I was reading Virginia Heffernan's article for Tablet about her encounter as a young woman with J.D. Salinger in Cornish, NH.  Salinger died at age 91 on January 28th, 2010.  Heffernan, who is a convert,  reflected nicely on his half-Jewish identity and his troubled family life, but much to my astonishment, she was met with a barrage of comments that Salinger wasn't Jewish because he had a Jewish father, and that he had deserted Judaism as an adult, etc., etc.  Here is my reply:

Dear Commenters:

I never thought in a million years that I’d have to defend J.D. Salinger’s claim to Jewish roots.

I’m the Coordinator of the Half-Jewish Network, the largest international organization for adult children and other descendants of intermarriage (www.half-jewish.net). As a member of Jewish outreach, I was recently informed that one of Salinger’s descendants currently lives as a Jew.

If this information is true, I sure hope that his descendant does not see your thread, filled with ethnocentric attacks on Salinger’s connection to the Jewish people and negative comments implying that the author of the article, Mrs. Heffernan, is unworthy to comment on Jewish topics because she is Jew by choice.  Your negative remarks would likely cause Salinger’s descendant to question the wisdom of affiliating with the Jewish people.  Moreover, you display a profound ignorance of the situation in which many children of intermarriage find themselves, and of Mr. Salinger’s tragic personal history in particular.

Salinger Was Raised Jewish

Mr. Salinger was Jewish as defined by both the Reform and Reconstructionist movements. Both denominations require that the child of either a Jewish mother or a Jewish father be brought up as a Jewish from birth, and given life cycle rituals like a bar or bat mitzvah.

Even though no Jewish outreach to interfaith families existed when Mr. Salinger was born in 1919, he was raised as a Jew and had a bar mitzvah.  Shortly after his bar mitzvah, he was told that his mother — coerced by her Jewish in-laws — had been hiding her Christian identity.  Can you imagine the impact of this discovery on a 13 year old? No wonder the heroes of his fiction display a contempt for adult “phonies” and a suspicion towards all conventional appearances.

Why Didn't He Live As A Jew?

You also resent that he sought spirituality in other religions.  Given your unwelcoming attitudes can you blame him?...and this is the year 2010. Imagine the icy reception Salinger would have received from other Jews, in say, 1936, if as an unknown writer  he had expressed any interest in conversion or living as a Jew.

I know from interviewing adult children of intermarriage who grew up in that era that the American Jewish community, that they were often rejected, which is in stark contrast with the German Jewish community of the 1930s.  There was no organized interfaith family outreach in American Judaism until the early 1980s, when Salinger was in his sixties. And even today, as evidenced by your horrible comments, adult childen and grandchildren of intermarriage are routinely snubbed and rebuffed when attempting to gain entry to the Jewish community.  There is outreach for interfaith couples and Jews by choice, but almost none for half-Jewish people

His Experiences In World War II, The Holocaust

Now, about Mr. Salinger’s personal history with the Holocaust.

With regard to the comment that Salinger, as a trainee in his father’s business, was in no danger in 1938 Vienna, because he had an American passport, please consult any history of the Holocaust, and see report after report of people being killed or injured in the streets everywhere in the Nazi empire from 1934 onward because they “looked Jewish.”  How quickly you forget.  You think the Nazi thugs asked for paperwork categorically?

None of you hostiles appear aware that Salinger spent World War II as a staff sergeant in the Army, suffering through bloody campaigns in Europe against the Nazis, helping liberate a concentration camp, and then serving because of his fluent French and German as an interpreter to American officials rounding up German prisoners of war.  Salinger’s experiences in WWII were so bad that he had a nervous breakdown. I would say that those are substantial services to Judaism and humanity and should be treated with more respect.

Jews By Choice Get A Voice

Now, with regard to your comment that Heffernan is a convert and therefore apparently has no right to discuss Jewish topics: have you read any Jewish texts?  As a convert Ms. Heffernan is considered a Jew and has every right to discuss Jewish topics.

Her perception of Mr. Salinger as a kvetching New York Jew in the utterly non-Jewish setting of Cornish, NH and his momentary kindness to her, is in keeping with what is known of his character and behavior. Irregardless of his adult spiritual beliefs, his early New York Jewish upbringing was marked in his behavior and outlook throughout his life.  Overall, her article is a tiny and precious snapshot which will be greatly appreciated by future Salinger biographers and scholars.

Double Bind Experiences in Jewish Community

In conclusion, I would like to state that your negative comments on Salinger’s connections to Judaism epitomize the double bind experiences that many half-Jewish people find themselves in today when they encounter the Jewish community.  We are often told that we are “not Jewish” and if we attempt to live as Jews, obstacles are put in the way of our converting or entering Jewish communities. Then we are berated, subtly or openly, by some Jews with two Jewish parents, for having explored other spiritualities.

Conversions should not be repeatedly challenged as inauthentic.  Stop.

It my earnest hope, as the leader of the Half-Jewish Network and of the Inclusivist Judaism Coalition that I will live to see a Judaism that is multicultural and multiracial, and where the number and gender of one’s Jewish ancestors will not be as important as one’s spiritual or secular culture ties to them, and that all persons connected to the Jewish people by family ties will see those ties honored.

MaNishtana Fact No. 11: I'm a big fan of Aquaman.

Not so much the costume but the character. I think he's highly underused and has a lot of untapped potential because it's easier to write him off as a third string character. But the dude is the King Arthur of the sea, PLUS he can command fish...Of course while that sounds kickass on paper, it doesn't really work so much in real life. Fish have a memory span of about 3 seconds. That's why they die if you put too much food in the water: they've literally forgotten that they JUST finished eating and so eat themselves to death. So with a power to command fish you'd really end up getting nowhere:

Fish: Hi Aquaman!

Aquaman: You! Fish! Come here!

Fish: Sure!

Aquaman: Black Manta has a bomb. I need you to--

Fish: Hi Aquaman!

Aquaman: Yes, hi, great. Look, you're gonna have to swim down to the--

Fish: Oh wow! Hi Aquaman!

Aquaman: Ok, SERIOUSLY pay attention!

Fish: Sure thing Aquaman!

Aquaman: Good. Now the fuse line is--

Fish: Hi Aquaman!

See? Kind of a useless power. The kind of useless power which is only second, apparently, to being leader of the Jewish people:

Israel: Yay! 10 plagues! You rock Moses!

Moses: Great! But let's hurry cuz Egypt is on our backs right now.

Israel: What? Why is egypt trying to kill us? Why don't you ever do anything GOOD for us Moses? We hate you!

Moses: Uh, what? Ok, nevermind. Quick into the sea that's splitting over here!

Israel: Excellent! Moses you're the best!

Moses: Um...Thank yo--

Israel: Hey you got any water?

Moses: Not...Not on me right now, n--

Israel: You suck Moses! I don't know we ever listened to you!

Moses: What the f...*ahem*...Ok look, I threw some wood into this pond here. Drink.

Israel: Dude! That's why you're the man Moses!

Moses: Are you...Are you guys really okay? Cuz it--

Israel: OMG Moses, can you try to NOT have us die of hunger?

Moses: How are you even---

Israel: Ooh! Quails!

Moses: Okay, I'm really not--

Israel: Seriously Moses, we're HUNGRY!

Moses: You can't be ser--

Israel: Ooh! Manna!

Moses: Honestly, this is just ridic--

Israel: Got any water Moses?

Moses: But you just HAD--

[Punches a rock]

Moses: HERE! Here's your water!

Israel: YAY MOSES!

Gd: Heeeey Moses...Can I talk to you over here?

Moses: Sure.

Gd: Yeah...I'm gonna need you to not do that again.

Moses: No problem.

Gd: Good. Cuz, like, I will seriously kill you if you do that again.

Moses: Never happen again.

[Disclaimer: Please, do not expect "Real Talk" to make actual Biblical sense. If you are looking for a legitimate commentary of meaning and substance, this ain't the place. It's less "Onkelos" and more "Onion", get me?]

Rabbi Capers C. Funnye, Jr. The news this week has been saturated with issues of race, otherness, and problems of identity in a society that's most comfortable drawing boundaries and lines. On Sunday, the New York Times ran a story on Rabbi Capers C. Funnye, Jr., the first African-American member of the Chicago Board of Rabbis. On Tuesday, Senator Barack Obama gave a landmark speech on race relations that took the country by storm. We asked documentary filmmaker Lacey Schwartz to weigh in on these two stories by sharing her own parallel experiences as a Black, Jewish woman who is working to incorporate and make sense of her dual identities. Here's what she had to say:

Like any typical upper-middle class Jewish girl growing up in the Eighties, my life revolved around the Bar Mitzvah party circuit, Gap clothing stores, second base, and Madonna. Something was off, though: From a young age, I encountered people who pointed out that I looked different from my white parents because of my darker skin, tightly curled hair and thicker features. From a little boy in nursery school who made me show him my gums because he claimed they determined my race, to my classmates in high school who would verbally accost me in the halls with “What are you?”—an inquiry that they demanded more than asked—questions about my identity were abundant. “Jewish?” I would tentatively respond, afraid of how they might react to my denial of what they saw as my obvious blackness.

My family never seemed to notice or acknowledge the fact that I looked different from them. One overt example of this came at the age of sixteen, when my grandfather strongly encouraged me to break up with my bi-racial boyfriend. Without irony or malice, Grandpa expressed his fear of how people might treat me for being in an interracial relationship. Because of experiences like these, I deeply related when Barack Obama described in a speech earlier this week how he would cringe when his white grandmother uttered racial stereotypes, and yet he could not disown her.

Lacey Schwartz: black, white, jewish? yes, yes, and yes. When I applied to college I left the race/ethnicity box blank and attached a photograph instead. Based on that, I was admitted as a student who was of “Black/Not of Hispanic Origin.” It wasn't until the end of my freshman year that I learned the truth: My biological father was an African-American man who my mother had had an affair with while married to my father. It was quite a shock, but I cherish my university experience as the time and place where my identification with being African-American and my connection to the Black community first began.

Years later, in an attempt to merge my Black identity with my Jewish upbringing, I attended Yom Kippur services at a Black synagogue in Brooklyn. I was skeptical at first: “A group of Black Jews worshipping together?” I thought. On entering the small brownstone converted into a synagogue, I was amazed to find that the entire congregation was Black! I was even more surprised to find the songs, prayers, and Shofar blasts were identical to what I learned growing up. I couldn't help but wonder how someone with two Black parents could possibly be Jewish, but after years of being questioned by strangers about my own identity, I hid my ignorance and didn't ask the questions I so desperately wanted answered.

As featured in last weekend’s NY Times, Rabbi Capers Funnye Jr. embodies both the heart and soul of this community of people. He was one of the first Black rabbis who I came upon in researching other Black Jews, and he has been one of the most inspiring people I have met along the journey. His work, along with others like him, is making the Jewish community more accepting of all Jews and changing the way we all expect Jewish people to look.

For much of my adult life, I have maintained separate cultural identities. Only in the last couple of years, as part of a personal documentary, have I set out to learn what it means to be both Black and Jewish. In recognizing the uniqueness of my situation, I have come to discover that Black Jews are members of a small, but significant minority within a minority: A group of people whose roots are as diverse and dynamic as any other ethnic group or subculture, and who represent the immense complexity of America itself.

This article first appeared on March 21, 2008 and has been republished as part of the series JEWCYEST WEEK EVER.

High school girls in the Israeli town of Kiryat Gat are being warned not to become romantically involved with Bedouins, via a program run by a social worker named Chaim Shalom. A 10-minute film called Sleeping With the Enemy cautions girls that Bedouins may shower them with gifts and then leave them pregnant and alone, or refuse to allow them to return to their families after ending the relationship. Single Bedouin Men: like kyrptonite for Jewish girls?

Despite a message that smacks of racism, Bedouins seem happy to have the Jewish girls stay away. Bedouin mayor Talal al-Krenawi had this to say:

"It hurts our families just like it hurts the Jews. It causes a lot of difficult problems and internal conflicts which often end in violence…If there are children as a result of these relationships, it becomes a burden on our society. The difference is that we oppose this just like the Jews, but we never used racist expressions...a person is allowed to live with whomever he wants. In any case, one can oppose something without presenting racist opinions."

Classic case of bad spin? The Jews and Bedouins actually seem to agree on the issue, but somehow the Jews haven't been able to present their case in inoffensive terms. Here's an idea: Teach girls about unhealthy relationships in general, and offer them good skills for dealing with men and dating, instead of just saying, “don’t date Bedouins.” Need I remind people that not all Bedouins seduce girls and then leave them alone and pregnant?

Learn more about Bedouins in Israel here. 

