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Jay Michaelson
Chief Editor
Jay Michaelson Jay Michaelson is a founding editor of Zeek. He is also a writer, the founder of a $35 million, venture-funded software company, a lawyer, a teacher of Kabbalah and mystical Judaism, a finalist for the Koret Young Writer on Jewish Themes Award, a columnist for the Forward a, the editor of Az Yashir Moshe: A Book of Songs and Blessings (2003) the author of the book God in Your Body (Jewish Lights, 2006), a contributor to Slate and the Jerusalem Post, the founder of Nehirim: A Spiritual Initiative for GLBT Jews, a doctoral candidate in Jewish mysticism at Hebrew University, a meditation teacher, a performance poet and musician, and a somewhat busy person. 
Stephen Hazan Arnoff
Managing Editor
Stephen was Director of Artists Networks and Programming at the Makor/Steinhardt Center of the 92nd Street Y 2002-2005, and founded the Makor Artists-in-Residence, Makor Theater, and Makor Gallery programs. Stephen co-founded The Artist Workshop Experiment (AWE), a year-long program for Jewish artists in New York and Jerusalem sponsored by the Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel (2000-2002). He has served as scholar-in-residence at many institutions, including the Brandeis-Bardin Institute (2001-present) and Face to Face/Faith to Faith of the Auburn Theological Seminary (2001), as invited faculty at Limmud (2001 and 2005) and Lishmah (2005), and as panelist at the United Jewish Communities General Assembly (Jerusalem, 2003). Stephen graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University in 1994 and received his MA in Midrash in 2002 from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America as a Wexner Graduate Fellow (2002). His projects in New Jewish Arts have been supported by grants from the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Second Authority for Television and Radio of Israel, the Immerman Family Foundation, the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, and the Dorot Foundation. Stephen is currently a Mandel Jerusalem Fellow in Jerusalem, Israel, planning the creation of an international artists-in-residence program serving Jewish communities worldwide. 
/td>
Jo Ellen Green Kaiser
Senior Editor
Jo Ellen Green Kaiser is Senior Editor at Zeek. When not madly acquiring Zeek articles, she works as a freelance book editor and is co-editing with Rabbi Or N. Rose and Margie Klein an anthology on Jewish social justice, Righteous Indignation, due out with Jewish Lights in 2008. Jo Ellen formerly was Managing Editor, Associate Publisher, Senior Editor, and assistant bottle-washer at Tikkun. She has a Ph.D. in American Literature and Critical Theory from U.C. Berkeley, and her publicist friends say she should mention her BA is from Yale. More importantly, Jo Ellen has a daughter, cat, and husband and lives in San Francisco.
Dan Friedman
Associate Editor
One of our founding editors, Dan is a writer and educator. With a PhD in Comparative Literature from Yale and an MA in English Literature from Cambridge he has taught poetry, literature, and film at Cambridge and Yale. More recently he has headed the English Departments at Schechter Regional and Yeshiva University High Schools. As well as publishing various scholarly articles on film, poetry, and photography he is a qualified soccer coach and certified life guard. Dan writes very serious fiction but is better known for his radio and television comedy writing – most notably for the award - winning British television comedy, da Ali G Show. 
Bara Sapir
Art Editor
Bara Sapir's academic, artistic and spiritual work is fueled by the dynamic interface between creative expression and spirituality. She is a published author and professional artist whose work has been shown in several countries. She is a musician in the Ladino Ensemble, Adelantre, and educator at universities, institutions and community centers. She earned her BFA and MA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and an MA from The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Sapir is Executive Director of Test Prep New York, an educational consultancy that combines skills training with human potential tools for increased creativity, goal achievement and personal transformation.
Sarah Chandler
Director of Programming
Sarah is the epicenter the "New Jewish Culture," involved with Jews in the Woods, the Isabella Friedman Center, the Teva and Adamah programs, JTS, Jewschool, and the 92nd Street Y. Since coming on at the end of 2005, Sarah has already led our 2006 programming at Limmud and Makor, and is the key person for our upcoming events at the 92nd Street Y.
Leah Koenig
Assistant Editor
In addition to her work with Zeek, Leah Koenig works for Hazon, a non-profit that seeks to foster new vision in the Jewish community and bring people together across difference through outdoor and environmental education. She runs Tuv Ha'Aretz: Hazon's community-supported agriculture (CSA) project. Her food writing can be found on Hazon’s new blog, The Jew and the Carrot
Ezra Sarajinsky
Assistant Editor
Ezra Sarajinsky is a lawyer, musician, editor and technician. When away from Zeek he can be found editing his graffiti blog, Tag-Line. His musical guise, Ez and Loretto has seen him playing his live techno between New York and his hometwon - Sydney, Australia. 
Peter Bebergal
Music Editor
Peter graduated Brandeis University in 1994 as an Adult Scholar (BA, Religion and Culture) and then went on to get his Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School in 1996. Peter is the co-author, with Scott Korb, of the book The Faith Between Us, forthcoming from Bloomsbury. Peter has also published essays, stories, and interviews in a wide variety of publications, including, Salon Magazine, Nextbook, Beliefnet, Pindeldyboz, The American Journal of Print, Hermenaut and the Blue Moon Review, and is a semi-regular book reviewer for the Boston Globe. Peter currently teaches freshman expository writing/critical thinking at Simmons College, Boston, Massachusetts. 
