JCast Network

This week, Aaron Herman had the opportunity to sit down with Jodi and Gavin Samuels. They have become activists in the fight to make Jewish Education available to children with Special Needs.

As parents of a child with Special Needs, they are passionate about this issue and feel that the Jewish community has not taken a strong enough stance to push Day Schools to make their programs available to children with different needs.

Ramah Day Camp in Nyack’s 50th Anniversary Gala was a magical evening with over 300 guests in attendance, time with old friends, lots of reminiscing, dancing and the spirit of Ramah. At the event they honored six amazing individuals:Estelle & Allan Eisenkraft, Sharon Rappaport Yaira Singer & Matthew Binstock, Doron Kenter and made a special presentation to Rabbi Al Thaler.

We spoke with Amy Skopp Cooper, Assistant Director of the National Ramah Commission of The Jewish Theological Seminary, and Director of Ramah Day Camp in Nyack, has received The Covenant Foundation’s prestigious 2011 Covenant Award for Excellence in Jewish Education. The Covenant Award is presented annually to three exceptional Jewish educators in recognition of their innovation, inspiration and transformative impact on Jewish education.

Ramah provide children who are entering grades K-8 with the very best camping experience…in a setting of love, friendship, wonder and discovery, a setting where Judaism is integral to daily activities.

They make sure that each camper is safe, happy and secure and that summer will be a time of growth, excitement, learning and lots and lots of fun! Ramah Day Camp in Nyack is located in Rockland County, New York just minutes from the Tappan Zee Bridge, offers the best in rural tranquility combined with suburban convenience, close to major highways and easily accessible to the areas we serve — Westchester, Riverdale, Manhattan, Rockland, Bergen and Essex counties. Air-conditioned bus service is available. Whenever possible, they provide door-to-door transportation.

Ramah Day Camp in Nyack is a proud member of the international network of Ramah camps, operated by the National Ramah Commission, Inc. under the educational and religious supervision of The Jewish Theological Seminary.

This week, Aaron Herman had the opportunity to attend the Jewish Week Grand Wine Tasting at City Winery.

Wine is critical part of passover. You need to have 4 cups of wine during your seder and there are a lot of wines to select from. We attended the Jewish Week’s Grand Wine Tasting at the City Winery and got an in-depth look into the best kosher wines and liquors on the market today.

In addition to wine, Aaron spoke with the owner of Skyview Wine and Spirits, and got a little information about what kinds of spirits are available this Passover.

If you would like to order kosher wine or spirits,, please visit Skyview Wine, at SkyViewWine.com

Technology is transforming the way we play and learn. Apps are a wonderful way to learn in a fun and interactive environment. We had the opportunity to speak with Barry and Ronnie Schwartz of Rusty Brick about their work and the Jewish app landscape.

RustyBrick is a New York Web service firm specializing in customized online technology that helps companies decrease costs and increase sales. RustyBrick’s Web services include; Web page design, Web development, logo design, e-commerce, mobile Web development, iPhone development, search engine optimization and more. Since 1994, RustyBrick has been creating Web software for businesses and organizations of all kinds.

RustyBrick designs premier iPhone & mobile applications for the Jewish market. They also work with clients such as MTV, Harper HarperCollins, Comedy Central, Harvard University and many more. RustyBrick also designed the most popular Siddur for the iPhone athttp://rustybrick.com/siddur and has some of the most popular Jewish apps at http://rustybrick.com/iphone.

This week, Aaron “The Schmoz” Herman was on vacation. But that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have a new episode for us. Insteard, Aaron gave us a look at what to do when you are on a vacation where there is no kosher food available.

He shows us how he prepares La Briute foods, kosher foods that can be prepared on-the-go.

LaBriute Meals is an exciting product line. LaBriute has become a leading force in the ever expanding Kosher food industry. Their raison d’être is the belief that the Kosher consumer is no less entitled to the latest opportunities and conveniences available to the broader consumer market. Hence, for close to a decade now, LaBriute Meals has stood at the forefront of this emerging market, integrating contemporary innovations in food production, packaging and preparation technologies into the Kosher food sector.

With their close involvement in the foodservice industry, LaBriute Meals has its “finger on the pulse” of the ever-evolving lifestyle of the Kosher consumer. The increasing prominence of the kosher observant dieter in all segments of society is steadily giving rise to new needs for Kosher provisions in remote or limited access locations. This led them to become active in the developing market for shelf-stable and self-heating meals. Based on a technology developed for the US Armed Forces, this idea is actually a two-fold breakthrough for the Kosher food vending industry. Firstly, the creation of a refrigeration-free shelf life of up to 36 months is unprecedented. In addition, the Flameless Heat-Up option of creating a hot, nutritious, Glatt Kosher meal wherever… whenever… is nothing less than revolutionary.

