Jerusalem Day: Jaffa Street Forty-one years have passed since Jerusalem was reunited as a result of the Six Day War. A couple of days ago the streets of Jerusalem were thus once again packed with revelers that slowly made their way, singing and shouting, through the narrow alleys of the Old City to the Western Wall. By nightfall, tens of thousands had filled the plaza facing it.

This is what is left of the holiest site of Judaism: Not the place in itself, nor a ruin, but the ruin of the wall that once marked its perimeter. Standing there means being one significant step removed from the ideal: it means standing on the Outside in some sort of genuine sense.

As I was standing there, I was reminded of a discussion I had a while back with a secular Jewish woman. I remember saying that Judaism, to me, is a witness to the fact that something is fundamentally broken in the world, and that the Western Wall is a very graphic symbol for this. I did not suggest that any practical steps be taken at this point to change that fact, but this woman nevertheless felt it pertinent to exclaim, "May it remain broken! May it remain broken!"

This, to me, is a very curious position to take, and my failure to share this woman's defeatism probably explains why I fail in political moderation. Wishing for things to remain broken can only indicate that you live in a bubble where this brokenness means quaint Diaspora culture, not persecution and suffering. From this perspective, religious Zionism is perceived as a crude and dangerous idea, an obstacle to peace, and a violent and chauvinistic perversion of Jewish values.

The vast majority of the people that filled the Western Wall plaza as Yom Yerushalaim drew to an end adhered to this idea. Pushing and shoving they hastened to the wall, where the longing for complete redemption is so palpable that you can almost cut it with a knife. "May the Temple be rebuilt, the City of Zion replenished," they sang, as the Dome of the Rock towered over them in perfect serenity. Then came the piercing call of the Muezzin: Allahu akbar; Allaaaaahu akbar, suggesting that God, perhaps, is greater than all this.

Redemption is not a guarantee in Judaism, and the opportunity can be squandered in any number of ways. The real tragedy, however, comes when an unadulterated loyalty to the hope of complete redemption is branded as fanaticism, and when people settle for, even promote, the brokenness which has defined Judaism for 2000 years. Essentially these people still live in the Diaspora, despite the fact that they reside in the Land of Israel. It is never too late to lose the Six Day War, they claim: it would in fact be of great benefit to finally reverse that victory. It is, ironically, a very Jewish thing to say.

(Photography by Paul Widen)

Crashing Birthright Israel: Bush and the flagJerusalem has never seemed so American. By chance, my first trip since living here two years ago coincides with President Bush's second trip in the last six months. And so the capital city is in lockdown: buses rerouted, streets closed, and cops every ten meters or so. Your tax dollars even paid for renting out the entire King David Hotel for the POTUS and his team.

But it's not just the conspicuous inconvenience of the President's visit: it's Jerusalem itself. The city has always been filled with American tourists, students, and immigrants. But increasingly, Jerusalem is an American city in more and deeper ways.

First, it's grown incredibly classist. No pioneering socialism here; the center of town is now halfway through its conversion process to the Upper East Side of Israel (complete with the ghost town feel in the off season). The hulking Hilton hotel, once a white elephant, is now met by the rising Jerusalem Palace, King David Residences, Mamila project, and a new high-end pedestrian mall, all of which are priced beyond all but the wealthiest of Israelis. This is Jerusalem's new rich-folks neighborhood -- greater Yemin Moshe, if you like. I wonder if it'll eventually be gated.

Strolling along that mall, filled with empty boutiques waiting for their Jewish American Princesses to come, I felt like one of those irritating New Yorkers who complains about the bad old days of Times Square. After all, I can't really complain about this macro-economic plan for Jerusalem's development. This is valuable real estate, and if rich jerks from Westchester are willing to plonk down a mil or two for an apartment, my Zionist self is all for it. But it's sad to see the stratification of Israel/America so starkly depicted, right next to the Old City Walls.

Second, Jerusalem has grown even more like Disneyland. Crawling with Birthright kids and UJA missionaries, it's rapidly becoming an entirely ersatz city. The real Jerusalemites are in Malha at the mall, the Americans on Ben Yehuda. The real Jerusalemites gather in little shtiebels, the Americans in the Old City. Even the shuk now feels somehow pre-packaged, like the Olde Townes and Harbor Villages back home. Meanwhile, the real cultural creatives have fled, as secular Jerusalem dwindles to a mere simulacrum of a culture in the face of Haredi power, foreign-fueled rent hikes, and American fakery. The Palestinians, of course, are more invisible than ever; no politics intrudes on the fantasy of homeland.

Third, and relatedly, Jerusalem increasingly shares the Bush-era predilection for oppressing and radicalizing enemies, rather than engaging with them. Two weeks ago, Bush implicitly likened Barack Obama to Neville Chamberlain, saying that talking with Hamas was like appeasing the Nazis in 1939. This is, of course, outrageous, a poor update of the reductio ad hitlerum argument. Given the reality of Jewish (and wider) racism and anti-Islamism, I'd even say it's close to race baiting.

Ugly Americans: We're everywhere But as political philosophy, it's vintage Bush. The world is made up of good guys and evildoers. You don't talk to evildoers, and you don't care what they think, because they're evil. So, go ahead and prosecute your outrageous war strategy, evince endless arrogance, and talk a rhetoric only slightly less deluded than that of the Chinese. It doesn't matter, because the evildoers are already evil. Moreover, those of us who dare to suggest that maybe the world isn't so clear cut -- we're appeasers, weak, and naive.

Post-wall Israel is increasingly similar. I don't know if Prime Minister Olmert is the latest Yitzhak Shamir, feigning a peace process while stalling for time, or whether he's sincere in his talk for peace. Politically, Israel has continued to stick it to the Palestinians, and damn the consequences. The Israeli government has grown dependent on Bush's blank-check policy -- which perhaps explains why they're so terrified of Obama. They've avoided making difficult choices, because no one's making them do so.

Worse than that, rich American right-wingers are distorting Israeli politics by massively funding conservative politicians. These Americans have a Birthright-style fantasy of Israel, the holy land, the only democracy in the Middle East, etc. They stay in the big hotels and take tours of archeological sites. And then they give millions to right wing politicians who maintain the fantasy and refuse any compromise with the three million people living in maybe-one-day-Palestine. "We" -- by which I mean Americans -- are undermining the real Israel in order to preserve the fantasy one.

Bush's non-engagement policy works, somewhat, if you're a superpower -- although the last seven years have surely been the most destructive to American interests in the last century at least. But if you're Israel, it's a disaster. The world is not simply standing by while Israel builds more settlements; many people are increasingly infuriated, with rhetoric that boils over into antisemitism at its worst.

Of course, Bush would say you can't run around trying to please people. You have to be strong, and do what's right. But when your friends stop being your friends, you'd have to be stubborn and foolish not to take their desertion seriously. Which, well....

