Ah, there's nothing like a delicious amalgam of celebrity gossip and religious fervor. Tweak the details of the story to make the celebrities beautiful wealthy socialites who inherited their good fortune from their famous parents and make the religion Judaism and you find yourself with a story ripe for feature in the New York Observer, the Manhattan-centric publication that proclaims, "Everything is about style for New Yorkers, from what they wear to where they eat to how they entertain." Fittingly, The Observer is owned by Jared Kushner, who has entered the tabloid spotlight with his recent engagement to Ivanka Trump and subsequent insistence that she convert to Judaism before the nuptials are to take place.

Kushner and Trump are both the recipients of vast inheritance of real estate fortunes and have each landed in the public consciousness due to their affluent lifestyles: Kushner became the owner of The Observer while still in grad school in 2006, while Trump spends her days working as Vice President of Real Estate Development and Acquisitions at the Trump Organization. Both pretty standard-issue jobs for 26-year-olds, right?

With the overbearing coverage that accompanies any wedding of the glitterati comes word that Kushner had asked Trump to convert before they wed and that she was going through with it. Unlike Christianity and Islam, the other members of God's Big Three, Judaism does not generally lend itself to proselytizing. However, the 1981 book, The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, states about intermarriage:

If the non-Jewish spouse truly shares the same values as the Jewish spouse, then the non-Jew is welcome to convert to Judaism, and if the non-Jew does not share the same values, then the couple should not be marrying in the first place.

Partially due to Judaism's lack of any sort of central dogmatic governing body, reliable statistics on conversion are hard to come by, but spousal conversion is not uncommon. Other famous converts-upon-marriage include Tom Arnold, Connie Chung, Kate Capshaw, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe and recently, Sacha Baron Cohen's fiancee, Isla Fisher.

A young boy is called up to his teacher’s desk in a yeshiva grade school.

“Stay after class, Shmuley. I want to talk to you.”

Shmuley stays, frightened that he has done something wrong and his teacher will punish him. Once the other boys have gone, his teacher – a rabbi – places Shmuley on his lap and uses his tiny, warm body to stroke his erection. When the rabbi is finished pleasuring himself, he tells Shmuley to leave. “But you be quiet. You don’t tell anyone what we did. It’s lashon hara, and it will hurt you and hurt your parents.”

Shmuley leaves, frightened and confused.

Later, after the fifth molestation or the fiftieth, after months or years have passed, Shmuley tells his parents.

His parents tell the school’s head rabbi, who responds by denying the boy’s report. He sternly warns the parents not to “talk lashon hara” (gossip) about Shmuley's teacher or about the yeshiva.

This is not the first time the yeshiva head has heard allegations about Rabbi X, and he knows how to effectively respond.

“It is lashon hara to do so,” the yeshiva head says. “And it will only hurt you.” Your other children will have difficulty finding marriage partners, the rabbi says, and Shmuley – well, Shmuley will be “damaged goods” – no one, except a girl who is also very damaged, will ever marry him. This is far from an idle threat in a community that thrives on arranged marriages and rabbinic control.

The parents leave, frustrated and frightened. Their eight-year-old son is now “damaged goods.” They approach another rabbi, powerful in their community, and ask his advice.

“Your son is a minor. his testimony would not be accepted in beis din (religious court). It is his word against Rabbi X – and Rabbi X is a very well regarded teacher. And, from what you tell me, even if what Shmuley said is true – and I doubt that – no violation of Torah law took place. Shmuley was not violated.

“So, my advice to you – my legal judgement, in fact – is to listen to what the head of the yeshiva told you. Do not speak lashon hara against him, or against his school – and most certainly, not against Rabbi X.”

The parents go to another important community rabbi and get a very similar answer.

Without community support to back them, and with the very real prospect of “destroying” their children’s lives by branding them “damaged goods,” the parents stay silent.

