Jewish Earth Day

Today is Tu B'Shevat, the New Year of the Trees.

As the Jewish tradition teaches, the human being is the tree of the field.

If you've never heard of this, you might be wondering, how are we like trees? When we stand upright, arms outstretched above, our limbs resemble branches, extending to the ground, and our arms reach upward, extending to the heavens. Our toes become our roots, our fingers our leaves. Yogis call this mountain pose, which can extend into tree pose.

Some say our fingers and toes are likened to tzitzit, the traditional Jewish ritual fringes adorning the four-cornered prayer shawl that remind us of our connection to Source. Our corners, the extensions of our limbs, are likewise adorned with our human version of tzitzit, digits that allow us to ground ourselves and to reach higher through positive, productive action.

Happy Tu B'Shevat people. Take action. Love the planet. Go eco.

As we say in Cool Jew,
Recycle, Reuse, Reshmooze!

Nice!

Cool Jew's ranking today on Amazon's humor/religion list is solid.

#5 in Books > Entertainment > Humor > Religion
#41 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Judaism
#94 in Books > Entertainment > Humor > Satire, General

Mazal tov all around!

Up Next?

What's new for this Jew?

I'm teaching two sessions at Limmud LA next weekend all about Cool Jew and what I call the "Jewish Cultural Revival."

I'm also presenting about my book at the Jewlicious Festival in Long Beach, Calif. at the end of the month. A whopping 500 copies of Cool Jew will be presented as free gifts to the first 500 guests to arrive at the Jewlicious Festival as part of a rockin' gift swag bag. Thanks so much to the generosity of Allen and Deanna Alevy for sponsoring the biggest Cool Jew giveaway in history!

And I'm exhibiting my first art installation at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco starting Feb. 25th. It's all part of a show entitled, "New Works, Old Story: 80 Artists at the Passover Table." Naturally, my piece, which combines music, light and flying holograms of Jewish stars, is right in tune with the Heebster vibe. If you're in SF, you can catch the show on view from February 27 through June 2. So come on over and shine your Hebraic loud and proud!

More Mazal Tovs

More mazal tovs go to the winners of the current Erma Bombeck Humor Book Giveaway.

Each issue of the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop newsletter includes a giveaway of a humor book or a book on writing to select subscribers to the newsletter. This issue's winners are

*Terrie Carter
*Gary Brady-Herndon
*Susan Hintz

Each has won a copy of Cool Jewwhich, the newsletter announces, as "the cover assures us, 'is not just for Jews.'"

Awards Recap

It's not every day you're poking around for URLs of recent media coverage on the web and you suddenly discover that you actually placed in an awards competition... in June!

I'm delighted to announce (belatedly) that Cool Jew won Honorable Mention in the "Wild Card" Category at the 2008 New York Book Festival. This annual competition celebrates "books deserving greater recognition from the world's publishing capital."

That's the third (or first, depending on how you look at it) honor that I have received recently (recent being a very relative term). The New York Book Festival comes before, or after, being named the Erma Bombeck Humor Writer of the Month in October/November, and placing as a finalist in the 2008 National Jewish Book Awards in the category of Contemporary Jewish Life.

I guess you just never know what good news lurks out there in cyberspace...

Rock on, Heebsters!

More Fun Coverage

Today's Shout Outs go to the Jewish Studies Department at University of Wisconsin at Madison. Thanks for sharing the news about the honor Cool Jew took in the 2008 National Jewish Book Awards.

Another shout out to Bookopolis, who awarded a giveaway of Cool Jew today to Waldman for his thoughts on multi-culturalism.

"Multiculturalism, tolerance is very important. I believe all cultures have value and it is important to respects everyone's belief. Mutual respect, non violent tolerance we need reasons to get along, not reasons to hate each other"

Shout Out

Goes to the Conney Project on Jewish Arts for announcing the honor Cool Jew received in the 2008 National Jewish Book Awards.

Cool Jew has been receiving all kinds of awesome exposure lately.

Cool Jew is ranking No. 8 right now on Amazon's best selling list of humor religion books, which means it's been appearing on that list for months now.

#8 in Books > Entertainment > Humor > Religion

Last week, Interfaith Voices aired the program we recorded while I was in D.C. during inauguration week. If you'd like to receive the MP3 of the show, e-me at lisa (at) cooljewbook (dot) com.

On the Bookopolis blog, there's been an active discussion of late on my multiculturalism campaign and Tolerant Nation project.

And The Baltimore Jewish Times ran this piece on January 16th, in advance of my talk at Breathe Books.

Cool Jews: Heebsters, Sheebsters, Kabba Lah Lah

Author offers irreverent insights into the life, times and essence of the modern ‘Heebster.’


Barbara Pash
Associate Editor

OK, let’s get it all straight. So there are “Heebsters” and “Sheebsters.” There are also “frumsters” and “the Yiddish impaired.” And there is “Kabba Lah Lah,” not to mention “Pesach jTunes” and “Shmatte Land.”

If you’re not sure what any of these strange and exotic terms actually mean, you are so out of the contemporary Hebraic loop, according to writer Lisa Alcalay Klug. For a remedy, what you need is Ms. Klug’s “Cool Jew: The Ultimate Guide For Every Member Of The Tribe,” an irreverent compendium of the newest and hippest on “Planet Jewish.”
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