...And The City Women all across America may be planning their big girls’ night out to watch the new Sex and the City movie being released on May 29th, but the women of Jerusalem and Petach Tikva will probably be doing something else, for the simple reason that many of them won't even know the movie is in theaters.

That's because officials in the cities of Jerusalem and Petach Tikva don’t want the word “sex” to be on display, and have forbidden Forum Films (the Israeli distributor of the movie) from hanging advertisements or posters promoting the flick. The poster – which has a simple black background, the name of the movie in pink letters, and an image of Carrie Bradshaw in a fuchsia dress – does not include any nudity or pornographic messages. It simply states the name of the film.

Forum Film responded by stating that they “did not wish to advertise nude women or messages that may offend the feelings of the public in general and specifically of the orthodox population. That is the name of the movie, and we think that it is ridiculous to advertise the brand without the brand name.”

Maximedia, the company responsible for outdoor advertising, suggested a compromise. Their idea?  Advertising a movie called “… and the City”, which could actually be considered more suggestive seeing as how it leaves room for interpretation. At least with a name like “Sex and the City” you know what you’re getting.

This is not the first time that advertising has been censored in Israel due to the sensitivities of the orthodox population, but it is the first time that a word – and not an image – has been considered too provocative.

Spot the differences... An image of Sarah Jessica Parker was altered in a Lux soaps campaign in Israel in 2004 because her dress was considered too revealing. Billboards, which originally flaunted images of the Sex and the City star in a short spaghetti-strap dress, were "frumified", and long sleeves were literally added onto her image after an angry call from a prominent rabbi.

The censorship is not limited to sultry women like Parker. Apparently Disney’s Tarzan is too hot to handle as well. When the Tarzan animated movie came out, Forum Films was forced to take down posters that had already been hung in order to add pants to the wild jungle character. Where he’d even get pants in the jungle is beyond me, but obviously we’re not dealing in reason here.

For all those Jerusalem and Petach Tikva ladies out there who still want to watch the fabulous four on film – have no fear. The movie may not be advertised, but it’s still coming soon to a theater near you.

You know what makes me a little nauseous? This article from the Columbia Spectator:

Students Balance Homework, Husbands
By Laura Schreiber

Grades Aren't That Important: it's all about the dress

In October 2003, first-year Miriam Casper, BC ’07, hit it off with a guy she met at a friend’s party on the roof of Woodbridge Hall. A year later, she married him and moved to Queens. After 18 months, she gave birth to her son Benjamin.

One week later, she graduated magna cum laude.

Most students at Barnard and Columbia College will spend their undergraduate years exploring varying levels of relationships and intimacy. But for a number of orthodox Jewish students, tying the knot while in college is the norm.

“I always hoped by the time I graduated college, I would be married, be engaged, or be dating someone I knew I wanted to marry,” said Molly Elkins, BC ’08, who married last month and moved to Washington Heights with her husband.

For Yael Hall, BC ’10, who is preparing for her January wedding, marriage came sooner than expected. “I was the last person anyone would think would be getting married,” Hall said. “I got really rude responses from friends who knew me like that, saying, ‘Wow, I really didn’t think you’d be one of the first ones to go.’”

While living in Cathedral Gardens may seem like a trek, married students commute from as far as New Jersey. According to Hillel Rabbi David Almog, marriage presents a disruption of a student’s college experience.

“In college ... friends really do become your family,” Almog said. “There’s a severe rupture that happens, when somebody gets married, of that bond.”

Rachel Fischer, BC ’08, who married last year, agreed that one of the hardest parts of matrimony was giving up campus connections.

“I definitely miss ... that environment where you’re always with people doing the same things,” said Fischer, who lives in New Jersey. “Everyone has midterms, everyone has finals, everyone’s in library.”

Elkins said she accepted that marriage meant giving up certain aspects of her old social life, including spending less time with her friends.

Marriage was a possibility she kept in the back of her mind from the beginning of college, though it did not dictate her plans.

“On some level it focuses you,” said Michelle Friedman, BC ’74 and a psychiatrist who counsels observant Jewish women. “If you’re a pre-med person you know what courses you take. If you want to get married, you focus on that. Finding a spouse is like finding a job.”

For Fischer, who is currently applying to law school, her time at Barnard was often a tough balancing act between family obligations and career aspirations.

“There’s always the constant temptation of ‘forget school, who cares? I’m married. ... What would be the difference?’” Fischer said. “But I can’t give up that aspect of my life. I couldn’t give up those goals.”

