As I'm sure you're all aware, last week marked the launch of the sixth season of "The Girls Next Door," E!'s reality show about life at the Playboy mansion. Kendra, Holly and Bridget are out, and Crystal, Kristina and Karissa (the latter two are twins) are in. As I curled up with Hef and the ladies, sipping a cup of Bedtime tea and rocking my sympathy pajamas, all seemed right with the world.

But as the half hour progressed, I couldn't help but be struck by something peculiar. The prevailing aesthetic, I noticed, was one that screamed "Aryan Nation": mounds of bleached blond hair, svelte hips...mounds of bleached blond hair.

Where, I wondered, were all the Jewish Playmates?

Well, it turns out they’re not that easy to find because indeed, they are few and far between. Out of approximately 670 Playmates since the magazine's inception, only a handful are known Jews. Cindy Fuller kicked it off in 1959, then Susan Bernard followed in 1966. Sally Sheffield posed in 1969, and Hef's longtime girlfriend, Barbi Benton (nee Barbara Klein) was also a Jew. Lindsey Vuolo was next in 2001, and most recently, Anita Marks in 2002.

And so, when I first sat down to write this, I thought, "How unfair! Playboy gives preference to the goys, promoting a singular notion of beauty." I thought I would be speaking on behalf of all Jewish women when I expressed my outrage that Jewish beauty is being overlooked or underappreciated.

But the more I look around, the more I realize that may be a bit out of touch.

Let us look first at Vuolo. Of all the Jews that have relieved themselves of their garments on the pages of Playboy, she seems to be the most notorious. Following her spread (haha), she was vilified by the Jewish community for the most part, and a nice summary of said vilification can be found here, in an interview she did with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.

It's a painful read, but if you feel like a humiliating smackdown, go ahead and click over. I'll just wait. Done? OK. If you skipped that part, I'll summarize for you: Vuolo felt she had done nothing wrong by posing in Playboy, and Boteach took her to task for it. By the end, Vuolo said that she had begun to feel "like a bad person."

And Boteach isn’t the only one who feels like Vuolo let the Jews down; the same sentiment was expressed here at Jewcy. At other websites she was called stupid, blog commenters openly wondered what “happened to her,” and the general message was one we’ve all heard before: this is simply something that nice Jewish girls don’t do.

I'm beginning to wonder: is the lack of Jewish representation in this mainstream magazine a result of narrow definitions of beauty, or have Jewish women opted out of the running? And if it's the latter, is it because they truly don't want to do something like Playboy, or because they’re afraid that if they do, they’ll risk rocking the Jewish community boat to such an extent that they’ll knock themselves right off?

Continue reading...

In response to Amy’s post about donating to a Jewish infertility organization an Anonymous comment suggested: Cindy Margolis: Playboy philanthropist

An easy way to support the cause is to purchase Playboy's recent issue that features Cindy Margolis (described as of Jewish heritage). She has pledged to donate her earnings from posing to infertility charities.

So let me first say that while I certainly support infertility research, I really don’t think the best way to do that is by buying porn. That said, I did some research on Margolis (who’s definitely a Jewess, and is married to a guy named Guy Starkman, who I bet is also a Jew), and she actually sounds like a pretty cool chick. Fertility Today has a nice profile of Margolis (it describes her as “a host, spokesperson, actress, model, author and mother who happens to be America's #1 rated celebrity Web site” which is confusing because I assume she herself is not a website, but I’m being picky). Or you could go straight to Margolis’s personal website, where you can find about a hundred pictures of her cleavage, and a section called Girl Talk where she writes pretty candidly about her struggle with infertility. I kind of expected to think she was an idiot (we all know how I feel about porn) but she comes across as sympathetic and bright.

If you’re interested in Jewish infertility I suggest Project Genesis blog (subtitle: the act of creation requires me, my husband, G-d, and a whole lotta technology), What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting, and Bikkurim. I’m also a big fan of the infertility posts at This Woman’s Work (not heavily Jewish, but completely great).

But thanks, Anonymous, for reminding us that even “America's #1 rated celebrity Web site” can have fertility problems.

From the JTA:

One of the Jewish community's most storied charities is turning to the Playboy brand name to help raise funds.

The Jewish National Fund sent out a mass e-mail this month announcing that it would be auctioning off a one-year subscription to Playboy and an all-expenses-paid trip to a VIP party at the legendary mansion of the magazine's founder, Hugh Hefner, in Holmby Hills, Calif.

The bidding will take place Oct. 11 in Manhattan at what is being billed as the first "JNF Sports Bonanza."

... Deborah Meyer, the executive director of Moving Tradition, an organization that helps young women become bat mitzvah, questioned the JNF's decision to embrace Playboy.

"It seems like a bit of a lapse of judgment to offer as a prize a trip to the Playboy mansion," she said. "You have to wonder what they are thinking about who are the members of the Jewish community and what message they think they are sending not just to young women, but to men, about Jewish values and what is appropriate in the year 5767."

Full story.

Jewish abs.The Playboy and FHM model, who is best known for her lack of attire as host on E's "Wild On," was born and raised in Hartford, CT as a Jew. I know this doesn't technically qualify as "news," but Jesus Christos! Who would have known?

Invade East Timor in that dress?: The level of nudity in Indonesian PlayboyHow to program your quadrophonic stereo -- that's what did it:

The magazine's first edition sparked protests in Indonesia in April although it had no nudity and less flesh was visible in the issue than many other magazines on sale in the world's most populous Muslim country.