This awesome article first appeared on July 1, 2008 and has been republished as part of the series JEWCYEST WEEK EVER.

By now I am sure you have all heard of Shaindy.com, which is a website catering to Orthodox Jews who want to meet other Orthodox Jews for extra-marital affairs. I am also sure you have browsed through - and laughed at - the Chassidic sex ads in the casual encounters section of Craigslist. Many of you may have even seen the Tefillin Date blog or tried to search for frum porn yourselves, either because you are truly interested in finding some hot women wearing nothing but sheitels, or you are a serious porn fan who likes to find new and exciting varieties of smut online.

I personally am fascinated with the whole subject of frum porn, purely from a statistical perspective (girls in long skirts just don't do it for me even if they are showing a little more ankle than normal). You see, I run a popular Orthodox blog that makes fun of Orthodoxy. Due to Google's search engine algorithms, many people who come to my site are searching for frum porn. Not just frum porn, but everything from "naked Lubavitch girls" to "Chassidic gang bangs", and much more. I have wondered for years what exactly they expected to find, who these people were, and what exactly would constitute frum porn.

By definition frum porn would be oxymoronic - that would mean that the porn stars would have to be dressed modestly and this would defeat the entire purpose of porn in the first place. Maybe it would mean that all products used in the video were certified kosher, and before licking any cream products off of each other the porn star would make the required blessing. Maybe all of the male stars had to be circumcised, or the women had to keep their hair covered during the video. 

"Bais Yaakov Girls Gone Wild" has been in my imagination since I was 15. I never thought there were any other sick yeshiva guys like myself, but I have been surprised again and again by the search traffic to my site and the random emails from horny Chassidim in Brooklyn who think that I hold the key to their frum porn adventures.

Several months ago I wrote about the Hot Chani phenomena sweeping through religious neighborhoods in the New York metro area. "Hot Chanis" are religious women who wear wigs but dress very scandalous with tight short skirts, hooker boots and lots of makeup. I posted an example and was flooded with emails from people seeking more pictures. I told them I was not in the porn business - but that they should take s stroll down any street in Flatbush if they wanted some Hot Chani action.

I have been rethinking this whole comedy thing, seems I could make a killing in the frum or Chassidic porn industry.

This awesome article first appeared on April 1, 2009 and has been republished as part of the series JEWCYEST WEEK EVER.

The following email was sent to Noah, a secular Jew about to marry his non-Jewish fiancee Sheila, by Noah's baal teshuvah cousin Moishe. By an odd and fortuitous chain of events, the email found its way to Jewcy HQ. The people in this exchange are all real but have had their names changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty. In other words, we could not have made this shit up if we tried. That includes the spelling and grammar errors.

Subject: hi noah

So I have some very bad news that EVERY Torah observant Jew shares (not just Moishe) Regarding your plans: You may already know that you Childen will not be Jewish, but I think you are not really aware of what that really means... That means that while biologically you will have children, spiritually you will not. Furthermore, besides it being a punishable (in heaven) prohibition to marry a non-jew, you will not be married spiritually (under heaven.) In other words, you will have a secular marriage, or an invalid fradulent 'religious' marriage, but in any case you will not have a wife, therefore you will not fulfill the commandment to take a wife and as well you will not fulfill the comandment to have children.  Furthermore you will not be able to cook for your goyishe wife or children on Shabbos or on Festival days.

If your goyishe children convert, then they will still not be your children as they will receive new souls, not connected to you.

If you were to lend her money (for even a day, or even an hour) you must charge her interest.
As first and foremost she is a non-Jew, second she will never be your wife in heaven, never.

You will be pretendng to married and it will be to a stranger, ultimately as your souls are truly incompatable in ways you do not experience, because you are distracted by where you have compatability, namely your acting like a King who is enjoying the company of a peasant, which is obviously a very lowly king and so your compatability as the opposite of holy and extraordinary.

Furthermore by going through with this you are thus sending not only yourself but your true Jewish soulmate into Alone-ness

And you will feel it, eventually, mark my words, and when you do, if you disregard everything I am writing and go through with it than G-d help you realize before you ave children, for then you will begin to see what you have done, as they reject you and your mother.  It is said that anti-semintism goes through Mothers Milk, so I pray these Goyishe children, G-d willing that you never have, but if you do that she'll feed them formula for your sake.

Not for the worlds, because they will be weak.

First generation goyishe children off of a Jewish father are always weak.

They are psychologically strong as the Mind goes by father and their ideas can corrupt whole cultures, due to the inherent distortions in their composition, nevertheless they are weak.
Your wife will eventuallly hate you also, or should Moshiach come, as he will very soon please G-d, she may be one of your Goyish slaves and when she is on all fours, not allowed to walk as a human you will see the animal you married.

Continue reading...

Eli Valley has never been one to back down from a controversial viewpoint. In his new comic for Jewcy (complete with beautiful coloring/shading by our very own Craig Leinoff), Valley borrows from that other great Jewish artist, Chagall, to give you a unique perspective on the hubbub surrounding the AgriProcessors kosher abbatoir in Postville, Iowa.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

This article first appeared on December 5, 2008 and has been republished as part of the series JEWCYEST WEEK EVER.

During the month of February, six very different media outlets, with six different readerships (plus a major Jewish organization for good measure...and so no one gets hurt) have partnered to create aplatform and a mini-blog appropriately titled 28 Days, 28 Ideas to share some of the best ideas that we have heard from ourown segments of the Jewish bubble.

The rat pack includes:  JTA & The Fundermentalist, the Forward and its Sisterhood Blog, eJewish Philanthropy, Jewcy, Jewschool, the Jewish Federations of North America and 31 Days, 31 Ideas,a project of Daniel Sieradski.

Each of the partners in the collaboration have lined up entries fora specific day of the week (Jewcy has Tuesdays - woohoo!).  As a group, we will give you one idea per day for the 28 days of February.

The goal is to produce some great new ideas for helping out theJews, and introducing each other to our respective readerships becausesomething tells us that your average Jewish Federation follower mightnot be a regular Jewcy reader, and vice versa.  Moreover, if we get these ideas out, maybe someone will run with them (we're too busy - yo!).

To kick this party off right, we have Patrick Aleph (aka Patrick A) from Atlanta, GA.  Patrick is the lead singer for the punk rock band CAN!!CAN and founder of PunkTorah.com.  Through his work, music, and freelance writing, Patrick uses technology and pop culture to bring Jewish spirituality to people who are disconnected from traditional Jewish life.  Rock.

 

I attend Jewish outreach events at least once a week, and frankly the majority of them are pointless. If we don't fix that, the future of Judaism is at stake.

There are two forms of Jewish outreach: social and religious. For a long time, Jewish outreach was based around the idea of getting Jews in a room together so they could feel a sense of social-cultural connection. It's the "lonely Jew" syndrome. Tired of being the only person on your block without a Christmas tree? Go to a Hillel event! Wish you could find a job that would respect High Holidays? Go to a Young Jewish Professionals networking party.

But in today's society, that model is not relevant. Jews do not suffer the open anti-semitism of the past. In fact, recent studies show that Jews are loved now, more than ever, and that the majority of Americans either view Judaism in a positive or "very positive" way.

Then there's religious outreach. Synagogues and organizations like Chabad are interested in making Jews live according to their movement's sense of Jewish spirituality. And for the most part, it doesn't work. Synagogues focus on ritual, law and life cycle leaves a lot of people "out to dry". Also, as interfaith marriages and the overall movement away from theism grows stronger, the Jewish community seeks out spiritual alternatives.

Both of these approaches don't work because their motives and techniques are outdated. Luckily, there is a solution to the problem: the internet and social networking.

By moving Jewish organizations entirely virtual, we are able to reach a wider audience. Marginalized people such as Jews from interfaith households, Jews of color, LGBT Jews, converts and people who in other ways feel outside the Jewish "mold" will be brought into the conversation in ways they have not in the past.

Making these organizations collaborative in the way that Facebook groups and Wikipedia operates means that people who normally would never volunteer for Birthright Israel Next or some other group will begin to connect with one another.  Jewcy.com has created the perfect model for this, with Jewish media as the medium for collaboration and peer connection on a global level. On a social level, people will begin to form virtual friendships that may lead to real relationships over time.

On a practical level, it is much cheaper to run an organization online than brick and mortar. Sure, a potluck Shabbat is fun. But the cost and time to put something like this together doesn't appeal to the average Jew anymore. Instead, streaming an alternative Shabbat online and including a Second Life session or a game of Wii Tennis afterwards would honestly reach more people. It's hard to sell kugel and cantors in a Hot Pocket and Game Cube world.

The trend is already there. In full disclosure, I run a Jewish spirituality website called PunkTorah.com, focused on alternative Jewish spirituality. An online D'var Torah that's three minutes long averages 120 hits during that Parshah's week. When was the last time you saw 120 people at your synagogue? 

OurJewishCommunity.org is actively working on creating a web-based, humanist Jewish shul to address the spiritual needs of the evolving Jewish community. G-dcast.com presents the Parshat every week, through the medium of narrated cartoons. Facebook, Myspace and YouTube have seen a flood of Jewish organizations and content, as the next generation uses technology to create the Judaism of the future.

If we don't face the fact that falafel parties at Temple-Blah-Blah-Blah no longer matter to the average Jew, than we will lose Judaism forever. The future is here, so get used to it and change with the times.

 

Check out yesterday's idea "Jewish Media Mashups," get ready for tomorrow's mind blower at eJewish Philanthropy, and don't forget to visit 28days28ideas.com for the full list of ideas as they progress.

So, after Pharaoh's back and forth yo-yo game with Moses, Egypt gets hit with the last of the plagues, including Death of the Firstborn.  Not sure if anyone realizes, but Death of the Firstborn is quite possibly the most devastating plague anybody can get hit with. And I say this not because of the obvious "death" part [or b/c im a firstborn myself--shout-out to all my Erev Pesach siyum heads] but because Death of the Firstborn is the plague that just keeps on giving:

[Audience applause]

Maury: Welcome back. Now this is Imhotep and Anck-su-namun. Imhotep says that he feels his 3 yr old son Mathayus may be child of another man.  But his wife Anck-su-namun denies ever having an affair and claims that little Mathayus is his.  Let's hear your side of the story Imhotep.

Imhotep: See, I'm an overseer, right? I spent a lot of time out of the house whipping Hebrew slaves.  It's my job, y'know? I'm just tryna take of my family, so I'm out of the house a lot.  Then Moses comes along and turns all the dust to lice, so now there's nothing for the slaves to do and I'm out of a job. So I come home early and I see this Ardeth Bay dude creeping out the back of my house.

Anck-su-namun: Oh you STILL on that? It ain't even like that. You just need to care of yo responsibilities. This is YO child!

[Audience applause]

Imhotep: Whatever! Whatever! You don't KNOW me!

Maury: So Imhotep, look at little Mathayus there.

[Picture of Mathayus appears on screen]

[Audience "awww"s]

Maury: Why would anyone wanna deny that child?

Imhotep: Well, see, I THOUGHT he was my son.  But then I come home after that whole Death of the Firstborn plague, all depressed, right? And Mathayus is still alive. What the [bleep] is THAT [bleep] about?

Anck-su-namun: Look, I don't even know why we here. I told you Horus was watching over him.

Imhotep: Please, that's that [bleep].

Maury: Well I've got the paternity test results right here and we're gonna get to the bottom of this.

[Audience applause]

Maury: Imhotep...In the case of  3 yr old Mathayus...You are NOT the father!

[Imhotep jumps up, Anck-su-namun runs offstage in tears]

Imhotep: I TOLD you! I TOLD you!

 

see? keeps on giving.

[Disclaimer: Please, do not expect "Real Talk" to make actual Biblical sense. If you are looking for a legitimate commentary of meaning and substance, this ain't the place. It's less "Onkelos" and more "Onion", get me?]

I got a lot of flack from family and friends about visiting Germany, but no one had any compelling reasons for me to reconsider-- other than 'this feeling' that it was somehow wrong for a Jew to set foot in the former Nazi-land. Their feelings, along with my own, weren't enough to quell my curiosity and in retrospect, I insist that my anti-pilgrimage was both worthwhile and a necessity.

I'd never visited a concentration camp and the Sachsenhausen Camp, located just outside of Berlin, was one of our first stops. It was cold and rainy and I walked around the camp, saw the bunks, the ovens, and the open fields in which my people were systematically shot and murdered at the discretion of some of the most evil men in the history of the world. It looked just like it did in the books and in the movies and I'd stuffed my pocket full of tissues in anticipation of the emotional breakdown of the century-- but it never came. Some people cried and others looked as numb as I did. I wasn't sure what to make of my reaction or the reactions of others and I just kept asking myself, "why am I here?" Surely, the purpose of visiting a concentration camp was to tug at your heartstrings and make you feel one-millionth of the pain that your grandparents would feel if they set foot inside the camp. No such luck.

