Recycled

Pigeonhole-hopping is always a popular diversion among the opinionated. Inevitably leftists who disagree with you will call you fascist, while righties with beef will dismiss you as pinko Communists. It’s all too easy to derive glee from those moments when the criticism overlaps and you’re simultaneously accused of worshipping Marx, William F. Buckley, and Satan, all at the same time. At Jewcy, a magazine with limited editorial stances other than humanism (and even that’s debatable), we get perhaps a little too much pleasure playing the “don’t pin me down” game. But come on: For a website said to be run by Zionist neocons, we’re awfully willing to put Israel's security on the line for historical truth unrelated to Jewish suffering. As both David Kelsey and the Forward pointed out today, protesting Abe Foxman’s stance (or is that non-stance?) on the Armenian Genocide is, in realpolitik terms, bad for Israel. ...

Writing about your life is dangerous. The only thing easier than putting your audience to sleep (“I remember the rich aroma of my grandmother’s delicious matza ball soup”) is shocking your audience so thoroughly that you’ll never get hired or go on a date again (“I remember the rich aroma of my grandmother’s delicious matza ball soup the night we first made love.”) A good personal essay has to tell a good story, and most of the time, the best stories are the most personally incriminating. Which is why we’re always so excited when Jewcy users respond to a personal essay—or a feature, for that matter—with long, nakedly honest stories of their own. They’re not usually signed, so the risk isn’t quite as great, but it’s still sort of amazing to watch the one-way writer-reader relationship explode into a campfire storytelling session. Below, seven of our favorite commenter overshares:

Jewish education is terrible in this country (unless you go to day school), so many of us grow up utterly clueless about how to be a Jew. We’re vaguely aware that synagogue attendance is required on two separate occasions in early autumn, and we know pork and gentile boyfriends are supposed to be off-limits, but that’s about the extent of it. And yet foundations spend millions of dollars every year studying why so many young Jews don’t stick with the faith. The dirty truth: Those of us who went to your average half-assed Hebrew School don’t even know there’s a faith to leave behind. Jewcy doesn’t have any sort of continuity agenda, but we do think it’s ridiculous that so many otherwise smart and curious Jews end up seeing Judaic practice as a series of arcane rites—not just mysterious, but fundamentally unknowable. Even if we want to become better Jews, we don’t know how to do it. ...

“I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” The Song of Solomon makes it sound so simple—hot, even. But as Jewcy’s sex and dating coverage has amply proven over the past six months, love is never that straightforward. For some of us, it’s more like “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is about to dump me for being an American imperialist pig.” Or “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is Lexapro.” Or “I am my beloved’s and my beloved’s is mine, but we aren’t going to touch until our non-halachic gay marriage.” Below, some select articles, personal essays and blog posts in which our authors agonize about everyone's favorite four-letter word.