All these elements -- the class stratification, the delusion, and the know-nothing/doubt-nothing policy -- are part of the same Ugly American arrogance that has made us so reviled in so many parts of the world today. We just get fatter and fatter, richer and richer, meaner and meaner. Damn the consequences, we'll have our SUVs, gated communities, stratified health care system, and imperialist foreign policy. We're Americans and we like things big, dammit. Big, vulgar, and mean.

But the consequences are real. It's just not true that large swaths people have always been and will always be anti-American;only someone as provincial as Bush could believe that. Public opinion is mutable -- not entirely, but somewhat. Likewise, though large swaths of people have always been anti-Israel and antisemitic to some degree, it is just that: a matter of degree. In all cases, the degrees have been increasing lately. We can damn the consequences, but they might just damn us back.

I love Israel, and love Jerusalem, despite it all. I love my favorite field, love the kosher restaurants, I even love the Kotel. But as Bush swaggers through his last months in office, and the political campaign begins in earnest, I worry that play-attending, latte-drinking, Prius-driving Obama voters like me might be more marginalized than ever by oligarchs masquerading as populists. People like Bush do have the simple answers. They just happen to be wrong.

...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.

Whether you're contemplating your first or fifteenth trip to Israel, the following destinations are unique, hidden gems that won’t be crawling with tour groups.  Birthright, Ulpan, and Federation trip alums can rest assured that these won't be repeats.

Care For Some: Biblical grass?1. Stroll in Neot Kedumim, the Biblical Landscape Reserve
You may have already visited the amazing Biblical Zoo, but how about a botanical gardens that shows you all of the plants and flowers mentioned in the Bible? It’s gorgeous, fun, and educational in the marginal ‘not-too-boring’ kind of way.

2. Check Out the Rockefeller Museum of Archaeology
It’s easy to skip most of East Jerusalem on your first few trips because there’s so much going on in West Jerusalem, but the Rockefeller Museum is definitely worth a trip. They have some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, displayed differently than the big exhibit in the Israel Museum, and all kinds of cool things that have been dug up in Israel from the Iron Age to the Byzantine Empire.

Shen Ramon: mean's 'Roman's Tooth'3. Hike to Shen Ramon in Mitzpe Ramon
Mitzpe Ramon is a huge crater in the middle of the Negev (or maybe it’s an erosion cirque—I can never tell the difference). There’s a fairly standard hike that takes you past waterfalls and up ladders (assuming you go during the rainy season), but if you have it in you to try hiking to the craters inside Shen Ramon, the highest peak inside the crater, you’re rewarded with unbelievably beautiful views, and maybe a peak at an ibex or two.


4. Find the Last Supper
There are two places in Jerusalem that claim to be the site of the Last Supper. They’re both almost certainly wrong, but fun to visit anyway. First, head to the Assyrian Church of the East in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City. I can’t find a link for it (that’s how hidden it really is), but to find it enter the Old City at the Jaffa Gate, make a right, walk past the church with the red British post box outside. Take the second left and wind around a few little alleyways. There’s a small sign, but probably best to ask someone… At the church they pray in Aramaic, and they’ve got a room in the basement where they claim Jesus had his final piece of matzo.

Coenaculum: pretty space for a simcha? Or you could head to The Last Supper Room, also called the Coenaculum in the Old City, directly above the Tomb of David. This room can’t possibly be the room where Jesus had his last supper, since it was built in the 12th century, but it could possibly be built on top of the site where Jesus and the disciples chowed down. Anyway, it’s pretty and kind of a fun thing to visit. Last time I was there I kept thinking how funny it would be to have a Jewish wedding in that room.

5. Help Out at Urban Kibbutzim
There’s a new trend of young Jewish collectives in urban areas, instead of way out in agricultural spaces. Urban kibbutzim, as they’re called, can be found in Jerusalem, Sderot and Beit Shemesh, and have been meeting with great success in the past few years. In Jerusalem, Kibbutz Reshit has converted the Ir Ganim neighborhood into a safe and beautiful place after years of it being a crime-ridden area with trash on the streets and drugs for sale on the corner. Stop by to see how young Israelis are reinventing the kibbutz movement. (And there are even urban kibbutzim specifically for English-speakers!)

Elijah's Cave: say Ommmm6. Meditate in Elijah’s Cave
If you’re up north in Haifa and want something different to do, visit Elijah’s Cave at the bottom of Cape Carmel. Tradition holds that this is where Elijah came to pray before he called down holy fire to defeat the followers of Baal on nearby Mount Carmel. He also hid in the cave after a nasty run in with Ahab and Jezebel. Since Elijah is holy to Christians, Jews and Muslims you’ll find all kinds of groups visiting the cave to pray and meditate. It’s beautiful inside, and a nice place to sit quietly with your thoughts.

7. Make A Speech on the Mount of Beatitudes
I’ve never been particularly interested in the Sermon on the Mount, being a Jew and all, but it’s certainly a nice homily, and if you’re feeling profound take a trip up to the Galilee, where you can visit a church that claims to be on the site where Jesus gave his famous sermon. It’s a gorgeous area, regardless of the history, and the church grounds are peaceful and nicely kept. Plus, it’s free.

A Symbol: of Peace8. Explore Kibbutz Ramat Rahel
You can stay at the kibbutz hotel, or attend a wedding on kibbutz grounds without ever noticing all of the cool things to see at Kibbutz Ramat Rahel. The kibbutz has a crazy history because for many years it was right on the border with Jordan, and has been destroyed and rebuilt three times. Way before that, though, Jezebel had her lair (a huge palace) on the site where the kibbutz is now. Seriously. Most of the archeological ruins have been taken to the Israel Museum, but there’s still stuff to see. Plus, if you hike out into the kibbutz fields you may run into actual shepherds herding their flocks, and you can see a fantastic sculpture—three huge columns with an olive tree planted on top of them, more than twenty feel in the air. There’s a bucket on a pulley so you can water the tree. It’s a gorgeous and easy hike, and the sculpture will take your breath away.

Happy Israeli Independence Day!

Who Should Win Israel's National Bible Quiz: the person with the right answers, or the person with the "right" beliefs?An international youth Bible quiz is held annually in Israel, and the competition is fierce. (I went to a high school with several competitors, and they spent months studying the minutia of Tanach only to make it through the first round of testing.) This year, one of the contestants, an Israeli who won the Jerusalem district quiz in Israel, is a Messianic Jew. Bat El Levy is a world class Old Testament scholar, but she also brings some knowledge of the New Testament to the table, and that’s making a handful of Israeli rabbis, well--a bit testy.

Some rabbis are concerned that if Levy competes and win, her success might encourage Jews to convert to Christianity. Another worry they're harboring: That Levy could make the Jewish competitors who have only mastered Tanach--and not the gospels--look bad.

Levy’s Jewishness is being called into question, but so far the Education Ministry has no plans to bar her from the competition.