On the bus ride home, I felt a slight escalation in emotion, mostly anger. I thought about the helplessness and desperation, focusing mostly on the perpetrators. Still, I realized that I was privileged to be a part of a generation with a source of comfort. This could never happen again because there is a powerful army that exists to protect Jews and I was able to witness the way in which guilt has truly influenced German society. There is a serious stigma within German society when there is mere mention of beginning a new political party and the German disdain for everything pertaining to the military is (almost) understandable. I struggled with all of this-- I struggled to remember with feeling and intention, all while knowing that this was a part of our past and that I could be certain that it would stay there, in the past, as another piece of our story that I could mourn for but not completely relate to. The same question came to mind, "why am I here?"

While at the Jewish Museum in Berlin-- one of the most fantastic tributes to Jewish history that I have ever witnessed in the diaspora-- I came the closest that I'll probably ever come to finding an answer. We saw the well-known installation Shalechet by Israeli artist Menashe Kadishman. It was featured as a part of an exhibit entitled Void, most of which conveyed messages related to the Holocaust. Shalechet was a tiny sliver of a room and there was a bit of light, but if you ventured far enough, you disappeared into the darkness. If you chose to walk the length of the room, you had to walk over thousands of hunks of metal that were shaped to look like faces (see photo below). The only sound in the room was the wretched, horrible sound of feet crunching on metal. When no one was there, the exhibit didn't move and it didn't make any noise. That was, as we interpreted it, the point. By walking on that very ground, we were giving the murdered and the forever lost the opportunity to scream again, and to be heard.

Shalechet, by Menashe Kadishman, Jewish Museum in Berlin.Two generations later, I was already somewhat numb to the pain of the Holocaust-- had I not visited Germany, acquired a visual, and dedicated two weeks to focusing on the screams of the Shoah, how would I remember? The reservations that I had about traveling to Germany, the ideological and emotional struggle of being shlepped around such a historically loaded place-- that was my first and only opportunity to truly grapple with the reality of the Holocaust.

The feeling that it's somehow wrong to visit Germany is irrational and purely emotional. The Nazis are dead or dying and their children, as a whole, haven't committed any crimes against humanity. You can buy a cappuccino from a middle-aged man and not have to worry that he voted for Hitler-- or worse. It's true that anti-Semitism has a real presence, but it has a presence in France, England, and most of your other European vacation destinations. My visit to Germany wasn't a book that I could put down or a movie that I could turn off; it was full immersion into the remnants of what happened, and that is the best that my generation can do when it comes to memorializing something that is in danger of becoming just another sad story among many others.

"You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid." - Franz Kafka

This article first appeared on November 22, 2008 and has been republished as part of the series JEWCYEST WEEK EVER.

When Dubliner Dan Walsh removed Garfield from the classic Jim Davis cartoons, drawing attention to the peculiar life and mind of his owner Jon Arbuckle, he created an internet phenomenon which has drawn between 30,000 and 300,000 hits per day since February. Without the fat, waggish, sarcastic, star of the cartoon, all we are left with is Jon Arbuckle, Garfield's owner. Walsh would have us believe that this results in "an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and the empty desperation of modern life" of which Jim Davis, himself, is a fan.

In Walsh's distilled version, Arbuckle still says and does all he did in the original cartoon, when his life was made tougher (and often funnier) because of Garfield. He wishes for love, struggles with maintaining the house, waxes philosophical, makes dumb domestic mistakes, and tries to find joy in the everyday. Garfield no longer wryly responds to any of this because he is no longer there. And it's true, Arbuckle does seem off-kilter, lonely and unstable at times without the cat making any appearances.

But for those who can't shake the knowledge that Arbuckle is interacting with someone, his irrational behavior can actually appear profound and poetic. Another possible reading is not that he is mad and melodramatic (although I'll admit, sometimes he does seems a bit mad....), but that Arbuckle is seeking a relationship with God. Like Arbuckle sans Garfield, religious people attempt to have relationships and interact with something that cannot be seen or heard. (One can already anticipate the catcalls, "All this suggests is that religious people are also schizophrenic, bipolar, depressives!) Pleading with this intangible thing, fearing it at times, religious people occasionally find a companion, albeit one with fierce independence. Like Arbuckle in this new version, religious people incorporate this seemingly absent thing into their lives, for better or for worse.

Arbuckle's life takes on a chaotic and meandering tone. He talks to himself constantly, cannot grasp the reins of his life, and acts just plain oddly at times. If by removing Garfield from the strip, Walsh is suggesting that the cat never existed, and was just a figment of Arbuckle's imbalanced imagination, then this, too, parallels a modern notion that people manufactured God in order to have a pretext for social control (or a context for their madness). Why all the mumbling into books? Why the unscrewing of refrigerator light bulbs?

But for those who have had experiences of or deeply sense the divine, the kind of conduct that Arbuckle exhibits makes a whole lot of sense: Despite the discombobulation that Arbuckle might feel from having this "absent-Garfield" in his life, he also seems to feel a whole lot more. His paradoxical relationship with "that which isn't" expands the kinds of experiences he can have in the world and enlarges the map where he can take his extraordinary range of emotions.

In Walsh's revised strips, Arbuckle's relationship with that-which-is-absent presents a window into the complex, challenging, and beautiful relationships modern religious people build with God. It also shows us a bit how these relationships can appear loony to others. Who knew such a rich meditation on relations with the divine could be achieved with photoshop and in pastel?  Here are eight religious readings of Garfield Minus Garfield.


In this strip, Arbuckle is experiencing some kind of joy. It's rare for him to be so pleased—perhaps he just booked a ticket to go back to the farm or was successful in landing that elusive comic date. But when encountering the Other wanting to share his joy, he is clearly rebuffed. This portrays the independence of the intangible God who cannot be summoned at will or manipulated into giving comfort at all times.  Arbuckle would like to universalize his experience, or influence something larger with it—if I am feeling good, then all must be good. But try as he might, he realizes that his emotions do not determine the state of the world.

By attempting to hear the dreams of the Other, Arbuckle is attempting to make a more selfless connection with the world. It is unclear whether he actually hears any response to his question, but he understands that relationships require listening—or at the very least a place for the Other to assert itself. To try to listen to the dreams, specifically, of the Other—if that Other is indeed God or if that Other is another being—is to try to be commanded towards a vision of the world not yet established. Arbuckle is opening his own existence to include the will of another.

One of the things that religion focuses on is an understanding of death. Some, full of hubris, might believe that it can be controlled or intimidated, but that can only lead to futility, as is portrayed here. Since he appears the next day, one can surmise that his disappearance only served to remind him of his mortality, something that perhaps encourages him to live and feel more fully, as he seems capable of doing.

For a modern person, all religious expressions and moments of relationship with God do not lead to disappointment or absurdity. Here, Arbuckle seems to have found a space for his contentment.  His suggestion that he and the invisible Other “think nice thoughts” is accepted. One can imagine God appreciating the sentiment. Jewish texts portray God as responsive to the suggestions of others, even allowing people to sway God's emotions.

Truth be told, most people, even religious people, are not always satisfied by religious worship or ritual. And even though one might imagine that doing things in a special or different (read: religious) context would make things improve, it doesn't always. A boring Shabbas morning shiur is still boring with or without a flashy kippah on one's head. And sometimes one just needs to admit and accept that.

Sometimes religion entreats people to do seemingly irrational things—like walk to shul a mile in a snow storm, spend too much money on a citrus that one won't eat, cut off one's circulation with funny boxes on one's arm and head, or take off one's clothes in a marketplace if it turns out one's garment contains a mixture wool or linen. The experience, although not always pleasurable, usually leads to a good amount of deliberation about why a religious person does what one does, or why one is required to do what one does......

When humans fail, people often turn to God for comfort or understanding. Given the free will that God allows, these moments of communion do not entail asking God to change things. Jon is not asking God to cut a hole for him.  Rather, the experience of the Other is a way to have companionship in these moments when other people disappoint us.

Arbuckle's intense excitement about his three-weeks-from-now date would be cause for concern for his human friends. But here it comes across as reflective gratitude, especially given that no person is there to tell him otherwise. It almost feels like his next move is to say a bracha..... And I am sure I am mistaken, but doesn't that look like payos tucked behind his ear?

This article first appeared on July 7, 2008 and has been republished as part of the series JEWCYEST WEEK EVER.

So after the Grammys last night (was T-Pain even singing?), we're all sitting around watching the media repeat itself, but before we could even wonder if Taylor Swift knows any Jews (answer: no), the conversation turned to clip shows.  Turns out everyone LOVES clip shows like Best Week Ever.  You know it's true.

And then it hit us!  We have a gargantuan website, filled with gems that never resurface.  At least once a week, we stumble upon an old post while publishing something new that cracks us up, makes us cry, or both.  So with a little help from Lilit Marcus, we dug through the 8,000ish posts to bring you...JEWCYEST WEEK EVER!

Throughout the week or until we get a nasty letter from VH1, we'll be posting the best Culture, Sex, Religion, Lifestyle, and Politics stories you may have missed.  Enjoy.  Again.

UPDATE: So far we've posted these fine-fine stories to Jewcyest Week Ever:

On Being Black, White, and Jewish

What is Frum Porn? (affectionately known around here as the "Butt-Mitvah" article)

Cousin Moishe's Thoughts On Your Upcoming Interfaith Wedding

Chagall in Postville

No Sex With Bedouins?

Jews and Germany: Why You Should Go Even If It Makes Your Grandma Angry

Garfield Minus Garfield Plus God 

Unless there is a secret pocket of Choctaw Indians that look at this site, I'm going on under the assumption that very few of us are actual "native Americans." And if I could go out on even more of a limb, I'm going to guess a big percentage of Jewcy readers can trace their bloodlines back to Eastern European places like (taking a total blind stab here) Russia, Romania, Poland, etc.

While none of this is big news, it is part what essentially makes America great: we are a country of immigrants, and we tell thousands of immigrant stories. The recently published Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of American Writing takes on the task of collecting many of those stories, told by a wide array of names, including late literary icons like Vladimir Nabokov and Isaac Bashevis Singer.  The anthology also shines a light on the current crop of American writers with foreign birth certificates, like Junot Díaz, Aleksandar Hemon, and my personal favorite, Gary Shteyngart.

Gary Shteyngart's work makes me think about something a Russian friend said to me a few years ago during his little brother's Bar Mitzvah. "We say cheers to anything. We say cheers to new babies, and we say cheers to nuclear war." He raised up a shot glass. "Cheers to nuclear war!" He shouted, prompting the other three Russians at our table to lift up glasses of vodka along with him and respond "to nuclear war!"

I don't say this toShteyngart try and make some grandiose proclamation about the fortitude or drinking habits of the Russian people (although that has been well documented in the past), but to point out that nobody does absurd quite like the Russians. In Shteyngart's two novels, The Russian Debutantes Handbook and Absurdistan, that quality is on display, but unlike many of the writers that came before him, it's under heavy American influence.

Monday evening, Mr. Shteyngart will join other writers from Becoming Americans at the 92Y for "The Immigrant Experience". I asked him a few questions about "becoming American", and his work and the ghost of Yiddish writers.

Let me get this little bit out of the way right now: Louis Menand of The New Yorker wrote the following about "The Catcher in the Rye" ten years ago and I don't think it's been said any better and I have the good fortune of being wise enough not to try to.

 

“The Catcher in the Rye” is a sympathetic portrait of a boy who refuses to be socialized which has become (among certain readers, anyway, for it is still occasionally banned in conservative school districts) a standard instrument of socialization. I was introduced to the book by my parents, people who, if they had ever imagined that I might, after finishing the thing, run away from school, smoke like a chimney, lie about my age in bars, solicit a prostitute, or use the word “goddam” in every third sentence, would (in the words of the story) have had about two hemorrhages apiece. Somehow, they knew this wouldn’t be the effect.

Menand adds:

Supposedly, kids respond to “The Catcher in the Rye” because they recognize themselves in the character of Holden Caulfield. Salinger is imagined to have given voice to what every adolescent, or, at least, every sensitive, intelligent, middle-class adolescent, thinks but is too inhibited to say, which is that success is a sham, and that successful people are mostly phonies. Reading Holden’s story is supposed to be the literary equivalent of looking in a mirror for the first time. This seems to underestimate the originality of the book. Fourteen-year-olds, even sensitive, intelligent, middle-class fourteen-year-olds, generally do not think that success is a sham, and if they sometimes feel unhappy, or angry, or out of it, it’s not because they think most other people are phonies. The whole emotional burden of adolescence is that you don’t know why you feel unhappy, or angry, or out of it. The appeal of “The Catcher in the Rye,” what makes it addictive, is that it provides you with a reason. It gives a content to chemistry.