Shmuley isn’t given counseling because the stigma, if revealed, would be too great. The family lives with this terrible secret, an elephant always in the room but never spoken of, the tarnished Elijah’s Cup of every meal, every celebration, every enjoyment they will ever have. Rabbi X continues to abuse young victims from his desk in the yeshiva, protected by a presumption of innocence belied by the facts, by the silence of Shmuley’s family – and by a Jewish law.

This nightmare scenario has allegedly been repeated multiple times in Brooklyn, Monsey, Bnei Brak, and other ultra-Orthodox communities worldwide. How did this happen? How did a law meant to protect people from gossip become a club used by rabbis to beat defenseless children and their families into submission?

There is a long answer and a short answer to that question, and both can be summed up in same three words: The Chofetz Chaim.

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan is the iconic figure of today’s ultra-Orthodox Judaism. Kagan wrote many books on Jewish law in his long life. The first – and what may in retrospect prove to be his most controversial – was the Chofetz Chaim, a compendium of the laws of lashon hara.

Nothing that Kagan wrote in Chofetz Chaim was really new. What Kagan did – to the dismay of a few prescient rabbis – was compile laws scattered is disparate sections of the Talmud and in codes of Jewish law, and publish them for the first time as an organic whole with his commentary woven in. Kagan wanted his “little book” to be studied by the masses. He lived his entire long life firmly believing the messiah was literally coming any minute. Legend has it that at one point, he went into training for the “event,” running the stairs in his home to keep his aging body in shape for the blessed day. He thought the study of these laws would speed the messiah’s coming.

But Kagan’s book did bring these disparate laws out of the shadows and into the spotlight of Orthodox observance. And that, by and large, has been a bad thing.

Kagan’s idealism surpassed his realism. And, because Kagan’s book contained no dissenting opinions, that idealism became the baseline Jews were expected to follow – without nuance, without shades of gray, without real compensation for corrupt judges, rabbis, and leaders. It was Jewish law written in a vacuum but enforced in real life, law without context and without soul.

Kagan was a founder of the Agudath Israel movement, whose American branch recently campaigned against mandatory background checks for religious school teachers and employees, and would itself be linked to inaction in the face of rabbinic sexual abuse.

He urged Jews (with a few notable exceptions) to remain in Eastern Europe rather than settle in Palestine or America, and would go on to write twenty more books on Jewish law and ethics before he died in 1933 at the age of 95, in the shadow of the Holocaust that took so many of his followers and townspeople.

Kagan’s reputation as a saint survived nonetheless, and he and his books serve as totems worshipped with almost childlike veneration by ultra-Orthodoxy. He is often cited as the posek acharon, the final decisor and codifier of Jewish law, and his name and works have been preserved by the New York-based Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation. His books are found in almost every Orthodox home, library, shul and school – and in quite a few non-Orthodox settings, as well.

Orthodox Jews would be quick to point out that Kagan’s laws of lashon hara are misapplied by the rabbis in Shmuley’s story. Orthodox Jews are correct – the law is misapplied. But, like Kagan, what they miss is the inevitability of that misapplication, and the certitude of it.

The ultra-Orthodox community is not a democracy. It has no system of checks and balances, no ombudsman to press the case of the powerless, no campaign finance laws or transparency. It has no elections and no governance. It is a loosely joined series of potentates run by pashas dressed in black frock coats, fedoras and shtreimels, who owe allegiance to no one but themselves, and who are answerable only to God. And, as history and common sense tell us, God doesn’t often demand answers from those still here on this earth.

Until ultra-Orthodoxy adopts a fully transparent form of governance with a working system of checks and balances, laws meant to protect reputations will instead often be used to destroy lives – especially the lives of the smallest and the weakest, especially the lives of children like Shmuley.

• Schmeltzer: put on muteThere was bad news for the Ultra-Orthodox this week: A huge charity concert in Madison Square Garden was cancelled when 33 rabbis condemned Lipa Schmeltzer, the Chassidic singer scheduled to perform, and declared that public musical performances were a no-no. Schmeltzer has vowed to never sing another song composed by a non-Jew, and the charity, which benefits "Simchat Tzion, an organization that covers the cost of catering weddings for poor Israeli orphans," is out more than $100,000. Nobody wins, nicely done.

