I don’t know how the observant balabustas do it. Several J-mamas posted this photo on Facebook, and even our heretic family can totally relate. Too many holidays, too little time…and so much going in the (and my) Jewish world.

I’m having hard enough time getting a full meal on the table, so you, like my family, are going to have to settle for a series of nourishing snacks:

*All of Israel and the diaspora is celebrating that Gilad Shalit is a free man! All I can think about is his mother and her tears of joy. I wonder if she thought the same thing I did when she saw him: “Oy, so thin! The terrorists couldn’t feed you a little schmaltz in five years?”

*This week the Forward published an extensive article about the “lost” letter from George Washington to Savannah’s Congregation Mickve Israel…oops, not sure anyone actually knew it was missing! This article is a must read for those interested in Southern Jewry and the history of America’s third oldest congregation. Have you visited the museum lately?

*Paul McCartney married nice Jewish girl Nancy Shevell and attended Yom Kippur services a couple weeks back. Mazel tov to the couple; all they need is love, since I’m pretty sure they’re both rich.

*I’ve been writing my tushy off at Connect Savannah, including the weekly The Civil Society Column. Last week’s “How to Raise a Subversive Rabblerouser” has gotten lots of “likes.” New stuff goes live today at noon. It might be a little racy.

*Hope y’all have had a fabulous Sukkot. A big thank you to my friend, Eeta Travis, for inviting me to lunch in her pretty sukkah decorated by her four daughters. I even got to participate in the mitzvah of shaking the lulav and etrog, adding my own hippie-Afro dance moves, ’cause I’m DIY like that. Then I spent the weekend camping under the stars, marveling at the maroons and yellows of the changing leaves at the Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference near Black Mountain, NC, which in my personal tradition fulfills the rest of the Sukkot blessings. What better way to honor the harvest than learning about the practical and spiritual properties of medicinal plants?

*Tomorrow we conclude the outside festival with Simchat Torah, which includes a tradition of joyfully taking the congregations for a spin around the synagogue to show ’em a good time. I have my dancing shoes all picked out–get ready for some hippie-hippy shake, peeps.

Tonight begins the holiday of Sukkot, and once again, I am an epic fail.

Every fall, I really think, “THIS is the year we are going to build a sukkah!”

But then I remember how much bickering ensued when El Yenta Man and I were building the chicken coop and I think maybe hanging out at the communal synagogue sukkah together with a glass of wine is sooo much more pleasant.

Clearly, I have no more excuses since apparently it’s so easy, even a dog can do it:

Thankfully, it’s a mitzvah to invite others into their sukkahs, so we can leave the backyard to the chickens and come to your place.

Tomorrow evening brings us to the culmination of the Days of Awe, a time when Jews eschew food, drink and, if they’re way hardcore, toothbrushing.

Fasting on Yom Kippur helps us focus on atonement and lets God knew we’re serious about teshuvah (repentance.)

Tomorrow is also my 40th birthday. El Yenta Man keeps lamenting how superlame it is that my milestone birthday should fall on Kol Nidre, but sheesh, I came out of the womb at the beginning of the month of October/Tishrei, whaddya gonna do?

Milestone birthdays, suffering, I’m all over it. My 21st birthday corresponded to the day of Yom Kippur 5753, and after breaking the fast with my family at a Meixcan restaurant, I marched right up to the bar and ordered my first legal shot of tequila. And promptly puked. Had to break the damn fast all over again, this time sin los chiles rellenos.

So a wild throwdown of fried chicken livers and martinis at Circa is out of the question tomorrow. As heretical and blasphemous as I portend to be, deep down I really am a nice Jewish girl who wants to be written into the Book of Life. I’m sincerely sorry for all the fun I’ve poked at my peeps this year and if I’ve offended anyone personally. I repent for all the times I’ve lost my temper and committed lashon hora with my nasty pottymouth. I’mma gonna go ahead and do this fast, big birthday or no, because I believe it’ll help me see where in my life I can be better and how I can make amends.

But I might be wearing this t-shirt with my vegan shoes.

It’s available at Cafepress.com, along with other Yom Kippur-themed swag such as Repentance Means Having to Say You’re Sorry and The Fast Way to Forgiveness.

An easy fast to all!

The fanatical zealots of the anti-circumcision movement got a bitter taste of their own medicine when Governor Jerry Brown effectively banned circumcision bans in California over the weekend by signing AB768, a bill that precludes local and city governments from establishing legislation that would make it illegal to have a child circumcised.

As you may recall, “intactivists” in San Francisco and San Diego attempted to get measures on the ballot to ban circumcision in their cities last spring. Both were shot down when attorneys declared that city governments don’t have the authority to regulate to what’s considered a medical procedure. Of course to Jews and Muslims, it’s much more, and these asinine measures were correctly seen as an attempt to limit people’s religious freedoms.

Best background can be found on my original penis post, which caught some very interesting commentage, including a really long hilarious one from El Yenta Man.

