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Did you know that JDate offers bulk rates to rabbis who want to sign up their entire congregations wholesale? And that some rabbis are paying out of pocket to get their flocks hitched? JDate is seriously the greatest racket in the history of the Internet.

Just because HaShem seems to think you’re wasting your time on Nerve, though, doesn’t mean that JDate isn’t fraught with peril. Look at the Good Samaritan who calls himself Portnoy4U (which, as unappealing literary characters go, is pretty much the male equivalent of a woman calling herself LilLadyMacbeth) and whose “What I’m Looking For” essay contained the following aside:

“IF YOU NEVER SAY ONE WORD TO ME IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE, STILL HEED THESE NEXT PEARLS OF WISDOM!!!! UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU EVER GO TO THE MATZOH BALL IN BOCA RATON!!!! DON'T DO IT.”

Or the lady whose terse profile said only “looking for someone special to spend my time with, please have hair on ur head.”

My winner this week, though, is the GUY WHO VOLUNTEERED. BullofBudapest, seriously, you’re my hero. Not only did you e-mail me specifically requesting to be featured in this column, which shows megaballs, but your profile is approximately 3000 words long. I’m excerpting my favorite part, but ladies, you kind of have to read the whole thing:

With Holocaust survivor parents I KNOW Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Hence, I love to party, dance (wild/dirty, imagining I'm Black, to slow/soft taking long, tight dips), get into heavy discussions & light flirtations, make passionate love (any other kind?), humble the arrogant, fight the "good fight"(charge windmills), challenge the smug; solitude, silence, spiritiuality, nature, current affairs, NPR, Air Amerika; high-volume stereo singing along with Orbison, CCR, Rait, Motown, James Taylor, The Eagles; and seeking to understand my God.

Previously: Jerry Seinfeld Meets James Bond

Why is that Americans come over all queasy when discussing the glory that is haggis? After all, despite the most famous living Scotsman, Groundskeeper Willie, exhorting America’s youth to sample its delights ("Get yer haggis, right here! Chopped heart and lungs boiled in a wee sheep's stomach! Tastes as good as it sounds. Good for what ails ya!") it seems that popular prejudice against thGroundskeeper Willie: big fan of haggis, not so much Leviticus 11e “great Chieftain o’the puddin-race” is alive and well Stateside. Did I say prejudice? Call it discrimination: Scottish haggis is, outrageously, banned from the US on account of those delicious wee bits of lung and some nonsense about mad cows. So no haggis lasagne or haggis nachos for you guys, unfortunately, unless you make it yourself.

Of course, there’s another problem with haggis: It’s not terribly kosher. Leviticus 11 specifically names the haggis as – okay, that’s not quite true. Actually, even if you do keep strict kosher, most of the ingredients in the traditional haggis recipe are not inherently trayf – after all, I’m told it’s very similar to kishka - and if you journey to Scotland it’s not that difficult to find kosher haggis. Unsurprisingly, though, there’s not a big market in the US for properly kashered sheep’s stomach, let alone the regular variety, so you'd be forgiven for thinking that you may never sample the delights of this majestic dish.

But as we approach January 25^th, the annual night dedicated to Scotland’s national poet Rabbie Burns (who penned a famous ode to the national dish), I figure: Why should Rabbi Burns miss out? Here, then, is a recipe for kosher haggis - or haggisim, if you will. Go on, try it!

Ingredients:
1 clootie (means a little cloth). A clean linen dish towel will do.
2 lb. dry oatmeal
1 lb. chopped mutton fat, rendered, or suet, which is the cleanest fat on the animal's body.
1 to 1 1/2 lb. lamb or venison liver, boiled and minced
Small quantity stock (lamb by preference)
1 large chopped onion
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 tbsps soy sauce or suitable substitute

Instructions:
Toast oatmeal slowly until golden brown.
Mix all ingredients (except clootie) together; add stock until soft.
Fill clootie to just over half full, press out air, sew up securely with needle and thread.
Have ready a large pot of boiling water.
Boil slowly for 4 to 5 hours, ensuring haggis remains covered with water.
Serve with “bashed neeps” (swede) and “tatties” (potato).