• More than a few tongues are wagging over the previous story, but not at the Stella K. Abraham High School for Girls on Long Island, which is pushing one hour of gossip-free time every day.

• Anyone want to declare a daily, freak-out-free hour for the Jewish people? A U.S. Jewish security network is warning us all of an increased risk of threats and attacks, though it’s not clear what that means or what we’re supposed to do about it.
  

• In more uplifting, inspired news, a Jewish woman with a simple idea—give solar cookers to women in Darfur so they don’t have to go out looking for wood and risk being raped by militiamen—was awarded a $100,000 prize from the Bronfmans.

• While we're on the subject of bright ideas: A holistic wellness facility for religious women opening in Jerusalem targets women who are the primary caregivers for their families, and don’t often seek medical attention for themselves.

• Also in Jerusalem, Conservative rabbinical students are still fighting about gay ordination, which is like, so last year.

TMZ breaks out every Jewish cliché in the book -- Woody Allen included -- in its look at the growing Hollywood trend of Israeli-trained bodyguards.

Gisele Bundchen will not renew her contract with Victoria's Secret, which is about to end its five-year term. Why? Page Six reported the brand was unwilling to give the supermodel a raise from her $5-million-a-year salary. TMZ reported Gisele refused to share the runway with Leonardo DiCaprio's girlfriend, Israeli supermodel Bar Rafaeli.

Rafaeli

If you're not familiar with Rafaeli, she's the most famous--if only--supermodel to come out of Israel. She was also the first Israeli to appear in Sports Illustrated's swimsuit edition.

I like her because for a model she doesn't look like she's dying--which is another reason, gossip mongers say, VS and Bundchen split. After she quit smoking, Bundchen reportedly gained 15 pounds. She said:

"When you stop smoking you gain weight, because food tastes better than when it tasted like ashtray."

Bundchen

Amen--or should I say aWOmen--Bundchen! Her weight gain also contributed to rumors she was pregnant with boyfriend Tom Brody's baby. Can't we congratulate a girl who gets healthier by ditching cigs and putting on a few pounds? Of course not. When celebrity women put on a few--or lose a few too many, for that matter--their careers are over and they're spotlit on that week's bump watch. Whatev. Cigarettes are bad. Gisele still looks slim and stunning.

 

 

Gawker says Jared Leto threatened someone at a Matisyahu show. Has there ever been a gossip item that more perfectly symbolizes the adolescence of anyone Bat Mitzvah’d during the grunge era?      

Bob Dylan Upset With "Factory Girl": Get in line.Adding to the growing laundry list of problems facing the much-hyped, supposedly Oscar-buzzworthy film, "Factory Girl," is the fact that Bob Dylan is doing everything in his power to make sure it never sees the light of day. From ContactMusic.com:

DYLAN is furious at the producers and scriptwriters of FACTORY GIRL, which stars SIENNA MILLER playing EDIE SEDGWICK, an ANDY WARHOL protege who took an overdose in 1971, claiming the singer played a part in her suicide.

DYLAN's lawyer has written a letter to the producers of the film, stating that the screenplay which depicts the end of an alleged relationship between the two, who met while living in Manhattan in the early 1970s, prompted her "tragic decline into heroin addiction and eventual suicide".

The musician now wants the film pulled until the legal side has been determined, with lawyers admitting DYLAN has "deep concerns" he has been defamed.

Wow, so I guess the most annoying thing about this project isn't Sienna Miller as I had originally thought. Seems like there are layers upon layers of annoyance, which this film seems to be heaping upon the public. Now, I kind of want to see it.

DYLAN SLAMS FILMMAKERS OVER SUICIDE SUGGESTION [ContactMusic.com]

Sarah Silverman: Crowd-pleasin'.At Spike's recent video game awards, a little nugget of smart-assed goodness was uttered by one of my favorite comics of all time, Sarah Silverman. According to TV Guide:

Working HIV and AIDS into a comedy routine is always a risky move, but foulmouthed funny lady Sarah Silverman gave it a shot, telling the gaming crowd that they're celibate "g-a-y-mers," and that they should get an award for their "work in AIDS prevention."