Adam Rovner
Translations Editor
Adam Rovner is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Hebrew Language Program at Hofstra University. He holds an M.A. in Comparative and General Literature from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Indiana University. Adam has published articles and essays on Jewish literature and humor in several scholarly publications, and has provided the introductions to recent Barnes & Noble editions of the work of Jerome K. Jerome and Saki. He has lectured on Jewish literature and humor to a variety of audiences, and hosted Nextbook programs with Israeli writers in Seattle. Despite having published an article about the aerial pioneer Melvin Vaniman in American History magazine, Adam remains inexplicably fascinated by dirigibles.
David Stromberg
Book Reviews Editor
Born in Ashdod, Israel, to Ex-Soviet parents, and at the age of nine moved to downtown Los Angeles. He holds a BS in Mathematics from UCLA, and an MFA in Critical Writing from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). From 2000-2005, he founded and ran Jovian Books, a small press based in Los Angeles, and is now working independently on projects with Semiotext(e) Press and Melville House Publishing. His publications include three collections of cartoons, Saddies, Confusies, and Desperaddies; and drawings and stories in small literary journals. He lives in New York City.
Joel Schalit
Contributing Editor
Joel Schalit is a journalist and musician based in San Francisco. The author of Jerusalem Calling (Akashic Books, 2002) and the editor of The Anti-Capitalism Reader (Akashic, 2002), his most recent work includes the Elders of Zion's Twilight War EP (Sounds From the Roof/iTunes, 2007) and Collective Action (Pluto Books, 2004). The former managing editor of Tikkun Magazine and associate editor of Punk Planet, Schalit served two terms as the co-director for the world's longest running online publication, Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life. Schalit is currently at work on a new book about Israeli politics for Akashic.
Rachel Berenblat
Contributing Editor
Rachel Barenblat is a student in the Aleph rabbinic program. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and is author most recently of chaplainbook (laupe house press, 2006), a collection of poems arising out of hospital chaplaincy work. Previous job titles have included co-founder and executive director of Inkberry, a literary arts center in the Berkshires, and editor of The Women's Times, a regional monthly. Her work has appeared in Lilith, Bitch, and The Women's Seder Sourcebook, among others; she blogs about Judaism regularly at Velveteen Rabbi
Jay Michaelson - Chief Editor
Jay Michaelson is a founding editor of Zeek. He is also a writer, the founder of a $35 million, venture-funded software company, a lawyer, a teacher of Kabbalah and mystical Judaism, a finalist for the Koret Young Writer on Jewish Themes Award, a columnist for the Forward a, the editor of Az Yashir Moshe: A Book of Songs and Blessings (2003) the author of the book God in Your Body (Jewish Lights, 2006), a contributor to Slate and the Jerusalem Post, the founder of Nehirim: A Spiritual Initiative for GLBT Jews, a doctoral candidate in Jewish mysticism at Hebrew University, a meditation teacher, a performance poet and musician, and a somewhat busy person.
Stephen Hazan Arnoff
Managing Editor
Contributing Editor was Director of Artists Networks and Programming at the Makor/Steinhardt Center of the 92nd Street Y 2002-2005, and founded the Makor Artists-in-Residence, Makor Theater, and Makor Gallery programs. Stephen co-founded The Artist Workshop Experiment (AWE), a year-long program for Jewish artists in New York and Jerusalem sponsored by the Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel (2000-2002). He has served as scholar-in-residence at many institutions, including the Brandeis-Bardin Institute (2001-present) and Face to Face/Faith to Faith of the Auburn Theological Seminary (2001), as invited faculty at Limmud (2001 and 2005) and Lishmah (2005), and as panelist at the United Jewish Communities General Assembly (Jerusalem, 2003). Stephen graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University in 1994 and received his MA in Midrash in 2002 from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America as a Wexner Graduate Fellow (2002). His projects in New Jewish Arts have been supported by grants from the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Second Authority for Television and Radio of Israel, the Immerman Family Foundation, the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, and the Dorot Foundation. Stephen is currently a Mandel Jerusalem Fellow in Jerusalem, Israel, planning the creation of an international artists-in-residence program serving Jewish communities worldwide.
Jo Ellen Green Kaiser
Senior Editor
Jo Ellen Green Kaiser is Senior Editor at Zeek. When not madly acquiring Zeek articles, she works as a freelance book editor and is co-editing with Rabbi Or N. Rose and Margie Klein an anthology on Jewish social justice, Righteous Indignation, due out with Jewish Lights in 2008. Jo Ellen formerly was Managing Editor, Associate Publisher, Senior Editor, and assistant bottle-washer at Tikkun. She has a Ph.D. in American Literature and Critical Theory from U.C. Berkeley, and her publicist friends say she should mention her BA is from Yale. More importantly, Jo Ellen has a daughter, cat, and husband and lives in San Francisco.