Messianic Jews have always been a hot button issue in the Jewish community, and it’s hardly a surprise that groups like Yad LeAhim and Jews for Judaism would take issue with a family like Levy’s. But those groups are meant to combat active evangelism and proselytizing, and there’s no proof, or even allegations, that Levy or any member of her family has done anything of the sort. If the winner of the quiz was a secular Jew who just happened to enjoy learning Tanach, no doubt the rabbis would be irritated, but they’d have no grounds to call the win into question.

If Levy breaks the rules of the quiz or Israeli law, she should be disqualified. But there’s no reason to exclude her from the competition now. If anything, we could benefit from more widespread familiarity with the intricacies of the Old Testament, instead of windbags who claim to love the Bible but can’t name the Ten Commandments.

Jerusalem of Green: Bustan Brody community garden Downtown Jerusalem is cluttered enough at any time of year, but rarely more so than this past week. Posters for cleaning services and chametz sales imploring people to burn, sell, or otherwise dispose of their leavened bread in preparation for Pesach were pasted on lampposts and notice-boards on every street. Jews are generally partial to consuming food rather than throwing it away, but this time of year is the exception to the rule.

Only a few minutes from my apartment is another exception to the rule: A place where Jerusalemites come each week to throw away their leftovers, no matter the season. Down at Bustan Brody, part of a city-wide network of community gardens, ecologically-minded Israelis bring their unwanted food to dump on the compost heap. The volunteer-run garden is a green oasis in the midst of five-story apartment buildings—an area which was once slated for development during Ehud Olmert’s stint as Jerusalem Mayor, in a bid to reduce the city’s budget deficit by selling off public plots of land for construction.

“We took responsibility for our own backyard, that’s a revolutionary concept,” says Abba Zavidov, one of the founders of the Bustan, which lies within easy walking distance from the Prime Minister’s official residence. “If we’re going to talk about sustainability then we need to prove it can be done. People bringing their kitchen waste to compost at the garden is a great way of showing how."

In Jerusalem, organic refuse like kitchen scraps and garden clippings make up around 40% of the city’s solid waste. If not recycled via composting, it typically ends up contributing to more of the brown landfill mountains like those straddling the road from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, which trick you into thinking that you’re still in the Judean Hills instead of speeding across the (once flat) coastal plain.

And God Said, "Are You Gonna Eat That?': compost in the holy land But it’s not just the Festival of Matzo that inspires a frenzy of food disposal: Figures published last week reveal that folks in my native Britain throw out one-third of all food they buy each year, including over four million apples. And they don’t even have Pesach as an excuse. Waste on such a huge scale has been partly fueled by cheap food culture and marketing ploys like ‘two-for-one’ offers, which encourage over-consumption.

I hope that Rabbis in Israel and the Diaspora will be using their sermons during the Jewish festival of freedom as an opportunity to reflect on the merits of environmental responsibility in a world where not everyone can take their food for granted. In any case, composting can offer a green solution to the stale matzo and indigestion-cookies due to be littering kitchens across Israel next week.

Jewschool recently tipped us off to a Yiddish version of Monopoly that can be purchased in Hasidic Brooklyn. Instead of Park Place, Boardwalk, and hotels, you can land on a “shtreiml gesheft” (a place to buy shtreimels, I assume) Hakhnosas Orkhim (hospitality), tzedoko, and yeshiva/kollel squares. But the best part is the “soul searching” cards. Jewschool has posted translations of some of the bad ones:The Monopoly Guy: does kinda look Jewish

“Yiddeshe Tokhter! Du host aroys gelakht ven mener hoben gehert! Zeyer a groyse pritzus! Shtel dokh in ‘mikhutz lamakhane’ un blayb aroys 3 gang.” (Jewish daughter! You laughed when men could hear you. Very immodest! You’re excommunicated! Lose three turns.)

“Geredt English tzuvishin zikh! Yiddish redn taylt up fun di goyim! Shtel dokh in ‘mikhutz lamakhane’ un blayb aroys 3 gang.” (You spoke English amongst yourselves. Speaking Yiddish separates us from the Gentiles! You’re excommunicated! Lose three turns.)

“Geleynt a treyfene bikhl! Tomey, Tomey! Arayn in Gehenom un blayb aroys 2 gang.”Ungevoren di 2 tayereste pletzer vos du host.” (You read an unkosher book. Unclean, unclean! Got to Hell and lose two turns. Lose your two most valuable properties!)

“Geholfen di Tziyonistishe medinah! Fun a shaykhes tzu reshoim kumt keyn guts nisht aroys! Nor shoden! Tu teshuvah! Zitz in a yeshivah 2 geng, un tzol far di yeshiva vifel es kost far yededn aroys gebliben gan $50 far tzedokoh!” (You helped the Zionist country! No good can come out of an association with evil people, only bad! Repent! Sit in a yeshivah for two turns, and pay $50 tuition per day to charity).

There's more about the game here.

I was hoping to write about sex today, but then I read an Op-Ed from the Jewish Journal about why Jerusalem should be divided. Grow Up: And own up

An Orthodox rabbi's plea: consider a divided Jerusalem
By Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky

The question of whether we could bear a redivision of Jerusalem is a searing and painful one. The Orthodox Union, National Council of Young Israel and a variety of other organizations, including Christian Evangelical ones, are calling upon their constituencies to join them in urging the Israeli government to refrain from any negotiation concerning the status of Jerusalem at all, when and if the Annapolis conference occurs. And last week, as I read one e-mail dispatch after another from these organizations, I became more and more convinced that I could not join their call.

It's not that I would want to see Jerusalem divided. It's rather that the time has come for honesty. Their call to handcuff the government of Israel in this way, their call to deprive it of this negotiating option, reveals that these organizations are not being honest about the situation that we are in, and how it came about. And I cannot support them in this.

These are extremely difficult thoughts for me to share, both because they concern an issue that is emotionally charged, and because people whose friendship I treasure will disagree strongly with me. And also because I am breaking a taboo within my community, the Orthodox Zionist community. "Jerusalem: Israel's Eternally Undivided Capital" is a 40-year old slogan that my community treats with biblical reverence. It is an article of faith, a corollary of the belief in the coming of the Messiah. It is not questioned. But this final reason why it is difficult for me to share these thoughts is also the very reason that I have decided to do so. This is a conversation that desperately needs to begin.

No peace conference between Israel and the Palestinians will ever produce anything positive until both sides have decided to read the story of the last 40 years honestly. On our side, this means being honest about the story of how Israel came to settle civilians in the territories it conquered in 1967, and about the outcomes that this story has generated.

Later in the article Kanefsky writes

The Religious Zionist leadership (similar to today's Evangelical supporters of Israel) made a different judgment, namely that settling the Biblical heartland would further hasten the unfolding of the messianic age. Thus, the Arab population already there was not our problem. God would deal with it. This belief too -- reasonable though it may have seemed at the time -- has also turned out to be wrong. To tell the story honestly, this mistake too must be acknowledged.