See, now I would have ruined that joke with throwing in a dead baby, and a rape joke to boot, but that's why she's the stand-up comedian and I'm the blogger.

At Spike's Video Game Awards: Heroes, Superman and More! [TV Guide]

Dustin Diamond: Ixnay on the Eech-Scray...and apparently, not Screech. TV Squad reports:

The Smoking Gun has obtained a copy of Dustin Diamond's list of demands contract rider for public appearances and it appears he's very sensitive about being called 'Screech'. The contract says that promoters will be fined $100 for "every offending ad, flyer, or marquee"-- which includes refering to Diamond as his Saved by the Bell character, Screech.

Whatever, dude. As long as you will promise me your sex-tape making days are over, I'll call you whatever the F you want. My retinas are still recovering.

Just don't call him Screech [TV Squad]

Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat: Get Your Sue On.Americans have yet to find an issue that they didn't think would look much better in a law suit. And Sacha Baron Cohen is learning that lesson all too well as a result of his highly successful, yet equally controversial film, "Borat." From Starpulse News Blog:

Sacha Baron Cohen has been hit by a new lawsuit from a man who claims he was "accosted" by the British funnyman in character as Borat in a South Carolina restaurant last year. Footage of the incident, in which Cohen posed as a toilet attendant, did not feature in his hit movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan," but has appeared on the Comedy Central network and the internet.

I didn't realize that being "accosted" warranted suing someone, but maybe I'm still a little fuzzy on the rules for America's favorite pastime.

Sacha Baron Cohen Hit By New Lawsuit [Starpulse News Blog]

Martha Stewart and Howard Stern: A match made in media heaven.This oughta be interesting. Starpulse News Blog reports:

SIRIUS Satellite Radio just announced that Howard Stern will interview Marth Stewart for the first time as she celebrates the one-year anniversary of her SIRIUS Satellite Radio Channel -- Martha Stewart Living Radio -- with a visit to "The Howard Stern" Show on Thursday, Dec. 14 at 7:30 AM ET.

I predict mistletoe will end up in inappropriate places.

Howard Stern To Interview Martha Stewart [Starpulse News Blog]

Paris Hilton's Nose: You be the judge.After a dinner at which Paris Hilton and Brandon Davis threw down $2600 for a meal and also during which Paris insisted on wearing her sunglasses (despite being indoors), she was seen in their car with what appears to be some highly suspect material still lingering in her nostril. According to Splash News Online:

The wild partying hotel heiress was spotted leaving a top restaurant with what appears to be white stuff up her left nostril. Hilton and Brandon Davis splashed out a whopping $2600 for a slap-up lunch and then left with the strange looking nasal passage clearly visible through the car window.

I don't know what's more disgusting about her, the possible use of the nose candy, or the fact that she was impersonating a blind person all through her meal.

WHAT'S UP PARIS' NOSE? [Splash News Online]

(Image Source)

Lindsay Lohan: "I see drunk people."From CNN:

Lindsay Lohan says she's been going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for a year, but hasn't talked about it because "it's no one's business."

"I just left an AA meeting," the 20-year-old actress tells People magazine in a story posted Tuesday on its Web site.

"I haven't had a drink in seven days. Or anything," she says. "I'm not even legal to, so why would I? I don't drink when I go to clubs. I drink with my friends at home, but there's no need to. I feel better not drinking. It's more fun. I have Red Bull."

So, she's been attending for a year, but has yet to acquire more than a week of sobriety under her belt and we're all supposed to be impressed? Hmm, maybe I wouldn't be so critical if I didn't think she were totally LYING.

