Monthly Archives: December 2008

Happy Chanukah

Jewish holidays don’t make much appearance in my life however I didn’t miss the start of Chanukah (the festival of lights) on Sunday.

We had been visiting the Musée du Cinquantenaire, when we heard music from a distant – coming closer we realized it was the Jewish community in Brussels hosted a party and concerts.

The background of Hanukkah is the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem that had been overtaken by Syrian Greeks around 165 BC. After the temple once again was dedicated to the Abrahamic God a celebration was held for 8 days – which now is the celebration of Chanukah.

One of the central pieces of celebration is the lighting of the hanukkiah (the well-known eight branched candelaber). The Chanukah is, unlike many other jewish holidays, not of biblical origin and therefore there are less mandatory practices.

On a side note, I have been (again) hooked on Matisyahu for the last few days.

It’s great music, however the question of Jerusalem will have to wait for another day.

Top 3 independant american perspectives on love

On the lighter side of life – I love movies, and movies about love are my favorite. And from Casablanca to Garden State, who are better a love movies than the Americans? (maybe the French, but I disgress…) For those of you who want a quick introduction to the kind of love movies that won’t make you fall asleep in the middle here is a top three of independantly made american love movies:

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Microviral

Recently I have been spending the few precious moments I have between studying and working by reading up more on microfinance. It’s a field that has got an enormous amounts of interest from the world and yet still seems just to be getting started. In these harsh financial times it is interesting to follow if the financing is still there and how it impacts.

I have also been checking out a lot of the services that have mushroomed for peer-to-peer microlending, that is services that gives you the opportunity to invest some money into a business in say Pakistan through a microloan. I’ve got a future post where I’ll tell you more about that.

For now, I’d just like to share a video that should go viral created to raise awareness of microlending and especially to women (which is the basis for microlending anyway):