Archive for December, 1969
Incommensurability in Jerusalem
I don’t understand. I guess I am a little naïve, and I like it that way. Before my family and I committed to making aliya, only Missy Oldest and I had ever visited The Land. Missy Oldest and I toured with a religious group and with friends. We stopped at places such as the Kotel and Jerus…
Perspective: Sukkah Reunion, the Rimmon Man, and Lenny Solomon
Okay, I confess that it was me who was boogying in the salon after the girls and I returned home from Beit Shemesh. I did say “hi,” first, however, to my husband, did zip the sleeping bag that was to be used to cover my eight year-old (“Mom, I’m too warm, and too big [and too…
A question of audience
I confess it was my compact car that was scooting around Highway 443 with the top half of an olive tree sticking out of the right hand window. On the same side of the car, albeit in the front seat, was Missy Oldest. She was concerned that the local police might stop us for a traffic violation. I was…
A triadic theory and sweaty things
In I. A. Richard and C. K. Ogden’s triadic theory of semiotics, meaning is explained as created among “references,” “referents,” and “symbols” (Yerushalemis worth their weight in things charif understand that postulate. Yet, sadly, some indigents still find …
Disambiguation, feral cats, Kaparot chickens and poor puns
My husband has a way with street cats and with kaparot chickens. That gift is good (back to axiological statements) for in the last week he has had to deal with both. The cat in question was actually a kitten with a yogurt carton stuck on its mouth and nose. The chicken, actually chickens, in questi…
Cave of the Machpelah: Mindful deviance
It’s the Yamim Noraim. It’s nearly three o’clock in the wee hours (and whether I stay awake just one more hour, I will be able to take in the shout to prayer from the neighboring Arab village). My daughter is en route to the Cave of the Machpelah. What Jewish mother could sleep?&nb…
Normative theory applied to the use of tissues on the Yomim Noraim
During Rosh Hashanah, my daughters, various other residents of the women’s side of the mechitza, and I, renegotiated our minyan’s social standards for using facial tissues. Of course, our brooding was of the silent variety as we were in shul to pray.Allow me to explain. In discourse, lan…
Signs of the (old) times
One of the perspectives favored in contemporary sociology is symbolic interaction. Symbolic interaction posits that the masses, not the elite, by dint of the masses’ daily communications, determine the routing of society. According to symbolic interaction, the populous' ritualized relation…
Communication Israeli style
I misplaced my glasses. Whereas those frames and lenses no more perfect my vision than they clarify: why lice get a shoulder shrug here, why guns are considered “casual attire” at schools, hospitals, and parties, or why an American accent dooms me to “special pricing," those v…
Signs, I wonder
In the academic study of semantics, that is, in the study of meaning, as meaning is encoded in language and in nonverbal forms of expression, signs enjoy an fundamental role. A sign can be something as abstract as an icon, as a symbol or as an image that refers to a human experience, such as a kippa…