Lohan: I haven't had a drink in a week [CNN]

Natalie Portman: Bad girl?In a story one would expect to be about a Lindsay Lohan or a Paris Hilton, The Mirror reports that Natalie Portman (wha?) was recently caught being difficult across the Atlantic. From 3AM:

Filming The Other Boleyn Girl with Scarlett Johansson, Nat, 25, asked the hotel to shut the bar at 10pm, then disturbed other guests with 5am yoga sessions. She persuaded staff to prepare a lavish party for her, Scarlett and crew but couldn't attend at the last minute. One of the staff told us: "We were relieved when she left."

Say it ain't so, Natalie. Well, if it is true, I will say this--Natalie's been pretty damn well-behaved for quite some time, so I guess a "bad girl phase" isn't too terrible--as long as it's a phase. Just don't get all JLO on us, girl.

STORMY PORT IS ON THE DARK SIDE [3AM | The Mirror]

Kid Rock and Conchita Leeflang: This sure didn't take long.Kid Rock sure didn't waste any time crying over his new ex-wife, Pam Anderson. According to FemaleFirst.co.uk:

Rock, who split from wife PAMELA ANDERSON last month (NOV06) after only four months of marriage - even flew to Los Angeles to attend his former flame's birthday party. According to Pagesix.com, the rocker, real name ROBERT RITCHIE, contacted Leeflang just days after his break-up. He immediately moved back to his hometown of Detroit, Michigan and was soon seen out on the town with Leeflang.

I guess it's always good to have a back-up plan. I wonder if she's got "Plan B" tattooed on her somewhere. Now THAT would be romantic.

Rock Reunites With Former Flame? [FemaleFirst.co.uk]

 

Nicole and Joel in car: Looking highly suspect.I get that Joel's just gone through a pretty devastating break-up from adorable (yet way-too-skinny) Hilary Duff and that he's probably reaching for the nearest tiny starlet to help him forget his troubles. But seriously, Joel, I think I speak for all of America when I say, "Dude, she's bad news." From Damn I'm Cute:

There was a lot of Nicole Richie news over the past few days, I know. But, I don’t want to deny you of these photos that clearly show Ms. DUIchie hanging out with Hilary Duff’s ex, Joel Madden. Clearly the two are shtupping.

Yikes. Oh well, I guess it's at least a better choice then the standard choice of Paris "Rebound of The Stars" Hilton. Or maybe Paris figured Hilary might somehow rally up the strength in her tiny frame to pull a Shanna Moakler on her and decided she best stay the hell away.

Photos of Nicole Richie and Joel Madden [Damn I'm Cute]

(Image Source)

Madonna in an H&M Tracksuit: Like a virgin.Despite the less-than-successful attempt on the part of H&M to market a tracksuit fronted by the Material girl herself, it seems that Hennes & Mauritz are willing to take another chance on Madonna and are sitting down with her to work on a fashion line for a second time. From The Showbuzz:

Madonna has teamed up with Margareta van den Bosch, H&M's head of design, to create the "M by Madonna" women's wear collection, scheduled to be launched globally in March, the company said Thursday. This is the second time the 48-year-old pop singer has collaborated with the Swedish clothing chain. H&M supplied Madonna and her entourage with an offstage wardrobe for her "Confessions" world tour. "I've made no secret of my love for fashion and trends," Madonna said in a statement. "Working with Margareta and H&M was an exciting and new creative challenge for me. I'm really happy with the results and look forward to wearing 'M by Madonna' along with the rest of the world."

Personally, I miss the old Madonna who hardly wore anything. Or if she did, it was really inappropriate.

H&M To Sell 2nd Madonna Fashion Line [The ShowBuzz]

Kate Hudson and son, Ryder: I bet his haircut was more expensive than mine.Wow, and here I was thinking that the only religion anyone in Hollywood actually practiced involved aliens and jumping on couches.  From Tabloid Whore:

Kate Hudson has finally given her son Ryder a haircut. Hudson reportedly did not cut the little cuties hair, forcing him to look like a girl for the better part of his life, because she was following a Jewish tradition where one waits until a child is three years old before cutting any hair (hey Madonna did it with Rocco too).

Well, if Madonna did it...then it must be kosher.  

KATE HUDSON FINALLY FINDS WHERE RYDER HIDES THE SCISSORS [Tabloid Whore!] 

