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Rhein Stadium and City Guide
It the shining pride of the 99s, the 1899s anyway, the new Rhein-Neckar Stadium in Sinsheim near Heidelberg. This state-of-the-art stadium is home to the 1899 Hoffenheim (Achtzehn 99) men's league football team, which takes its name from a tiny village suburb of Sinsheim in the Kraichgau region between Heidelberg and Heilbronn below the foothills of the Odenwald forest, south of the Neckar River valley. Sinsheim is best known for the fascinating Autmobile and Technical Museum of Sinsheim which is just across the A6 autobahn from the stadium with giant real airplanes thrust into the sky visible from the highway.
Getting to the Rhein Stadium Sinsheim
Though there are a few hotels in Sinsheim, including the Hotel O Sinsheim next to the museum, one is more likely to find lodging in nearby Heidelberg, the historic university city first made famous to American tourists by Mark Twain and later by the American army base and headquarters following WWII. Sinsheim is a twenty minute ride on the S-Bahn train from Heidelberg, or fifteen minute drive on the autobahn with parking at the stadium. The train from Heidelberg stops at the Sinsheim main village station and the next stop of Sinsheim Museum and Stadion. As of this writing the museum and stadium stop is undergoing some improvement to serve the stadium in advance of the summer soccer matches. The station is directly across from the Sinsheim Technik museum and a 15 minute walk under or over the autobahn to the stadium, though shuttle busses should be running for games. A Heidelberg Card transportation ticket covers the route to Sinsheim. With a car there are a number of options for accommodations, including staying in the Necker Valley at a castle hotel (see Castle Hornberg) or the picturesque ancient town of Bad Wimphen.
Things to do in Sinsheim / Heidelberg
Auto & Technical Museum
One of the most entertaining "museums" you'll find in Germany. Begun as a warehouse for a group of private collectors to store their growing holdings of cars, war vehicles, steam trains and mechanical devices, the museum at Sinsheim has one of the largest assembly of these you'll find anywhere, two massive buildings and outdoor displays. The design of the technik museum in Sinsheim and its mate, located in Speyer (see Technik Museum Speyer), is intended to keep the young forever fascinated. Where traditional museums are laid out in themes or periods, Sinsheim's collection mix the endless variety of wonders together so there is always something to grab the attention. The museum has a giant Imax Theater as well. (see Sinsheim Technik Museum)
Sinsheim Town
Sinsheim's historical significance and lively cultural scene are evident in the many events and exhibitions held there, ranging from jazz and pop concerts to all kinds of performing arts, including theater, cabaret, and literary readings. The village has a modest old town near the railway station with small pedestrian streets of restaurants and shops. The 18th Century half-timber town hall has a small history museum. The village's most prominent landmark, located on a hilltop outside of town is the Castle Steinsberg of Hohenstaufen dynasty, who ruled the lands around the Neckar during the time of the Holy Roman Empire. The castle is open to the public with guided tours and houses a traditional restaurant. During the summer, castle hosts a variety of cultural events.
Neckar Valley/Castle Road
The valley of the Necker River as it twists through the Odenwald hills is one of the prettiest in Germany, lined with castles along what is called the Castle Road (see German Castle Road). German medieval lords from the order of Teutonic Knights to the iron fisted (literally) Götz von Berlichingen controlled lands with fortereses along above nearly every bend of the river and east all the way to Prague. The hillsides are perfect for wine vineyards with small wineries often connected to the castles and the green woodlands are ideal for cycling. The flatlands around Sinsheim and the Kraichgau is along the Baden Asparagus route, though the prime season for Germany's ubiquitus white asparugus is in May.