Governor Brown’s signature shuts down any more possible impositions on what should be a private, personal decision. It’s a definitive “Fuck OFF already” to the fascist and undeniably anti-Semitic undertone of this movement. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it, some people don’t want to snip their boys. So don’t. No one’s making you. Mind your own penises, m’kay? Again, and always, it’s about choice. This country will improve tremendously when we stop trying to politicize the personal.

So that certainly means I don’t support the mandatory male circumcision movement, though I do love this photo that I nipped off their website. Hee hee.

Holy Moses, it’s almost 5772 and I haven’t made my honeycake yet!

Life been as twisty as a ram’s horn lately as I recover from another trip out West (Dad’s rehab is going well) and continue to find the groove at the new gig (I launched The Civil Society Column last week. Hope my Marxist feminist dialectic brings all the Southerners to the yard, yo.)

What this means is that the house has been lacking its hausfrau, the me who’s usually whistling around the kitchen on Erev Rosh Hashanah getting honey in my hair and burning things. It doesn’t feel particularly fantastic to be starting a new year with nothing but stale tortillas in the fridge and a battalion of dustbunnies threatening to suffocate the houseplants, but geez, even a balabusta can only do so much. El Yenta Man’s valiant efforts to keep it going last month waned once he realized the endless cycle of laundry and dishes and chicken tending and Whinese interpretation does not automatically result in sex.

Fortunately, we’re Reform, which means services are short and I’m allowed to use the oven tomorrow.

Instead of baking up my usual Coca-Cola honeycake, I’ma gonna do go for an updated spice cake with a tarty kick to celebrate the new year, my new job and my new updated me. (My dear mom insisted on treating me to a salon haircut while I was in Scottsdale so I had my long hair lopped off into a sassy chop since I’m turning 40…on Kol Nidre. More about not eating cake on your birthday next week.)

Here’s what’ll be baking tomorrow (or maybe on Friday if I choose, because I’m almost 40 and I’m pretty much going to do what I damn please for the rest of my life.) It’s a variation of Streaming Gourmet’s Apple Pomegranate Spice Bread recipe, except I added a whole lotta honey ’cause that’s how we balabustas do it, nu?

Yo, Yenta’s Rosh Hashanah AppyPommyHunny Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 pinch ground cloves
1 generous pinch fresh ground nutmeg
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup honey
2 eggs
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) melted unsalted butter
1 1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 cup finely diced apples
1 cup pomegranate arils (no, I didn’t know they were called “arils” either; new Scrabble word!)
A glass of your favorite wine

1. Preheat the oven to at 350˚F. Mix all of the dry ingredients. Drink a sip of wine, just ’cause.

2. Melt the butter by placing it in a microwave-safe ramekin and microwaving it for about 30-40 seconds. Mix the melted butter with the applesauce to cool it down. Beat eggs and milk. Beat the applesauce/butter mixture into the egg/milk mixture. No matter how much they whine, do not beat the children; drink another sip of wine.

3. Pour the wet mixture, the apples and the pomegranate arils into the dry ingredients and stir until just blended. Once all of the dry ingredients are wet, stop mixing, even if there are a few clumps left. If you overmix the dough, the bread will come out tough like your Aunt Flo’s matzah balls and no one wants to relive that. Another sip of wine.

4. Pour into two 9×5 greased bread tins. Bake for 50 minutes or until edges are lightly browned and bread is springy to the touch. You can finish your glass of wine, but don’t call your BFF to gab about your new haircut and forget about the cakes and burn the house down.

5. Good-naturedly fight off children who don’t want to wait while the loaves cool on a rack for 10 minutes before removing from the pans.

6. Eat. Enjoy. Relax. It’s gonna be a sweet, sweet year.

L’Shana Tovah Umetukah to you all!

Another challah-worthy Rosh Hashanah jam featuring some adorable yeshiva boys with some wicked (and I mean that in most kosher way possible) dance moves from Aish.com:

There is something about breakdancing and tzitzit that I just find incredibly captivating. Those with the same fascination know it all began with David Lavon’s viral wedding video back in 2006:

Oh, you say you want to see more? Check out the mash-up of some more observant boys popping, locking and helicoptering to Matisyahu:

Yes, they’re so cute, but I swear it’s that they manage to keep their yarmulkes on that keeps me so enthralled.

The Yenta family has found a new source of endless entertainment and contention in our new iPad.

It was ostensibly purchased so that we could communicate with my dad via FaceTime, with the idea it would be positive stimulation as he recovers from his “brain event” a month ago.

My mother and brother both have these amazing little tablets, and it’s really quite amazing how much more connection a conversation creates when you can hear AND see the person on the other side. We’ve watched as dad threw a ball back and forth with his physical therapist and he’s followed intently as Yenta Boy played piano and Little Yenta Girl danced. He’s also been privy to the usual family bickering as brother and sister scuffle for screen time and make weird faces at the small icon depicting their reflection instead of keeping up the conversation, but overall, it’s been such a useful and enjoyable tool.

That is, until El Yenta Man discovered Scrabble for iPad.