Jay Michaelson - Chief Editor
Jay Michaelson is a founding editor of Zeek. He is also a writer, the founder of a $35 million, venture-funded software company, a lawyer, a teacher of Kabbalah and mystical Judaism, a finalist for the Koret Young Writer on Jewish Themes Award, a columnist for the Forward a, the editor of Az Yashir Moshe: A Book of Songs and Blessings (2003) the author of the book God in Your Body (Jewish Lights, 2006), a contributor to Slate and the Jerusalem Post, the founder of Nehirim: A Spiritual Initiative for GLBT Jews, a doctoral candidate in Jewish mysticism at Hebrew University, a meditation teacher, a performance poet and musician, and a somewhat busy person.
Jay Michaelson
Chief Editor
Jay Michaelson Jay Michaelson is a founding editor of Zeek. He is also a writer, the founder of a $35 million, venture-funded software company, a lawyer, a teacher of Kabbalah and mystical Judaism, a finalist for the Koret Young Writer on Jewish Themes Award, a columnist for the Forward a, the editor of Az Yashir Moshe: A Book of Songs and Blessings (2003) the author of the book God in Your Body (Jewish Lights, 2006), a contributor to Slate and the Jerusalem Post, the founder of Nehirim: A Spiritual Initiative for GLBT Jews, a doctoral candidate in Jewish mysticism at Hebrew University, a meditation teacher, a performance poet and musician, and a somewhat busy person.
Stephen Hazan Arnoff
Managing Editor
Contributing Editor was Director of Artists Networks and Programming at the Makor/Steinhardt Center of the 92nd Street Y 2002-2005, and founded the Makor Artists-in-Residence, Makor Theater, and Makor Gallery programs. Stephen co-founded The Artist Workshop Experiment (AWE), a year-long program for Jewish artists in New York and Jerusalem sponsored by the Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel (2000-2002). He has served as scholar-in-residence at many institutions, including the Brandeis-Bardin Institute (2001-present) and Face to Face/Faith to Faith of the Auburn Theological Seminary (2001), as invited faculty at Limmud (2001 and 2005) and Lishmah (2005), and as panelist at the United Jewish Communities General Assembly (Jerusalem, 2003). Stephen graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University in 1994 and received his MA in Midrash in 2002 from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America as a Wexner Graduate Fellow (2002). His projects in New Jewish Arts have been supported by grants from the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Second Authority for Television and Radio of Israel, the Immerman Family Foundation, the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, and the Dorot Foundation. Stephen is currently a Mandel Jerusalem Fellow in Jerusalem, Israel, planning the creation of an international artists-in-residence program serving Jewish communities worldwide.
Jo Ellen Green Kaiser
Senior Editor
Jo Ellen Green Kaiser is Senior Editor at Zeek. When not madly acquiring Zeek articles, she works as a freelance book editor and is co-editing with Rabbi Or N. Rose and Margie Klein an anthology on Jewish social justice, Righteous Indignation, due out with Jewish Lights in 2008. Jo Ellen formerly was Managing Editor, Associate Publisher, Senior Editor, and assistant bottle-washer at Tikkun. She has a Ph.D. in American Literature and Critical Theory from U.C. Berkeley, and her publicist friends say she should mention her BA is from Yale. More importantly, Jo Ellen has a daughter, cat, and husband and lives in San Francisco.
Dan Friedman
Associate Editor
One of our founding editors, Dan is a writer and educator. With a PhD in Comparative Literature from Yale and an MA in English Literature from Cambridge he has taught poetry, literature, and film at Cambridge and Yale. More recently he has headed the English Departments at Schechter Regional and Yeshiva University High Schools. As well as publishing various scholarly articles on film, poetry, and photography he is a qualified soccer coach and certified life guard. Dan writes very serious fiction but is better known for his radio and television comedy writing – most notably for the award - winning British television comedy, da Ali G Show.
Bara Sapir
Art Editor
Bara Sapir's academic, artistic and spiritual work is fueled by the dynamic interface between creative expression and spirituality. She is a published author and professional artist whose work has been shown in several countries. She is a musician in the Ladino Ensemble, Adelantre, and educator at universities, institutions and community centers. She earned her BFA and MA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and an MA from The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Sapir is Executive Director of Test Prep New York, an educational consultancy that combines skills training with human potential tools for increased creativity, goal achievement and personal transformation.
Sarah Chandler
Director of Programming
Sarah is the epicenter the "New Jewish Culture," involved with Jews in the Woods, the Isabella Friedman Center, the Teva and Adamah programs, JTS, Jewschool, and the 92nd Street Y. Since coming on at the end of 2005, Sarah has already led our 2006 programming at Limmud and Makor, and is the key person for our upcoming events at the 92nd Street Y.
Leah Koenig
Assistant Editor
In addition to her work with Zeek, Leah Koenig works for Hazon, a non-profit that seeks to foster new vision in the Jewish community and bring people together across difference through outdoor and environmental education. She runs Tuv Ha'Aretz: Hazon's community-supported agriculture (CSA) project. Her food writing can be found on Hazon’s new blog, The Jew and the Carrot
Ezra Sarajinsky
Assistant Editor
Ezra Sarajinsky is a lawyer, musician, editor and technician. His musical guise, Ez and Loretto has seen him playing his live techno between New York and his hometwon - Sydney, Australia.
