What 's Nu?*
The Glossary of Jewish Terminology is constantly
updated to reflect every Jewish term used in this site.
The Current Calendar is updated
regularly, and contains calendars for the current three months.
| March 25, 2009 |
Whew! OK, I've got more detail online about Birkat Hachamah. You know, you'd think I'd be better prepared for a once-in-28-years observance… |
| March 20, 2009 |
I added a quickie page about Birkat Hachamah, the blessing of the sun that occurs once every 28 years and will next occur on April 8, the morning before Passover. I hope to have more about it online very soon (by the end of the day Sunday), but I didn't want to wait any longer to get something online, because it's not far away! |
| March 4, 2009 |
Just in time for Purim: I have tweaked the wheat-free, gluten-free recipe for hamentaschen. This revision supplements the buckwheat flour with milled flax seed, which makes the cookie batter smoother, gives it a nice nutty flavor, and is rich in heart-healty omega-3! This recipe went over very well at my office, even among people who are not on a gluten-free diet! |
| February 27, 2009 |
Oops! I let the calendar get out of date! It's fixed now. Thanks to my friend Rachel, who let me know! |
| December 19, 2008 |
Just in time for Chanukkah, I have updated my recipe for latkes. I ran short on matzah meal when I was making a batch recently, and my taste-testers agreed that the batch was the best I've ever made, so I have reduced the matzah meal in the recipe from 3/4 cup to 1/2 cup.
I have also added to the discussion of the Jewish calendar the names of the days of the week. It's not very exciting (First Day, Second Day, etc., in English and Hebrew), but some people have been curious about that. (Actually, that addition has been online for a while now, but I forgot to announce it, and the images of the Hebrew names were missing until recently). |
| June 29, 2008 |
The Signs and Symbols page now has illustrations of the tallit and tefillin as worn. Please be kind; I never claimed to be an artist! I also added illustrations of the names of these objects in Hebrew letters. While doing this, I updated the text of the page, adding some additional discussion of various topics and some Biblical and Talmudic quotes.
I've done a bit of revision on the home page and the table of contents page. The home page now looks a bit more like the rest of the site. It has a Frequently Viewed Pages listing, making it easier to find the things that people most commonly are looking for. The upcoming holiday notification is now automated, so holiday listings will not linger longer than they should (as the Passover notice did this year). I've removed the "Awards" listing, which was getting a bit embarassing because the awards were more than 10 years old! I also moved the About the Author piece to its own page, with a bit more detail about who I am, how this site came about and why I wrote it the way I did.
The Table of Contents is now in a more compact format, with two columns and smaller text, so you can find what you're looking for with less scrolling. |
| April 6, 2008 |
I've added a video on YouTube showing and explaining the seder plate used in the Passover seder. I hope to get more Passover videos on YouTube before the holiday begins. |
| March 24, 2008 |
I have replaced the illustration of a Pesach (Passover) seder plate. The original illustration was based on the plate I have at home, but I have been informed that there is a traditional layout of the seder plate, and my illustration did not reflect that traditional layout. |
| March 16, 2008 |
Just in time for Purim: I have added a wheat-free, gluten-free variation on the recipe for hamentaschen! |
| September 9, 2007 |
I have updated the list of holiday dates on all of the Jewish holiday pages, including the main list of all holiday dates, to include holiday dates for the next five years.
I also added a brief mention of the proper pronunciation of "Yom Kippur" to the Gentile's Guide to the Jewish Holidays page, because the name of a fast day really shouldn't sound like the name of a smoked fish dish!
I have made a few corrections to the transliteration of a few of the prayers in the Common Prayers and Blessings section. Thank you to the person who pointed out this problem! I was using an automated process to transliterate the Hebrew to get a more consistent transliteration, and the process had some trouble transliterating a vowel that is sometimes pronounced "a" and sometimes "o"! |
| April 15, 2007 |
In response to a comment in my blog, I've made some extensive spelling corrections to the site. Thanks, JB! I corrected all the mistakes he mentioned, and I ran the whole site through a spellchecker to catch some more mistakes and to standardize some of my spellings of transliterated Hebew words. I also standardized my transliteration of Hebrew letter names. None of these mistakes affect the substance of the text, but it should be easier to read now!
I also updated the page on Love and Brotherhood to make use of the Hebrew term "g'milut chasadim," lovingkindness, that is used in halakhic discussions of the subject. I have also added a few quotations from Talmud that illustrate the traditional view of the subject. |
| March 5, 2007 |
Well, it took me more than a year, but I have FINALLY finished reviewing all of the pages on this site, making updates and corrections, and cleaning up any bad internal links.
The last page to be significantly changed was the Halakhah: Jewish Law page, which now introduces the terms d'oraita (from the Torah) and d'rabbanan (from the rabbis), and adds a section that talks about the difference between laws d'oraita and laws d'rabbanan. Please note that this page was accidentally uploaded a few weeks ago while it was still in the middle of being rewritten, so if you've been looked at that page recently, you might want to look at it again!
For my next trick: I'm working on making sure that all the images on the site have ALT tags (used by the visually impaired and by those who choose not to view graphics; it also it pops up when you hover over the picture), and that the ALT text is meaningful. This may take a while… |
| February 28, 2007 |
Just in time for Purim: After 20 years of baking hamentaschen,
I have FINALLY figured out how to fold them so they don't pop open while they are baking, even if you overstuff them with filling! I have updated the recipe to describe this technique, adding a picture of the right and wrong way to fold them, and have updated the picture of a hamentaschen to show one that is properly folded.
Happy Purim everyone! |
| September 22, 2006 |
In response to a question that arose in a message board my friend participates in, I have updated the Rosh Hashanah page to specify when we observe Tashlikh, the Rosh Hashanah ritual of symbolically casting off sins by casting bread or the contents of our pockets into a river.