Now instead of regaling me with his opinions on Obama’s job plan and reminding me just how beautiful the lawn looks, my husband spends his evenings shouting 7-letter swear words at his computerized opponent. Who, he swears, cheats. “What the hell does ‘juhu’ mean? You made that up, you digital schmuck!”

The only way I can get his attention lately is to sidle through the room murmuring words containing a “Q” and no “U.” I may have to consider an intervention.

Perhaps an auspicious time would be on Sunday, October 2, Ohr Naava’s official Day to Disconnect. The women’s Torah study collective out of Brooklyn, NY is unifying as many folks as possible to shut down and have some real punim time with our loved ones:

Couples connect through texts and not conversations. Parents spend more quality time with their phones than with their kids. In this technology-immersed and busy zeitgeist what does this mean we need to pause and recalculate. For what was supposed to enhance the quality of our lives has diminished it.

If we all just turn off our phones and iPads and laptops for an hour, maybe we’ll all have some quiet time together without the kids shrieking over their PhotoBooth monstrosities or Daddy hollering into a flat square. You can register for the Disconnect Revolution on the DtoD website.

Mostly though, the iPad remains a good thing.

Dad’s moved off the ICU floor finally and has begun rehab, which we all understand will be a long haul. Thanks again for all your good wishes and prayers–what a tremendous community we have around us, from our next-door neighbors to folks in Israel and Africa and even New Jersey. We had a nice long visit this weekend via our iPad (I had to trick it away from EYT by telling him there was some crabgrass out front poking up through the St. Augustine.)

Mysteriously, Dad was wearing a bright yellow t-shirt that said “God Squad” on it with a quotation from John 3:16 on it, probably from some well-meaning nurse. Jesus shirt aside (that nurse might consider being off-shift however once Dad gets his druthers back), he looked and sounded much like himself.

Talking to me face-to-face might’ve been a little confusing for him, as my brother texted later that Dad asked where I went. Bro told him that I was in Savannah, but that I’d be coming to Scottsdale this week.

He paused, then asked, “Is she going to have an attitude?”

See? I do believe he’s going to be just fine.

Architecture and historic preservation are a BIG deal in Savannah. Looking at pretty houses is probably one of the top reasons people visit, second only to eating at Paula Deen’s restaurant.

Legions of tourists stroll dreamily among antebellum townhomes, gawking at the Gothic flourishes on every street corner, some even making it a mile south of downtown district to the blocks of Victorian loveliness. Most stop there. Construction in this city began at the river in 1733 with General Oglethorpe’s master plan; architectural style evolves as you move south, and it’s only so walkable in the heat. You’d have to skip over the 20 or so blocks of perfectly nice but somewhat characterless brick ranch homes built in the late 40’s (including Casa Yenta) to get to Savannah’s trove of mid-century modern gems, a good coupla miles away from the madding crowds.

It’s a bit of a shame that these gorgeous homes don’t get any real attention lathered upon them, since in my opinion they’re way more interesting than the old dames up front. They’re the ones with the crazy futuristic lines, huge sunken living rooms and monster picture windows; some have indoor pools and at least two or three still have those wacky central vacuum systems. Every time I’m lucky enough to visit one I just want to don a hulahoop Judy Jetson frock and drink a big ass martini.

Whole neighborhoods of modern design were fabricated in the 50’s and 60’s–and lots of Jews moved in. A couple of these areas, Habersham Woods and Fairway Oaks, are walkable to both the Orthodox and Conservative shuls and still house a big portion of the city’s Jewish population.

So why in Sam Hill would someone schedule a tour of Savannah’s Mid-Century Modern Homes–on Yom Kippur??

I had a couple of tribal real estate friends call me all kinds of pissed off about it, including Beth Vantosh, because obviously, they have treasures on the market that would be wonderful to display or would just like to be part of an event showcasing their own homes. But it turns out it wasn’t the local organizers who chose the dates:

DOCOMOMO (a shortened version of “documentation and conservation of the modern movement”) is a national organization that contacted its state chapters, who in turn garnered participation from local historic preservation organizations. Terri O’Neil, the very nice program director I spoke with at Historic Savannah Foundation was extremely apologetic about the situation and let me know that HSF had already nixed that date for their annual meeting because their many Jewish members wouldn’t be able to attend. She suggested that maybe HSF should have passed on helping oversee the event, but didn’t want to leave the tour without any kind of local organizing support.

I told her I completely understood. I don’t blame the brilliant and amazing folks at HSF at all: Such a tour is part of their mission and programming; the show must go on.

The real responsibility lies with the national DOCOMOMO organization, who chose to schedule dozens of tours of fabulous homes across the country on a day that would be a little like arranging a firefighter fashion show on 9/11.

No, it’s not a huge deal; after all, none of us expect the world to come to a halt on Jewish holidays, even the most important ones. But it shows an appalling sense of insensitivity.

Especially for a group with a well-heeled board of directors out of–whaaaaat? New York? A shanda, I tell ya.