Peter Bebergal
Music Editor
Peter graduated Brandeis University in 1994 as an Adult Scholar (BA, Religion and Culture) and then went on to get his Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School in 1996. Peter is the co-author, with Scott Korb, of the book The Faith Between Us, forthcoming from Bloomsbury. Peter has also published essays, stories, and interviews in a wide variety of publications, including, Salon Magazine, Nextbook, Beliefnet, Pindeldyboz, The American Journal of Print, Hermenaut and the Blue Moon Review, and is a semi-regular book reviewer for the Boston Globe. Peter currently teaches freshman expository writing/critical thinking at Simmons College, Boston, Massachusetts.
Adam Rovner
Translations Editor
Adam Rovner is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Hebrew Language Program at Hofstra University. He holds an M.A. in Comparative and General Literature from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Indiana University. Adam has published articles and essays on Jewish literature and humor in several scholarly publications, and has provided the introductions to recent Barnes & Noble editions of the work of Jerome K. Jerome and Saki. He has lectured on Jewish literature and humor to a variety of audiences, and hosted Nextbook programs with Israeli writers in Seattle. Despite having published an article about the aerial pioneer Melvin Vaniman in American History magazine, Adam remains inexplicably fascinated by dirigibles.
David Stromberg
Book Reviews Editor
Born in Ashdod, Israel, to Ex-Soviet parents, and at the age of nine moved to downtown Los Angeles. He holds a BS in Mathematics from UCLA, and an MFA in Critical Writing from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). From 2000-2005, he founded and ran Jovian Books, a small press based in Los Angeles, and is now working independently on projects with Semiotext(e) Press and Melville House Publishing. His publications include three collections of cartoons, Saddies, Confusies, and Desperaddies; and drawings and stories in small literary journals. He lives in New York City.
Joel Schalit
Contributing Editor
Joel Schalit is a journalist and musician based in San Francisco. The author of Jerusalem Calling (Akashic Books, 2002) and the editor of The Anti-Capitalism Reader (Akashic, 2002), his most recent work includes the Elders of Zion's Twilight War EP (Sounds From the Roof/iTunes, 2007) and Collective Action (Pluto Books, 2004). The former managing editor of Tikkun Magazine and associate editor of Punk Planet, Schalit served two terms as the co-director for the world's longest running online publication, Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life. Schalit is currently at work on a new book about Israeli politics for Akashic.
Rachel Berenblat
Contributing Editor
Rachel Barenblat is a student in the Aleph rabbinic program. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and is author most recently of chaplainbook (laupe house press, 2006), a collection of poems arising out of hospital chaplaincy work. Previous job titles have included co-founder and executive director of Inkberry, a literary arts center in the Berkshires, and editor of The Women's Times, a regional monthly. Her work has appeared in Lilith, Bitch, and The Women's Seder Sourcebook, among others; she blogs about Judaism regularly at Velveteen Rabbi
Mission Statement
Zeek Magazine is an independent Jewish journal of thought and culture, which features
innovative writers, artists, and critics whose work speaks to questions of Jewish
culture, society, and spirit.
Founded in 2002, Zeek has retained both its independence and its expansive definition of
Jewish cultural and spiritual life. Our contributors range from well-known rabbis and
professors to emerging artists, musicians, and poets. We welcome the heretical, honor
the sincere, and are generally bored by in-jokes, apologetics, and irony. We value
independence, courage, and thoughtfulness, and publish stories which say something new
about that which is meaningful. Above all, we believe that an intelligent, articulate Jewish sensibility is one that speaks from its place of particularity in a far wider conversation -- and true conversation requires both a
fearlessness to create and an openness to change.
Our journal welcomes contributions, submissions, and critique. Please feel free to
email us at zeek[at]zeek.net.
The Zeek Credo
1. We are independent, interested in the highest quality expressions of Jewish culture, spirituality, and peoplehood. We are affiliated with no particular ideology, movement, or identity. We will not cater to orthodoxies of any kind -- religious, secular, communal, or aesthetic. We will not transgress for the thrill, but we will not conform for the sake of safety.
2. We are a Jewish journal, but not a journal of the Jews. We will not be a cheerleader for Judaism, the Jewish people or Israel -- nor will we abandon our love of them. We will neither feign exuberance, nor hide behind cynicism, irony, or detachment. We celebrate Jewish culture and religion not as means to some other end, and not to promote the Jewish people, but because we believe expressions of Jewish culture and spirit to be interesting and inspiring in their own right.
3. We are particular, but not parochial. Thus, we are as interested in what Jewish values, religion, and culture mean to the wider world, as the reverse. We do not believe Judaism or the Jewish people have all, or the best, answers to life's questions, but we do believe they have important ones. We aspire to be participants in a global, multicultural world, but we speak from our particularity, and articulate truth largely in its terms.
4. We aspire to be intelligent, and believe in the value of intelligent, authentic culture. We believe that serious art, good writing, and cutting-edge culture matter, even if it is not mass popular culture. We are not interested in dumbing down, or in catering to the lowest common denominator; we are interested in raising the level of the highest.
5. We do not seek to reinforce anyone's self-image, convince anyone to be or do anything, or present anything other than what we consider to be the best, most interesting, funniest, smartest, and most beautiful thought and culture we can publish. Quality and truth are our only agendas.
