To observant Jews, the mikvah is a source of spiritual purity and beauty, not just an exotic custom. Some of that feeling is captured in an evocative, graphically attractive Web site called The Mikvah Project.
The site is essentially an artsy photo gallery with brief snippets of text. The most intriguing section tells stories about the role of the mikvah in peoples’ lives. Click on a photograph, and you’ll be able to read a story that goes with the image.
So one picture shows a couple kissing on a rooftop; the story, just a few brief paragraphs, describes how the young couple adjusted to the time of abstention before mikvah.
Another section offers a series of photographs. The images are tasteful and artistic, although possibly a little too revealing for some viewers. But for many others, they may convey better than anything else the beauty of a ritual that is hard to explain to those who have not experienced it.
The Mikvah Project is based on a touring exhibition “documenting the resurgence of the Jewish rite of immersion in a ritual bath.” It was created with the help of the Jewish Community Center of Houston. It’s at www.mikvahproject.com
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There are about a zillion Jewish E-zines — Web sites with a magazine format. But it’s hard to beat the name of this one: The Jewish Magazine.
The Jewish Magazine takes a broad approach to Jewish life, with articles on Jewish tradition, history, observance, politics and even humor. The religious perspective of the monthly publication seems to be Orthodox and Chassidic, the political perspective conservative.
A recent issue focused heavily on Sukkot. But there were also non-holiday articles: a sobering analysis of the new economics of Israel, a feature about Nazis who fled to Australia and never faced prosecution, and a story on archaeology in Jerusalem.
The political perspective of the magazine sometimes boils to the surface — as in an essay on the U.S. war against terrorism demanding that the first priority be the “annihilation” of the Palestinian Authority.
The site is cleanly designed and the range of stories is wide. But one gripe: There isn’t a clue about the group sponsoring the site. C’mon guys, what are you afraid of? Despite this flaw, it’s a site worth visiting and bookmarking. It’s at www.jewishmag.co.il.com
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What does the Jewish left have to say as the Middle East plunges even faster toward all-out war and this country grapples with spreading bio-warfare?
Visitors can get a quick immersion in that world at the home page of the Shalom Center, the Philadelphia outpost of the Jewish Renewal movement.
Here you’ll find the usual mix of Jewish spirituality from a Renewal perspective and tikkun olam from a left-wing perspective.
The home page offers relatively easy access to the site’s contents, with sections on “Seeking Peace,” “Pursuing Justice,” “Healing the Earth,” “Words of Torah,” “Words of Prayer” and the like.
Click on “After the Attack” to get a bunch of essays by Shalom Center founder Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Tikkun magazine editor Rabbi Michael Lerner and other luminaries of the Jewish left.
This is preaching-to-the-choir stuff; the essays don’t seem particularly aimed at winning recruits, but they’ll be red kosher meat to true believers.
There are also several interesting, potentially useful essays on how to cope with the terror that has traumatized a nation that somehow thought it was immune from the kind of political violence that is a staple of other parts of the world. But it’s often hard to distinguish the line between spirituality, self-help and politics on this site.
The Shalom Center site is decently organized but graphically boring. It’s at www.shalomctr.org
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Speaking of the Jewish left, Israel’s Peace Now movement has an excellent site that lays out the group’s views with clarity, presents supporting documents and offers links to recent news stories that affirm its point of view.
The point of view is plain here, but the site generally eschews the shrieking vehemence of so many Jewish political sites on both ends of the spectrum. It’s at www.peacenow.org.il/english.asp
The writer is a Washington-based correspondent who has been writing about Jewish Web sites since the early 1990s. His columns alternate with those of Mark Mietkiewicz. Besser can be reached at [email protected]