L'shanah Tovah (For a Good Year) to all! |
| August 27, 2006 |
The style updates to this site slowly progress. I've been proofreading and checking links on all of the pages as I go, which is why it's taking so long. Some of these pages haven't been seriously examined in five years or more!
On the Alphabet page, I have added a section on K'tav Ivri: Ancient Hebrew Script, explaining why the Hebrew alphabet is called "Assyrian Script," distinguishing it from "Hebrew Script," and explaining the dispute regarding whether the Torah was originally written in Assyrian or Hebrew script. I have also added a list of Greek letter names that correspond to Hebrew letters and occur in the same order in both alphabets on that page. In addition, I discuss a claim about the numerical value of final forms of letters. The page also contains a link to help you download Microsoft's Hebrew support, and a page that makes it somewhat easier to type Hebrew if you don't have a Hebrew word processor.
I have significantly enhanced the Hebrew Language: Root Words page. It now contains examples of some common Hebrew prefixes and suffixes, and provides more explanation of how Hebrew words are constructed.
I added my recipe for pineapple-carrot tzimmes to the page on Jewish Cooking. |
| June 25, 2006 |
Whew! It's been a while, but I'm now catching up on some things...
You may have noticed that the home page and Table of Contents have been updated to the new format.
I have added a page to the Common Prayers and Blessings section that includes the prayers for donning tallit and tzitzit. In connection with this, I have updated the Signs and Symbols page to make reference to that page.
And last but not least ... I have finally gotten around to adding the promised graphics of Hebrew names that are popular in English. See Popular Names. |
| February 5, 2006 |
The style update continues. Along the way, I have added some material to the section on Interfaith Marriage that I'm sure will have me branded as a bigot by the politically fashionable. You know the type: they think that all religions are equal; therefore no one has the right to prefer one over the other, and anyone who has a preference is intolerant. And they call this open-mindedness. |
| January 15, 2006 |
The format update continues. While updating the format of pages, I have made some changes to the pages along the way.
I made some changes to the What is Judaism page to conclude, in accordance with something I read by Adin Steinsaltz, that Judaism is a family rather than a nation. The concept of Jews as a "nation" is too open to misinterpretation, and in many ways the family analogy is more apt.
I have updated the Jewish Population page to reflect World Jewish Population 2002 and the 2000 National Jewish Population Survey.
Using the updated NJPS statistics, I have updated the Movements page to reflect the NJPS's updated numbers of people identifying with each of the four main movements in America. |
| November 13, 2005 |
Now that Sukkot is over, I can show you a side of the etrog fruit that you've probably never seen before: the inside! For the new page, Know Your Etrog, I dissected my etrog and took extensive photographs of it at various stages, to give you a better understanding of this fruit that is so central to the Sukkot holiday. I have also included a variety of pictures of the etrog tree that I grew from a seed a few years ago, along with close-up pictures of its flowers, thorns and leaves.
I have also updated the Life Cycle Events section to the new format, and updated a few of the pages in the process. I added a section to the Birth page about Jewish customs regarding baby showers. I added a little information about gift-giving for bar/bat mitzvahs, and a brief explanation of the lack of "Here Comes the Bride" to the discussion of Jewish weddings. |
| October 20, 2005 |
I have updated all of the pages in the Times section of the site (calendar, holidays, etc.) to a new format for the website. Much as I liked the old tabbed book format, it was slow to load all those graphics. The new format looks similar, but is less graphics-intensive. It also provides a site search box and an outline of the site on each page for your convenience. The whole site will eventually be moved over to this new format.
While updating the style of those pages, I made some minor editorial changes and added many quotations from passages in the Bible and the Talmud that are the basis for the observances discussed. In addition, I added a paragraph to the Counting of the Omer page discussing the ancient dispute over the correct day to begin counting. |
| October 17, 2005 |
I have added an animated .GIF to the Sukkot page and the Sukkot Blessings page to illustrate how the Sukkot ritual of waving the lulav and etrog is performed. |
| August 9, 2005 |
I have finally figured out how the Jewish Calendar works, and I have written a page detailing the workings of Rabbi Hillel II's fixed calendar. If you are interested in a deeper understanding of the calendar or want to write your own Jewish calendar program, then you will want to see The Jewish Calendar: A Closer Look. Includes a Rosh Hashanah calculator and a Jewish holiday calculator using JavaScript and VBScript. |
| July 18, 2005 |
I have added a page explaining the various special Shabbats that occur in the calendar of weekly Torah readings, explaining the significance of each reading and the reason it is placed in the calendar where it is. |
| April 21, 2005 |
I have added a paragraph to the Pesach (Passover) page explaining the additional strictness of gebrochts that some people observe. |
| April 17, 2005 |
Just in time for Pesach (Passover), I have added a page of suggestions and tips for planning meals for Pesach. This page focuses on the many things that you can eat, instead of the usual focus on things you can't eat, and provides some lists of things you can eat as well as a few recipes for some things I make every year at this time. |
| March 20, 2005 |
Out of deference to my mother, who says my hamentaschen are too heavy, I have added some baking powder to the hamentaschen recipe on my Purim page. Because of this change, I have also lowered the baking temperature and extended the time. Happy Purim everyone! |
| March 16, 2005 |
I have added a page about Jewish names and naming customs. It discusses surnames, given names, Hebrew names used for Jewish rituals, and also lists some Hebrew names that are among the most common names in the United States. |
*For those who don't get the pun: "nu" is a
Yiddish word equivalent to English words like
"so?" or "well?," and can be used all by itself to mean "What's new?"
|
|