6. We are interested in art, not kitsch. We will not pretend that the privileged, parochial, Ashkenazic milieu in which we grew up is meaningful Jewish culture, and we will never confuse cliche with meaning. We will never say "oy vey."
7. We will not sacrifice intellectual rigor for the sake of spiritual contentment; nor will we use our intellect to mask fears, doubts, and self-imposed limitations on our potential. We find the smugness of the cynic and the soft-mindedness of the believer equally repellent to truth. 'Secular' and 'religious' are idols of identity, which we wish to efface. We seek to promote work which integrates mind, body, heart, and spirit, leaving nothing behind. We pursue excellence in all these areas, and believe that abandoning any one of them, no matter how fashionable or 'cool,' is an act of dehumanization.
8. We prefer questions to answers, aspirations to achievements, and horizons to boundaries. We seek the new, not the familiar; the transformative, not the translative; the innovative, not the traditional.
9. We are committed to building a new form of Jewish community and identity, one which is serious, playful, pluralistic, committed, inclusive, and cosmopolitan. We are interested in wherever the new Jewish cultures lead.
10. We are progressive aesthetically, politically, religiously, and culturally. While we do not espouse any political or cultural agenda, we do not cling to traditional norms, particularly when they cause suffering. We are suspicious of any truths that claim to be universal, any values that justify cruelty, and any ideologies which reduce the complex to the simple.
Archive, Printing, and Sharing
Most of Zeek is available online, free of charge — over 700 pages of past articles, poems, photos, and reviews. You are welcome to link to and print all of Zeek's articles, but we ask that you link to us every time you do so. All material on www.zeek.net is Copyright © 2002-2006 by Metatronics Inc., and the respective authors. We ask — indeed, demand — that you give due credit to Zeek & the author upon excerpting, photocopying, or plagiarizing. Thanks.
Submission Guidelines
Zeek welcomes and often publishes unsolicited submissions of original poetry, art, fiction, and essays. Please look over our mission statement, as well as current and past content, before sending us your work. Submissions are accepted via EMAIL ONLY to zeek@zeek.net. We prefer text be pasted straight into the text of the email, rather than sent as attachments. Only unpublished work is considered; art or text that has appeared in books, magazines, or websites should not be submitted. Copyrights are retained by the author, but Zeek must be credited on any subsequent republications of work that first appears here.
Zeek in Print
Zeek is published in print twice annually, once in the fall and once in the spring. 75% of the material in the print magazine has not appeared, in any form, on the web version. Click here to purchase the Winter 2005 issue of Zeek Magazine with your major or minor credit card, or to subscribe -- subscriptions are available for $14 for one year or $25 for two years.
Our Supporters
Zeek is a small, non-profit organization, published independently, and largely by people who donate their time.
We are grateful to our foundation supporters, the Dorot Foundation and the Louis J. Kuriansky Foundation for their generous support of Zeek. We also invite you to
make a donation to Zeek, which will enable us to continue and grow this important venue for independent, new Jewish culture.
Technical Help
Because of variations among Internet browsers and platforms, you may not be seeing Zeek the way we'd like you to see it. Zeek is optimized for Internet Explorer version 5 or higher. There are known to be problems with versions of Netscape earlier than 4.72, some versions of Mozilla, and with certain older AOL browsers. For the optimum Zeek experience, please consider upgrading your browser to the newest version of Internet Explorer or one of its open source competitors. Zeek is best viewed with the Futura fonts (Futura Md BT and Bk BT) installed and with javascript enabled on your browser.
Internship opportunities
Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture (www.zeek.net) is seeking two capable interns to work part-time on the magazine's editorial, sales, marketing, and distribution efforts, and one intern to work with Zeek's art department. These are excellent opportunities for college students or post-college individuals seeking experience, connections, and practice in the world of journalism, Jewish professional life, or the New York arts scene.
General Interns will work directly Zeek editors and authors, gaining valuable editorial skills and the opportunity to create bylined content for the magazine. Tasks will include editing articles, author R&D, expanding Zeek's distribution network, liaising with organizations for marketing and sales purposes, research, and helping the editors with the daily management of the magazine.
The Art Intern works directly with Zeek's art staff, curating exhibitions, finding and contacting new artists, maintaining Zeek's artists network database, and working with Zeek's partner organizations in the Jewish art world. Opportunities will also include bylined reviews of art exhibitions.
Interns must commit at least 4 hours per week to the internship. Credit is available through your school, if you are a student, and your school allows. New York location is preferred, but not essential. If you're in New York, you'll work with us more directly, including at our office. Successful candidates will possess outstanding verbal skills, and will be intelligent, creative and self-motivated. At this time, the internship is unpaid, but it may lead to a paid editorial position, and we are happy to provide letters of recommendation and advocacy for you in your career. Do this for what you learn, for the connections you make, and for the inside look at what running an independent journal is actually like. Admission is rolling. Read us online, and then send resumes and queries (email only) to zeek@zeek.net.