Heidelberg offers a whole collection of activities to explore. The shops and restaurants along the main historic shopping avenue, the Hauptstrasse, from the modern Kaufhof department store with its glass elevator to the top floor restaurant to the Ritter St George (see Hotel Ritter St George) and traditional three hundred year old bars where the students of the university would carve their initials in the tables. Heidelberg Castle is one of Germany most magnificent Medieval and Renaissance ruins (see Heidelberg Castle) with its fascinating Pharmacy Museum with its alchemists lab and the Giant Wine Barrel where the elector would collect his tax payments of measures of wine from the surrounding vineyards. Don't forget to step in the legendary stone footprint which assures your return to Heidelberg and everlasting happiness. Arrest yourself in the Student Prison and visit the University's elegantly elaborate Great Hall (see Heidelberg Student Prison) or cross the statue lined old bridge to the Philosopher's Walk with its meditation inducing Neckar River views. From Heidelberg the wine region of the Palatine is a short distance and the magnificent of spires of the Kaiser's Cathedral in Speyer (see Speyer Cathedral) is a brief train ride away. © Bargain Travel Europe
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Syncretism and Judaism
Throughout history Jews have accepted some influences of outside religions and cultures, and rejected others.
By Rabbi Louis Jacobs
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Reprinted from The Jewish Religion: A Companion, published by Oxford University Press.
Syncretism is the assimilation by Judaism of elements stemming from other religions and civilizations. The process of syncretism in Judaism is rarely conscious or intentional, but as Jews came into contact with the ideas and institutions of the various peoples among whom they resided, their language and thought patterns were naturally and automatically affected, so that Judaism itself came to absorb these ideas into its own theology.
This does not mean that Jews simply adopted uncritically the beliefs and practices of their neighbors. A kind of consensus has been at work in the history of the Jewish religion by virtue of which those elements that could be adapted to Judaism without in any way coming into conflict with essential Jewish beliefs were not totally rejected but given a Jewish interpretation.
Where ideas from without were seen to be incompatible with the Jewish religion they were rejected without any attempt at compromise. Naturally, considerable tensions arose in these matters. The prohibition against copying the practices of the Gentiles militated against too easy an acceptance of the forms of a faith different from Judaism, and opinions among Jews were often divided on the legitimacy or otherwise of adaptation in this or that instance.
In the Bible
Biblical scholars have called attention to syncretic elements in the Bible itself. The creation narrative at the beginning of the book of Genesis, for example, speaks of the 'deep' (Genesis 1:2), the Hebrew for which is tehom. This word has been connected with the Babylonian creation-myth in which the primal chaos is personified under the name Tiamat.
The resemblance is very striking, yet the biblical narrative is totally non-mythological in nature and when it is appreciated that in Babylonian usage tiamatu became a generic term for 'ocean' it can be seen how precarious it is to read the Genesis narrative in such mythological terms.
Similarly, the account of the 'great sea-monsters' of Genesis (1:21) may bear traces of ancient, Babylonian mythology, but only traces. God creates the 'sea-monsters' and these are in no way divine. The story of Noah and the Flood provides a particularly striking illustration of how the biblical authors used ancient mythological material, but used it in support of monotheism.
The resemblances between the story of Noah and the Babylonian myths are strong even in some of the details, yet in the Genesis narrative there is sounded the most powerful monotheistic and ethical note, one that is totally absent in the Babylonian myth. The same applies to the list of the antediluvians in Genesis (chapter 5).
As Cassuto has suggested, in the biblical record the mythical notion that some men in remote antiquity lived for exceedingly long periods until they became gods has been adapted to monotheistic belief. None of the antediluvians managed to live for a thousand years, and they procreate as humans do, as if to say: these ancients did live for a very long time but they were otherwise ordinary human beings with ordinary human lives and were in no sense divine.
The dietary laws and the Sabbath have similarly been seen as having their origin in the practices of the Babylonians and other ancient civilizations but even if this is accepted (it is by no means certain that such theories are warranted by the evidence), what matters for Judaism is that the dietary laws are laid down in the Pentateuch as the means to holy living and the Sabbath as the day in which the One God is hailed as the Creator and all this is true whatever the actual origin of the dietary laws and the Sabbath.
The Rabbinic Period
This dual process of adaptation and rejection can be observed throughout the history of Judaism. Judaism has been compared to a sponge, which both absorbs and exudes moisture.
