Haaretz reports that Shalom Nagar, the Chief Rabbi of Ariel, was arrested on suspicion of rape. I have just one question, if anyone knows the answer, please let me know – Is this the same Shalom Nagar who acted as Adolf Eichmann’s guard and hangman? Presumption of innocence aside, I sure hope it isn’t. That would totally suck – it would be a totally awful postscript to the whole Eichmann affair.
Initial reports mention at least 12 16 killed and 30 91 wounded. The last fatal suicide bombing in Israel occured on March 15 and killed 11 people in Ashdod. More details at Haaretz and Jerusalem Post.
Security officials told Israel Radio that the attack probably emanated from the south Hebron area, where there is no security fence. Officials suspect the Hamas behind the attack, and especially Ibrahim Hamed, a relative of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, was behind the attack, Channel 2 reported.
Hamas and its Iz a Din al-Kassam Brigades claimed responsibility in a leaflet found in Hebron. Part of the message stated:
“This is a gift to the newcomers who arrived recently to our land,” it added in a reference to recent wave of Jewish immigration to Israel. “We say to you: ‘This is your fate, so wait.’”
Oy. Finish that damned fence already.
Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad, performance art headed by one “Goddess Perlman” and featuring a rotating revue of scantily clad performers is meant to be “a forum to expose — quite literally, in some cases — “the gals who learned to smoke at Hebrew School, got drunk at their Bat-Mitzvahs, and would rather have more scht**pa than the chupah”
Ooooh, look at us, we’re so bad, mixing religion and rebellion…Shocking!
But why do we think we need to be “bad” to be cool? Is there nothing more interesting we could do than reduce ourselves to tackling every cultural cliche and replacing it with sex, vulgarity and nudity, which is not even particularly noteworthy anymore? Perlman states “Jewish women get a bad wrap” agreed, but I don’t know if we’re doing ourselves any favors here. Fine, so we can be as raunchy and sexual as the goyisha girl down the block, but is that really who we want to be? Do Jewish women have nothing more unique to offer the world?
The oh-so-racy poster for the show features one Jewess drinking Manischewitz straight form the bottle, (personally, i object to drinking Manischewitz at all) and another woman lighting a cigar from the menorah. However, by attempting to mock the stereotypes don’t we just end up reinforcing them?
This is part of the trend of a cultural-only Judaism which often relies on turning 1950’s Borsht Belt humor on its head. It acts as though the depth of who we are as a people can be found in the commentary track of a Woody Allen film and your Bubby’s cooking. As happy as I am that Jews are proud to be Jews again, I can’t shake the sneaking suspicion that ultimately pop-culture Judaism will fail us as much as Hebrew school did.
It just bothers me.
At the Erez crossing in Gaza this morning a man was stopped while trying to enter Israel with explosives stitched into his underwear, the thought being that the area would not be searched.
Could this start a new fashion craze?
The latest in Jihad action wear–explosive undies! That’s right, be the first on your block to own a pair! Start an explosion in your pants! Available now!
No word yet on whether its proper detonation would effect relations with the 72 virgins.
Definitely NOT Jewlicious
The opening invocation at the RNC today was performed by Sheri Dew of the Church of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons). Sheri spoke at a conference in Washington DC last February where she likened those not actively opposed to gay marriage to supporters of Hitler:
This escalating situation reminds me of a statement of a World War II journalist by the name of Dorothy Thompson who wrote for the Saturday Evening Post in Europe during the pre-World War II years when Hitler was building up his armies and starting to take ground. In an address she delivered in Toronto in 1941 she said this: “Before this epic is over, every living human being will have chosen. Every living human being will have lined up with Hitler or against him. Every living human being either will have opposed this onslaught or supported it, for if he tries to make no choice that in itself will be a choice. If he takes no side, he is on Hitler’s side. If he does not act, that is an act—for Hitler.”
May I take the liberty of reading this statement again and changing just a few words, applying it to what I fear we face today? “Before this era is over, every living human being will have chosen. Every living human being will have lined up in support of the family or against it. Every living human being will have either opposed the onslaught against the family or supported it, for if he tries to make no choice that in itself will be a choice. If we do not act in behalf of the family, that is itself an act of opposition to the family.”
Eschaton in presenting this story, linked to a letter to the editor that outlined the history of the LDS Church with respect to Hitler that ought to have given Sheri Dew pause before she went all Hitler this and Hitler that on folks.
I am so embarassed. Turns out the guy that scrawled swastikas onto the walls of the Jewish soup kitchen / community center and then set it on fire, may have been Jewish. Haaretz reports that a community center employee has been arrested. Police claim he may have done it because he heard he was about to be fired. The BBC reports that the man worked as a guard at the center and that he was “more or less homeless” and “mentally unstable”, according to the Police.