Alright, are we good? Good. So let’s start with what is generally (?) known of J.D. Salinger: American writer, famous recluse, Holden Caulfield, Mark David Chapman/Lennon, and perhaps some stories about the Glass family. And to that, add this: J(erome) D(avid) Salinger, grandson of a rabbi, son of a *ham* and cheese importer/father and a mother who hid her true Irish-Scottish (read: not Jewish) roots until after his bar-mitzvah.

Of course, it was not until the deluge of tributes today that some (most) of us may have first sifted through his biographical information with any topical urgency. Now that we have, can we just concede that there is enough material in that early biography for a lifetime's worth of not only storytelling--Great American or other--but a level of torture that is so specifically Jewish that, if amplified, it might give the entire Bernard Malamud canon a run for its money? (This is, of course, not even a slight knock on Malamud.)  

So why do we not place Salinger in the Malamud-Bellow-Roth-Mailer pantheon of 21st century Jewish American writers? Well, first of all, while we know about his roots, little is known about whether he identified as Jewish later much beyond his youth and, from the few interviews he gave in his long and winding life, not much has been parsed. We do know that later in his life he was partial to some eccentric ideologies.

Some literary authorities suggest that because Salinger so deftly camouflaged the Jewish experience in his writing it became unrecognizable. Therefore we, tortured as we are, couldn’t really claim him. Janet Malcolm, in a typically blistering essay, adds it’s not that Salinger didn’t find the Jewish experience salient or pure (she admits we’ll never really know), but rather, that because those edges were blurred the alchemy of solitude in his stories were made more universal.

Characters, beyond the obvious Caulfield, like Franny Glass exhibited symptoms of isolation and outsiderness that really feel particularly “Jewish” (gleamed from what is either known by us or found in the works of the aforementioned the Jewish greats). But they also feel human in a way washed of any explicit tribal suffering. This irked Jews like Maxwell Geismar whom Malcolm quotes:

"The locale of the New York sections is obviously that of a comfortable middle-class urban Jewish society where, however, all the leading figures have become beautifully Anglicized. Holden and Phoebe Caulfield: what perfect American social register names which are presented to us in both a social and a psychological void!"

To echo Malcolm, perhaps it resonated because it was a sting so bare and unadorned.

As for the rest of Salinger’s bio, well, a glancing over of it smacks of what many (or at least I, perhaps foolishly) would consider a very American experience: he hated high school on the Upper West Side, flunked out, hated military school, wrote about that, hated college, popped in and out of places, wrote banal and formulaic stories, they were rejected, wrote more, was published, was drafted for World War II (spoke German well enough to interrogate POWs and deserters), wrote about his service ("For Esmé — With Love and Squalor" is one of his best and most haunting), landed on Utah Beach on D-Day, fought in the Battle of the Bulge, had a breakdown, was one of the first to walk into a liberated camp, befriended Hemingway all the while, published more brilliant stories, slipped off the radar more, experimented with Eastern religions, Christian Science, Dianetics/other crackpot philosophies, wrote more stories, then wrote ones without stark endings that were circular and so brilliant that people called them too weird to be enjoyed, had affairs with younger women, married a few times and had a few children (one delegate from both his wives and children wrote damning books about him calling him abusive, brooding, drinker of his own urine), sold the movie rights to a story for money, was dismayed by the outcome of the movie, never sold film rights again, had more affairs with younger women while locked up in the New Hampshire hinterlands, kept fellow reclusive friends, stopped publishing stories in 1965, remarried, stopped interviewing in 1980, sat quietly on a growing cache of unpublished work for 45 years, died at 91.

Perhaps this later Salinger biography (sparse in its convention, mythical in its hermeticism), the adult version of the one to which Menand so aptly links youth and Caulfield, is a reflection that says something about Jews in America. Something unspecific, something, like his work, inchoate and generally unsaid by the great Jewish American writers: we’ve arrived, our travails are universal, we don’t have to name our experiences so much. Or perhaps we do. I suppose once all of Salinger’s hidden treasures are pillaged and finally published, we can enjoy trying to claim him.

A close friend called me today and notified me of Howard Zinn's death. After a half hour of the requisite investigatory quest through the digital abyss, the news seemed to coalesce in my mind with the myriad headlines of the day. The modern information onslaught indeed seems malleable to me, over time becoming little more than a monstrosity of factoids. How the whole has become less than the sum of its parts. 

Over tea and thought, however, my knowledge of the good professor's passing became quite real, substantive, and sobering. After all, Zinn remains among my biggest inspirations.  

As a student of history, he shattered the myth of objectivity with a forceful blow, displaying in a massive tome the hollow nature of facts; it is instead our perspectives, our manipulations, and our conclusions that smack of bias and are deeply flawed. While we all know the adage that ‘history books are written by the winners,' Zinn overwhelmed us with the sheer tragedy of this mantra, and exposed the ugly underbelly of our collective memory. 

As an American, he upheld the virtues of the Declaration of Independence, even if he admonished its author. He fought more tirelessly and earnestly than any populist politician for the dream of an all-inclusive society that ignored the boundaries of race, class and gender. His desire to learn the stories of how the other half lives was a true frontiersmanship that rivaled the boundless ambitions of Lewis and Clark. His commitment to dissent, whether in the domestic arenas of the Civil Rights and working class struggles, or the international imbroglios of Vietnam and Iraq, was an exercise of the first amendment in its purest form. 

And as a Jew, he revitalized the calling of the prophets. To be sure, he was far from a religious man. Yet I have always viewed Howard Zinn as one of the great Jewish thinkers. As it is, are Jews not products of their time, the very prisms by which to judge a society's character? The great Jewish figures - Spinoza, Einstein, Freud, Maimonides, Herzl - are infused with the ethos of their people. The Judaic narrative, with its ardent focus on this world, with its victories and shortcomings, its qualities and blemishes, has altogether molded the Jewish contributions to philosophy, science, medicine, politics, and art. So it is with Howard Zinn. He may have been a 20^th century secularist, but he embodied the spirit of Amos, Micah, and Isaiah with his fierce calls for social justice. True to the root of the word Israel, he struggled, refusing rest as the inequities of humankind haunted him. And true to the greatest of the Jewish works, the Torah, he invoked the message of Leviticus, thereafter repeated by the sages Hillel and Akiva: to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

A twentieth-century Eastern European writer who survived a variety of wars, movements, and renamings once said that he'd lived in five countries without ever leaving his house. During the fifteen months that I've been the editor of Jewcy, I've lived in several countries while always remaining in the same house. When I first started as the Editor of Jewcy, it was a for-profit enterprise with six other employees and a beautiful loft office in DUMBO. The following February, the company's initial investors pulled out of the venture, and my coworkers and I lost our jobs. In either the bravest or stupidest move I've ever made, I spent the next six months running the site myself out of my apartment, with no salary. Fortunately, JDub Records came along and adopted Jewcy - suddenly, I became part of the JDub staff. I can honestly say that, despite the fact that I am nowhere near cool enough to work at a record label, the JDub team always made me feel at home.

As much as it's been weird to have the country of Jewcy changing around me, there's one reason that I kept doing this job: because I believe in it. More specifically, I believe in Jewish journalism and the power it has to help people struggling to find a place within their faith and culture, as well as to encourage debate, discussion, and dissent from those already within it. I can't urge you enough to stay involved with Jewcy and keep reading, as it's only going to grow. I'm not at liberty to reveal all of the secrets, but I can tell you there is a beautiful, easy-to-use redesign in the works that will leave all the other Jewish blogs crying (sorry, other Jewish blogs). I plan to come back and blog whenever possible, because I believe in the unique, diverse, and open-minded Jewish community that Jewcy fosters. Jewcy's traffic has gone up 12% since it was adopted by JDub in October, and I hope that you guys continue to hang out here and contribute to the ongoing conversation. 

I spent most of my life growing up in a place where I thought I was beyond the reach of Jewish traditions and history, believing that someone from my background could never find a place within the Jewish establishment. But somebody gave this patrilineal-descent, non-Hebrew-speaking, non-bat-mitzvahed, still-figuring-it-out Jew from North Carolina a job editing a Jewish website, and for that I will always be grateful. I hope that I've been able to foster an environment where any person who identifies as Jewish can feel welcomed and encouraged. Whether I was writing about soap operas, The Kotel, Scientology, or my ex-boyfriends, I've always been proud of the fact that I was writing for Jewcy.

Though I've enjoyed the chance to get to know all of the writers and commenters here, there are a couple of people who deserve particular recognition. Craig Leinoff, who had been with Jewcy since the beginning and built almost all of this website with his own bare hands (it's true, he welds with code), was always available to field my middle-of-the-night questions about wonky html and spam filters. Ashley Tedesco (who despite being a college undergraduate is already well on the way to being a fine journalist) stayed on as an unpaid intern after Jewcy's doors were closed, somehow squeezing post-editing and Twitter-updating into her already crammed class schedule. Aaron Bisman and Jacob Harris of JDub believed in the Jewcy/JDub proposition from the very beginning, and their commitment to both the brand and to me has been boundless.

Like any adventure, this one too had to end. I've been offered a job as the editor of a new women's lifestyle and entertainment site. It doesn't actually have a name yet, but I swear it totally exists. I accepted the position knowing that Jewcy is in good hands and trusting that it will continue to grow and thrive without me.

Anyway, my login is about to expire, so I should start wrapping this up.

As a famous philosopher once said, it's been real.

Have you ever found yourself frustrated while swimming in the dating pools overt at Match and eHarmony? Have you ever spend days scouring JDate for your dreamgirl but turning up your nose at all the olive skin and dark hair? Well, it seems your unasked prayers have been answered - April Gaede, the mother of the adorable white pride singing act Prussian Blue, is now launching her very own Aryans-only dating service. Via the white power website Stormfront (Hey guys! It's been like a whole week since you called any of our writers ugly Jews! Are you mad at us?), Gaede announced her services:

I am willing to act as a go between, researcher, matchmaker, older sister and guide for any WNs [white nationalists] who are looking for a WN spouse. Only email me if you are serious about finding a spouse or long term partner.

Since Gaede is new to the matchmaking circuit, how do we know she's any good? She offers her own story of sweet Aryan love up as an example of inspiration:

I was 37 with two children when my husband Mark [Harrington] and I met. In any other circumstances we might have been an unlikely pair, a city boy who plays hockey and a country girl who trained horses. But because of our ideological similarities and our mutual concern about the future of our race we have much more in common than the average couple today.

Sniff. It's all so beautiful. But wait - it turns out that Gaede's life wasn't always so happy before true love redeemed her. Before Mark, she was married to an Icelandic pole vaulter. They had two kids together, the famous twins Lynx and Lamb (who comprise Prussian Blue), but it didn't work out. She has but one regret:

..the many years that I lost in which I could have produced four to six more children with that ideal eugenic quality that [the twins] possess.

You see, all you lonelyhearts, April Gaede has been to heartbreak hotel too. But she lived to see another Aryan day. And you can too! Sign up now!

“Jobs must be our focus in 2010,” President Obama said last night to thunderous applause during his State of the Union address. “We can put Americans to work today to build the America of tomorrow.”

Hope oozed out of his eloquent speech. But I had spent my morning at the local Unemployment Office in the office of a pasty Career Counselor whose doughy hands gripped my resume. “So what do you do?” With ten years' worth of work experience, I’ve run successful political campaigns, helped get innocent people out of prison, helped stop gun traffickers and written scathing white papers on the pharmaceutical industry. Yet right before Rosh Hashanah, after winning a successful campaign helping people who were injured by defective products, I came into work to find my office cleaned out and a “I’m sorry, we have no more money to pay you” speech. My office had been near Wall Street so after all the months of seeing the six-figure investment bankers doing the walk of shame with their boxes filled with their personal items after being handed their walking papers, I was the one going home at 10:00am with a tiny severance package and my personal effects in a box of my own.

“People are out of work and they are hurting. I want a jobs bill on my desk right away.”

I spent the afternoon job hunting. I sent out my resume to job postings, emailed friends and acquaintances asking them for their help. And then I waited. Waited for the phone call, that interview, that job offer. But the later did not come, and still I waited. I networked. I hoped.

At least I try. But looking for a job is a vicious cycle. You have to constantly be at your best, but you get rejection at every turn. That job you would be perfect for, that you’ve labored over the cover letter, contacted everyone you know who knows people who can help you get that job, and maybe you even had an interview. But the job goes to someone else. I am one of 25 interviewees out of a pool of 250 candidates, but someone else will start working and I will be back to sending out resumes. It starts to wear you down, all that rejection, the overwhelming feeling of hopelessness.