Yet some students feel no qualms prioritizing family life over college. “Marriage is much better than education and academics,” Elkins said. “I wasn’t going to push off my wedding six months to do a little bit better in all my classes. I live life and go to school, but I don’t let it conflict with celebrations or anything like that. That’s the wrong perspective for school.”

Friedman said it could be tricky for college women to balance the more traditional values of the orthodox community with contemporary careers, noting that going back and forth between traditional gender roles and modern college life is sometimes confusing.

Full story

Because I know one of the people quoted in the article I’m not going to go into what parts in particular test my gag reflex, but as a rule, this whole thing is grotesque.

It’s cute that the spectator assumes that all the girls who get married in college will continue to come to classes and be enrolled. I bet there are a reasonable number who pretty much drop out after their wedding and/or the birth of their first child. And hey, I think it’s fine if that’s what these women want to do. I mean, they’re not my priorities, but they’re certainly valid ones.

What makes me crazy, though, is the idea that these guys are concerned about women who want to have careers. What is scary about that? Does extra money for vacation really intimidate people that much? Or savings to pay for day school? Or a nicer apartment? I don’t actually think Orthodox men are as shallow as this article makes them out to be, but man, this really makes me want to smack something.

If you fall in love with someone, and they fall in love with you, and you happen to be 19, or 20, or 21, I don’t have any problem with you getting married. But when girls are rushing through school to get to marriage, or are dropping careers that they’ve spent years training for because the community is pushing people to get married young, we have seriously fucked up our priorities somewhere. Not cool, people. Not. Cool.

Michael sent me a link to this fascinating article in the NY Times about how the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel is a complicated and basically isolated market with different rules and standards than secular Israeli society.
Your Phone Is Ringing: Don't worry--it's kosher

A Modern Marketplace for Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel — When Larry Pinczower switches on his cellphone, the seal of a rabbinate council appears. Unable to send text messages, take photographs or connect to the Internet, his phone is a religiously approved adaptation to modernity by the ultra-Orthodox sector of Israeli life.

More than 10,000 numbers for phone sex, dating services and the like are blocked, and rabbinical overseers ensure that the lists are up to date. Calls to other kosher phones are less than 2 cents a minute, compared with 9.5 cents for normal phones. But on the Sabbath any call costs $2.44 a minute, a steep religious penalty.

“You pay less and you’re playing by the rules,” Mr. Pinczower, 39, said. “You’re using technology but in a way that maintains religious integrity.”

A community of at least 800,000 people — out of 5.4 million Jews living in Israel, a country of 7.1 million — the ultra-Orthodox, though comparatively poor, form a distinct, growing and important market, and Israeli companies are paying attention. While there are rabbinical strictures against watching television, using computers for leisure, immodest attire and unsupervised mixing of men and women, the Israeli market economy has adjusted in creative and surprising ways.

Full story

The article treats the idea of a separate market for a religious group like it’s incredibly novel, but of course there’s plenty of it here in America. Veggie Tales are for evangelical kids, and there are Muslim cell phones. Communities with particular or unusual needs are generally able to command a small market of their own. To me, this article seems to be more about religious intolerance within the frum community than anything else. There’s a whole section about how psycho people are in Ramat Beit Shemesh B and we have heard this before.  Instead of marveling at how much toilet paper frum people buy, how about trying to figure out a way of dealing with haredim who will throw hot oil on a man trying to run a kosher pizza restaurant? Just saying.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how one can make being Jewish look good. Because the thing is, I’m always Jewish, and I’d like to be considered a cool girl, a woman with intellect, style and sex appeal.  But balancing that with halacha, fashion and contemporary life is hard. For some girls the hardest part is choosing what to wear—skirts only, or sometimes pants, elbows covered or not, collarbone covered or not, etc—since so much of how we’re perceived is based on how we look. But for others it’s more than that. Is it intimidating or awesome to know that the person you’re dating prays three times a day and only eats kosher food? Is it cool to be friends with someone who feels a really strong connection and commitment to his community, so much so that he will follow rules he doesn’t even agree with because the community says so? Does it get you all hot and bothered that your partner can read and translate a page of dense Aramaic text written by a bunch of rabbis more than a thousand years ago?
It's more than just T and A: a lot more
I actually think there is something sexy about an Orthodox lifestyle. It seems to be full of secrets and curtains, and even marriage has a kind of illicit feel to it when you’re forbidden from touching each other for weeks at a time.

