...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.

Religion in Israel: Too black and white?It may only take an hour to get from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv (provided your bus doesn’t break down), but the two often feel more like different planets than neighboring cities. In Israel, the animosity between secular and Orthodox is palpable and growing, but according to an article in yesterday’s J-Post, the emerging Jewish Renewal movement is targeting even the most “hard-core” secularists, and attempting to bring Jewish traditions back into modern Israeli life by finding the gray areas within religion.

The ambivalence about Judaism in Israel became clear to me one night as I sat drinking in an alleyway bar in Tel Aviv with my Israeli friend Omer. Omer has been studying abroad in Germany for the past few years, and admitted that he felt disconnected there, and had started attending a Friday night dinner with other Jewish students. “My father would disown me if he knew I was lighting Shabbat candles,” said Omer guiltily. “We come from a long line of staunch Tel Aviv atheists.”

In order to counteract this deep rooted aversion to religion, the Jewish Renewal movement (different from the 1960s American movement of the same name) takes a more flexible approach, focusing on ritual, tradition and spirituality rather than outright faith. While the term “secular synagogue” may seem like an oxymoron,to proponents of Jewish Renewal, it’s the basis of their ideology.

Dr. Asher Cohen, a senior lecturer at Bar-Ilan's Political Science Department who recently wrote a paper on the failure of the Reform Movement to muster a significant following in Israel, said the movement lacked many of the drawbacks of Reform Judaism.

"First of all, there is no God," said Cohen. "Jewish Renewal is not a religion. So it does not turn off adamantly secular people."

Though the Jewish Renewal leaders identify their movement as distinctly Israeli, it’s hard not to sense that the trend mirrors the ever evolving definition of American Jewish identity. The search for cultural connections has taken many Americans beyond their local congregation or JCC. It is the reason why Jewcy exists, why small alternative congregations like Romemu are springing up across the country, and why birthright is quickly becoming the new bar mitzvah. For many, the search for meaning no longer revolves around the existence of God; it's about the need to find a comfortable, inclusive community.

I went to my first Orthodox bar mitzvah last weekend. It was my first Orthodox anything, come to think of it. While I didn’t pay much attention in temple (since the women and men sit separately and I didn’t have Fiance--a more religious Jew than I--beside me to explain what was going on), I paid great attention to the food.

I seldom keep Kosher, so I didn't have high hopes for the Kosher meal ahead. But as it turns out, Kosher food isn’t so bad! Everything served was actually pretty good. Especially the desserts, which I’ll get to in a later post.

Friday night was Shabbat (or Shabbos) dinner, and we started with pea soup. When it arrived, I gingerly dipped into the slimy green substance and braced myself for the worst. I was confused and pleasantly surprised when it tasted delicious. Quite possibly the best pea soup I’ve ever had, smooth and spiked with chives and mint. Fiance and I looked at each other to confirm: “There’s definitely cream in this.” Since Kosher laws restrict serving meat and milk in the same meal, we anticipated a main course of fish.

You can imagine my surprise when, after a yummy, thoughtfully arranged iceberg lettuce salad garnished with pecans and cranberries, this stuffed chicken breast came out as the main course:

Kosher stuffed Chicken

Fiance and I raised our eyebrows at each other and I immediately sought out the chef to ask what was in the pea soup. Non-dairy creamer, he told me. Genius! This trick will certainly come in handy when my Kosher conscience nags around the holidays or a more pious mood strikes Fiance around dinnertime. Non-dairy creamer just may change my life.

Even better? This recipe couldn't be easier.

According to the World Tribune:

A study by the Washington-based American-Israel Demographic Research Group said Jewish fertility, the highest in the developed world, was rapidly approaching that of Arabs in Israel. The group, in a report entitled "Forecast for Israel 2025," projected a 79 percent Jewish majority as well as long-term population stability between Jewish-Arab population groups in Israel.

(The creepy coda on this article is that pregnancy rates boomed after the Lebanon War. Not a propitious time for getting it on, one would think. I await the Iranian cartoon contest that shows lascivious Jews fucking ecstatically under the firelight of Katyusha rockets.) 

According to Breitbart:

The number of Arabs living in Jerusalem grew twice as fast as the city's Jewish population over the past decade, according to a report by an Israeli research institute.

At current growth rates, Jews will comprise 60 percent of the holy city's population by 2020 compared with 66 percent now, according to projections by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies.

It said the Arab population would rise from 34 percent to 40 percent over the same period.

The city's population in 2007 stands at 720,000 people, a figure that includes east Jerusalem which was captured and later annexed by Israel after the 1967 war, as well as new districts built in the same area.

Over the past 40 years the Arab population has grown by 257 percent from 68,000 to its current level of 245,000, while the number of Jews living in the city has risen by 140 percent -- from 200,000 to 475,000.

