Kosher Madonna Goes Solo (Or: Hester Esther)
Even a frum disguise of a long black skirt, expensive shaitel, and heavy makeup could not hide “Madonna Incognito” as she dined recently in Solo, New York’s poshy upscale kosher steak restaurant.
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Israeli eye candy! Oh boy!
Ma’ariv, Israel’s second most popular daily, stoops to a new low with their new “Hot or Not” rip-off, aptly titled, Cham or Stam.
Ah, the originality of it all…
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On Hebrew Tattoos
Now that Britney and Christina are all smitten with their Hebrew and Kabbalistic tattoos and everyone’s all intrigued with their stupidity, I thought I’d just give a nod to my friend Genesis P-Orridge [NSFF] who, for the past couple of decades, has been rocking the name of his band Psychic TV in a crude Hebrew transliteration on his arm. It just goes to show that, once again, these pop stars are doing nothing new nor innovative. Someone else did it first, and likely, did it better.
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130,000 Jews Form Human Chain From Gush Katif To Kotel
The biggest news in ha’aretz (er, the land, not the newspaper):
Over 130,000 people linked up in a 90 km human chain from Gush Katif to the Western Wall in Jerusalem to protest the disengagement plan Sunday evening.
Whether they agree or disagree with the protestor’s sentiment, one phrase has been on everyone’s lips—”Only in Israel. Only in Israel.”
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Palestinians ‘made millions’ selling cheap cement for barrier they bitterly oppose
Telegraph (UK): (Via Drudge)
“Palestinian businessmen have made millions of pounds supplying cement for Israel’s ‘security barrier’ in the full knowledge of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader and one of the wall’s most vocal critics.
A damning report by Palestinian legislators, which has been seen by the Telegraph, concludes that Mr Arafat did nothing to stop the deals although he publicly condemned the structure as a ‘crime against humanity’.”
Maybe it’s time for those supporting divestment to divest from Palestine!
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Flash: Arafat denies his government was in a crisis
Haaretz reports:
“In his first public comments since the upheavals in Gaza spilled over into a political confrontation with Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia last week, Arafat denied the government was in a crisis, and said he had approved changes in the Cabinet.‘No, no, there is no crisis,’ Arafat said after meeting Arab diplomats in his headquarters.”
Can someone please get this man a newspaper, any newspaper.
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Right wing settler terror cells reportedly targetting Sharon, Al Aqsa Mosque
Shin Bet Director Avi Dichter told the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defense committees this week that clandestine right wing settler terror cells and Ayatollah-like right wing Rabbis are are on their old fundamentalist Fatwah trip again, and are reportedly targetting both the Prime Minister and the Al Aqsa mosque.
According to Ha’aretz, Israeli army radio reported that Rabbi Avigdor Neventzal – chief rabbi of Jerusalem’s old city – has said in a speech to High School students (!) that anyone who wants to cede the land of Israel falls under the Halachic category of “din rodef” who can be killed according to Jewish law. Ha’aretz quotes Neventzal as saying:
“It should be known that anyone who wants to give away Israeli land is like a rodef, and certainly land should not be given to idol worshipers”
The Jerusalem Post reports that MK Yuli Tamir (Labor) gave a radio interview, in which she criticized Neventzal for inciting to violence against Israeli leaders. “The next murder is on the way,” Tamir said according to the Cleveland Jewish News. Moments after her interview she received a call on her cell-phone from an unidentified individual who threatened to kill her.
Readers may recall that Yigal Amir, who murdered PM Yitzhak Rabin at a peace rally in 1995, testified at his trial that Halacha mandated the assassination.
“I know Jewish law and ‘Din Rodef’ means that if you’ve tried everything else and nothing works, then you have to kill him.”
The Toronto Star quotes Yossi Klein Halevi, an associate fellow at the Shalem Centre, a Jerusalem think tank as saying:
“I have no doubt the threat is very real. Anyone who has sat with the farther fringes of the settler movement knows this is not contrived”
[Editor's Note] John’s perspective somewhat neglects to recognize that, it is not because religious people are evil, nor even right wingers, that this is such a troubling issue, but rather because these sorts of actions seem to be very inconsistent with the values of peace and justice which seem to be much more fundamental to Judaism. It is a question of theological interpretation more than of politics and madness, and I hope one which we can approach more rationally and delicately than we as a people seem to be doing at the moment.
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Jewish Voice for Peace calls on Michael Moore to make his next film about US/Israel relationship
Jewish Voice for Peace is urging controvercial filmmaker Michael Moore to select the topic of the relationship between the USA and Israel for his next film. JVP requests that people sign a petition to persuade Moore to “take the case”.
Let the cries of ‘anti-Semitism!’ begin!
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Yesha Jews “Settling” the Blogosphere
A7 reports,
Residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza are turning to ‘blogging’ to tell the world why they have chosen to live on the front lines, writing about politics, passions, and the drama of everyday life in ‘Yesha’.
Hmmm, now we can see why they’re all crazy in their own words! I keed, I keed!
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Birth of a salesman
Jewsweek is seeking competent part-time sales reps to sell advertising space on Jewsweek. The position is commission-only. If you’re interested and feel up to the task, send us an e-mail at editor@jewsweek.com.