 

Paris Hilton and Stavros Niachros: I can't imagine what his parents don't like about her.It seems that the parents of Paris Hilton's boyfriend, Stavros Niachros, with whom she has recently reunited, have no interest whatsoever in welcoming the notorious heiress into their lives. From the New York Post's Page Six:

"They refused to meet her last year when Paris and Stavros had dated for a while," a source said. "Paris even followed him and his family to Hawaii, where they go every New Year's, and they still wouldn't meet her. They think she's tacky."

I guess even though money can buy you ass, it still can't buy you class.

STAVROS' PARENTS SNUB PARIS [Page Six | New York Post]

Nicole Richie Mugshot: I have to say, I like the dark hair.Not to be outdone by her good friend Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie now has a DUI of her own. From TMZ:

TMZ has learned that Nicole Richie was arrested for DUI early Monday morning. She was booked at 4:50 AM today and was released around 7:15 this morning. The booking sheet reveals Richie is 5'1" and 85 lbs.

She admitted to smoking pot and taking Vicodin when approached by officers. I'm a little disappointed in my girl Nicole. I thought she was doing so well--what with a little weight back on her frame, and a hair color I can get behind. But this, this is such a disappointingly Lohan move. If she starts cutting herself, I'm going to be so bored with her.

Nicole Richie Popped for DUI [TMZ]

Matthew McConaughey at We Are Marshall Press Junket: A vision in plaidSee, this is what happens when we consistently rag on Matthew and tell him that although we appreciate his shirtless appearance, he might want to try wearing a full-outfit once in a while. Sigh.

In any case, I hope his chess team emerges victorious from the tournament he's clearly on his way to attending.

We are Marshall press junket [Splash News Online]

Image Source (Splash News)

Dakota Fanning, Creepily Mature: Let's hope for her sake, her fate is more Drew Barrymore and less Danny Bonaduce.The young actress, whose acting career has already been pretty damn prolific--especially considering she's only been on this planet for twelve whole years--has expressed an interest in eventually working behind the camera. From Starpulse News Blog:

She says, "I would love to direct someday. I've learned a lot from watching directors I've worked with, like Steven Spielberg and Gary Winick, whom I worked with on Charlotte's Web. I would love to have that relationship with another actor."

Fanning also stated, "I would love to menstruate someday." Just kidding. But seriously, I'm dying for her to do something age-appropriate like burp or, oh, I don't know...NOT star in a movie that has her acting in a rape scene.

Dakota Fanning: 'I Would Like To Direct Someday.' [Starpulse News Blog]

 

Last week, when the Pulitzer Prize board announced that blog posts are now eligible for the award, blogging officially became as cool as the episode of Life Goes On where Corky lip-synched (and moonwalked to) Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power.” It’s an excruciating but expected cultural cycle: That which engages the creative, the young and the angry, unemployed, underrepresented middle will eventually become the property of The Man, The Oppressor, or at least The Parents.

Since the dawn of the functional Internet, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time reading (and writing) things online. Like everyone else, I started out a devoted user of AOL. It epitomized who I was, largely because my apartment was filled with coasters made out of AOL disks. The opportunity to talk on the various message boards and chat rooms was just so…cool. Remember? It was cool. LOL! ROFL! LMAO!Best Coaster Ever: This disc contains an onramp to the information superhighway

And then one day, the phone rang. Because no one had caller ID in 1995, I answered. It was my mother.

“How do you get onto the information superhighway?” she asked.

“It’s full,” I said. “They aren’t letting anyone else on.”

Within a month, mom was actively chatting online with a number of men who claimed to be members of MI:6 (the British equivalent of the Secret Service), one of whom was planning to fly over for New Year’s Eve. I’d like to say that this is all an elaborate joke, but it isn’t. My mother believed the men she was chatting with were secret agents. And British. And single.

I had to talk about this, so I talked about it online. I didn’t imagine that my mother would actually find my posts about her love affairs, but it was a small Internet world in 1995, and one day the phone rang again.