(Emphasis mine)

Full story

I agree with Rabbi Kanefsky’s politics, and I think his writing is brave and important, but what really caught my eye was the part that I highlighted.

There’s a sense in a lot of Jewish communities that we can pretty much screw around as much as we want, and as long as we’ve got generally good intentions we can safely expect God to clean up our mess. We’ve written about repentance quite a bit on FaithHacker, but I just want to make it clear that there’s nothing in any Jewish theology that I’m aware of that would sanction someone screwing up with the understanding that God would fix it.

I seem to know a lot of people who operate under the assumption that they can just square things away with God later, or what God will just cover whatever their tab has become, and it makes me crazy. Those people are why atheists walk around talking about how God is for weak people. If you fuck something up, it’s your responsibility to deal with it. If you want to go to God for help that’s certainly fine, but to expect that going to God makes everything hunky dory is immature, and I’m so glad to see Kanefsky calling Religious Zionists and Evangelicals out on that.

It's the last Friday of Ramadan and you know what that means: It's Quds Day. Quds is Arabic for Jerusalem.

From Khomeini's original declaration of the holiday in 1979:

Quds Day is the day of Islam; it is the day when Islam should be revived, so let us revive it and implement Islamic laws in the Islamic countries. Quds Day is the day when we must warn all the superpowers that they can no longer keep Islam under their control by means of their evil agents. Quds Day is the day to give life to Islam. The Muslims must awaken, they must come to realise the power they have, the material power and the spiritual. What are the Muslims, who form a population of one billion, enjoy divine support and have Islam and their faith behind them, afraid of? . . . The governments in the world should know that Islam will not be defeated, Islam and the teachings of the Qur’an should prevail in all countries. Religion should be the religion of God and Islam is the religion of God so it should advance on all regions of the world. Quds Day is the day to announce such a matter, the day to announce ‘Muslims, advance!’ Advance on all the regions of the world. Quds Day is not confined to (matters pertaining to) Palestine alone, it is the day of Islam, the day of Islamic government, the day when the flag of an Islamic Republic should be raised in all (Islamic) countries, the day when the superpowers should be made to realise that they can no longer advance on the Islamic countries.

Breitbart reports on festivities in Iran:

 

Tens of thousands of Iranians marched through Tehran on Friday proclaiming solidarity with Palestinians and chanting "Death to Israel" in the Islamic republic's annual protest against the Jewish state.

Iranians of all ages began the march through the centre of the capital to Tehran University to mark Quds Day, calling for Jerusalem and Israel to be handed to the Palestinians.

Coloured bibs were haIrnded out to protestors with the legend "Death to Israel, Death to United States" while "Palestine will only be free with fighting and faith" was the slogan on one banner.

Despite the heavily politicised nature of the demonstration, there was a festive mood with the numerous children present having their faces painted as cats and rabbits in entertainment laid on by the municipality.

Bunnies and kitties, that's sweet.The AFP reports how it went down in Gaza:

Thousands marched in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip Friday, torching the flags of Israel, the United States and Britain in an annual day of protest called by Iran in solidarity with Palestinians.

Demonstrators marched from the town of Beit Lahiya to Jabaliya in the north of the territory where the Islamist Hamas seized power in mid-June.

Urging on the crowd as it burned the flags, Khader Habib, an official with the radical Islamic Jihad group that organised the march, promised to continue resistance against Israeli occupation.

"Israel is a cancerous tumour that has sprouted in the region, but we will continue the jihad and the resistance until Jerusalem is liberated," he said.

Finally, here's some warm and fuzzy Quds-ing in Pakistan, from the Post.

 

Hasan Zaidi, Divisional President, Imamia Students Organisation, told The Post that Al-Quds rallies would disseminate the message of love, peace and unity among the oppressing nations and pay the way for the freedom of Baitul Muqaddas, which was the first Qibla and the most sacred place for the Muslims all over the world.

 

 

 

The American Prospect's Gershom Gorenberg says Hillary's Israel-Palestine position paper is for the birds:

The Israeli consensus that the city must never be divided has broken down. Vice Prime Minister Haim Ramon is reportedly pushing a plan to turn most Arab neighborhoods over to Palestinian rule, even if other members of the ruling Kadima party would rather give up less land in Jerusalem. Your position paper defends a stance that is already spoken of here in past tense, in a tone reserved for the naiveté of youth.

I'd like to believe that what you really mean by "undivided Jerusalem" is what your very closest adviser laid out in his parameters for an Israeli-Palestinian peace at the end of his term as president in January 2001: Jerusalem should be an "open and undivided city" but the capital of two independent states, with Palestinian parts of the city under Palestinian rule. Turning those parameters into reality would require inspired negotiating, with immense American investments of time and prestige, and such investments dried up completely very soon after Bill laid out his vision. As we all know, his successor doesn't do negotiating.

 

I figured that I would make my first blog post about something I found quite amusing, but also a little depressing. 

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/898468.html

DAY FOUR

We go to the Tel Aviv Center for Educational Technology in order to hold an experiment in “open space technology,” which is a fancy way of describing the act of sitting in rooms and talking. Sessions include “Can I Be a Bad Jew and Good Person?” “The Future of Fundamentalism,” “Kosher Sex,” which I don’t attend because I don’t want people to get the impression that I’m some kind of pervert, and “Jewish Continuity in 2020,” which I do attend hoping for a discussion of flying cars. Unfortunately the conversation is a series of tirades against intermarriage.

“Why should Jews survive?” I ask to my own surprise. Everyone stares. “Like, if it’s just about breeding for the sake of breeding, what’s the point? And even if Judaism does die out, billions of people are still going to worship our God, right?”

The other attendees stare at me with eyes like daggers (For the record: I’m not a self-hating Jew; I’m a self-loving asshole.)

Worse for the Jews than the Babylonian hordes: The bacon double cheeseburger“Oh, I’m just fucking with you,” I say. “We survived Pharaoh, the Romans, the Diaspora, Hitler and the Bacon Double Cheeseburger. The fact that WASPs finally let us bang their daughters is not exactly the most daunting crisis that we’ve ever faced.”

(Replies to my outburst: “It is a crisis,” “It’s the crisis of freedom,” “You are clearly misinformed.”)

Later in the afternoon a few Israeli ROI attendees complain that American Jews are pathetic, neurotic dweebs who analyze our identities to no end and refuse to perform any manual labor. None of the American Jews protest these hurtful stereotypes because they are 100 percent accurate.

This gets me thinking: If secular American Jews and secular Israeli Jews don’t have a shared religion or culture, what do we have in common besides a distant family tree? But there I go analyzing my identity like a weakling American Jew who enjoys laughing, knows how to stand in a line without cutting and doesn’t dress like a European disco addict or flamboyant homosexual.