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Member of the Dog Tribe
Need a special gift for your kelev on the day of his bark mitzvah? Check out MODT: Member of the Dog Tribe, a new company which makes Magen David laden dog collars and leashes for the yiddishe doggy. Aww man, that’s ruff! (c/o Metatron)
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ARMDI West Cleans House
Following up on our earlier post in March about the corruption eating ARMDI, our anonymous tipster reports, “This past Sunday, chairman of the western region ARMDI resigned amid disclosure of his sketchy practices. Four board members join his exit. Now ARMDI west is following more closely with Arizona ARMDI, ~100% effective contributions. Gotta love the administrators for giving sooo much.”
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Getting Drunk on Fascism
The late Bill Hicks once took a brilliant stance on marketing:
There’s no rationalization for what [people who work in marketing] do …[They] are the ruiner of all things good, seriously.I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, “Oh, you know what Bill’s doing, he’s going for that anti-marketing dollar. That’s a good market, he’s very smart.” Oh man, I am not doing that. You f*cking evil scumbags!
…”Ooh, you know what Bill’s doing now, he’s going for the righteous indignation dollar. That’s a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We’ve done research – huge market. He’s doing a good thing.” Godammit, I’m not doing that, you scumbags! Quit putting a Goddamn dollar sign on every f*cking thing on this planet!”
With that as an introduction, Time Magazine reports about a wine being sold bearing the likeness of Adolph Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Stalin, and Benito Mussolini:
Führerwein is the marketing stroke of Andrea Lunardelli, a 38-year-old Italian winemaker based in Udine, northern Italy. “We have been selling this kind of wine for more than 10 years,” Lunardelli tells me. “Sometimes people get angry with those labels. But we choose them because people want them. It is not Italians that buy these kinds of labels. The majority are German and Austrian.” The Historic Line is dominated by Nazi images but also features others, including the Communist Collection with labels of Lenin and Che Guevara.I ask Lunardelli how he would respond to someone, like me, whose family members were killed or persecuted by the men he uses as a sales gimmick. “We are not against the feelings of this person,” he replies. “I am not happy about it. For us it is only marketing. We don’t put the swastika on our labels. We have canceled all the swastikas.” German law bars any trade using Hitler portraits, swastikas or National Socialist symbols. What is not forbidden is importing Hitler wine for private use.
“Turning Leaf” this ain’t.
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WiFi in J-town
The JPost reports (bypass registration) that Jerusalem will soon become the first city in Israel to offer free wireless internet in public places (certainly better than the current Starbucks T-Mobile rate of 10 cents per minute – and yes, I’m bitter).
Within three to four months, people visiting the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall, Emek Refaim, the Rivlin – Nahalat Shiva zone, the Malha Shopping Mall, Safra Square and Shlomzion HaMalka Street, will be able to surf for free on their wireless-enabled laptop computers.[...]
[Amir Elstein, general manager of Intel's Jerusalem facility] declined to comment on the scope of Intel’s investment in the project, saying only that the company has “deep pockets.” However, the cost is believed to be hundreds of thousands of shekels.
The system will require the placement of a series of wireless routers around selected areas, each of which can transmit information to a distance of 300-500 meters at high-speed transmission rates of up to 54 megabit per second. The technology is the same as that sold for home wireless use for as little as $150.
Also set to go wireless within a year are government offices, museums, malls, parks, and local schools.
Now the yeshiva bochrim that surf for pr0n in the Ben Yehuda internet cafes can do so in the privacy and comfort of a public square. Aww yeah…
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When In Doubt, Ask Rabbi X-ray
From Haaretz:
With the affair dragging on for weeks, Scheiman decided to turn to an unusual source of advice for such worldly matters: Rabbi Shlomo Ifergan of Netivot, more commonly known as the X-ray.”[...]
The X-ray, after being updated on the finer details of the affair, including the agreement with Maccabi Tel Aviv and Betar Jerusalem’s threat to sue Herzliya if it didn’t get the player, ruled that the Zohar – the Jewish book of mysticism – pointed to Maccabi Tel Aviv.”Assoulin must play for Maccabi,” said the X-ray, but as if not to take the matter entirely out of Scheiman’s hands, added: “Only if things don’t work out with Maccabi will the light point to Betar Jerusalem.”
I wonder if Madonna knows about this rabbi.
P.S. A google search spits out an interesting story about a fellow who went to this rabbi to find his missing son, and got rather poor service. [cache JPost article by google.]
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El Rabbi
Rabbi Rigoberto Emmanuel Viñas recently started New York’s first ever Spanish-language Jewish newspaper, Tora Tropical: Judaismo con Sabor Latino, with a $168,000 grant from the UJA Federation. The New York Post has the story:
Shortly after graduating valedictorian from Yeshiva at 16, Vi?as moved to New York, got a degree in social work, and began working as a Spanish interpreter in the South Bronx.“I didn’t wear a yarmulke in those days,†Vi?as says. “Whenever I met a homeless person or a destitute person I would tell them, ‘Go to church.’ I mean, there’s more than one way to God …â€
[...] The paper —published four times a year — has a circulation of 15,000, and recently jumped out of the Big Apple and is now reaching Arizona, Washington — even Brazil.
In its pages, you can read about the Jewish ruins in Lorca, Spain. Or interviews with Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen about her stance on Israel. Or tales of Latinos who discovered their long-lost Jewish identity upon moving to America. Or news of the Jewish leadership conference in Guatemala.
Viñas, an Orthodox Rabbi who leads a pluralistic congregation, also founded the Centro de Estudios Judios Torat Emet, a Spanish-language Jewish studies center.
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