But while I find it to be a huge turn on if a guy can read Torah well, I’m not interested in partnering up with a man who wants to settle down in Scarsdale, buy me a wig and get me pregnant once a year for a decade. There are things about the frum lifestyle that I find attractive, but being obligated to it is a whole different ballgame.

I guess the question is: Is it possible to be sexy and committed to Judaism at the same time? If sexiness is about more than just the accessories of clothing and setting and community, what is it, and how do we get it?

Obviously the answer is going to be different for different people, but I think one of the ways where Orthodoxy goes wrong, and where a lot of people get frustrated with religious life, is in its insistence on ignoring or quelling desire. Time and time again the rabbis warn against dangerous desires, and each time I come across that lesson I wish there was a little footnote on how to accept the desire without acting on it. It might be inappropriate to do something, it might be a bad idea, or a poor decision, or just plain wrong. But denying the desire for it isn’t helpful.

For a long time I had a crush on a guy who was (and pretty much still is) much too frum for me. I spent a lot of time thinking about how irritated I was at halacha, and generally feeling uninspired and angry at God. I had this daydream where he had a major crisis of faith, and left the observant community, at which point I would finally get to make out with him. But one day I was talking to the guy in question, and he told me he was really interested in me, but he knew he wasn’t ready for the kind of relationship I’d want, so he didn’t think we should be together. That comment was simultaneously incredibly sexy, and comforting and strong. I didn’t feel any more urges to break him away from his community or lifestyle. I had a much greater respect for him afterwards, and certainly an even greater desire.
I know that for some people this could only be even more frustrating, but I think it’s actually a really constructive and good idea, and I wish it was something the frum community could embrace, instead of just slamming us over the head with rules about skirt length and shomer negiah every forty-five seconds.

In "Hogan Knows Best," Hulk Hogan and family get acclimated to their new Frum neighborhood in Miami. Highlights include the discovery that bananas are indeed kosher and realizing that Hulk's wife, Linda, needs to go back down to a DD-cup.

Perhaps a little too hairy for Frummie's liking...Courtesy of Not So Frummie, a boy from Brooklyn with a penchant for beer-guzzling gals and TV (both before and after marriage):

I mean i wanna be lying on my death bed still holding my tube. Its not that TV is alot more important to me than a girl, but after a long day of work i like to sit down and not talk to anyone while I just stare and watch the TV. I dont know about you but i cant talk for hours on end, i get tired and loose focus. I can talk briefly, then mouth and mind needs some relaxation. In addition to the bull shit Nidah laws where you cant have sex half the month, what else are we suppose to do. I forgot to mention, if a girl says no to TV now, who knows what she gonna ban next and what shes gonna be strict about next. So, you see its not all about the idiot box in debate here, its all what it represents. And no, watching DVD's on ones laptop doesn't count. Am i the only one who thinks this way?

Naughty Jews: Frum foreplayAfter yesterday’s post about the mikvah, I was contacted by a psychologist named Mark Guterman.  Mark is working on a related study at UC Berkeley, and he asked me to help him get the word out.  I promptly took the survey, and I’m glad I did.  It was pretty interesting.

So, for the sake of helping them get a cross section of the Jewish world, I urge you to take the survey too. It only takes 3 minutes, and you get to answer questions about whether you like to do it it the naughty way.

But here’s the catch to all this fun…the language Mark sent in his email:

Niddah and Negiah play an important role in the every day lives of Jewish men and women. … Anecdotal evidence and our previous research have led us to conclude that many couples and individuals are experiencing difficulties with this aspect of the Halacha.

Niddah and Negiah?  I’m pretty unlikely to respond to a survey about something I’ve never heard of.  If they want to reach a cross-section of Jews, they need to define their terms.

Later on in the intro to the survey, these terms get rephrased for us as “family purity”. But discussing “purity” is tricky too, when it gets made clear in the beginning that you’re “impure.”  I mean, how many orthodox Jews want to take a survey on being “out of touch with the real world” or “uptight”. 

I’m okay with being impure, but I don’t like being CALLED impure by someone who is asking for my time.

Regardless, I suggest that you take the survey, for a quick lesson in all the impure things you do.   Then come back and tell me what you thought.  I also suggest that Mark rewrite his intro.  Though I still can’t get over the idea that my husband can’t hold my fucking hand while I give birth.  That’s as wacky as silent birth. 

But let’s face it… religion is crazy, kids.