We enjoy dinner and more free wine (this time really good free wine; I help myself to nine glasses) along the Tel Aviv port. Lynn Schusterman announces a $100,000 grant for ROI participants’ projects but I’m too busy getting loaded off her booze to pay much attention. The next couple of hours are hazy in my memory; apparently I reminisced about seeing a live porn shoot in Los Angeles (I believe the working title was Atomic Ass Whores), belted out Beatles and Elvis Costello tunes as everyone tried to sleep on the bus back to Jerusalem, and when I overheard a hippy chick from California say, “I just love animals so much and want to help them in any way possible,” I replied, “Yeah, I like to help them into a bowl of honey barbeque sauce.”

Everyone thanks God when I lose consciousness.

…………..

 

Organic farming: One of the 613 commandments?DAY FIVE

Amazingly I do not have a hangover, but I am sickened when the hotel charges me $35 for my late laundry. The desk clerk won’t let me check out until I’ve signed. Without getting too dramatic, this fucking hotel is the only place in Israel that I hope Palestinian terrorists incinerate on the condition that only the desk staff is killed.

A closing ceremony follows lunch. A top ROI staffer suggests that we all make aliyah and asks us to stand for “Hatikvah,” the Israeli national anthem. (Apparently I’m the only person in the room who does not know the lyrics.) After the closing ceremony everyone hugs goodbye and swears that ROI has changed their lives. And maybe it has. These Young Jewish Innovators are clearly passionate about our religion and culture. I might not understand them or their nonprofit world, but maybe they will make a difference someday. Then again, I’m still not entirely sure why it matters that these goddamned hippies are Jewish goddamned hippies. (Correct me if I’m wrong but the thirteenth-century Kabbalists didn’t equate tikkum olam with campaigning against factory farms, which by the way are awesome.)

As for me, I’m Jewed out. All I’ve heard for nearly a week straight is Jewish this, Jewish that, Jewish Jewish Jewish Jewish Jewish, and I need a vacation. I don’t want to talk about Jews anymore, I don’t want to think about Jews anymore, and I certainly don’t want to look at Jews anymore. You hear me? I’m done with Jews.

So I say goodbye to my fellow Future Jewish Leaders, take one last glance at the Jewish Promised Land and board a plane back home…

To Brooklyn.

Fucker.

A few months ago I was invited to participate in the ROI (“Return on Investment”) Global Summit for Young Jewish Innovators, held in Jerusalem between July 1 and 5. By some miracle my invitation was not nullified after I posted this online profile: “I write books for a living, although sometimes the living is more like starving to death. … I figured that if I suck up to the Zionist-controlled media, I might get some work.” Apparently the ROI staff believed that this was a joke of some kind. (Ha! Ha!)

A certain mystique surrounded the Global Summit. I learned from the ROI website that the trip was funded by the Schusterman Family Foundation, which is partly responsible for the Taglit-Birthright Israel program. Otherwise, though, the site seemed alternately vague (ROI’s participants are “forging new frontiers in … contributing to the evolution of Jewish identity”) and psychedelic (ROI’s goal is to “create a hub in time and space in Jerusalem—THE hub of time and space—for intensive engagement and collaboration…forming a dynamic, eclectic, and international pod of leaders.”)

This struck me as shadowy and exhilarating. Perhaps I would observe the inner mechanics of that Jew World Order I keep reading about online. (Fun Factoid: Did you know that Hillary Clinton is a genocidal lizard from outer space?) Anyway, I could hardly turn down a free ticket halfway around the world. Especially if it meant I were joining the Illuminati.

When I learned that I was signed up for the “Content Delivery” track, however, I panicked and called ROI staff member (and Jewlicious head honcho) David Abitbol. “Listen, you Jew bastard,” I said, “I’m an objective journalist. I can’t distribute pro-Israel press releases to my media contacts whenever the IDF bulldozes some goddamned hippy, as much as I enjoy the thought of crushed, bloodied vegans. Are you trying to ruin my career?”

“No, it’s not like that,” Abitbol said. “Think of ROI as a networking and brainstorming session for twenty- to thirty-year-old Jews like you who’ve excelled in their fields. You’ll make some great contacts. Trust me. Just do it.”

“Okay, you Jew bastard,” I said. “Let’s skull-fuck this bitch.”

…………

 

Extremely tolerant of drunken shenanigans: Y LoveDAY ONE

When I arrive at the Jerusalem hotel, I’m infuriated to discover that the editors of the ROI attendee profile booklet have changed one of my answers. The question: “What keeps you up at night?” Their answer: “Attitudes Toward Intermarriage.” My answer: “The Orthodox screaming at me for dating a shiksa; she doesn’t eat pork so get off my back and let me finish what Hitler started, you frummer-than-thou motherfuckers.”

The woman in charge of registration forces me to sign a waiver stipulating that if terrorists kill me during the conference, my family can’t sue the ROI organizers. Furthermore if I engage in “illegal drug use or excessive alcohol consumption” I’ll get sent back to the U.S. on my own dime.

“Could you please define ‘excessive’?” I ask.

Appropriately the first ROI event is a wine tasting at 9:00 on the hotel veranda. Unfortunately the wine is kosher, which means I’ll probably get diabetes long before I get drunk.

Over the next hour I meet the other 119 future Jewish leaders. I’m hoping for a diabolical cabal of global power players sacrificing human children to Moloch, demon lord of the Phoenicians, but the ROI attendees are considerably less exciting. There are a few creative types, such as members of Israeli rock bands the Carsitters and missFlag, the Hasidic author of Never Mind the Goldbergs, and African-American rapper Yitz “Y-Love” Jordan, who converted to Orthodoxy a few years ago and now lays down his Babylon-disrespecting rhymes in Aramaic. (Later in the week, I drunkenly tell Jordan that he should change his stage name to “Blackisyahu.” To his infinite credit, he does not cap my ass like an O.G. Maccabee.)

Empowered Jewish youth: Activate!However, the vast majority of the ROI participants are from the Jewish foundational world: youth leadership directors of JCC and AIPAC chapters, Hillel directors, organizations that train Jewish college kids to defend Israel on their campuses in order to “empower them to make a change.”

While these people are nice, I don’t know how to speak their language. They speak of “community with a big ‘C,’” “incubating pilot programs” and “changing the world.” Every third word is “empowerment,” as if American Jewish youth are the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers—merely waiting to be activated!—and these archaic foundations are Zordon of Zion. (“It’s continuity time!”)

There are also plenty of hippies: activists for “gender equality and social justice,” organic-lifestyle “ecological farmers” who believe that “feeling the earth here is really special,” the LGBT Coordinator of the International Union of Socialist Youth. The activists are not amused when I recount how I once accidentally urinated on the Israeli embassy when I lived in Washington, D.C. (It’s a long story, but basically I was very drunk.) They are also not amused by the story of when I urinated on a Tel Aviv beach while waving around my U.S. passport and screaming, “You can’t arrest me—I paid for this sand.” (Again, I was very drunk.)

