Music Amy Winehouse (SL: “She’s smoking.”) Runners-up: Regina Spektor, Golem (JA: “We had a Chanukah hora going for like a half hour in Boston.”), Y-Love, Rav Shmuel, Sway Machinery, Vulgar Bulgars, The Moshav Band, C Lanzbom & Noah Solomon, Hadag Nachash (DR: “Gets some points for writing a song in which they sexually proposition California.”)
Movie Borat (RA: “Even though he will throw money at us and run away.”) Runners-up: Close to Home (SL: “The Israeli army buddy film, is not only one of the best Jewy movies, it was one of the best movies I saw last year, period.”), Live and Become (RL: “If you haven’t seen it, you should.”)
Magazine a tie between New Voices (JB: “It’s a magazine for Jewish students and has become one of, if not the only print publication that is actually willing to take on the tough and important stuff in American Jewish communities. Who else covered The Queeruption? Has frequent contributions from Jews living in Arab countries [and occupied territories]? Jewish space and nationalisms, gender issues, Hillel’s paternal attitude towards Jewish students. You get the idea.”) & Zeek Runners-up: American Jewish Life (MR: “Because they’re doing stories that are actually interesting and appealing to the mass while still trying to affect social and religious change, instead of just being controversial for the sake of being controversial [ahem] and appealing to an ever-diminishing crowd of people who get the Jewish in-references.”)
TV Show The Colbert Report Runners-up: Daily Show, Weeds, Aqua Teen Hunger Force
Book The World To Come by Dara Horn (MR: “This is blowing me away — it’s so
much better than I thought the latest Jewish buzz-bin writer would be.”) Runners-up: The Dialogues of Time and Entropy by Aryeh Lev Stollman, New York by Will Eisner (MR: “The last hurrah by the last of a dying breed of Manhattanite.”)
Organization Jewish FundS for Justice (RL: “For their work on congregational based organizing, minimum wage, standing up for MoveOn, JSpot, and their Selah leadership training for Jewish social justice leaders.” RA: “It’s nice to have a loud national Jewish social justice voice out there.”) Runners-up: Keshet JTS, Encounter, Brit Tzedek V’Shalom, Moishe House (SL: “For rocking the early twenties social scene and giving the post-college set a non-judgemental place to hang out and celebrate on their own terms.”)
People Rahm Emmanuel & Chuck Schumer (RL: “The impact of Chuck and Rahm on this country takes the cake, whatever we think of their strategies.”) Runner-up: Ruth Messinger (JA: “For her fearlessness in shaking American Jewry out of complacency, launching a march on Washington, ensuring Darfur stays in the news despite international best efforts to forget it, and demanding that we take a hard look at what ‘never again’ really means.”)
News Story a tie between CJLS gay teshuvot (DR: “It’s been an interesting year for the queer Jews.”) and the Lebanon War (SC: “If you’d told me [that CJLS would ordain gays] vs.
[there being a war with Lebanon] one year ago, the Lebanon War would have been more believable.”) Runners-up: Lieberman losing the Democratic nomination, Abramoff scandal, Rubashkin’s kosher meat scandal, Soros’ AIPAC Alternative, World Pride Jerusalem
Blog JSpot Runners-up: Jewbiquitous, Mah Rabu
2 thoughts on “Jewschool's Best of 2006”
Schumer and Emmanuel make sense, but don’t deserve this spot. They were against Dean’s 50 state strategy that resulted in so many gains in unexpected placed. It’s a good thing they didn’t have more influence – they could really have fucked things up.
They are the pro-Iraq war, anti-withdrawal DLC right wing Democrats. More or less the opposite of the trend within the party, and polar opposites of the new energy that is sweeping the party.
Watch them sink when Hillary fails to win the nomination.
Schumer and Emmanuel make sense, but don’t deserve this spot. They were against Dean’s 50 state strategy that resulted in so many gains in unexpected placed. It’s a good thing they didn’t have more influence – they could really have fucked things up.
They are the pro-Iraq war, anti-withdrawal DLC right wing Democrats. More or less the opposite of the trend within the party, and polar opposites of the new energy that is sweeping the party.
Watch them sink when Hillary fails to win the nomination.
I agree about Dean, but he’s not a Jew.