And, of course, a good Scotch Whiskey.

[Recipe from the Capital Scot]

Once a week, Jewcy spotlights people who fight for peace, justice, equality, freedom and other worthy causes while also managing to be hot.

This week's Activist Hottie is Katie Pfleghar, a German actress who cares so much about the freedom of chickensSave the Chickens: Dip Me in Honey Mustard Instead that she has decided to remove her clothes and cage herself. Why? Who cares? Oh, fine, it's for a PETA protest urging German Agriculture Minister Horst Seehofer not to delay the ban on factory farming, due to go into effect EU-wide in 2012.

If you speak German, check out her online profile. And if you have $500, you can purchase the video of her naked caged antics. A wise investment!

Last Week's Activist Hottie. (Ladies: we'll bring you a socially conscious stud next week. Promise.)

Tibet and Germany: so close, yet so very far awayDashing hopes that were raised by German Chancellor Angela Merkel's controversial visit with the Dalai Lama last year, Germany seems to have decided that trade relations trump human rights.

Germany has now agreed "not to support or encourage any attempt to seek Tibet's independence," despite Merkel's assurance to the Dalai Lama that she supported "his efforts to maintain the cultural identity of Tibet" and "his policy of non-violent striving toward religious and cultural autonomy." Oh, and also despite all that talk that's been going on about China's occupation and oppression of Tibet since, oh, about 1951.

This news is a bit of a letdown for those who were hopeful about Merkel's influence.

Previous: Bad News For Christians

 

Kars 4 Kids: The ubiquitious posters don't say where the money's goingIn Brooklyn, 150 residents were evicted from an illegally converted loft building after the fire department discovered an "illegal matzo factory" in the basement. Apparently, the grain used in baking matzo is a threat because it's potentially combustible. The residents have no idea when they'll be allowed to return.

Meanwhile, Kars 4 Kids, a nonprofit that advertises heavily in the New York area, says it uses car donations to "provide food, clothing, education and guidance to children," but it doesn't mention that all the money is channeled into Oorah, Inc., which provides religious education to children of non-observant Jews. On Oorah's website, the Post reports, the charity brags that it has an "'80 percent success rate' teaching its clients 'to keep themselves apart from the gentiles.'"

A video made the night before scabby British songbird Amy Winehouse appeared in court in such a disheveled state that even Carla Sosenko's bubbe got concerned shows the singer wandering around talking unintelligibly for five minutes and then smoking crack from a pipe.  Now we know why Amy Winehouse looks like a crackhead: it's because she smokes crack. 

After three weeks of struggling mightily to code, encrypt, and in general repress any direct public expression of their mutual antagonism, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama finally made it clear how much they simply dislike one another last night. In the nastiest debate of the primary campaign so far, Clinton had apparently come prepared with reams of oppo research committed to memory and went to the well so many times with it that she was eventually, loudly booed. Obama, meanwhile, turned out not to be so above it all, after all; he only had one particularly gratuitous swipe, but it was a doozy:

I was working on those streets watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart.

Clinton's response was a tactical, if not a moral masterpiece --- accusing Obama of having been a consigliere for a slumlord in Chicago. The real story here, unsurprisingly, is basically benign, if a bit convoluted. But the point of levelling a charge like that has nothing to do with its truth or falsity. The point is to convey the message: "Everyone knows I'm crooked like the next politician. You're dreaming if you think Barack is any different." That's why Obama can't win in an exchange like this: No ethical indictment of Hillary Clinton, however true, tarnishes her already disreputable public image; no comparable indictment of Barack Obama, however false, fails to dull the lustre of his reputation somewhat.