When you are job-hunting people ask you, “What do you want to do? What are your dreams?” I don’t know. My dream job would be to cook for people. Shop at the farmer’s market, bring home the freshest and best produce and cook up healthy and delicious meals for someone who will pay me a living wage and give me health care. But who is going to hire me as their personal chef? I may love cooking, but I never went to culinary school and people with the money to hire chefs probably want more credentials. And my credentials say that I should be a community organizer, an advocate for good causes, someone fighting for tikkun olam.

A couple of years ago when I was employed, I had decided I wanted to advance my career (the organization I was working for did not have any room for advancement). I decided that I wanted to be a Jewish professional, in part because I saw some really great organizations doing amazing social justice work. But I didn’t grow up Jewish, so I didn’t have the summer camp connections or the Hillel friends to network with. So I started getting involved, volunteering and through grit and determination my resume began to fill up with things that said, “she’s really involved with the Jewish community.” But the economy tanked, and the non-profit world didn’t have a lot of room for career moves. I would get interviews, but the people they were hiring had a lot more experience than I did. Then my job disappeared and the hope I was feeling that I was making my career going somewhere faded.

The civil servant assigned by the Department of Labor to give me career advice continued to be baffled by my resume. “How did you get these jobs before?” I smiled. Dumb luck really. A friend of mine ran into an old friend of his on a subway platform. While catching up the old acquaintance talked about his new job and my friend said, “I’ve got the perfect girl for you, she just finished winning a campaign and is looking for work.” Another time a friend of mine asked me, “Have you ever considered being a private investigator?” Yes, I know how I got those jobs, being at the right place at the right time. It wasn’t a great epiphany that I needed to network myself into the right situation.

That is where job hunting is so much like dating. You might be the prettiest girl with the most charming stories, but the guy sitting across the table from you is looking to settle down with a girl who reminds him of his mother and have a lot of babies. You might both be terrific people, but just looking for different things. I had a phone interview for a job I was completely perfect for the other day. But the Executive Director on the other side of the line, who clearly didn’t have the time to be doing interviews asked me, “so what is organizing exactly?” I tried my best to explain what I do and how great I would be for his organization, but I didn’t get a call back. I didn’t give him the answers he was looking for, even though I know I would have done a really kick-ass job at their organization.

So I wait for my phone to ring. I jump on every opportunity I can find even when it annoys friends and acquaintances. On Martin Luther King Day I was in the bodega near my house. I overheard a delivery guy saying to the clerk, "MLK? Only people that get today off are white. I've still got to work." Looking around the tiny shop at who was shopping and who was working he might have had a point, but I wanted to turn to him and say, "but at least you have a job!" Some days I don’t want to get out of bed and spend the day in duckie pajamas watching Hulu overcome with depression and embarrassment that I still don’t have a job. Obama’s speech last night didn’t give me a lot of hope. It might be said to a room full of applause that jobs are a high priority, but my email box is still empty, my phone isn’t ringing and my only hope from Congress is that they will extend my Unemployment benefits to give me more time to keep looking, keep hoping someone will realize that out of the pool of candidates they have in front of them, I am the best and that they should hire me.

Are we witnessing a new vogue in restoring Jewish sites in the Middle East? The renovated Maimonides synagogue in Cairo will be officially inaugurated in March to much fanfare. The Maghen Avraham Synagogue in the heart of Beirut is being rebuilt. Across Morocco and Tunisia, holy sites and synagogues are getting a facelift.

What is going on?

Nobody can pretend that these restored sites are ever going to be working synagogues. Like Hitler's project for a Jewish Museum in Prague, they are monuments, perhaps not to an extinct race - most Jews escaped from these countries with their lives - but an extinct Jewish civilisation and way of life in Arab countries, predating Islam by a thousand years. Once spruced up, these synagogues will be nothing more than symbols. They will never again become the beating heart of a revived Jewish community. Fewer than 50 Jews live in the whole of Egypt; mostly old ladies married to Muslims or Christians. Ditto in Lebanon, the home of Hezbollah and Bourj al-Barajneh, where anyone openly identifying as a Jew risks life and limb.

There are two main reasons why Arab countries might suddenly show an interest in their Jewish heritage.

First, synagogues are good public relations for the regime in power. The unsuccessful candidate to head UNESCO, Egyptian culture minister Farouk Hosni, played on the restoration of the Maimonides synagogue to distract from his antisemitic slips-of-the-tongue about burning 'Israeli' books.

No matter if the country has no more Jews, a synagogue restoration project advertises 'Arab tolerance' and pays lip service to pluralism. "Look, we even have Jews here!" it proclaims. "Tolerance of Jewish cultural remains can be exchanged for Western goodwill and aid without necessitating any messy engagement with actual Israelis," as one journalist puts it.

Continue reading...

Some years fly by on the winds of routine, others swirl in wild storms that change your life, views, and perceptions. Then there are years in one's life in which the fruits of long labor begin to blossom, ripen and become ready to be picked and eaten by the world. This year, for me, is of the third kind.

Shortly before Rosh Hashanah, my album Upto Here | From Here was released and distributed through Obliqsound. I recorded the album in 2006 with my NY based sextet, following several years of performing this music together. We celebrated this long-awaited release with a series of concerts in the U.S. and Israel, my two homes.

Now, a few months later, another project I have been working on for several years is coming out on Tzadik Records! Mycale is an all-female a capella quartet that was commissioned by John Zorn to arrange, perform and record eleven compositions from his "Book of Angels." Basya Schechter of Pharaoh's Daughter started this wonderful venture, and brought me in to play, then Sofia Koutsovitis and Malika Zarra joined the fun. We've worked and played hard to bring you this album, filled with vocal "sound sculptures" built on, in, and around Zorn's compositions. Now, after a long warm up, these two CDs are finally out in stores near you and online... check out my website to get specific information regarding live shows, news and updates.

To share the love, I'd like to recommend to you five CDs by Jewish Jazz ladies who I admire, and think you would greatly enjoy:

Anat Fort - A Long Story
Anat and I have been collaborating on various projects since 2004 ("Mayim Rabim," "Upto Here | From Here" and more). Hearing her play the piano is like sailing on a spiritual and emotional sea journey. "A Long Story" is Anat's ECM debut, featuring jazz giant, drummer Paul Motian, as well as bassist Ed Schuller (who has also performed and recorded with me on "Upto..." ) and clarinetist Perry Robinson - what an inspired ensemble...
Keep your eyes and ears open for Anat's next release, coming soon on ECM - a debut recording of her piano trio with whom she has been performing for over a decade!

Continue reading...

There has been a lot of talk about the Tefillin bomb scare, and quite frankly, I understand where these people are coming from. Imagine some bearded individual whips out a strange device that looks like it could either be a weapon or something out of a BDSM party, and then starts mumbling to himself and swaying. Now imagine that he's in the middle of the amidah and he cannot talk.

One of my roommates during Birthright thought that my tefillin were just straps to tie my arm in order to shoot up. This was a non-affiliated (albeit educated) Jewish kid from Colorado who was in school at NYU. If someone who attended NY Jew and still not be informed about tefillin – imagine what those passengers from Kentucky thought. I would have freaked out as well.

Kiddush Levana: A bunch of Jews are gathered on a street corner looking up at the moon.

What they think: Wow, I didn’t know the Jews prayed to the moon God! I always thought they were monotheistic.

Lulav: People are walking down the street with lulavim on Sukkot.

What they think: So this is when the Jews celebrate Palm Sunday... wait a second, it’s not even Sunday. Maybe they are doing it now because palm branches cost less when no one really needs them, those cheap bastards.

Shabbos: It’s a frum community and everyone is going to shul.

What they think: Look at all these people wearing black! There must be a really big funeral going on somewhere. Wait, why is everyone walking to the funeral? They must be trying to save on gas, or maybe it’s a green funeral.

Burning of the chometz: There is a garbage can in the street and the Jews are gathered around throwing their chometz into the fire.

What they think: I wonder if this has something to do with commemorating Kristallnacht. Are they burning German books or something?

Megilas Esther: Everyone is dressed up and it’s time to boo for Haman.

What they think: Why is everyone cheering every time they mention that man Haman?

Purim: Everyone is delivering gift baskets and most of the kids are dressed up.

What they think: Look, the Jews have their own Halloween, but instead of waiting for people to ask for candy they go and deliver it.

Simchas Torah: In some places, Jews take to the streets to celebrate the giving of the Torah.

What they think: It’s an Orthodox Jewish gay pride parade... but why are all the lesbians just watching?

 

Note: This post sparked an interesting discussion on my Jewish comedy blog that is 105 comments long.

Former Sexiest Man Alive Mel Gibson has gone through somewhat of a life crisis over the last few years. He divorced his longtime wife (and the mother of seven of his children) to knock up an aspiring singer from Russia. He also, perhaps more infamously, got pulled over for drunk driving in 2006 and launched into a tirade that involved antisemitic comments like "the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world" and calling a female police offer "sugartits." Now, with the release of his new movie, Edge of Darkness (his first starring role in almost eight years), he's back on the press circuit. In an interview in Hello! magazine, Mel says of his anti-Jew comments:

It’s said that I went into a rant, but I think it went on for about five words. I was drunk. It just turned into a big thing. I apologized profusely — not once but three times. So what’s the problem? It’s four years ago. Do I need to apologize again?

Aww, poor Mel. It's so unfair how those meanie Jews who control the media keep asking if you regret your boneheaded behavior. Life is so hard for you. This is like when the six-year-old older brother gets in trouble for hitting the four-year-old younger brother, and when Mom orders him to apologize he sticks his tongue out and says, "I'm sorry." In that case, the six-year-old at least makes it clear that he doesn't mean his "apology" and is just doing it because someone made him. You, on the other hand? Not only will you fake-apologize to make other people happy, you will bitch about the audacity of someone expecting you to fake-apologize. But you'll still ask them to buy tickets to your movies! You know what, Mel? You should just go on with your big old antisemitic self. Own that. Wear it on a T-shirt. And then see if anyone keeps giving you interviews, watching your movies, or giving a shit what you have to say about anything. Go ahead. Start now. We'll be right here.

As these things go, Israeli and Jewish publications have been arguing furiously over a... history book. Shlomo Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People alleges that a historical "Jewish people" does not exist and that the bulk of Jewry today descends from converts, rather than from the inhabitants of pre-Roman Judea.

Sand, in writing the book, has placed himself in a proud tradition of Jewish contrarians. Given that us Jews are the most self-mythologizing and status-quo doubting people this side of the Irish, it's not a real surprise.

Every ten or so years, after all, there is another intellectual who sparks eager fights among university professors and journalists through a new reading of the historical record. Norman Finkelstein's potshots at "the Holocaust industry" in the nineties. Benny Morris' deconstruction of the Israeli War of Independence in the 1980s. Before that, Arthur Koestler's Khazar hypothesis (which Sand resurrects) and Immanuel Velikovsky's attempt to reconcile Biblical events with the space race. Some of these writers, of course, were much more successful than others.

As an unrepentant history geek, I wanted to read the book when the English edition — translated ably by Yael Lotan from the original Hebrew — was released in late 2009. The press trail was intriguing. Among others, the New York Times, Times of London, Guardian, BBC and al-Jazeera English all featured the book, along with the usual blogosphere suspects. Then there was the fact that Tony Judt, Simon Schama, Tom Segev and other prominent historians had all taken the time recently to weigh in on Sand's book, whether pro or con.

So I put an order in to Amazon. My book arrived.

I was disappointed.

Here's the thing. Sand, a professor of modern French history at Tel Aviv University, could have written four very good books. Unfortunately, he mashed them all together into one ungainly mess of an incediary device.

Continue reading...

For all of us whose Jewish grandmothers have been poo-pooing how much we spend on clothing, stuffing dinner rolls in their purses to compensate for our supposed lack of fiscal responsibility - Zac Posen has come to the rescue, providing fashion-loving Jews and gentiles alike with his Zac Posen for Target line. If you've never heard of Posen, here's some Jewish geography for you, or as I like to call it, the Jewish version of "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon": Natalie Portman is Zac's close friend and muse - enough said.