“Do you have any other screennames on AOL?” my mother asked.

“Uh, no,” I lied.

“Well,” she said, “that’s funny because I just ran across some posts on a message board that sounded a lot like you, and the person was talking about someone who sounded a lot like me.” She burst into tears. “It’s not right to talk about your family on the Internet. It’s lashon hara.”

Lashon Hara, commonly known as the “evil tongue,” is some bad juju that is best expressed algebraically: Rachel tells Steve something derogatory—but true—about David while not in David’s presence. Or: R + S – D = lashon hara. That Rachel is telling the truth doesn’t matter. Our rabbinic forefathers looked upon gossip of any kind as akin to, say, the AIDS epidemic—a plague capable of destroying the individual and the community alike.

For a while, the conversation with my mother stayed with me. I didn’t want to speak ill of my family (even when it was true…particularly since it was true…particularly since one of these British super spies ended up coming across the pond for two weeks and only left after my mother discovered him taking photos of her silver.)

But then I started to blog. It was 2004. All the kids were doing it. It felt good. What distinguished blogs from the old message boards and chat rooms was the faux-intimacy of public revelation. Those early LiveJournals and Diarylands took the contents of your basic frilly diary and broadcast them to a rapt audience hungry to chatter idly about anything illicit.

I—and millions and millions of people nothing like me—enjoy that illusion of invaded privacy. We’re nothing if not a voyeuristic society, and the idea of private thoughts exposed has become primary currency among the blogging billions.

Then the phone rang.

“You’ve been saying horrible things about me in your blog,” my mother said. “How could you?”

“It’s my life,” I said, “I’m allowed to talk about it.”

“But you’re not allowed to talk about my life,” she said. “What if your Nana saw these stories?”

Lashon hara is a major sin. In Leviticus, we are told: “You shall not go around as a gossipmonger amidst your people.” The Talmud says that it “kills three: the one who said it, the one who listened, and the one about whom it was said.” And the Tanakh adds that lashon hara, like murder, illicit sex, and theft, is punishable by divinely-inflicted leprosy.

Why is gossip considered so unconscionable? For one thing, gossip never takes into account mitigating circumstances. My mom could have had a great reason for entertaining 007, but my readers would never know about it. More importantly, though, Judaism believes that words can do as much harm as actions. In fact, shit-talking goes beyond the reach of other, more physical actions—like fighting, or even stealing, for instance—because there is no way to control words. Once released, they have their own lives.

The unruliness of words extends to private writing. It may seem natural for a person to write their feelings, frustrations, or anecdotal thoughts about being grounded after cutting sixth period in order to go to Starbucks in a personal journal, but Judaism recognizes that you can’t keep people out of your diary. Writing in a private journal (like a friends-only MySpace or LiveJournal, for instance, or the paper-and-pen version of old) still counts strictly as lashon hara, because you can’t entirely control who reads it. Thinking negative thoughts is one thing, expressing them is where the trouble comes in.Not Actually Child Abuse: Dorothy Hamill and her haircut c. 1977

Plug “I hate my mother” into Google’s Blog Search, and it’s possible to spend the next week reading through nearly five thousand public rants on the subject from the last six months alone. The very act of writing this article is, in fact, lashon hara. Is there any time when lashon hara is acceptable?

According to Jewish law, yes, but only in the service of helping someone who has been victimized in some way. (I’m going to assume that my defense of “was the only boy in the neighborhood with a Dorothy Hamill haircut” is not sufficient here.) Even then, schadenfreude isn’t allowed in the aftermath.

Just when I concluded that maybe I’d change my ways, that maybe my blog would become a clearinghouse for latke recipes and homespun wisdom on prostate maintenance, an email from my mother came cascading in. The subject line? “Check out my blog!!!” I’d give you the address, but I’m afraid that would be lashon hara.

Goldberg, P.I. would like to thank Rabbi Ovadia Goldman and Rabbi Robert B. Barr.

Got a Jewish question? Send it to goldbergpi@jewcy.com.