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There has been a lot of press in the past year or two about how Rubashkin, the second biggest kosher meat producer, has mistreated both the animals it slaughters, and the workers in the plants it operates.
Rubashkin: Boo! Hiss!

First, PETA released a video showing cows' throats ripped out with a meat hook and cows writhing on the floor, trying to get up and run away after the ritual slaughter.

Then the Forward published an article about how poorly workers were being treated at the Postville, Iowa plant that had previously been the subject of the PETA video. Among the many complaints were low wages (the cap was at seven dollars an hour for most workers), and no unions because the workers, many of whom are undocumented immigrants, are afraid of being deported. There were also reports of workers being shortchanged for hours they worked, and of supervisers demanding bribes from employees who want to change shifts, or help relatives get a job. Perhaps the most troubling issue in the article is the lack of safety training given to the workers at the plant. The Forward quoted one man who said he received no training at all, and learned what to do only by being chewed out for bad work.

Most recently, Rubashkin tried to prohibit its employees from unionizing by claiming they weren’t really “employees” if they were undocumented workers, and in the country illegally. The National Labor Relations Board found against Rubashkin, Rubashkin appealed, and two weeks ago the US Court of Appeals rejected the appeal.

I know that in smaller communities it can be hard to get any kosher meat, and that when it is available, it’s often sold in Wal-mart, and is Rubashkin meat. There are rabbis debating whether or not Rubashkin facilities can even be considered kosher, but even if it is technically kosher, there’s no question that buying Rubashkin meat is supporting a company with bad ethical standards.

Let’s stop buying Rubashkin meat.
Wise Organic Pastures: Yay! Huzzah!
Ideally, of course, I support going vegetarian (so does Alicia Silverstone) but if you can’t give up meat, try contacting Wise Organic Pastures who provide kosher organic meat to distributors nationwide. That way, even your chulent can be socially conscious.

Trees everywhere: need to be hugged.I really love Tu B'Shevat. All the things I want and appreciate in a holiday, it has. In years past, I've both attended and held gorgeous, meaningful sederim for the day and unfortunately have to report that I'm not going quite as all-out this year as I did last year. But, that's okay. (PS- Read Helen Jupiter's lovely post about Tu B'Shevat for inspiration.)

Of course, I'm still going to give tzedekah. In addition to the usual JNF Plant-a-Tree program that I often use, as most of us probably have (I do appreciate the environmental work JNF does, among other things) I've unearthed (no pun intended) a few other opportunities for you to love trees if you're thinking of adding another tree, in addition to perhaps an Israeli tree, to your tzedekah this week.

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Words I thought I’d never say: The new Adam Sandler movie (trailer below) looks kind of…good. And not totally-competent-romantic-comedy good like The Wedding Singer, or look-at-me-I-can-do-indie good like Punch-Drunk Love. Don’t Mess with the Zohan, about a Mossad agent who fakes his own death so that he can pursue his secret dream of becoming a hairstylist, might actually be funny.

This is probably due in large part to Sandler’s co-writer, Judd (Knocked Up ) Apatow. But I think it’s also because this might be the first time a mainstream comedy has tapped into Israel’s inherent comic potential.

Americans tend to find the hallmarks of Israel’s pop culture—the tight jeans, the Euro-disco music, the machismo—completely hilarious. Then again, we’re equally amused by any country where men wear tight pants. But what makes Israel funnier than, say, Spain, is the lethal military gloss over the entire nation, and the fact that everyone’s Jewish, which in America has become a kind of lazy shorthand for comedy.

Borat has pretty much killed the genre of jokes about how non-American males are more comfortable with their bodies. Years of bad news have made it difficult to say anything truly funny about Israel’s military situation. And Keeping Up with the Steins may have tossed the final scoop of dirt on the coffin of Yiddish shtick (OMG she said "shtick"! FUNNY SOUNDS!) But when you combine those three elements, you get something new. Something fresh-feeling. Even if it stars Adam Sandler.