A twentieth-century Eastern European writer who survived a variety of wars, movements, and renamings once said that he'd lived in five countries without ever leaving his house. During the fifteen months that I've been the editor of Jewcy, I've lived in several countries while always remaining in the same house. When I first started as the Editor of Jewcy, it was a for-profit enterprise with six other employees and a beautiful loft office in DUMBO. The following February, the company's initial investors pulled out of the venture, and my coworkers and I lost our jobs. In either the bravest or stupidest move I've ever made, I spent the next six months running the site myself out of my apartment, with no salary. Fortunately, JDub Records came along and adopted Jewcy - suddenly, I became part of the JDub staff. I can honestly say that, despite the fact that I am nowhere near cool enough to work at a record label, the JDub team always made me feel at home.

As much as it's been weird to have the country of Jewcy changing around me, there's one reason that I kept doing this job: because I believe in it. More specifically, I believe in Jewish journalism and the power it has to help people struggling to find a place within their faith and culture, as well as to encourage debate, discussion, and dissent from those already within it. I can't urge you enough to stay involved with Jewcy and keep reading, as it's only going to grow. I'm not at liberty to reveal all of the secrets, but I can tell you there is a beautiful, easy-to-use redesign in the works that will leave all the other Jewish blogs crying (sorry, other Jewish blogs). I plan to come back and blog whenever possible, because I believe in the unique, diverse, and open-minded Jewish community that Jewcy fosters. Jewcy's traffic has gone up 12% since it was adopted by JDub in October, and I hope that you guys continue to hang out here and contribute to the ongoing conversation. 

I spent most of my life growing up in a place where I thought I was beyond the reach of Jewish traditions and history, believing that someone from my background could never find a place within the Jewish establishment. But somebody gave this patrilineal-descent, non-Hebrew-speaking, non-bat-mitzvahed, still-figuring-it-out Jew from North Carolina a job editing a Jewish website, and for that I will always be grateful. I hope that I've been able to foster an environment where any person who identifies as Jewish can feel welcomed and encouraged. Whether I was writing about soap operas, The Kotel, Scientology, or my ex-boyfriends, I've always been proud of the fact that I was writing for Jewcy.

Though I've enjoyed the chance to get to know all of the writers and commenters here, there are a couple of people who deserve particular recognition. Craig Leinoff, who had been with Jewcy since the beginning and built almost all of this website with his own bare hands (it's true, he welds with code), was always available to field my middle-of-the-night questions about wonky html and spam filters. Ashley Tedesco (who despite being a college undergraduate is already well on the way to being a fine journalist) stayed on as an unpaid intern after Jewcy's doors were closed, somehow squeezing post-editing and Twitter-updating into her already crammed class schedule. Aaron Bisman and Jacob Harris of JDub believed in the Jewcy/JDub proposition from the very beginning, and their commitment to both the brand and to me has been boundless.

Like any adventure, this one too had to end. I've been offered a job as the editor of a new women's lifestyle and entertainment site. It doesn't actually have a name yet, but I swear it totally exists. I accepted the position knowing that Jewcy is in good hands and trusting that it will continue to grow and thrive without me.

Anyway, my login is about to expire, so I should start wrapping this up.

As a famous philosopher once said, it's been real.

In November, Gallup did a poll of 1,002 Americans, asking them their feelings on three "minority religions" - that would be the Muslims, the Buddhists, and us. This week, they released the findings. Among them:

• 71 percent report having a "positive" opinion about Jews, including 25 percent who have "very positive" opinions. (Does this remind anyone else of the bit on the final Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien where Steve Carell came out in character as Michael Scott to do Conan's exit interview and only gave him the choices "positive," "very positive," and "extremely positive"? Just me then? Okay.)
• 15 percent admitted to having some negative feelings about Jews.
• 19 percent of respondents do not actually know any Jewish people.

Somehow, I don't find these results terribly shocking. What I'd really love to know is whether those 19 percent of people who don't know any of Teh Jooz had positive or negative opinions of us. My guess is actually going to be that the people who don't know any Jews presumably live in rural areas in places like the Deep South and therefore love Jews in theory because they're evangelical Christians and therefore think the Jews are the Chosen People. Obviously, my own experiences growing up in the South around evangelicals are influencing me on this one, but I'd love to see a more specific breakdown of the study with an emphasis on geographical regions.

Anyway, the next time Abe Foxman goes on yet another one of his "everyone's an antisemite!!1!#@!" rages, someone should be ready in the wings to hand him a copy of these survey results.

"If you can't be a candle," the saying goes, "be the mirror that reflects the candle." So can we sum up the biography of Miep Gies, the Dutch woman whose best-known accomplishment is preserving for the world the writings of Anne Frank. Miep, who died yesterday at 100 years old, has already been memorialized across the world, and most of the headlines mention that Miep is the woman responsible for saving Anne Frank's diary and giving it to her father, Otto, after the war. While that statement is true - and worthy of great praise and respect - Miep is more than a mirror, she's a candle as well.

