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Posts Tagged ‘USC’

Matisyahu, NBC and The Olympic Winter Games Make A Great Team

Nov 4th, 2009
by rabbifink.
2 comments

Matisyahu-One_DayI first heard of Matisyahu while working as a Campus Rabbi at USC. The Jewish students on campus were really into his music (this was ~5 years ago) and some of my students invited me to join them at a Matisyahu concert.

He was performing at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood which was right near my home. I went and it was really cool. The music was great, the message was equally wholesome and the connection that I got to build with my students was profound.

I liked it enough that I took my wife to a Matisyahu show at the American Jewish University a few weeks later. It was a bad venue for a concert. It was more like a movie theater than the right venue for a reggae concert. Still, we enjoyed the music.

I knew that Matisyahu had made it, when (more…)

Mourning The Living On The 9th of Av

Jul 30th, 2009
by rabbifink.
3 comments

A few years ago I was a campus Rabbi for the Jewish Awareness Movement (I even made the video on their home page) at USC. One of my primary responsibilities was to lead large groups of Jewish college students on inspiring trips to Israel.

Of course, the personal inspiration for me, was very often, greater than the inspiration for some of the students.

One episode has inspired me since the moment it occurred and it is directly related to today’s Tisha B’Av fast.

(more…)

We're All Family

Jun 22nd, 2009
by rabbifink.
5 comments

This morning I found this article in my inbox. From time to time, PJC board member, Judd Magilnick sends me (and everyone else he knows) interesting links from all around the web, stretching to the outer limits of the blogosphere and conventional media.

Today’s link covers something that is always on my mind. (more…)