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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.
| October 18, 2009 |
I've added long-overdue recipe for Kasha Varnishkes (buckwheat with bow ties).
In addition, several more pages have been updated to the new format. |
| October 16, 2009 |
JewFAQ is now on Twitter, but I don't expect to tweet much. I will tweet to announce updates to the site (which will also be announced on this page) and perhaps to mention holiday things or other Jewish things. Follow me at http://www.twitter.com/jewfaq. I am notoriously long-winded, so it's going to be a challenge for me to express myself in 140 characters or less… |
| October 6, 2009 |
I have added a page on the subject of Jewish Genealogy. There is obviously some interest in the subject matter, because many people clicked on the link when the page was accidentally included in the new menu structure, even though the page wasn't there! I've been researching my ancestry and the descendants of my ancestors since the 1990s, and have had a considerable amount of success with it. This new page passes on the benefit of my experience. Much of the information on the page will be useful to gentiles as well as Jews, but I focus on sources and approaches that are commonly effective for Jewish genealogy.
I have also continued to update the site to the new format, with drop-down menus. As part of that update, I am also converting the definition links from pop-up windows to a box that appears on the page under the term. I have tested this feature and the menus in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome on a Windows XP computer without significant problems. |
| September 18, 2009 |
It's a new Jewish year, and I'm working on a fresh new look for Judaism 101. The site was starting to look a little dated. I'm adding drop-down menus that give you a complete site map on every page, and a highlights box at the top right of each page to summarize the major points covered on the page. A site search box is in the banner of every page, and the page index has been moved back to the left side of the page. This seems to be more in accord with the way well-designed websites look today. It uses Javascript and CSS, but the site should still work even if you don't have those capabilities. I have tested the new features in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Chrome on a Windows XP computer without significant problems. If you're using another browser or another kind of computer… well, I hope it works for you too!
So far, I have only refreshed the Home Page and the pages in the Times section (calendar, Shabbat and holidays), but I hope to have the rest of the site brought up-to-date very soon.
Big thanks to my long-suffering friend Rachel, who has patiently put up with my continual requests for opinions and testing while I worked on the new design! |
| 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. |
*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?"
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