Contact Information
Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture
330 Seventh Avenue, 21st Floor
New York, NY 10001
zeek@zeek.net
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Managing Editor
Jo Ellen Green Kaiser
Senior Editor
Jo Ellen Green Kaiser is Senior Editor at Zeek. When not madly acquiring Zeek articles, she works as a freelance book editor and is co-editing with Rabbi Or N. Rose and Margie Klein an anthology on Jewish social justice, Righteous Indignation, due out with Jewish Lights in 2008. Jo Ellen formerly was Managing Editor, Associate Publisher, Senior Editor, and assistant bottle-washer at Tikkun. She has a Ph.D. in American Literature and Critical Theory from U.C. Berkeley, and her publicist friends say she should mention her BA is from Yale. More importantly, Jo Ellen has a daughter, cat, and husband and lives in San Francisco.Jay Michaelson - Chief Editor
Jay Michaelson
Chief Editor
Jay Michaelson Jay Michaelson is a founding editor of Zeek. He is also a writer, the founder of a $35 million, venture-funded software company, a lawyer, a teacher of Kabbalah and mystical Judaism, a finalist for the Koret Young Writer on Jewish Themes Award, a columnist for the Forward a, the editor of Az Yashir Moshe: A Book of Songs and Blessings (2003) the author of the book God in Your Body (Jewish Lights, 2006), a contributor to Slate and the Jerusalem Post, the founder of Nehirim: A Spiritual Initiative for GLBT Jews, a doctoral candidate in Jewish mysticism at Hebrew University, a meditation teacher, a performance poet and musician, and a somewhat busy person. Stephen Hazan Arnoff
Managing Editor
Contributing Editor was Director of Artists Networks and Programming at the Makor/Steinhardt Center of the 92nd Street Y 2002-2005, and founded the Makor Artists-in-Residence, Makor Theater, and Makor Gallery programs. Stephen co-founded The Artist Workshop Experiment (AWE), a year-long program for Jewish artists in New York and Jerusalem sponsored by the Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel (2000-2002). He has served as scholar-in-residence at many institutions, including the Brandeis-Bardin Institute (2001-present) and Face to Face/Faith to Faith of the Auburn Theological Seminary (2001), as invited faculty at Limmud (2001 and 2005) and Lishmah (2005), and as panelist at the United Jewish Communities General Assembly (Jerusalem, 2003). Stephen graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University in 1994 and received his MA in Midrash in 2002 from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America as a Wexner Graduate Fellow (2002). His projects in New Jewish Arts have been supported by grants from the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Second Authority for Television and Radio of Israel, the Immerman Family Foundation, the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, and the Dorot Foundation. Stephen is currently a Mandel Jerusalem Fellow in Jerusalem, Israel, planning the creation of an international artists-in-residence program serving Jewish communities worldwide.
Jo Ellen Green Kaiser
Senior Editor
Jo Ellen Green Kaiser is Senior Editor at Zeek. When not madly acquiring Zeek articles, she works as a freelance book editor and is co-editing with Rabbi Or N. Rose and Margie Klein an anthology on Jewish social justice, Righteous Indignation, due out with Jewish Lights in 2008. Jo Ellen formerly was Managing Editor, Associate Publisher, Senior Editor, and assistant bottle-washer at Tikkun. She has a Ph.D. in American Literature and Critical Theory from U.C. Berkeley, and her publicist friends say she should mention her BA is from Yale. More importantly, Jo Ellen has a daughter, cat, and husband and lives in San Francisco.Dan Friedman
Associate Editor
One of our founding editors, Dan is a writer and educator. With a PhD in Comparative Literature from Yale and an MA in English Literature from Cambridge he has taught poetry, literature, and film at Cambridge and Yale. More recently he has headed the English Departments at Schechter Regional and Yeshiva University High Schools. As well as publishing various scholarly articles on film, poetry, and photography he is a qualified soccer coach and certified life guard. Dan writes very serious fiction but is better known for his radio and television comedy writing – most notably for the award - winning British television comedy, da Ali G Show. Bara Sapir
Art Editor
Bara Sapir's academic, artistic and spiritual work is fueled by the dynamic interface between creative expression and spirituality. She is a published author and professional artist whose work has been shown in several countries. She is a musician in the Ladino Ensemble, Adelantre, and educator at universities, institutions and community centers. She earned her BFA and MA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and an MA from The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Sapir is Executive Director of Test Prep New York, an educational consultancy that combines skills training with human potential tools for increased creativity, goal achievement and personal transformation.Sarah Chandler
Director of Programming
Sarah is the epicenter the "New Jewish Culture," involved with Jews in the Woods, the Isabella Friedman Center, the Teva and Adamah programs, JTS, Jewschool, and the 92nd Street Y. Since coming on at the end of 2005, Sarah has already led our 2006 programming at Limmud and Makor, and is the key person for our upcoming events at the 92nd Street Y. Leah Koenig
Assistant Editor
In addition to her work with Zeek, Leah Koenig works for Hazon, a non-profit that seeks to foster new vision in the Jewish community and bring people together across difference through outdoor and environmental education. She runs Tuv Ha'Aretz: Hazon's community-supported agriculture (CSA) project. Her food writing can be found on Hazon’s new blog, The Jew and the Carrot
Ezra Sarajinsky
Assistant Editor
Ezra Sarajinsky is a lawyer, musician, editor and technician. His musical guise, Ez and Loretto has seen him playing his live techno between New York and his hometwon - Sydney, Australia.