Posen, one of fashion's few haute Jewish fashion designers next to Alber Elbaz of Lanvin, is officially the next top fashion designer to create a collection for the discount house. Posen will follow in the footsteps of his non-Jewish but incredibly talented peers Proenza Schouler, Benhaz Serafpour, Libertine, Erin Fetherston, Temperley and Rodarte - just to name a few. Rodarte for Target, the most recent designer installment to hit the racks of the discount Mecca, will be followed by John Paul Gaultier for Target, who will officially be the first couturier to grace the racks of Targée on March 7th. For those of you unclear on the difference between high fashion and couture: a fashion house must be appointed a couture house by the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in Paris. Few design houses have been awarded such status and no American, let alone an American Jew, has ever been awarded couture status by the Chambre. The others, who most deem couture but are actually just high fashion, are undoubtedly fantastic but are not considered couturiers.

Zac Posen will arrive in Targets right after Gaultier's collection has been rummaged through and sadly misunderstood by flocks of suburban soccer moms across the country. Posen's line channels hints of the mod 60's and 80's and while peppered with swimsuits and not necessarily appropriate for shul, its low price point seems off-putting in comparison to how expensive it looks. Zac Posen for Target will arrive in late April, making his Bubby proud and getting our Bubbys off our backs.

Check out the Zac Posen for Target Lookbook online courtesy of fashionista.com

Last week, a flight from New York's LaGuardia airport going to Louisville, Kentucky was grounded in Philadelphia when a Jewish passenger wrapping tefillin was suspected of being a terrorist. Jewcy spoke briefly with "Caleb," a man who had been seated near the tefillin-wrapper on the plane. Now that he is no longer being questioned by the FBI, he gave us a more extended account of what happened on the flight:

We landed with no announcement, so we assumed we were in Louisville, thinking "wow, that was fast." Then the plane was on the tarmac and was rushed and surrounded by SWAT cars. The plane door opens and three dudes come onboard, guns pointed. They are yelling to each other "which one, which one?!"

"Yamaka [sic]! Yamaka! The guy in the yamaka!" They point their guns that way, which is also my way. When they stormed in, it was "Everybody get your hands in the air! Get your hands in the air!" Then they grabbed the guy and he was escorted out. Then, everybody on the plane was individually interrogated by the FBI. Everybody. I was asked if I saw [the tefillin-wrapper] before the flight in the airport and if he said anything to me.

About 20 people were on the flight when it left LaGuardia, but only 9 of us went back on the same plane in Philadelphia to go to Kentucky. A few turned around and went right back to LaGuardia because they'd already missed their meetings.

The FBI guy on the plane goes and tells us, "OK, we're going to interview all of you." A guy raises his hand with a question: "What time are we getting to Kentucky?" He was one that went right back on a flight home.

Caleb did continue on to Louisville, where he was going to several business meetings, and returned home a few days later without incident. He says that no one who opted not to fly on to Louisville got a comped flight.

In November, Gallup did a poll of 1,002 Americans, asking them their feelings on three "minority religions" - that would be the Muslims, the Buddhists, and us. This week, they released the findings. Among them:

• 71 percent report having a "positive" opinion about Jews, including 25 percent who have "very positive" opinions. (Does this remind anyone else of the bit on the final Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien where Steve Carell came out in character as Michael Scott to do Conan's exit interview and only gave him the choices "positive," "very positive," and "extremely positive"? Just me then? Okay.)
• 15 percent admitted to having some negative feelings about Jews.
• 19 percent of respondents do not actually know any Jewish people.

Somehow, I don't find these results terribly shocking. What I'd really love to know is whether those 19 percent of people who don't know any of Teh Jooz had positive or negative opinions of us. My guess is actually going to be that the people who don't know any Jews presumably live in rural areas in places like the Deep South and therefore love Jews in theory because they're evangelical Christians and therefore think the Jews are the Chosen People. Obviously, my own experiences growing up in the South around evangelicals are influencing me on this one, but I'd love to see a more specific breakdown of the study with an emphasis on geographical regions.

Anyway, the next time Abe Foxman goes on yet another one of his "everyone's an antisemite!!1!#@!" rages, someone should be ready in the wings to hand him a copy of these survey results.

 

 

With all this talk about non-dual Judaism, whether or not Orthodoxy is the "true" Judaism that Progressive Jews are just too damn lazy or stupid to accept, or whether G-d even exists, I like to propose an idea. That G-d can be explained with a simple, straight line.

Take a look at this image and ask yourself, "what is this?" It could be a letter: a lowercase "l" or an uppercase "I." It could be the number "1" or part of "11."

Imagine this image, from the perspective of a person walking through the woods. If you saw this image, say stapled to a tree, what would it be? Perhaps a sign pointing you in the right direction toward a walking path? Maybe it's a walking stick? Maybe it's some kind of warning or a piece of graffiti left behind?

Flip the image horizontally. What do we have? a picture of the horizon, a "negative" sign or a dash mark.

Now, let's take this line, and put it into a new context:

G - D

This single, straight line is now a part of something that philosophers, scholars, rabbis, priests and every day people have struggled with for thousands of years. It is everything for some, and nothing for others. It's the being so close that you can touch it, or something so remote that you can never truly know it.

With one straight line, we can find a million different perspectives. So what makes any of us vain enough to believe that something as huge as G-d can ever be agreed upon or argued in any way that isn't mental masturbation?

What is? G-d is! G-d is, is! And if for you, G-d is nothing, then G-d is still something. Thank G-d for that! 

I gotta tell you: Pharaoh is probably the worst person in the world to order lunch with. Or do anything with really.  So Moses comes and is like "Dude, I'm gonna hit you with blood." Pharaoh's like "bet". Moses hits him with blood. Pharaoh's all like "Whoooa, this ish is real! Make it stop and imma let your people go." Moses makes the blood go away. Pharaoh's like "Nahh, not really though."

Now take this and rinse, lather, and repeat for frogs, lice, wild beasts, pestilence, boils, hail, and Jonas Brothers.  If this is how annoyingly indecisive he was with the craziest supernatural bad mojo known to man happening to him, imagine how maddening he would be to deal with for something as mundane as, oh, ordering a pizza with friends or something:

Imhotep: Yo Pharaoh, we're ordering pizza. You in?

Pharaoh: Sure. Lemme get some pineapples on my side.

Anck-su-namun: That sounds good. I'll get pineapple too.

Pharaoh: Pineapple? I want extra cheese.

Anck-su-namun: But you just said pineapple.

Pharaoh: Yeah, well, I changed my mind.

Imhotep: And here we go. You always do this!

Pharaoh: Do what?

Imhotep: Every four seconds with you, you're changing your mind.  The hell, man?

Anck-su-namun: And before the food even get here lemme tell you: Yes. I want all of my food. Not some of it. I'm not gonna eat the pizza and fries and you take the soda. I am eating it all.

Pharaoh: So what do I get out of this then?

Anck-su-namun: What do you get out of not trying to get some of my food? You get me not kicking your ass. Does that work for you? Not getting your ass kicked?

Imhotep: Ok, look, let's not even get into that right now. The total is $27.85, so that's like $9.30 a person.

Pharaoh: Well I don't have anything on me right now, but if you pay for it for me, I'll promise to pay you back.

Imhotep: ...Right. Just like you promised I could borrow that Black Eye Peas album if I helped you move, right? But then I did it, and you were like you changed your mind?

Pharaoh: I don't know what you're talking about.

Imhotep: You don't know what I'm talking about.

Pharaoh: I don't know what you're talking about.

Anck-su-namun: Hey, how bout if you shut up I promise to not kick your ass, but then I kick it anyway?

I re-met Marla Bennett at Pardes in 2001.  We knew each other through friends as teenagers, but developed a relationship and shared a tight social circle during my Junior Year abroad in Jerusalem.  After she and fellow Pardes-nik (and DJ) Ben Blutstein were killed in the Hebrew U bombing in July 2002, we were just getting JDub off the ground.  We shifted gears and our first event was a memorial concert for them called Zachor, which raised $25K for scholarship funds in their memory at Pardes.

Seven and a half years on, we maintain close relationships with Marla's family and that social circle from Jerusalem.  We've grown up, gotten married, some of us have had kids.   Tonight, reading this challenging article about her parents' lawsuit against the government of Iran (which awarded them $13 million), I was particularly struck not just by her picture, but her age: 24. As the youngest of our crew, to see that, on the cusp of my 30th birthday, brought back fully the devastation of her loss.  Visiting with the Bennetts this summer, they said nothing of the lawsuit, of their efforts to put a lien on the Iranian embassy, or of their hopes for the good use the $13 million could be put to.  If and when conversation turned to Marla, it was not about the bombing, blame, or foreign governments.  It was about Marla, the sweet, young, caring friend and daughter.  The final line of the article perfectly sums up how the Bennetts, and Marla's friends, remember her: "‘I always tell people she was the best person I've ever known,' said her father."

 

Read the full article at LATimes.com

Sometimes it seems there is a disconnect between what American Jews believe is moral for Israel, and what they believe is moral for the U.S. 

 YNET reports:

"Infiltrators cause cultural, social and economic damage, and pull us towards the Third World," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a Manufacturers Association assembly.
 "We suffer from a problem that actually stems from Israel's economic success," he said, explaining the problems that arise from the breached border with Egypt.
 "We have become almost the only First World country that can be reached by foot from the Third World. We are flooded with surge of refugees who threaten to wash away our achievements and damage our existence as a Jewish democratic state."

 

VDARE's Patrick Cleburne is calling the Jews out on their duplicity. Cleburne appears to be implying that Israel and her prime minister have one set of standard for illegal immigrants, and that American Jewry has quite another.

Now, American Jews do appear to be more in line with Netanyahu for American immigration policy than our leadership would like. Much more in line. But regardless of that, the organizational community, which invokes a theological mandate to "welcome the stranger," needs to explain to us why there is a different immigration policy promoted for the U.S. than for Israel. Especially since so many in our community already appear to conflate American policy for Israeli policy in so many ways already. 

 If we are to be consistent, American Jewry should pressure Israel to accept "a path to citizenship" for "strangers," against her majority population's will, just as Jewish groups are pressuring the U.S. to accept mass immigration against our majority population's will.

By Jewish communal standards, Netanyahu should be denounced for his unfortunate xenephobic, racist, and nativist standards. He should be denounced for his (non-existent) relationship with John Tanton.

Alternatively, Jewish organizations could revisit a HIAS-determined policy that is out of synch with out countrymen, with Israel, and even with American Jewry.

Finding myself single yet again, I've realized it's time to focus on self-improvement. This means both, as my sister put it, "not dressing like a lazy hooker" and returning to my favorite diet so I can get back down to my goal dating weight of 110 pounds (just at the weight limit where I can still be checked in as baggage on domestic flights).

Coming from a long line of giant fat people and a long history of a variety of eating disorders, it should come as no surprise that I have extensive experience with diets. Only one (aside from the anorexia/bulimia two-for-one special) has ever rendered halfway decent results, and thusly I plan on returning to this one immediately. 

My choice to opt for a rigid diet as opposed to just trying to eat well was prompted in part by a recent trip grocery shopping. Whenever I unpack a bag of groceries, I am forced to realize that I really only buy two categories of food: non-food and cry-for-help food. Non-food consists of Single Jewish Girl staples such as miso soup packets, celery, non-fat yogurt and diet soda. I usully get a good two to three bags of that stuff; it's food that allows you to go through the motions of eating without actually having to consume anything. Then I get a bag or two of cry-for-help food, which is essentially the stuff you eat when you get back from a horrible Jdate or have had a bit too much to drink and you're having a I-want-to-destroy-my-body-so-I'll-have-an-explanation-for-why-no-one-loves-me. This consists of... pretty much all the food I was raised on: ice cream, mac and cheese, deep fried lard wrapped in bacon dipped in sugar, etc. It gets hidden behind the non-food in the fridge in case people come over, of course.

It's depressing to purchase these items, and more importantly it's expensive. That's part of the beauty of my diet plan... it's entirely free (for me)! It's way cooler than Atkins and South Beach combined, and it's twice as effective! I call it... The J-Diet. It's a real breakthrough, and I ultimately plan on writing a book about it just as soon as I'm emaciated enough for the jacket photo.

What's so amazing and unique about The J-Diet is that you can eat whatever you want, whenever you want! The only stipulation is that someone you met on JDate buys it for you. Sound too good to be true? It isn't. I went on the J-diet for 4 months and lost 30 pounds! (This was back when I worked at Bergdorf's, where Russian aestheticians reminded me daily that "food is how the sadness gets in.).

Continue reading...

Jewish outreach professionals complain constantly that younger Jews with two Jewish parents are bored with Judaism and are constantly wandering off to join Buddhist zendos and Hindu ashrams, conjuring up an image of disobedient and insolent young lambs scattering defiantly in all directions, proudly wearing nose rings, tattoos, and baaing defiantly at very expensive programs designed to lure them back into the Jewish communal sheep fold.