In the first two centuries CE the supreme court, the Sanhedrin, had a Greek name; the Sefer Torah could be, and in Alexandria was, written in Greek; some Jews, including Rabbis, had Greek names; and Rabban Gamaliel could bathe in a bath-house in which there was a statue of Aphrodite; yet the strongest opposition was expressed to any association, no matter how indirect, with the worship of the pagan gods.
In the Babylonian Talmud, ideas taken from the Persians, like the belief in demons and the way in which these operate, are recorded and evidently accepted, yet, precisely because the Zoroastrian religion was the Persian religion, the Talmudic Rabbis constantly spare no effort in opposing Zoroastrian dualism.
Medieval Philosophy
Syncretism in Judaism can be observed in the attempt of the medieval Jewish philosophers to cope with the problems raised by Greek philosophy in its Arabic garb. The whole of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed is devoted to the consideration of how much of Greek philosophy can be accepted as true and hence as part of Judaism and how much is to be rejected in the name of the Jewish religion.
With regard to the religions of Christianity and Islam there was, of course, total rejection of the truth-claims of these two faiths yet, at the same time, both religions exerted an influence on the development of Judaism.
The influence of Sufism is clearly evident in Bahya Ibn Pakudah. Rabbenu Gershom's ban on polygamy for Ashkenazi Jews obviously owes much to Christian practice. The severe asceticism of the Saints of Germany was influenced by Christian monasticism. Maimonides, under the influence of Islam, ruled that a Jew must bathe his feet before the daily prayers whereas the Talmud speaks only of washing the hands.
Responding to the 'Outside World'
When Western civilization posed a threat to the survival of Judaism, the diverse ways in which Jews responded to the challenge resulted in a degree of syncretism. The Haskalah, Reform and Conservative Judaism, and Samson Raphael Hirsch's neo-Orthodoxy are all examples of adaptation of the old to the new.
In the area of scientific theory, many Jewish thinkers accepted the view that the universe is not geocentric, that life has been on earth for a vast period of time and that human beings have evolved from lower forms and they reinterpreted the biblical record so that it could be understood in accordance with the new picture of the universe.
Thus, while the actual term 'syncretism' is not found in any of the Jewish sources, and while Jewish fundamentalists deny that any form of syncretism ever took place in Judaism, the idea denoted by this term is clearly evident to Jews with any sense of history, although this recognition does not interfere with their belief in the basic truths of the religion.
On the contrary, the evidence for syncretism is evidence of the Jewish genius that has made Judaism an undying faith.
Did you like this article? MyJewishLearning is a not-for-profit organization.

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More than 235,000 people in the four counties of Western Massachusetts seek food assistance at Food Bank member agencies.
Youth Against Hunger (YAH!)
The YAH! curriculum is designed for students grades K-12. Activities help pave the way for service projects and discussion addressing hunger and inequity in the United States. Click on the link above to register to access the table of contents and downloadable pdfs.
Schedule a Tour of The Food Bank
The Food Bank is glad to host group tours of our warehouse and facilities in Hatfield. Tours typically last 45 minutes to an hour and include an educational game and discussion. For students ages 16 and under, we ask there be at least one chaperone for every eight students. This is a fantastic way to learn more about The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts and the issue of hunger and food insecurity affecting millions in our nation. Educators can download a "Programs Menu" here that can give you an idea of what a visit to the Food Bank with your group might be like. Options include half-day, full day and multi-day programs depending on how much time your group wants to dedicate to fighting hunger!
Food Drives and Fundraisers
To view a list of our most needed food donations click on Tips for Planning a Successful Food Drive. Food donations can be delivered anytime Monday through Friday 9:00-3:00. For donations of 150 lbs or more, having the donations in cardboard boxes makes it easy to transfer and weigh, but we gladly accept donations in bags.
A virtual food drive is a fun alternative to the traditional canned food drive that also incorporates computers. Participants choose to purchase groceries via a virtual portal, and The Food Bank is able to provide the most needed food by using money donated to purchase food in bulk. To view a sample of what this would look like click here.