“Why are so many of your stories about pissing on things?” asks another attendee. I have no good reply.

…………………..

 

Hell on earth: The bird sanctuary in Ramat GanDAY TWO

We’re forced to wake up at 6:30 a.m., which is not easy when your internal clock hovers somewhere over the Atlantic. (Or when your internal clock actually hovers around 6:30 a.m.)

Yoni Gordis, director of the Center for Leadership Initiatives, explains that our first day will involve hours upon hours of community service, adding that the Hebrew word for “service” is the same as “punishment for white collar crime.” We will be gardening, which is exactly what I enjoy doing before the sun fully rises. A middle-aged female hippie tells us that “developing a community garden is definitely an empowering experience,” because “you can feel healthy in it” and “make a difference.” (Kill me. Kill me now. Kill me hard.)

My group is taken to the Jerusalem Bird Sanctuary, a mosquito-ridden swamp that smells like animal shit and is equally pleasant to walk around in. A conservationist explains that preventing development here was a “victory” for environmentalists. We’re then forced to pull thorny plants from the ground without any gloves; I wind up with more pricks in me than the starlets of Campus Gang Bang #16.

For some reason I’m the only one unhappy with this situation; the other ROI participants are enjoying themselves. A girl from Chicago even swears that she doesn’t see the trillions of mosquitoes sucking harder than the starlets of Campus Gang Bang #16.

At the end of the torture session, the conservationist thanks us for our help.

“Nooooooooooo,” the hippies say in union. “Thank youuuuu.”

This is a sign of collective mental illness. Our people escaped slavery in Egypt thousands of years ago; there is no good reason to replace the Pharaohs with the pigeons.

No shirt, no shoes, no service: The underdressed authorWe’re given two hours to shower for a fancy dinner at the Jerusalem Museum. However, the woman at the hotel’s front desk fails to effectively communicate to me when my laundry will be done—and since she’s Israeli, she blames me instead of apologizing—so I’m forced to wear dirty jeans and a short-sleeved shirt instead of my dress clothes, which is humiliating until the fourth glass of (halfway decent) wine takes away the shame, as alcohol tends to do for people with zero dignity.

A lady with quite a bit of dignity (and money!), Lynn Schusterman, who funded the ROI conference, addresses us before the dinner, praising our “infectious energy and enthusiastic vision.” She seems like a nice person; I briefly meet her later in the evening and thank her for all the free shit.

However, I leave the dinner early with my homosexual friend Jamie Kirchick of the New Republic. We find a downtown bar and knock back a couple Israeli beers. (You’ll get a drink faster in the Negev desert than an Israeli pub; apparently nobody in the Jewish nation’s service industry expects a tip.)

“I don’t understand Christians,” I say, drunk enough to wonder if I’m going to wind up experimenting with my sexuality tonight. “They decide that the Old Testament is invalid when it comes to pork and shellfish—because Jesus says that what comes out of your mouth matters more than what goes in—but they rail against your brand of degeneracy, which is also forbidden in the Old Testament.”

“What comes out matters more than what goes in?” Jamie asks. “So Jesus would be down with cock-sucking?”

What would Jesus suck? The Holy Land is filled with mysteries. Jamie invites me to a Jerusalem gay bar—which would only be more out of place in Disneyland—but I must save my energy (and my anal integrity) for tomorrow's ROI events.

……………..

 

Holier than thou: Reading TalmudDAY THREE

I wake up with more energy than I expected but lose consciousness again thanks to the ROI-mandated 9:00 a.m. Talmud study. “You are about to take part in a 2,000-year-old tradition of studying text,” Gordis says, distributing a reading about the holiness of the Holy of Holies, which is apparently very holy.

I can’t face debating the Oral Law before I’ve digested breakfast, so I stagger to the men’s room and nap on the cold, bacteria-ridden floor. When I drag myself back to the conference room, the rest of the ROI attendees are enthusiastically discussing the passage: “So like, what is our holy of holies?” “Life is the journey.” “It’s like the audacity of hope, which is a phrase Barack Obama uses.” “We are so lucky to meet in a city where we can forge our own destinies.” “You can’t go into the Holy of Holies physically but you can go there spiritually.” Why is nobody else kvetching? What the fuck is wrong with these happy people?

Next we break into our tracks: Content Delivery, Community Service, Environmental Activism, Youth Programming and Israel Advocacy. Dave Abitbol leads the Content Delivery session, during which we mostly discuss how the blogosphere and YouTube have impacted Old Media.

“It always helps to look at pornography to see where the next tech boom will come from,” Abitbol explains to our group of twenty.

“It always just helps to look at pornography,” I contribute.

One track member complains about the lack of cultural literary in the Information Age: “A lot of American Jews don’t even know what Hamas is.”

“Isn’t that what you eat with pita and falafel?” I jest to no one’s amusement.

Jeremy Kossen, the CEO of JewTube.com, informs the group that he had a baby six months ago.

“Mazel tov, man,” I say privately after the group session. “The kid didn’t have any birth defects or Down’s syndrome or anything, did it?”

“No.” He stares at me in disgust. “Did you really just ask me that?”

Not an outtake from that Maxim shoot: Have we mentioned Israelis are gorgeous?We take an awesome tour of the Old City walls at twilight, get our daven on at the Western Wall, then go to a bar to enjoy performances from our fellow ROI attendees in the Carsitters and missFlag. On the way back to the hotel, my roommate Tomer Altman of Oy-Bay.org complains that his back hurts from walking all day long. I’m happy to finally meet someone who is capable of complaining about something.

“Man…” says 26-year-old Tomer. “It’s not easy becoming decrepit.”

“It’s the Jewish male curse,” I say. “We’re so adorable when we’re young and then wind up looking like the lovechildren of George Costanza and Rob Reiner.”

Speaking of which, Israelis are gorgeous. I’ve made it approximately 60 hours without masturbating in the Holy City, which is not easy when the local female population is comprised of olive-skinned goddesses armed with AK-47s, which for some reason makes them a thousand times hotter. (Why do I desperately want to make love to these women who could kill me in 500 different ways?)

You know, if Jewish American Princesses weren’t so reflexively horrified by the Second Amendment and skin cancer—and if Jewish American nebbishes looked anything like our IDF counterparts—perhaps the American intermarriage rate wouldn’t be quite so devastating.

Next: Our correspondent says something inappropriate and horrifies everyone. Again.

Yesterday I wrote about how I don’t connect with a sense of national exile, and last week I wrote about how some days I don’t really connect with Israel at all. I stand by those statements, but since today is tisha b’av I thought I’d write a little bit about my relationship to Jerusalem, and about how I juggle celebrating her, and mourning for her.