Peter Bebergal
Music Editor
Peter graduated Brandeis University in 1994 as an Adult Scholar (BA, Religion and Culture) and then went on to get his Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School in 1996. Peter is the co-author, with Scott Korb, of the book The Faith Between Us, forthcoming from Bloomsbury. Peter has also published essays, stories, and interviews in a wide variety of publications, including, Salon Magazine, Nextbook, Beliefnet, Pindeldyboz, The American Journal of Print, Hermenaut and the Blue Moon Review, and is a semi-regular book reviewer for the Boston Globe. Peter currently teaches freshman expository writing/critical thinking at Simmons College, Boston, Massachusetts. Adam Rovner
Translations Editor
Adam Rovner is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Hebrew Language Program at Hofstra University. He holds an M.A. in Comparative and General Literature from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Indiana University. Adam has published articles and essays on Jewish literature and humor in several scholarly publications, and has provided the introductions to recent Barnes & Noble editions of the work of Jerome K. Jerome and Saki. He has lectured on Jewish literature and humor to a variety of audiences, and hosted Nextbook programs with Israeli writers in Seattle. Despite having published an article about the aerial pioneer Melvin Vaniman in American History magazine, Adam remains inexplicably fascinated by dirigibles.David Stromberg
Book Reviews Editor
Born in Ashdod, Israel, to Ex-Soviet parents, and at the age of nine moved to downtown Los Angeles. He holds a BS in Mathematics from UCLA, and an MFA in Critical Writing from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). From 2000-2005, he founded and ran Jovian Books, a small press based in Los Angeles, and is now working independently on projects with Semiotext(e) Press and Melville House Publishing. His publications include three collections of cartoons, Saddies, Confusies, and Desperaddies; and drawings and stories in small literary journals. He lives in New York City.
Joel Schalit
Contributing Editor
Joel Schalit is a journalist and musician based in San Francisco. The author of Jerusalem Calling (Akashic Books, 2002) and the editor of The Anti-Capitalism Reader (Akashic, 2002), his most recent work includes the Elders of Zion's Twilight War EP (Sounds From the Roof/iTunes, 2007) and Collective Action (Pluto Books, 2004). The former managing editor of Tikkun Magazine and associate editor of Punk Planet, Schalit served two terms as the co-director for the world's longest running online publication, Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life. Schalit is currently at work on a new book about Israeli politics for Akashic.
Rachel Berenblat
Contributing Editor
Rachel Barenblat is a student in the Aleph rabbinic program. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and is author most recently of chaplainbook (laupe house press, 2006), a collection of poems arising out of hospital chaplaincy work. Previous job titles have included co-founder and executive director of Inkberry, a literary arts center in the Berkshires, and editor of The Women's Times, a regional monthly. Her work has appeared in Lilith, Bitch, and The Women's Seder Sourcebook, among others; she blogs about Judaism regularly at Velveteen Rabbi
Mission Statement
Zeek Magazine is an independent Jewish journal of thought and culture, which features innovative writers, artists, and critics whose work speaks to questions of Jewish culture, society, and spirit.
Founded in 2002, Zeek has retained both its independence and its expansive definition of Jewish cultural and spiritual life. Our contributors range from well-known rabbis and professors to emerging artists, musicians, and poets. We welcome the heretical, honor the sincere, and are generally bored by in-jokes, apologetics, and irony. We value independence, courage, and thoughtfulness, and publish stories which say something new about that which is meaningful. Above all, we believe that an intelligent, articulate Jewish sensibility is one that speaks from its place of particularity in a far wider conversation -- and true conversation requires both a fearlessness to create and an openness to change.
Our journal welcomes contributions, submissions, and critique. Please feel free to email us at zeek[at]zeek.net.
The Zeek Credo
1. We are independent, interested in the highest quality expressions of Jewish culture, spirituality, and peoplehood. We are affiliated with no particular ideology, movement, or identity. We will not cater to orthodoxies of any kind -- religious, secular, communal, or aesthetic. We will not transgress for the thrill, but we will not conform for the sake of safety.
2. We are a Jewish journal, but not a journal of the Jews. We will not be a cheerleader for Judaism, the Jewish people or Israel -- nor will we abandon our love of them. We will neither feign exuberance, nor hide behind cynicism, irony, or detachment. We celebrate Jewish culture and religion not as means to some other end, and not to promote the Jewish people, but because we believe expressions of Jewish culture and spirit to be interesting and inspiring in their own right.
3. We are particular, but not parochial. Thus, we are as interested in what Jewish values, religion, and culture mean to the wider world, as the reverse. We do not believe Judaism or the Jewish people have all, or the best, answers to life's questions, but we do believe they have important ones. We aspire to be participants in a global, multicultural world, but we speak from our particularity, and articulate truth largely in its terms.
4. We aspire to be intelligent, and believe in the value of intelligent, authentic culture. We believe that serious art, good writing, and cutting-edge culture matter, even if it is not mass popular culture. We are not interested in dumbing down, or in catering to the lowest common denominator; we are interested in raising the level of the highest.
