Trick or Zeek
The new issue of Zeek is live, and features the poetry of my dear friend Raphael Cohen. A pleasant and unexpected surprise…
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McMysticism
A piece on the mainstreaming of Kabbalah which I contributed to for Jewsweek is now online.
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Once Again, Jewish Porn
[Updated] People keep finding Jewschool by using “Jewish porn” as a search phrase. Not that I mind. I find it hysterical. But frankly, there’s nothing here except one post referring to a NY Press article. So, after a little hunting, I found the authorotative list of Jewish porn stars.
Typically, the list was compiled by Luke Ford, the arrogant bastid who had the nerve to talk smack to both me and my mother (of all people), for backing up Doug Rushkoff when the Jewish press was at his throat. Where a guy like Ford, who runs ran a porn-news site [NSFW]* and brags has bragged about having sex with pornstars, gets off criticizing Rushkoff or anyone else about their morality, theism, or devotion to Judaism, is beyond me. Ford may have converted into the tribe, but despite his contentions otherwise, he’s definitely not he hasn’t much acted like a Torah-keeping Jew. For him to wage such assertions against others shows he has no awareness of basic Jewish concepts such as derech eretz or menschlekheit, which makes his devotion to Judaism as questionable as the next guy’s. People in glass houses, mofucka.
But whatever. Here’s the list. Which I might add, is *Not Safe For Work. But I bet you didn’t know Traci Lords is Jewish…
My sincerest apologies to Luke Ford for my poor choice in verb tense.
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Bye bye jDate
Sarah Lefton, of the Jewish Fashion Conspiracy, shares the following anecdote.
I was on CNBC this morning talking about the GDP and job prospects in San Francisco…and being the obnoxious girl that I am, I managed to squeak in a reference to Jewish Fashion Conspiracy (my clothing company) into an otherwise unrelated conversation. I got home and within 20 minutes of the piece airing, I received over 20 emails from random people who had googled me. The best one is pasted below for you.Goodbye jDate, hello CNBCdate…
Dear Sarah,
My name is Isaac. I saw your interview on CNBC today.
Are you single?Sincerely,
Isaac
Teehee. What a dork. And speaking of snarky Jewish t-shirts, another heeb has entered the fold.
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MexiJews Get Government Love
“Mexican Jews are pleased that the government has begun implementing a recent law that explicitly prohibits anti-Semitic discrimination.”
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A New Jewish Take On Halloween
“This year, on October 31, children across America will don their capes and masks and go door-to-door collecting candy and treats to celebrate Halloween. But for many Jewish families, Halloween is a time of unease and discomfort. Parents question whether to let their children participate in a ritual that is not seen as Jewish and, more explicitly, which has roots in Christianity and other religious traditions.”
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Heroin and Hashem
“I was arrested for heroin possession on a cloudy Saturday morning in downtown Tel Aviv. My drug dealer and I were on the road in his little white Peugot. I had five grams in my pocket. When I checked the rearview mirror and saw the red flashing lights of the mishtara—the Israeli police—I was so high I didn’t even flinch.”
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Left Seen Awakening Over Netzarim Debate
“Israel’s peace movement, largely dormant since Ariel Sharon was first elected prime minister three years ago, resurfaced last weekend amid calls for a political framework for peace and withdrawal from a contentious settlement in Gaza.
“An estimated 4,000 Israelis took to the street Saturday night to protest Sharon’s policies in a demonstration outside his Jerusalem residence.
“Naomi Chazan, a former Knesset member from the left-wing Meretz Party and one of the participants, said this was the first major demonstration against Sharon.”
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Funny, She Doesn’t Look Jewitch… But That Does Explain The Nose
“When it comes down to it, though, there are two main schools of Jewitchery. On one end are ‘Jewish witches,’ Jewish women who practice Wicca or another form of neo-pagan religion, combining their identity and spirituality practice with ‘Jewishness,’ if not actual Judaism. On the other end of the continuum are ‘witchy Jews,’ Jewish women who practice a form of normative Judaism — be it Reform, Renewal, Conservative or Orthodox — and infuse it with a magical perspective gleaned from the pagan world.”
[Update] The Jewish Journal is running a similar piece on Jewitches.
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IDF Turns On Sharon
According to The Voice of Judea, “After IDF Chief of Staff [Moshe] Yaalon issued harsh criticism against the Sharon government for ‘being too strict with the Arab population’, Yaalon was called to order by Defense Minister Moufaz, who reminded him that military officers are supposed to execute decisions made by the elected officials. Maariv on-line quoted government officials demanding an apology or a resignation from the Chief of Staff.
“Close aids to Sharon said that Yaalon’s criticism caused irreversible damage to Israel at a time when Sharon has to overcome huge pressure from the Americans and the Russians.”
Yaalon, however, refuses to retract his statements, and will likely refuse to resign.
