the crack of dawn (7:25am) I have 2 MRIs, then home (which will be with my family and of course lovely) and then more MRIs in the evening. If you’ve never had an MRI…you’re lucky. They suck. At least my Mumsy and sister will spoil me rotten in the evening
Then Friday afternoon back to Davis to pack for my real Spring Break and fly to Oregon to see my lovely bestest friend Maddy! And four days of wackiness will ensue. I can’t wait.
Back to studying
yesterday was kindof nice. i got my shot, got body wash at longs and got offered a job at longs (i know…i already have one…kindof) in the pharmacy! i think i might actually go talk to them. i could use extra money from now to the end of the year, and i could use a fallback job for after the kohn internship/in case i don’t get the internship, and i really loved working in the pharmacy. if they’re willing to give me a raise i’m totally down. so i’m gonna go talk to them! neat.
went to the gym, and i’m really feeling the burn going so many days consecutively. yesterday was an “easy” day too. today is a “hard” day and it’s going to pretty much kick my butt.
came home, died of hunger because the DC was closed, ate some of my roommate’s soup, took a nap on the couch and got ready for the evening. went to emma’s friend’s apartment and met some nice people.
also christian came over and i began his education in the Ways of Buffy. it’s gonna be awesome.
today: gym, kohn internship application, and hanging out with the NDL crowd (really nice guys/my friend samantha).
bye for now!