5. We do not seek to reinforce anyone's self-image, convince anyone to be or do anything, or present anything other than what we consider to be the best, most interesting, funniest, smartest, and most beautiful thought and culture we can publish. Quality and truth are our only agendas.
6. We are interested in art, not kitsch. We will not pretend that the privileged, parochial, Ashkenazic milieu in which we grew up is meaningful Jewish culture, and we will never confuse cliche with meaning. We will never say "oy vey."
7. We will not sacrifice intellectual rigor for the sake of spiritual contentment; nor will we use our intellect to mask fears, doubts, and self-imposed limitations on our potential. We find the smugness of the cynic and the soft-mindedness of the believer equally repellent to truth. 'Secular' and 'religious' are idols of identity, which we wish to efface. We seek to promote work which integrates mind, body, heart, and spirit, leaving nothing behind. We pursue excellence in all these areas, and believe that abandoning any one of them, no matter how fashionable or 'cool,' is an act of dehumanization.
8. We prefer questions to answers, aspirations to achievements, and horizons to boundaries. We seek the new, not the familiar; the transformative, not the translative; the innovative, not the traditional.
9. We are committed to building a new form of Jewish community and identity, one which is serious, playful, pluralistic, committed, inclusive, and cosmopolitan. We are interested in wherever the new Jewish cultures lead.
10. We are progressive aesthetically, politically, religiously, and culturally. While we do not espouse any political or cultural agenda, we do not cling to traditional norms, particularly when they cause suffering. We are suspicious of any truths that claim to be universal, any values that justify cruelty, and any ideologies which reduce the complex to the simple.
Archive, Printing, and Sharing
Most of Zeek is available online, free of charge — over 700 pages of past articles, poems, photos, and reviews. You are welcome to link to and print all of Zeek's articles, but we ask that you link to us every time you do so. All material on www.zeek.net is Copyright © 2002-2006 by Metatronics Inc., and the respective authors. We ask — indeed, demand — that you give due credit to Zeek & the author upon excerpting, photocopying, or plagiarizing. Thanks.
Submission Guidelines
Zeek welcomes and often publishes unsolicited submissions of original poetry, art, fiction, and essays. Please look over our mission statement, as well as current and past content, before sending us your work. Submissions are accepted via EMAIL ONLY to zeek@zeek.net. We prefer text be pasted straight into the text of the email, rather than sent as attachments. Only unpublished work is considered; art or text that has appeared in books, magazines, or websites should not be submitted. Copyrights are retained by the author, but Zeek must be credited on any subsequent republications of work that first appears here.
Zeek in Print
Zeek is published in print twice annually, once in the fall and once in the spring. 75% of the material in the print magazine has not appeared, in any form, on the web version. Click here to purchase the Winter 2005 issue of Zeek Magazine with your major or minor credit card, or to subscribe -- subscriptions are available for $14 for one year or $25 for two years.
Our Supporters
Zeek is a small, non-profit organization, published independently, and largely by people who donate their time. We are grateful to our foundation supporters, the Dorot Foundation and the Louis J. Kuriansky Foundation for their generous support of Zeek. We also invite you to make a donation to Zeek, which will enable us to continue and grow this important venue for independent, new Jewish culture.
Technical Help
Because of variations among Internet browsers and platforms, you may not be seeing Zeek the way we'd like you to see it. Zeek is optimized for Internet Explorer version 5 or higher. There are known to be problems with versions of Netscape earlier than 4.72, some versions of Mozilla, and with certain older AOL browsers. For the optimum Zeek experience, please consider upgrading your browser to the newest version of Internet Explorer or one of its open source competitors. Zeek is best viewed with the Futura fonts (Futura Md BT and Bk BT) installed and with javascript enabled on your browser.
Internship opportunities
Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture (www.zeek.net) is seeking two capable interns to work part-time on the magazine's editorial, sales, marketing, and distribution efforts, and one intern to work with Zeek's art department. These are excellent opportunities for college students or post-college individuals seeking experience, connections, and practice in the world of journalism, Jewish professional life, or the New York arts scene. General Interns will work directly Zeek editors and authors, gaining valuable editorial skills and the opportunity to create bylined content for the magazine. Tasks will include editing articles, author R&D, expanding Zeek's distribution network, liaising with organizations for marketing and sales purposes, research, and helping the editors with the daily management of the magazine.
The Art Intern works directly with Zeek's art staff, curating exhibitions, finding and contacting new artists, maintaining Zeek's artists network database, and working with Zeek's partner organizations in the Jewish art world. Opportunities will also include bylined reviews of art exhibitions.
Interns must commit at least 4 hours per week to the internship. Credit is available through your school, if you are a student, and your school allows. New York location is preferred, but not essential. If you're in New York, you'll work with us more directly, including at our office. Successful candidates will possess outstanding verbal skills, and will be intelligent, creative and self-motivated. At this time, the internship is unpaid, but it may lead to a paid editorial position, and we are happy to provide letters of recommendation and advocacy for you in your career. Do this for what you learn, for the connections you make, and for the inside look at what running an independent journal is actually like. Admission is rolling. Read us online, and then send resumes and queries (email only) to zeek@zeek.net.
Contact Information
Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture
330 Seventh Avenue, 21st Floor
New York, NY 10001
zeek@zeek.net
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