I have assured Jewish outreach workers that many adult children and grandchildren of intermarriage would be "cheap dates." We could be coaxed into the communal fold.  Many half-Jewish people would like to join the Jewish community. I have suggested that the Jewish outreach workers do simple brochures for us and start small monthly discussion groups, just as they currently do for interfaith couples and Jews By Choice (converts).

But both I and other half-Jewish people have noticed that these modest suggestions are largely ignored.  At the present time I do not know of a single Jewish institution that has created a pamphlet for us or is currently holding a discussion group for us that directly addresses our needs.  Most Jewish outreach workers have even been unwilling to include the words "adult children of intermarriage" in website welcoming statements that comprehensively welcome every other Jewish minority on the planet, including interfaith couples and Jewish gay frogs (just kidding about the rainbow-colored, Star of David-bespangled frogs, OK?).

Now, in a previous post, I discussed how some of this rejection and neglect is partially rooted in a disastrous "lost generation" policy instituted by the tiny Jewish outreach networks of the 1980s, in which a tacit policy decision was made to abandon all teen and adult children of intermarriage raised outside of Judaism and focus on the much smaller group of half-Jewish people "raised" as Jews by interfaith couples who were able to find welcoming Jewish groups.

But it is 2010 - can't we drop the failed policies of the past? Short answer: apparently not yet. The members of the Half-Jewish Network (www.half-jewish.net) complain to me in large numbers that they are repeatedly rebuffed or ignored by Jewish outreach workers. Why? We brush our teeth regularly and are often employed. We don't even bite!

Why Are Jewish Outreach Workers Ignoring Half-Jewish People?

Last year, I realized that I was operating from logic -- Judaism needs more Jews, therefore, we should welcome half-Jewish people -- but Jewish opposition to reaching out to half-Jewish people is tenacious, deeply-rooted, and emotional -- even among some Jewish outreach professionals!

These feelings that many Jewish outreach workers have about us are deeply buried and often confided to me privately.  

Jewish outreach workers are frequently overworked and underpaid, charged with outreaching not only to interfaith families, but all kinds of Jewish groups that need special outreach, including disaffiliated Jews with two Jewish parents.

Jewish outreach workers are generally very nice people -- they care about interfaith couples and Jews by Choice -- they often go an extra mile to help an interfaith couple find a rabbi to marry them -- or locate a conversion class for a potential Jew by Choice.

Here is what is preventing some of them from showing the same kindnesses to half-Jewish people, in a list of reasons confided to me over the last two decades:

Continue reading...

Another day, another purported terrorism scare at a New York City-area airport. Today, it's out of LaGuardia, where a flight to Louisville had to make an emergency landing in Philadelphia after a passenger's use of a religious item caused flight personnel to fear a bomb scare. What was that religious item, you may ask? Not a Koran, like you might guess. According to CBS, "a Jewish male removed a "tefillin" for prayer purposes after takeoff. The removal of the "religious item" prompted a bomb scare aboard the plane." (Please note that that is an exact quote, including all the scare quotes.) Yes, guys, it turns out that a tefillin box totally looks like a bomb. Thank goodness nobody tried to bring a tzedekah box on board with them.

The man in question was removed from the flight and is probably being questioned by the FBI. However, this is the second incident this month that makes it seem it's less safe to fly while obviously being Jewish. The first, of course, was comedienne Joan Rivers being denied access to a flight because her passport carried two names - her stage name (Rivers) and her much Jewier-sounding legal name (Rosenberg).

Through his brother, "Joseph," Jewcy spoke to "Caleb," a passenger who was sitting near the Jewish man on this flight. Speaking under condition of anonymity because he and several other passengers are still being questioned by the FBI, he said that "There was no problem with [the Jewish passenger] at all," and added that the flight attendant who reported the 'suspicious activity' was biased against the Jewish passenger because she was African-American and did not understand Judaism or the significance of tefillin. The flight attendant in question is based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. [Editor's note: I just want to point out we're not hating on Southern people or saying they're all racist. I mean, dude, I'm from Raleigh. We're just relaying how Caleb and Joseph described the situation to us, and Caleb drew his own conclusions about the situation. Jewcy does not necessarily share or endorse his opinion.]

Of course, Jews aren't being profiled in airports the way that Muslim or Arab-looking people are. At least not yet. But how likely do you think it would be for a Catholic passenger to get kicked off a plane and investigated by the Department of Homeland Security for deciding to pray a rosary before the beverage cart went around? I'd bet the person would be able to pray without incident. And that's something we should be concerned about.

If you are shomer shabbos and buy a Sweet Million lottery ticket, you can't check to see if you've won on Shabbat, right? Well, no big deal, because the chance of winning that lottery are about as good as an elephant showing up on your doorstep.

Now imagine if your chance of winning 1 Million is 1 out of 5! That's what the Orthodox folks at Friendship Circle are facing. This non-profit that helps special needs kids is in the top five to win the Chase Community Giveaway of 1 Million dollars. Votes are accepted through Friday and the winner will be determined on Shabbat. So imagine what will happen when Chase calls or knocks on the door and no-one answers because everyone is in shull?!

ModernTribe fan Pinny Gniwisch called me to pimp his ridiculous video (in which he stars) to help spread the word about the very wonderful charity Friendship Circle. Instead of the video, I find the Shabbat conflict much more worthy of sharing.

Friendship Circle is a non-profit dedicated to enriching the lives of individuals with special needs through play-therapy based programs that pair teens and special friends together to form a life-changing bond of friendship.

You can help confuse Chase (and tempt the Orthodox) by casting your vote for Friendship Circle through Friday, January 22 at http://votefc.com/

Three weeks ago, I wrote about the Matzah Ball, the “revolutionary” Jewish singles party on Christmas Eve, a.k.a the sleaziest Jewish-themed event I’ve ever been to. At the Matzah Ball, as I wrote, there was a table offering plastic surgery advice and coupons.

Yesterday, after I had finally got the grime of the event off of my skin, I got a call from the plastic surgery clinic that the organizers of the Matzah Ball had given my contact information to. (WTF Matzah Ball organizers?) “Congratulations!” a cheery voice told me. “You didn’t win the drawing, but you were a runner up.” She offered me $500 off of any “cosmetic procedure.” When I told her I wasn’t interested, she offered it to any of my family members, as long as they called back within 24 hours. “This is special for you, because you attended the Matzah Ball.”

As disgusted as I am, I can’t say I’m surprised. Cosmetic surgery has been a not-very-secret secret of mainstream Jewish American culture for a few generations now. Two of my three grandmothers (yes, I said three) had nose jobs by the time they were 18. Grandma Esther got a nose job in a small town in Ohio in the 1930s. Could that sound any more painful?

And by the time I was 12, Bubbe Debbie made it clear that she would pay for a nose job if I wanted one. By the time I was 18, I had to directly tell her to stop talking about my nose. I’d love to say my grandmothers or the Matzah Ball are exceptions to the rule, but unfortunately they aren’t. Is looking "like a Jew" still such a bad thing?

 

This post originally appeared on JSpot and is reprinted with permission

Remember Boyz II Men? I do, and I also remember dancing to "End of the Road" at a middle school dance, which is making me feel really old. Anyway, one of their members, Shawn Stockman, has been outed on a gossip site as being a bigamist. Well, not a real bigamist - he's only legally married to one woman, but he was "spiritually married" to another woman for nine years. Apparently it's cool because Shawn is an Israelite and they believe in polygamy. Wait, what?

For those of you playing along at home, the Israelites - or as they're better known, the Black Hebrews - believe themselves to be direct descendants of, well, the actual Israelites. Many Israelites do not identify as being mainstream Jews and consider themselves "true" members of the faith. Therefore, you're not likely to see them fighting over whitefish salad next week after services. Everybody's favorite "recovering" crackhead Whitney Houston reportedly claimed to be a Black Hebrew during a trip to Dimona, Israel in 2003.

Apparently, Shawn's lifestyle looked pretty appealing to fellow bandmate Wanye "The One Who Dated Brandy" Morris, who has reportedly converted to Judaism recently. Welcome to the party, guys! 

"You can't have everything. Where would you put it?"
- Western sage Steven Wright

Anyone involved in new age spiritual Judaic practice has probably heard of Jay Michaelson; his influence extends to books, articles, publications, spiritual retreats, speaking tours and the like. He was even recently named as one of the Forward 50, an annual list of important and influential Jewish figures in America. In Everything is God, his magnum opus on the nondualistic Judaism Michaelson promotes, he attempts to bring "Jewish Enlightenment" to more traditional consumers. I assume.

His sources are not strictly Jewish; by "mapping" Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, Christian, and other religious traditions onto traditional Judaism, Michaelson and his ilk are syncretizing a new Judaism, more as compatible with mystical Eastern traditions. I'm many years out of yeshivah, but I recognize avodah zarah when I see it.

Traditional Judaism posits a anthropomorphic god, with human characteristics, who intervenes in the universe and gave positive commandments. Nondualism on the other hand sacralizes, well, everything, insisting that the whole universe is in the process of "godding." That is to say, that all existence is God's existence, that there is nothing that isn't god--and therefore God encompasses all existence--good and bad, pleasure and suffering--but does not necessarily have discrete characteristics or a personality (except when it does). God isn't just in everyone and everything, it is everyone and everything. The Kabbalistic name for this phenomenon, Michaelson tells us, is "Ein Sof," meaning "without end."

In Michaelson's universe, nondualism is a pervasive and obvious truth, but don't look to the book to make too much sense out of it. The true nature of God is constantly being described as both knowable and unknowable; ineffable but universally understandable. Nondualism, the focus of this book, is the idea that God is the universe. "Nothing is excluded," Michaelson writes early in the book. (It turns that out this is false, but not in the way you're probably thinking). Nondualism stands slightly apart from monism (everything is one) and dualism (there is a difference between the mental and the physical) by being unable to commit to either view to the exclusion of anything else: separateness (for example, the mind/body split) is an illusion, a series of masks God wears because he loves to play tricks on us, or something like that. Nondualism, the author tells us, is not exactly pantheism (all gods are the same god, who is within all of us) or panentheism (pantheism plus a bonus extra god outside of all of us), but encompasses both in a characteristically equivocal fashion.

Atheists call this kind of argument "conversion by bear hug" -- you don't have to believe in god, god is already inside you, therefore you can't realy disbelieve in god, QED. "Neither oneness or twoness, neither yesh nor ayin, but both, and thus neither. It's not quite paradox--it's enlightenment," explains Michaelson. "The Kabbalistic math of this reality is that 2 = 1 = 0. Fortunately, I don't have to be good at math anymore."

Continue reading...

If you're a fan of the New York Yankees, enjoy rap music, or own a radio, you've probably heard Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind" about a million times. The hit single, which features Alicia Keys singing the hook, has already been bandied about as a modern replacement for Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" as the Big Apple's unofficial anthem.

However, comedian Billy Eichner thought that the song left out some elements of the New York City he grew up in - specifically, the Jewish neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens. He teamed up with Saturday Night Live alum Rachel Dratch for this (NSFW) parody video:

 

 

Designers often credit the music they listen to as the inspiration for their collections. Clearly Marc Jacobs is into showtunes - The Producers' tune "Springtime for Hitler" has never been illustrated in fashion more vividly than in Jacobs' Fluo Passementary Lily Hobo Bag from his SS10 accessories collection. You do not need to be a grandchild of a Holocaust survivor or a genius to look at this fashion accessory and see a swastika there.

Marc Jacobs currently has a hand in designing multiple collections, including Louis Vuitton, his namesake collection Marc Jacobs and his more affordably priced Marc by Marc Jacobs line. It's possible that his being overworked and spread quite thin attributed to his being (dare I say) less detail-oriented as he clearly overlooked this front and center swastika. Although it's likely that this imagery was not evoked intentionally, CounterfeitChic blogger Susan Scafidi appropriately asks whether there could be another, less offensive way to evoke German style inspirations into our ensembles...as if we often look to the Germans for style tips (sorry, Karl Lagerfeld). Clearly versed on the historic side of the issue, Scadifi points out that although Jacobs' bag's image turns to the left while Hitler's swastika faced right, this image is undoubtedly offensive - or at the very least, jarring and unsettling - to those who recognize it. The intricate detail of the bag may as well be replaced by a Post-It note that reads "Hitler's Hobo." Perhaps it's time to lay off the showtunes for a little while, Marc?

Nazi Couture?

My name is Clare Burson.

I write songs, sing, and play the guitar and the violin.

I have independently released 2 full length albums of my own material and am preparing to release the third on Rounder Records sometime this spring. My music has been described as "world-weary like Lucinda Williams', expressive like Kathleen Edwards', mysterious like Jolie Holland's."

I grew up in Tennessee and currently live in Brooklyn, NY.

