by The Town Crier · Wednesday, March 31st, 2004
Passover is the Jewish community’s celebration of our liberation from slavery. Each year we recall our exodus from bondage and rejoice in our freedom from oppression. We also recognize that we are not entirely free until every human being is free, free from tyranny, free from prejudice, free from discrimination, and free to pursue the fullness of life. There is now an attempt to amend the Constitution of the United States of America in such a way that it would preclude basic civil rights from the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members of our community. We, all leaders in the Jewish community, deplore such an attempt and instead urge the president and members of Congress to protect the freedom of all that we might all celebrate our freedom together.
Over 120 Rabbis and Jewish Leaders from across the US have signed on to PFLAG’s (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) Passover Petition for Marriage Equality.
by The Town Crier · Wednesday, March 31st, 2004
Rabbinical students to pull off April Fool’s stunt throughout streets of Manhattan. Say what you will, but these guys are still the best and only thing we Jews have to combat the rampant missionary activity in this city.
by Mobius · Wednesday, March 31st, 2004
“Jewish women who wish to pray together in the women’s section at the Kotel are not physically imprisoned — but they are not yet religiously free.” — Phyllis Chesler and Rivka Haut in The Jewish Week
by Mobius · Wednesday, March 31st, 2004
Twenty-five demonstrators protesting the construction of the separation fence were wounded on Wednesday in clashes with Israeli security forces near the West Bank village of Kata’ana.
Man, you almost gotta pity the IDF. They’ve got it coming at ‘em from both the Left and the Right…
by Mobius · Wednesday, March 31st, 2004
“Religious entrepreneurs have found a new way to battle the opening of shops on the Sabbath. They are planning to soon issue a new credit card that will offer special benefits to anyone buying at store chains that keep the Sabbath.”
by Mobius · Wednesday, March 31st, 2004
In the pop-culture file,
Jennifer Lifshitz thought she would be a shoo-in to win Adam Mesh’s heart on NBC’s reality TV dating show, “Average Joe: Adam Returns.”
After all, said the rabbi’s daughter from Buffalo Grove, Ill., Mesh was a nice Jewish boy probably looking for a nice Jewish girl — and how many others would there be?
Lifshitz was in for a surprise.
When she walked into the Palm Springs, Calif., house she would share with 18 other women as they vied for the affection of day-trader Adam Mesh, 28, she noticed what many viewers of the popular TV show also did: A disproportionate number of the contestants were Jewish.
Full story here. What I want to know is, why can you check out the guys on the show’s website, and not the chicks? Nevermind, here they are. Eek, what a scary bunch!
by Mobius · Wednesday, March 31st, 2004
The AP reports,
Jewish settlers with assault rifles slung over their shoulders moved into two buildings in a crowded Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem on Wednesday, sparking clashes between Israeli troops and Arab residents.
Palestinians, who claim east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, condemned the incident, saying it proved Israel was more interested in expanding settlements than in making peace.
Israel says it will never relinquish the sector of the city it captured from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war. In recent years, hawkish Jewish groups, with the backing of hardline governments and foreign investors, have bought several east Jerusalem properties to strengthen Israel’s hold there. [Emphasis added.]
Except that Barak offered sharing sovereignty over East Jerusalem to the Palestinians at Camp David and Arafat turned it down…
In related news, Israeli troops scuffled with settlers near Hebron today who were protesting the dismantling of two abandoned outposts.
by Mobius · Tuesday, March 30th, 2004
“Israel, unquestionably, has the same right and obligation that all sovereign nations have to ensure the security of its citizens. Hamas, founded by Yassin, is without doubt a terrorist organization that does not recognize the right of Israel to exist on any of historic Palestine. Hamas is Israel’s sworn enemy. [...] But the right of self-defense does not automatically justify, morally or pragmatically, a policy of targeted assassination.” — Marcia Freedman, President of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom in j.
by Mobius · Tuesday, March 30th, 2004
“Elite squads of counterterrorism cops will safeguard potential targets in Jewish communities as part of a massive NYPD effort to protect the city during Passover.”
by Mobius · Tuesday, March 30th, 2004
The Northwest Indiana News, of all papers, invites you to make a Cup of Miriam for your seder table.
by Mobius · Tuesday, March 30th, 2004
Yitzhaq Hayutman holds the key to peace on Earth - it’s on a floppy disk in his pants pocket.
[...]
He has two big ideas, two ways to engineer the apocalypse. The first: a hovering holographic temple. Hayutman wants to set up an array of high-powered, water-cooled lasers and fire them into a transparent cube suspended beneath a blimp. The ephemeral, flickering image, he says, would fulfill an ancient, widely revered Jewish prophecy that the temple will descend from the heavens as a manifestation of light. Hayutman hopes to finance the project with some of the proceeds from a $20 million patent-infringement suit he and his partners have filed against Palm.
The rest of that money would be poured into Hayutman’s second idea for jump-starting the end-times: a virtual temple within a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. The goal is for thousands of people to join in its construction on the Web. Hayutman even wants to display progress reports in the floating hologram as a kind of apocalyptic scoreboard.
Totally wild shit, man.
by Mobius · Tuesday, March 30th, 2004
Eliran Golan has been charged with four counts of attempted murder.
by Mobius · Tuesday, March 30th, 2004
Though I myself will be spinning a party at Zeek editor Jay Michaelson’s crib, this coming Saturday, BAM will be hosting a special event entitled Jewish Beat: Music and Jewish Identity Today, as part of a month-long series “exploring the Jewish people’s profound impact on modern culture.” The event will feature a panel discussion with Larry Blumenfeld, Julia Goldman, Frank London, Mark Slobin, and JDub’s Aaron Bisman, and will be followed by The So Called Seder, which I presume is a perfomance by Yiddishe hip hop virtuoso So Called.
If I weren’t already booked up, I’d likely be there myself…
by Mobius · Tuesday, March 30th, 2004
Over the past several months, I’ve been developing a social networking service for Jews, similar to Friendster, called Jewgie—short for Jewish Geography—which I intend to launch not too long from now. Unfortunately, I just found out that I’ve been beaten to the punch with it… Enter ChosenNet, stage right: the first Jewish Friendster.
It’s okay…Mine’ll still be cooler. 
by Mobius · Tuesday, March 30th, 2004
In response to the Mormons’ posthumous baptizing of deceased Jewish people (including Holocaust victims), the International Jewish Conspiracy unveiled a campaign this week to de-baptize the Mormons.
by Mobius · Tuesday, March 30th, 2004
“Benny Morris discusses the new version of his famously controversial book, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, which has left him alienated from both the left and the right.”
by Mobius · Monday, March 29th, 2004
Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat is and actually has been since 1990 — it’s the threat against Israel. And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.
—Philip D. Zelikow, Executive Director, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Against the United States, Sep. 10, 2002, University of Virginia
by The Town Crier · Monday, March 29th, 2004
Sesame Stories: The difficult new Sesame incarnation — Israeli-Palestenian-Jordanian-American Mid-East Muppet fest — trying hard to incite children with politically correct uninflammatory tolerance.