Here is what I’ve found: Falling in love in Jerusalem is like being punched in the face repeatedly. There is sudden pain, and then a deep throbbing ache wrapped in sweet wooziness. Then the sudden pain returns. It doesn’t sound like fun, and it isn’t, really, but everyone does it. If you can’t find a person, the city itself is enough to seduce you. Every day hundreds of thousands of people weave up and down her streets, hopelessly and totally in love, and Jerusalem responds explosively, without any hint of tenderness or benevolence. Visitors and locals unite in their heaping praise on Jerusalem. Jerusalem of Gold, they call her. Her air has the scent of wine, her breezes sing in the trees like bells. Jerusalem accepts the compliments you and I and everyone else heap upon her, and then, carefully, she spits in our eyes.

If I Forget Thee: (never gonna happen)
Jerusalem is how we learn to miss things that are right in front of us. We ride buses and jostle through metal detectors and endure the sweet rotting smell of the shuk because we’ve become addicted to hummus from a particular stand, or the delicate strawberries on sale in cardboard boxes. Occasionally we stand in front of a smooth stone wall and make ridiculous requests, or watch others, overcome with emotion, who weep theatrically into the crevices between the bricks.
The city is a jumble of mismatched architecture, dirty buildings with clothes flapping on lines where they’ve been left to dry, and garbage kicked around by the wind. There are days when it doesn’t seem particularly valuable, like a frustrating old computer to whom you’ve grown inexplicably loyal, and somehow can’t bring yourself to replace even though the screen shorts in an out, and it makes a loud humming noise. And there are days when it feels eerily familiar.
Most days I can’t imagine myself living in Israel, much less Jerusalem, home of the most judgmental people on the face of the earth. But sitting on the floor last night, reading Eicha and looking around the darkened room at more than a hundred other young people mourning the devastation of Zion, I briefly pictured myself at home amidst the sharp light that reflects off of Jerusalem’s solar panels, and the rough ache of Jerusalem’s embrace.

I’m not filled with hope every day, but on occasion it makes itself known.

• Michael Moore's team transported former Grand Zero workers to Cuba for free health care

• Trojan's condom-toting pigs

• An L.A. Times series on Jerusalem 40 years after the 1967 war

• China to show off Olympic torch at Everest via $20 million highway

• The Vatican's defensive driving course

(This post edited to preserve the integrity of China's highway dept., for not spending $20 billion)

In an attempt to pump up its flaccid tourist industry, the Israeli Ministry of Tourism has launched a new campaign to bring gay, lesbian and bisexual tourists to the Holy Land. Advertising aimed at "proud visitors," features two kippa-wearing men locking lips with the Old City of Jerusalem in the background and same-sex couples floating in the Dead Sea clasping hands.

What's next? Cruising on the Via Dolorosa, the Temple Mount? The Palestinians will take any excuse to start the next Intifada, but I imagine it's the rabbinate whose beards are going to curl at the thought of these tanned hardbodies laying their leather tefillin at the Western Wall. "When the Messiah comes," could take on a whole new meaning.

You have to salute the Ministry of Tourism for trying to bring tolerance to the most intolerant city in the entire world, but I wonder if they'd be so liberal if it were Yitzhak and Mohammed shtupping rather than a couple of sons of David.

When I told my wife that we would be observing Shabbat as the next step on my quest to become the Perfect Jew, she acted as if I had announced I was leaving the Tribe to become a Buddhist. She assured me that she would always love me and then added, “I’ll miss you.”

We’ve both always felt like the Shomer Shabbat live in a different world, one we associate with the ultra-Orthodox we’d seen as twentysomethings in Jerusalem. Back then, the weekly sounding of the Shabbat siren meant another day of forced abstention and deprivation. Buses stopped running; shops and restaurants were closed. It was a wasted day.

No bacon sandwiches here: Celebrating the end of Shabbat at the Wailling WallBut I found ways to adapt. Learning that Domino’s Pizza delivered on Friday nights, my roommate and I spent our Sabbaths in front of the television, watching poorly dubbed kung fu movies as we polished off a box of wine. We even discovered a bar that sold Palestinian beer and bacon and cheese sandwiches, and close to sunrise, we stumbled drunkenly home to our apartment as the streets filled with the faithful on their way to synagogue for morning prayers.

Now, as forever-fatigued parents, my wife and I typically flop into bed well before 10:00. Since we don’t do anything on Friday nights, I reasoned, we might as well try keeping Shabbat. My wife finally agreed after I promised her that we wouldn’t spend the week tearing toilet paper in preparation for the Sabbath.

Rabbi Arthur Green, a Reconstructionist rabbi and Rector of the Rabbinical School at Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts, seemed a little wary of my quest to become the Perfect Jew. He agreed to meet with me, but only after I had read an article he had written about sacred time and sacred space which began: “Shabbat, the day of holiness and rest, is the central religious institution of the Jewish people.”

As I absorbed his words, I realized I had brought a misguided mindset to my quest. I had worn a kippah for the shallowest external reasons, making a fashion statement rather than taking a spiritual leap. I had dunked in the mikvah because it sounded fun; I had learned to negotiate because I wanted to feel like a big shot. As for Shabbat, I had mocked it as an outmoded tradition that was strictly the domain of religious obsessives, but now I became aware that observance of the Sabbath has historically been the most obvious sign of being Jewish. By ignoring it, I was arrogantly rejecting centuries of tradition and wisdom because I was too lazy to learn what it was all about.

Shabbat doesn't have to be about arbitrary rules: Pre-ripping not requiredMuch to my relief, Rabbi Green understood my concerns that Shabbat observance had been hijacked by a certain population of Jews. “That hijacking took place in the first or second century when the laws of Shabbat became very detailed. But there is no basis in the Torah for all the details of Shabbat law,” he explained. The Torah only forbids work, strictly defined as the lighting of fire and gathering of wood. Rabbi Green continued, appending that the ancient Rabbis added all of those laws to make Shabbat very exclusive and protected. But he favors a more liberal interpretation of Shabbat, and has created his own list of Shabbat dos and don’ts.

Why would a committed secularist like myself want to keep Shabbat? “We are living through one of the great ages of the speeding up of consciousness,” says the rabbi, who is Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. “Just watch kids following those little critters across the screen on videogames. The idea that we have to turn the screen off and be face-to-face and talk to live people across a table might be revolutionary a generation from now.”

Shabbat, as I learned, is a social institution, built into Judaism so that we have time to rest and reconstitute ourselves. It’s less about denial than it is about reward. At heart, it’s a weekly holiday in celebration of the creation of the world, and it is meant to be rich and enjoyed and to have a different texture from the rest of the week.

I would need that rest, since getting ready for Shabbat was the most stressful event since my son’s bris. It took me nearly five hours to shop and prepare enough food for Friday night dinner and Shabbat lunch, to tape over light switches so that I wouldn’t inadvertently break the Sabbath, set timers for lights, craft a spicebox out of tinfoil and cloves, hide my telephones, and tear myself away from the alternate universe of the Internet. Lastly, I had to remember to turn my oven down to 200° and leave it on, so that we would have warm food at lunch the next day. I took a shot at convincing my wife that I wasn’t allowed to change diapers on Shabbat. But she wasn’t persuaded of any strict halachic basis for that.