A list of additional fundraising ideas and student projects can be found in our YAH! curriculum.
If you are interested in holding a virtual or canned food drive (or both) please let us know by filling out the following food drive form.
Food Assistance for Families
To learn more about SNAP (food stamp) eligibility, WIC and other resources for families you can call us at 413.247.9738. A full list of emergency pantries and kitchens by town can be found on our website here.


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Risk Tolerance Grows Again
Planner confidence gaining, assets shift further into equities from cash
Financial Planning's Retirement Advisor Confidence Index rose for the second straight month in October, indicating continued optimism among the planning
The October index — a monthly barometer of business conditions for wealth
managers — registered 52.6%, after readings of 51.6% in September and 48.6% in
August, according to a survey of planning
professionals. Advisors reported a continued rise in risk tolerance, again shifting client assets into equity-based funds, while
decreasing the amount held in cash.
"When the market ticks up, as it hasfor most of the year, clients tend to bemore optimistic about the future and arewilling to place more in equities," oneadvisor noted. Another highlighted con-cerns about tax rate changes: "I expect[retirement] contributions to increase totake advantage of an expected increase inmarket levels and to shield income fromexpected higher federal income taxes."The index reflected a two-monthdecline in assets held in cash — from about50% for August to 41.7% for October — aswell as another gain in risk tolerance.
RACI is comprised of 12 factors —
including asset allocations, investment
product recommendations, client recruitment and retention, economic and risk factors, taxes and plan fees — to track trends in
wealth management business cycles.
52. 6
RetiRement AdvisoR
ConfidenCe index (+ 1)
Indicators represent both
positive and negative factors.
For a contrary indicator, such
as a higher allocation to cash,
a reading of more than 50 is
negative, while a reading of
less than 50 is positive. Four
of the 12 RACI factors are
shown below.
The RACI, published in partnership with ADP, is based on a monthly
survey of more than 300 advisors. For the RACI methodology
statement and more results, visit financial-planning.com.
ADP and the ADP logo are registered trademarks of ADP, Inc.
Financial-Planning.comNovember 2012 Financial Planning 19
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IU Paleontology Collection Contacts
[Alphabetical List of All People]
General Enquiries
Call: +1-812-855-5582
E-mail: email@example.com
Mailing Address:
Department of Geological Sciences
Indiana University
1001 E. 10th Street
Bloomington, IN 47405-1405
Faculty Research Curators
Paleoecology of tropical reef systems; Anthozoa and Mollusca; global change and marine ecosystems.
Paleoanthropology of East Africa; Pleistocene human and vertebrate interactions; paleontology and geology of Olduvai Gorge.
Vertebrate paleontology; phylogenetics and functional morphology of mammals; quantitative evolution; ecometrics and responses of vertebrate communities to environmental and climatic change.
NSF Project (2009-2013)
Allison Bormet, Graduate Assistant
Richard J. D. Bykowski, Graduate Assistant
Issabella Cross-Najafi, Undergraduate Assistant
Erika Elswick, PI
Robin M. Green, Project Manager
Claudia C. Johnson, PI
Mackenzie Kirchner-Smith, Undergraduate Assistant
Larry Mart, Undergraduate Assistant
Corbin Massa, Undergraduate Assistant
Adrian Maxwell, Undergraduate Assistant
Katelyn Patton, Undergraduate Assistant
P. David Polly, PI
Mallory Schreier, Undergraduate Assistant
Mackenzie Skalski,
Michael Smith, Graduate Assistant
Devin Swander, Undergraduate Assistant
Crystal Wespestad, Undergraduate Assistant
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text: When it comes to needing energy, teams could do worse than Joakim Noah and Nate Robinson. Some of Robinson's even occasionally comes in productive fashion on the court. Robinson's post-basket histrionics — and questionable shot selection — were in full effect during the Bulls' 96-85 victory over the Nets Saturday night, but he injected life into a game-turning run and scored 12 points off the bench.