Meanwhile, Esther Kustanowitz at the JTA's blog posts about the dual perceptions of intermarriage:

There are also people who claim that proponents of intramarriage are the ones who are ruining everything, and that it's nothing more than racism to suggest that Jews should only marry Jews. "Judaism should be open to anyone! Why don't you just take the sentence and replace 'Jews' with 'whites' and you'll see how elitist you are," they scream. (As Chanan Tigay noted in his Culture Schlock post from earlier this week, non-Jews are even looking to Jdate to provide them with Jewish spouses. This also leads us to be unsure as to whether we should celebrate at early reports � currently denied by publicists � that Leonardo DiCaprio had impregnated his Israeli girlfriend model Bar Rafaeli.)

Upsherin: Three years of Jewish crossdressingA year and a half ago, I gave birth to a baby boy.  And while I was, of course, delighted... I was also a little nervous.  Because suddenly my lack of Jewish knowledge affected someone other than myself. 

I had to have a bris. I had to pick a Hebrew name.  I had to figure out whether I needed to have a Pidyon Ha Ben.  I knew very little about such things.

At the time, I also remember thinking about whether I wanted to wait to cut my son's hair.  I didn't know the word Upsherin at the time, but I knew there was a Jewish tradition of not cutting a baby boy's hair until he was three, and I thought it was a nice idea.  I liked the look. I liked the idea of resurrecting old traditions...

And it's a nice one:

 The custom is based on biblical verses (Deut.20:19 and Lev. 19:23, 27) that compare man to a tree. Just as a tree matures from a tiny seed to fruit-bearing tree, likewise a child grows more knowledgeable and bears fruit via good deeds.

Just as the Torah requires newly planted fruit trees be allowed to grow unharvested for three years, a child's hair can be left uncut for three years.

The tradition dates as far back as the 16th century and has connections to Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). Rabbi Chaim Vital, in Sha'ar HaKavonot, wrote that his teacher, "Isaac Luria, cut his son's hair on Lag B'Omer, according to the well known custom."

So why did I decide against it?  Why did I cut my son's hair when he was about a year old?

Well, first of all, because he had a really runny nose, and he kept getting snot in his bangs.

And second, because the tradition is supposed to mark the child's entrance into Jewish life and learning.  Which was not something I was certain I could commit to at the time.  Torah classes?  I was nervous to set up this hurdle, and then NOT enroll him in Hebrew school, making the ceremony a hollow tribute to hairstyles.  And while I could, I suppose, have made the ceremony about his more general development as a person, that idea didn't ring true for me.  In the same way that a bar/bat mitzvah seems phony when the kid isn't really reading Torah.

Of course, third, it seemed yet another cultural tradition that happens for boys, but not girls.

But mostly...  I just didn't want to be a poser.

Now, before you laugh at me, I want you to think about this... because I'm not sure it's totally stupid.

What does it "mean" to borrow cultural trimmings without fulling participating in the strict observance or community behind them?  I would never intentionally appropriate something like that from another religion, would you?  I would never hold a baptism because it's a "nice tradition".  I wouldn't wear a bindi.  It would feel disrespectful to me. 

But because I'm a Jew drawn to cultural trimmings and trappings in general, I often feel drawn to adopt traditional habits now and then... even though I grew up with none of them.

Though at the same time, I wonder how an orthodox person would feel about it.  What would an observant mother think if she saw my little longhaired boy eating a cheeseburger?

Does it matter?  Or do we get to truly pick and choose what we want from our faith, as it suits us? 

 I'm on the fence... 

Now, I'm not saying I think we should all do "all or nothing".  Because we've all grown up in different communities, with different cultures and traditions (some involving cheeseburgers).  But isn't there something a little odd about arbitrarily selecting the cultural trappings you think are neat?  Because they look old-school, or hard-core?  Or even because you want something "more" but you're too tired and busy to commit to learning what the more might be?

This guy? Yeah, this guy!I'm a total poser to try and talk about this,  because I've never even been to a Carlebach service myself... but I've heard so much about him over the last few years that I thought I might point you in the right direction.  That way you can check it all out, and then come back and school me if I still haven't gotten off my ass and gone to a service myself. 

By all accounts, this is a singular, deeply spiritual, inspiring way to pray.  And distinctly Jewish.  And super musical.  And kinda wacky.  But the combination of music and faith and joy and different kinds of people seems to work. Because a lot of people I know describe a Carlebach service in a kind of cultish way.

"Dude!  It's like nothing else. It's like... crazy!"

This story does a good job of introducing the man, who is described as having been a hippie, a Hasid, a musician, and a kind of charismatic leader.  So I guess you can expect a cross between a Dead show and an Orthodox shul. 

In any case... I'm game for an adventure!