LaBriute’s meals are wholesome and nutritious, and our unique retorting process has absolutely no effect on the taste or texture of the food. The flameless food heater is also 100% safe for use anywhere.

Following extensive research and development, we are now proud to present you with our exciting product lines. Utilizing the latest cutting edge technology; we take pride in being the innovators of “Glatt Kosher Shelf-Stable and Self-Heating Meals”.

In this episode, he explored what it takes to be a judge in a wine competition? How do you judge wines? He also had the opportunity to learn how the judges of the Jewish Week’s Grand Wine Tasting rate wines and pick the finalist for the wine competition.

At the Jewish Week’s grand wine tasting you will be able to:

• Talk to Kosher wine vintners, wine experts and local retailers

• Enjoy food from various leading NYC Kosher restaurants and food 

Visit the City Winery website for more information about this event.

This week, Aaron Heman had the opportunity to attend the ultimate kiddush. He had the opportunity to attend the 2012 Kosher Food and Wine Experience at Chelsea Piers. Hundreds of Jews from around the Tri-State area came to taste wines from all over the world and have amazing kosher food.

If you would like to order kosher wine, please visit Skyview Wine, at http://SkyViewWine.com or

This week, Aaron Heman had the opportunity to attend the Advancing Jewish Professionals New York City  where Alisha Goodman, Executive Director of The Jewish Lens and AJP founder facilitated an engaging session examining what makes for a good elevator speech and how we can write our own, whether for our organization, our job, or ourselves.

Advancing Jewish Professionals of NYC is a professional development and networking association for emerging nonprofit Jewish communal professionals.  Our events provide our constituents with the opportunity to make meaningful connections with colleagues throughout the field and learn from distinguished speakers on topics key to their professional development.

This week, Aaron Heman had the opportunity to attend the Masa Israel Journey and 3GNY: WEDU Showcase at the Hummus Place in NYC. 3g’s mission is to: 

1. EDUCATION- To act, as the last living link to survivors, on the mandate handed down to us to perpetuate the memory of the Holocaust, telling the story of our families, survivors and victims.

2. ACTION -To use our personal connection to the Holocaust to be active in fighting intolerance, no matter who or where the victims.

3. REFLECTION -To provide a forum for grandchildren of Holocaust survivors to meet, connect and express ideas with one another. 

WEDU” (We Educate) — is an education initiative that empowers grandchildren of survivors to bring our family stories and lessons of the Holocaust to school classrooms. Developed under the guidance of Facing History and Ourselves, along with support from Yad Vashem, WEDU prepares participants to learn and teach their family stories..

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In this episode, Aaron “The Schmoz” Herman had the opportunity to speak with Dr. David Ellenson and Dr. Daniel Gordis about their new book Pledges of Jewish Alleglance:Conversion,Law and Policy-Making In Nineteenth-and Twentieth-Century Orthodox Responsa. Dr. David Ellenson and Dr. Daniel Gordis probe the challenges to Jewish self-definition in the modern period by examining a wide array of legal opinions on conversion and intermarriage, written by nineteenth- and twentieth-century Orthodox rabbis in Europe, the United States, and Israel, and discover how these rabbinic decisions are, in fact, attempts to define policy for Judaism in the modern period.

Dr. David Ellenson is President of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion — the 8th President in its 125 year-long history. He holds the Gus Waterman Herrman Presidential Chair and is the I.H. and Anna Grancell Professor of Jewish Religious Thought at HUC-JIR in Los Angeles. A member of HUC-JIR’s faculty since 1979, he has served as Lecturer, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Professor of Jewish Religious Thought. From 1981-1997, he also held the post of Director of the Jerome H. Louchheim School of Judaic Studies.

Dr. Daniel Gordis is President of the Shalem Foundation, and Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. He is a regular columnist for the Jerusalem Post, and a frequent contributor to the New York Times, in print and on-line. The author of numerous books on Jewish thought and currents in Israel, and a recent winner of the National Jewish Book Award, Dr. Gordis was the founding dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism, the first rabbinical college on the West Coast of the United States. Dr. Gordis joined Shalem in 2007 to help found Israel’s first liberal arts college, after spending nine years as vice president of the Mandel Foundation in Israel and director of its Leadership Institute.