From March 2007 until March 2009 I was a Six Points Fellow.

 

I heard about the Six Points Fellowship from a college friend. Even before applying, I felt like I'd won the lottery - the fact that something like this existed just blew my mind. In years past, I had searched in vain for any sort of fellowship or grant that could fund a somewhat commercially-minded singer-songwriter like myself. Here it was - finally! If selected, I would be funded to make a new album, plus the Six Points community could provide me with a safe and stimulating space to bring my Jewishness into my creative work in a way that hopefully could expand my reach as an artist instead of limiting it.

You see, despite the fact that I was (and still am) a decidedly secular musician and songwriter, I had been toying with the idea of incorporating my Jewishness into my music for years. I didn't want to lose the universal tone of my earlier work, but I did want to create a cycle of songs that spoke to my experience as a Jewish woman from the American South with grandparents and great grandparents who had come to Memphis, TN (of all places), fleeing persecution in Central and Eastern Europe.

Continue reading...

Haaretz reported this morning that the Israeli Defense Force's Major General Avi Zamir has recently declared his lastest target: supermodel and Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover girl Bar Refaeli. At a lecture he gave at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Zamir explained his frustration at not being able to punish Refaeli for supposedly avoiding her mandatory army service by marrying an older man believed to be a family friend.

At the time of their quickie wedding Bar was 18, and her now ex-hubby was 37. In America she'd be just another gold digger, but in Israel this behavior is apparently cause for a boycott. While avoiding serving in the army is not respected in Israeli culture, Zamir took his disrespect and turned aggressive, encouraging Israelis to boycott products that use Refaeli in their advertisements, including Israeli denim company, Fox. "We are a society that has an army," Zamir explained, "and Bar Refaeli doesn't have to participate in ads for Fox - and if she advertises Fox than you shouldn't buy their products."

Zamir is accurate in stating that his country, as most do, has an army and he is also right in saying that Refaeli did not have to participate in the Fox campaign. In fact, that may be the best part about the current state of Bar's career - having achieved outrageous success in her field, she now never has to appear in an advertisement that she would prefer not to. It seems Refaeli is nowhere near as ashamed as Zamir would like her to be for avoiding serving in the IDF and for that reason alone - let's never wear Fox jeans again. 

Being only one of possibly thousands who avoid IDF service, Bar Refaeli seems to be taking the brunt of the military's disdain on the matter. Zamir closed with an ever more aggressive, yet unintentionally hilarious quip: "She is the one who has to look at herself in the mirror." Zamir is right again - Bar does have to look at herself in the mirror each morning, but I can guarantee her reflection is far more enchanting and seductive than any other Israeli who recently dodged their IDF service. C'mon Maj. Gen. Zamir - don't hate Bar cause she's beautiful.

The first time I tried it, I was in a group.  The second time, it was with a married man.  The last time, I was alone and loved every minute of it.  It had started while I was doing my shift at my local food co-op when the seasoned staffer asked for a volunteer to stock the meat cooler.  I figured I could handle meat, so I jumped right in.  As the burly bearded man told me what we had to put out, he got an excited twinkle in his when he breathed, “oh, and we have duck bacon today.”

Sure, I had heard of turkey bacon, beef bacon, and even lamb bacon but never duck bacon.  “Is it any good?”  I asked my curiosity piqued by his tone while the slim rectangular packages were placed into the cooler.  After my shift was over I did a little shopping and found myself back at the meat cooler.  I thought of a friend who loves duck, so why not try this?

So we arranged a brunch.  A few friends over on a sunny winter weekend to sample a tasty new treat.  We cooked up a batch of the duck bacon and placed tiny pieces on crackers.  I had even bought a duck liver pate (pork-free) that we smeared on tiny wedges of toast.  There were many other delicacies that afternoon, but for the meat eaters of the group all anyone remembers was that taste.  Squares of thin sliced smoked duck meat fried in duck fat – all that salty, smoky soaked in silky tender duck fat.  What flavor!  Bursting from each cracker.  Why aren’t more things cooked in duck fat?

A few days after the brunch, a friend was home sick with a cold.  And what’s that saying? “Feed a cold, starve a fever.”  And what clears a stuffy head better than duck?  There was some left over after the brunch.  I brought a loaf of fresh bread and we soaked up the duck fat and sprinkled the bread with garlic powder.  And to make things even more treyf my friend had some leftover macaroni and cheese.  It was the most decadent meal I think I have ever cooked.

By the end of the week, I was hungry and alone.  My boyfriend was at work and there was little in the house to eat.  A few potatoes, onions and the rest of the duck bacon.  I didn’t know if could top the ecstasy of the last time I had eaten the duck, but I roasted the potatoes and cooked the onions in with the bacon and tossed in the potatoes until they were coasted in the silky duck.  I was glad I was alone, because sometimes it's just better when you are alone with duck juices dribbling down your chin.

I don’t know if there is a food more naughty to kosher keeping Jews than pork – although technically it is no more a sin than any other prohibited food.  Yet, bacon gets many Jews really riled up (read the comments).  So all this talk of bacon feels a little scandalous even if duck bacon can be kosher (okay, not eaten with mac n’ cheese).  But the really naughty here is how amazing duck bacon really is.  To paraphrase Stephen Colbert, “Was that bacon, or did an angel just give birth in my mouth?”

Oh yes, I will be looking for duck bacon again.

I have long railed against the Orthodox Union and its double-headed outreach group, NCSY and the JSU, for funneling public school teens to haredi places whose trajectories, if followed properly, will lead the indoctrinated to poverty.

The problem is that the Orthodox, even the Modern Orthodox, do not see that as a problem. 

From their P.O.V., they may be correct. 

In regards to a new national survey, the OU declared,

Baalei teshuva, those who do not grow up religiously observant but become so later in life, face added challenges in their marriages; more affluent families run a greater risk of marital stress from at-risk or “off-the-derech” children than Orthodox Jews of more modest means

The Orthodox Union will not relinquish recruiting ties to haredi insitutions that preach poverty to our youth (but not to their own) precisely in part because affluence itself is rightly seen by the Orthodox Union and by Big Kiruv generally as enhancing an already "at risk" population: the newly Orthodox.

 

 

 

For those of you keeping track at home, the Jimmy Carter Apology Express has NOT been met at the station by the always apoplectic ZOA (Zionist Organization of America). Jimmy Carter (former U.S. President, peanut enthusiast, and erotica writer), in an oddly-timed pre-Christmas apology to American Jews, offered his belated Al-Het for "stigmatizing Israel" over the years.

The gesture was met with both reluctant acceptance by Jewish organizations needing to appear magnanimous (see: Foxman, Abraham) and consternation by various Jewish figures who still dislike Jimmy and/or saw the timing of Carter's apology a little too closely linked to grandson Jason Carter's run for the Georgia State Senate.

The ZOA falls into the latter camp, issuing their rejection some two-and-a-half weeks after the Carter apology was announced. The ZOA was firm in the assessment of Carter's apology, deciding to actually reject it twice. In the second pronouncement, the ZOA references a characteristically harsh op-ed written by Carter in the Guardian literally hours before his apology to American Jews washed ashore in the New World. The ZOA statement called upon the ADL, NJDC, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center (named for a historic lover of apologies) to retract their ambivalent approvals of Carter's apology some fifteen days after they were originally issued.

I'm sure I will eventually have to apologize for asking this, but...how does any of this political pussyfooting help the people actually suffering because of the obstinacy surrounding this conflict?

So, like the rest of the country, we here at Jewcy HQ have been following the huge moral dilemma that is Conan O'Brien vs Jay Leno (our office is Team Conan, as if there were any doubt). However, we couldn't declare a victor without the most hated figure of the 20th century weighing in. That's right, ladies and gents, Adolf Hitler has officially come down on one side of the debate. Watch and learn:

 

Until about a week ago, the last time anyone thought about Uganda was either (1) never or (2) to convey a generic far away place that you would never want to visit. It's sort of like saying Timbuktu but sounds way smarter. Now, in a fiery fit of gay rage, the relatively tiny nation (roughly the size of Michigan) has attempted to compensate for its small size by stirring up homophobic hubbub. It's already a world leader in illiteracy - desiring to become part of a not-so-secret society of nations that punishes gays with the death penalty is just one more feather in Uganda's unsightly African floral headwrap.

The bill, proposed by MP David Bahati, adds Uganda to that list of other places you would never want or are currently barred from going to like Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates. Coincidentally, most of those countries are ones where Jews wouldn't feel terribly welcome either. Sure, it's all fun-and-games shopping for Dolce in Dubai until someone gets stoned to death for showing their sugar daddy a little gratitude.

Normally, when crazy countries (see: Iran) make generic threats, members of sane societies create useless Facebook pages with impossibly long, almost incoherent names like "Ahmadinejad is a terrorist tyrant. Bring peace to the Persian people now. Join to help us reach over 1,000,000 members." But despite the similar onslaught of fruitless Facebook pages rising up in virtual condemnation against this latest humanitarian crisis, it indeed appears that Uganda's rogue government isn't just interested in having an international dick-measuring contest. For the first time in its 47-year history, Uganda actually seems serious about instituting social change. Naturally, in a country where 75% of the population lives on less than $2 a day, it couldn't be for something truly good. Instead, Ugandan parliament members (with the staunch support of - who else? - Evangelical groups) have drafted legislation that would broaden the scope of what is considered illegal homosexual behavior. People with HIV/AIDS, who have prior convictions of queer conduct, and/or get caught in same-sex acts with those under 18 years old would be subject to the death sentence. As if that weren't enough of a human rights violation, Uganda will also go after gay expatriates and individuals or organizations that support LGBT rights there.

It may come as a shocker that gays even exist at all in a country where raggy shmattes rule the roads. There are, however, an estimated 500,000 sexual minorities who call Uganda home.

Continue reading...

Ever wondered how the Tel Aviv we know now - high rise buildings, awesome beaches, ritzy hotels - looked a hundred years ago? Well, thanks to this awesome video from Liron Damir, you can get a sense of how Tel Aviv evolved. This is one of the coolest, and best-looking, videos we've seen in quite some time.

 

Tel-Aviv-Jaffa from Liron Damir on Vimeo.

 

For the second time in the past year, I tracked down Natalie Portman at a public appearance in New York City and asked her about connections between her Jewish faith and her vegan diet. After the world's most famous Jewish vegan took the topic in a different direction in April, I asked her a much more direct question as part of The New York Times' Arts & Leisure Weekend on Saturday night.

While performing my journalistic duty as a Jewish-vegan blogger, I learned several fascinating things. First, Natalie loves the name "heebnvegan." (I somehow managed to maintain my composure when she said this.) Second, she apparently remembers our initial encounter. Third, she sees her decision not to take animals' lives for food as the core of her Judaism. Finally, she thinks vegetarian food in Israel and California is excellent, but unlike the world's second-most famous Jewish vegan, she finds New York vegetarian food disappointing.

Below is a transcript of our conversation during the Q&A portion of the event.

Continue reading...

Israel's top politicians are up in arms after the catering for cabinet meetings was switched for healthy cuisine. Starting this week, pastries and cakes were removed from the menu at daily conferences:

Government ministers were shocked last Sunday to discover that their usual cabinet meeting breakfast of burekas puff pastries, rugelach and croissants was replaced with granola, vegetables and yogurts. Juices were also replaced for water.

The person responsible for the new diet, which caused an uproar among the ministers, is Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser, who said he got the idea from Yona Bar-Tal, the President's Residence's deputy director-general.

"I reached the conclusion that the ministers should have a healthy menu with as little dough and fat as possible. Currently they are accustomed to get burekas puff pastries, sandwiches and cakes.

"We did away with juices and replaced them with water. We completely removed the burekas, rugelach and cakes. We put in yogurts with granola, fruits, vegetables, whole wheat bread, low-fat cheeses and other healthy foods," he said.

(Note: The East Coasters among us know what rugelach is - sugar filled deliciousness. Burekas are Ottoman-descended puff pastries stuffed with cheese or savories that came to the country via Turkish Jews. For obvious reasons, Israelis are not generally big fans of bacon and ham at breakfast.)

All this would just be a funny quirky story if not for the fact that most of Israel's Hebrew-language dailies ran a paper on the story today. That's because several cabinet members essentially used the change of menus as an excuse to troll for votes:

Several ministers welcomed the change for obvious health considerations. Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon noted, "Finally we have a cabinet secretary who recognizes the true value of Israeli agriculture and the land of milk and honey."

The eating habits of politicians are fair scrutiny for the Israeli media. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke in 2006 that left him in a semi-vegetative state. His legendary love of unhealthy food is believed to have been a contributing factor.

 

This post originally appeared on True/Slant and is reprinted with permission.