Miep, along with three other people, helped keep the Frank family hidden during World War II. In addition, she brought food, clothing, newspapers, and other supplies that kept the family alive and gave them ways to pass the time. Though Miep was a Christian and could thus go about her life as normally as any citizen in a war-torn country could, she risked her life to help keep the residents of the "secret annex" - the Franks, the Van Pelses, and Fritz Pfeffer - safe. She and her husband Jan were among many brave people throughout Holland and the rest of Europe who risked their own lives to help, hide, and rescue Jews. There are many of them lost to history, because they may not have sheltered someone who became famous. Miep stands for them, just as Anne came to represent millions of faceless Jews who lost their lives to Hitler's regime.

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I am just not that interested in politics. Sure, when it comes time to vote I read up and get educated before heading over to the ballot box, but the idea of politics being a year-round, full-time hobby suddenly makes cleaning my apartment look fascinating. At a party, there's nothing that sends me rushing back to the keg faster than someone opining about their political party of choice and how they're voting on some appropriations bill. When my newspaper comes on Sunday morning, I toss Sports and Politics in the recycling bin and head straight for Arts and Leisure. Most of the time, I can chalk peoples' interests and passions up to mere preference - some people like reality TV, some like football, some like reading. But disliking politics - something that affects my life whether I want it to or not - is harder to justify.

In America, a democratic country where people can choose from 20 flavors of toothpaste and at least seven kinds of generic corn chips, voter turnout is usually low, especially in years when there's not a presidential election. It seems silly that we'd rather cast a ballot for a national office than for a local one who actually makes desicions about what goes on in our neighborhoods. Perhaps it's a problem of relative ease and affluence - in a country with relative peace and a somewhat steady economy (OK, not lately, but bear with me), we feel secure. Politics in the United States aren't usually a matter of life and death, perhaps excepting specific referendums on hot-button social issues like California's Proposition 8 regarding same-sex marriage. But when you see TV coverage of women in Iraq walking for miles and facing possible family discord in order to be able to get their vote counted, you realize that not everyone takes politics for granted.

Awhile ago, I told an Israeli friend that I really loved Etgar Keret's writing, and my friend (we'll call him Tal) said that he wouldn't read Keret's books because they stood on different ends of the political spectrum. "What do his politics have to do with whether he's a good writer?" I asked. "His stories aren't even about politics." But Tal wouldn't budge. He went into a detailed rant about how Keret's philosophies seep into his characters' lives, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and how that bothered Tal so much he couldn't read further. "I love Byron's writing even though he was a sexist douche," I said, but Tal wasn't interested in my literary protestations. "Everything in Israel is political," he said, "even things that aren't political."

Is my disinterest in politics the result of being a relatively privileged American, a person who lives in a country that isn't constantly on the brink of attack or war? Maybe. But there are issues I'm passionate about - a woman's right to choose, stewardship of the environment, gay rights - and I donate time and money to organizations that I think do good work in those fields. But that doesn't mean I want to talk about it all the freaking time.  When I go out for drinks with friends, I'd much rather discuss everybody's sex lives or what projects we're working on than whatever the political issue of the day is. However, many of my Jewish friends don't feel the same way. For them, politics - specifically related to Israel - is incredibly important. For many, Israel is the number-one issue that influences who they vote for. "Israel will always be an issue as long as people want to bomb it off the map," one friend told me, "so you can't just not care or pretend it doesn't matter."

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In 1936, Margaret "Gretel" Bergmann (now known by her married name, Margaret Lambert) was Germany's highest-ranked female high jumper. However, Germany's racial laws meant that she, as a Jew, was not welcome on their national Olympic team. Trying to get good PR, Germany forced Margaret to train for the 1936 Berlin games, only to claim she had an injury and not allow her to compete. They even trained a young man to dress in women's clothing and compete against her.

A new film, Berlin '36, stars actress Karoline Herfurth as Gretel and will open the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival (AJFF) on January 13th." I was asked to interview Gretel for a piece that appeared in the accompanying booklet for the film. I was able to meet Gretel, who is now ninety-five years old, and have tea with her at her home in Queens. She is, quite simply, the coolest ninety-five year old woman I have ever met, and I hope if I live to be her age I can be even a third of the woman she is.

The AJFF piece appears below:

In 2009, nineteen years after a front page New York Times article brought Jewish high jumper Margaret "Gretel" Bergmann-Lambert's story to worldwide attention, German filmmaker Kaspar Heidelbach directed Berlin '36, a compelling film based on Gretel's experience being forced off the 1936 German Olympic team.

During the shooting, the now 95-year-old Gretel, touched by the attention her story has garnered, invited cast and crew members to her home in Queens, New York. Gretel and actress Karoline Herfurth, who plays her, became close friends and regularly email. They were even photographed together by Bruce Weber in a spread for German Vogue. Gretel was particularly impressed that Herfurth did all her own "stunts" in the film, spending three months learning to high jump.

"I think the movie was well done," she says. "They had to change some things, for Hollywood, for drama. But I liked it."

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