Apparently, despite Sharon’s rhetoric and threatening behavior, many at the IDF feel that Sharon has gone overboard, and that if he is truly serious about peace, then, for certain, they need to ease up on the Palestinians, and work with their moderate leadership to advance change.
“Senior military sources, who reflect the dominant feeling in the IDF General Staff, said Tuesday that Israel should have treated Abbas differently, by giving him control of every Palestinian city he asked for and by refraining from discussing the fate of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.
“In order to prevent a similar debacle this time around, the IDF is advising the government to remove the military blockades from West Bank cities such as Bethlehem and Jericho, to differentiate between terror-free and terror-filled areas, and to allow free travel for Palestinian vehicles in the West Bank.”
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Leave The Carp In The Bathtub
Your bubbie brought home breathing livestock. You just have to click a mouse.
Fresh Direct, the online Grocery Supermarket now offers custom-cut glatt kosher meats, cold cuts, fish and other kosher groceries. FreshDirect’s kosher meats are supplied by Iowa meat packer AgriProcessors Inc. under the Aaron’s Best brand, founded 50 years ago in Borough Park. The meats are handled in a separate area of the company’s warehouse under kosher supervisors. Kosher orders are protected from contact with non-kosher products by their packaging during delivery.
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Pass Me A Cold One
Mmmmm, [Kosher] Beeeer. From Sukkot to Thanksgiving: 18 cities. 5000 Miles. 2 Chosen Beers. One Wandering Beer Selling Jew.
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Killer Keeps Kosher
“A Jewish man serving a life sentence in prison for murder won the right to Kosher meals in a settlement with the Florida Department of Corrections Tuesday.” Details of the case appear here.
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Exodus part deux
In case you were wondering, Pharaoh is now safe and sound back home.
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The search for Spock
A photograph by famed actor/director/photographer/sexual provocateur Leonard Nimoy has been purchased for the permanent collection of The Jewish Museum in New York City. It was a photo from Nimoy’s controversial collection of nude women wearing tefillin which were encapsulated in a coffee table book called Shekhina last year. “The Shekhina project has generated considerable conversation and provided illumination for myself and hopefully for others,” says Nimoy. “I’m honored by the Jewish Museum’s decision to include a print from this work in their collection.” Honored, disgraced, whatever.
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I pledge indifference
A Chicago school district pulls a Jewish song chosen for it’s melody from a choral concert due to its potential as a prayer - but keeps an African American “spiritual” number in the program. Jewish song with words from the book of Lamentations, ‘Hashivenu’ was deemed “inappropriate” for a public school choral program; African-American spiritual ‘I’m Goin up a Yonder’ has “more of a historical and cultural context” even though it mentions G-d.
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Why Jews Should Embrace Islamic Moderates
“Jews cannot hide their enormous interest in seeing the defeat of fundamentalist Islam. But precisely because of this, they should play a leading role in efforts to encourage moderate Islam and promote respect for Islamic culture.”
Hear, hear!
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Rabbi Faces Assault Charges Against Jewish Nationalist
Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, director of UCLA’s Hillel, may be charged with assault after confronting a Jewish nationalist journalist at a recent on-campus talk given by Alan Dershowitz, author of The Case for Israel.
Addressing the concerns of a group of demonstrators outside Royce Hall, where the engagement took place, Seidler-Feller began to discuss an upcoming event at which Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al Quds University and Palestinian Authority Commissioner for Jerusalem, would be speaking. Rachel Neuwirth, a reporter for Arutz Sheva & Frontpage Magazine, approached Rabbi Seidler-Feller and proceeded to leap down his throat “alleging that Nusseibeh helped direct missile attacks into Israel during the first Persian Gulf War.”
It is then alleged by Neuwirth that Seidler-Feller physically assaulted her, grabbing her wrist and kicking her, to which she responded by calling him a “capo”—inferring that he would help Nazis to kill his own people.
Welp, I don’t think Rabbi Seidler-Feller shoulda laid a hand on her, if he did, in fact. But after arguing back and forth with hardcore Jewish nationalists and being accused by them of being a Nazi and/or terrorist sympathizer for merely humanizing Palestinians, if not lending some small degree of credibility to their concerns, I can certainly understand why he’d be angry and want to knock the bitch out. Everytime my Orthodox Jewish Legionairre sister tells me I’m a disgrace to my grandparents for not wanting to murder every Arab in the Middle East, you can be sure I’ve wanted to kick her teeth in. But I try to focus on the fact that resorting to violence will not improve matters, rather only worsen them, and therefore refrain from such a response. Thus if Seidler-Feller learns anything from this experience, I hope it’s the acknowledgement that violence serves no purpose but to further emolden your opponents, and to make you look bad, even if you were standing up for something that is right.
Diplomacy and creative intellect are together the only way to solve this conflict. Violence will never be the answer.
[Update] Seidler-Feller will not be charged.
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