Suburban sabbath: Friday night lightsWhen Friday night fell, something amazing happened: I heard silence, true silence, for the first time in a long time, as if my house had taken a breath and let out a deep sigh. We enjoyed a quiet dinner with friends, and my wife and her college friend geeked out like a couple of day-school veterans and sang Hebrew songs after the meal. I resisted the temptation to spin my favorite Rancid CD to drown out their warbling.

As we slid into bed, I remembered what Rabbi Green had said about having sex on Shabbat: it’s actually a double mitzvah. To clarify, singles: Beer-goggled hook-ups at the local bar don’t count. This two-for-one special only applies to married couples. In the darkness of our bedroom, I had no difficulty fulfilling that mitzvah. Without the distractions of my nightly podcast and my wife’s New York Times crossword, I followed Rabbi Green’s advice to the letter, and I felt, for the first time, like the Perfect Jew.

As we walked to our local synagogue the next morning, it was as if we had stepped out of history, out of a woodcut etching; a tall slim kippah-wearing Jew and his wife and baby, trudging timelessly to synagogue. Though Rabbi Green had said we were not required to pray on Shabbat, we felt that we should visit our local synagogue for the first time.

It took over an hour for a minyan to gather in the traditional egalitarian shul, and aside from two or three others, we were the youngest people in the joint by almost 50 years. And as we sat listening to the charmingly archaic Ashkenazi pronunciation of the rabbi, I realized that though time may slow down today, Stewing it over: Set oven to 200, cook for 24 hoursthe hours and days will keep moving forward and before long these few faithful souls would be gone and the synagogue would stand empty. I didn’t want that to happen, because somehow I knew I would be losing a small part of myself. Though we had never met these people before, we were greeted as family, and I was invited up to the bima, to say the blessing over the Torah portion. It was the first time I had done so since my bar mitzvah.

When we arrived home, the computer inside our goyish oven had turned itself off, not understanding that we Jews actually like to eat lukewarm chicken and potatoes at Shabbat luncheon.

And as the day came to an end and we smelled the spices intended to bring us back to the regular week, I realized that in observing Shabbat I had not bound myself to meaningless regulations; on the contrary, I had unbound myself from the siren call of commerce, technology, and pop culture. I felt that I could think without the static of the modern world filling my head like a hive of buzzing bees.

A week later, as I found myself navigating my diaper-laden supersized shopping cart through the hellish morass of Costco’s Saturday rush hour, I felt a longing for that inner peace I had discovered within me. I tried to remember the words I had recited on the bima just a week before, hoping for a booster shot of Shabbat serenity. But they were already lost to me.

The Jesus Tomb: One big happy...

I absolutely understand why Christians will be upset by this story in the Jerusalem Post (and the documentary it describes) but what do Jews think about it? I find it fascinating myself… and will be glued to the set next week when the flick airs!

And I will absolutely be following the “furor” it “sparks”. This is my kind of news!

Basically, a crack team from the Discovery Channel has put together a documentary about the “Lost Tomb of Jesus” in Jerusalem… and they’re going to reveal great truths to us amateur theologians out here in TV-land. Namely, that Jesus was buried with his wife Mary Magdalene, and their SON, Judah!

They’re doing DNA tests on the remains and shit! Jesus DNA!

See, this is a big big BIG deal for Christians for a number of reasons. Jesus wasn’t supposed to be getting it on with Mary, and certainly he wasn’t supposed to be making babies. But mostly, he was supposedly resurrected and taken up into heaven by God. Bodily. He shouldn’t have left any remains for DNA testers, besides maybe some toenails clippings.

So if there should be the least little shred of credibility (which I can’t honestly imagine there will be) attributed to this cable-TV insanity… it’s going to be OFF THE CHAIN!

Of course, I’m expecting a lot of Jews to get upset too, because Jews don’t like Jesus. They don’t like to talk about Jesus. But religiously, it doesn’t matter to us, does it? After all, to us, it should be like someone finding the tomb of Shabbatai Tzvi and his baby’s mama… Though I’m not sure The Discovery Channel would bother with that.

Of course, there’s always the fear that people will say this is a “Jewish conspiracy” (You know, like evolution)… but at least it’ll be interesting.

I promise I’m not a prude, but I’ve always thought single sex gyms make a lot of sense. You’re sweaty and gross and trying to focus on various muscle groups—and if you’re not being ogled by some random guy in jogging shorts you’re ogling the shirtless guy lifting weights. The hormones are literally in the air, and there’s that weird competitive vibe, too. Gyms are, by definition, immodest, so it’s not hard to believe that the ultra-Orthodox community hasn’t been interested in them until recently. But now, things are changing.
The Kosher Gym in Brooklyn: Oh so heimishe
In Brooklyn, you can go to the Kosher Gym on Coney Island Ave for a “professional, though heimishe, environment” to work out. There are separate facilities for men and women (yay!), personal training, babysitting, and a Torah Tape library where you can borrow recorded lectures from a variety of rabbis. The Torah Tape library is especially important when you consider that the KosherGym doesn’t have any televisions lest you catch sight of the secular world or a soap opera while you run on the treadmill.

I’ll admit, when I’m at the gym I allow myself to read trashy magazines and watch E! so I’m not sure I’d be happy at KosherGym, but the next time I’m in Jerusalem I really want to check out their version, also called Kosher Gym, although I don’t think the companies are related. The Israeli Kosher Gym puts a more Jewish spin on their atmosphere, bragging that “Not only is the ‘Kosher Gym' a flash of color in the monochrome Givat Shaul neighborhood, but it has also brought an energy boost to the religious community at large.” They also remind us that, “At Kosher gym, we don't only cater to the fitness of your body - we worry about the well-being of your soul too.”

I can’t decide if that’s creepy or cool. The Israeli Kosher Gym was just written up in the Jerusalem Post, and the article is full of more things that straddle the awesome/awkward fence, like a personal trainer talking about how she works with women to help strengthen their lower back and pelvic floor “which tend to weaken after several births.” It quotes a member who has ten children, and ends with a different trainer talking about how at the Kosher Gym women aren’t working out to get rockin’ abs and a killer ass, “They really want to be healthier. When someone is working to get a perfect body, no matter what her motivation is, eventually she'll become competitive and angry at not reaching her goal. That doesn't happen here. Here you'll find a greater emotional completeness.”

I’m not sure if I believe that. Just because you’re living under a snood and a mountainous velvet dress doesn’t mean you can’t be vain. But it does sound like the Kosher Gym crowd is a lot less likely to judge based on size, certainly in the women’s section, where most of the clientele is pregnant or gave birth recently. I wonder how many pregnant women go to the “eastern dance” (read: bellydancing) class.