Luke Ford in Protocols presents the top 10 problems with Jewish Journalism. Amongst the problems enumerated are:
#1. Failure of imagination.
#2. Lack of courage.
#3. Lack of clarity on mission.
#4. Lack of technique.
#5. Stuck in the past.
#6. Desire to be loved.
# 7. Delusions of grandeur.
#8 Unwillingness to treat religion with the same seriousness and specificity that it treats politics.
#9 If you only publish positive book reviews, you don’t take ideas seriously.
#10 Sensitivity, tact, restraint are only three good traits among many.
The posting is pretty interesting. As far as its overall accuracy, I’ll have to take Ford’s word for it because I haven’t read a Jewish newspaper in like… forever. However, to test Luke Ford’s assertions, I picked up a copy of the local Jewish paper aimed at my demographic. It’s called In Montreal and I had to shlepp for 20 minutes to find a copy because there isn’t any place downtown where it’s available.
Uh … no. Despite a report by the New York Daily News, Singh did not catapult “teddy bears soaked with gasoline at police at the Quebec G-20 protest in 2001″ (they weren’t soaked in gasoline) and he is not going to be protesting at the Republican National Convention with 50 leading anarchists, each accompanied by 50 “followers” willing to be arrested. He’s not going to be there at all. This according to an interview with Singh in this Saturday’s Montreal Gazette (not available online):
“I don’t have 50 followers,” Singh said. “I don’t have 5 followers. I don’t even have a dog.”
Jaggi’s pretty funny for a “dangerous anarchist.” He’s also a total publicity whore and an ass clown. You might remember him as the ISM member who defied an Israeli court order and went into the West Bank anyway. Or you may also remember his involvement in the riots at Concordia that caused the cancellation of a speech by Benjamin Netanyahu. I particularly enjoyed seeing Singh in the NFB documentary about that event called Discordia. Singh seemed like this over-eager, well… dipshit. Certainly not the dangerous radical mastermind he had been portrayed as in the NY Daily News article.
Now understand this, the only thing that would have been worst for Singh than getting smeared by the NYPD with false and inaccurate allegations, would have been not getting smeared at all. Just sayin’, that’s all …
Everything you would ever need to know about the rapidly unfolding “spy” scandal can be found at journalist Laura Rozen’s blog, War and Piece. This is some damn good bloggage and the story does not seem to be quite as straightforward as one might think. Tip of the hat goes to Asparagirl at Yuppies of Zion for the reference.
UPDATE: Turns out Larry Franklin is not Jewish. According to Honest Reporting “‘Franklingate’ appears more media hype than a substantive case of espionage.”
When you are in the Saudi Armed forces you need to know lots of important stuff. The Kingdom doesn’t defend itself ya know. Along with the proper operation and maintenance of stuff like machine guns and their sweet, sweet Lamborghini 4×4s (I’m not kidding) the well trained Saudi soldier needs to know important world facts.
Thankfully the Saudi Armed Forces Journal has all the facts in its “Know Your Enemy” section. A recent article, translated by MEMRI offers the following handy tidbits (read the complete translation for the full effect):
The Majority of Revolutions, Coups D’etat, and Wars … are Almost Entirely the Handiwork of the Jews
World Jewry has Established a Shadow Government Run by 300 Satans Who Call Themselves ‘Elders’
The Jews Created Every Scientific or Philosophical Principle or School
The article then urges all the Arab Nations to regain their pride by uniting under the banner of Islam thus eschewing the divisive effect of individual Arab states’ nationalism, which by the way, was also an invention of the Jews, apparently.
No offense to anyone or anything, but Arabs have made some pretty ludicrous claims in the past. We’ve heard everything from claims that Mossad agents called Jews who worked at the Twin Towers and told them to stay home on 9/11, to routinely blaming everything on Jews, all the way to the recent allegation that President George Bush is a Jew. These ridiculous claims have often made us shake our heads with incredulity or react in awe at how anyone could come up with such spectacular crap.
Claims made on a recent Palestine Authority TV program seem to have topped everything however.
The Jewish people have no connection to Israel, the Hebrews of the Old Testament were actually Arabs, the prophets in the Bible were Muslim, Solomon’s Temple was not built by Israelites but by Arab Canaanites, and the entire Bible is an invention of the Jews, according to a recent educational program aired on Palestinian Authority TV, a translation of which was obtained by WorldNetDaily.
Two senior PA historians, Dr. Jarir Al-Qidwa, head of the PA public library and Arafat’s advisor on education, and Dr. Issam Sissalem, senior historian and former head of history at PA University, were guests on the featured program and described in detail their assertion that Jewish history is part of a Zionist conspiracy. Both said any Jewish connection to Israel is actually a Muslim connection, even though Islam wasn’t founded at the time of the biblical Hebrews.
So what… does that mean that I am actually an Arab Muslim? Holy cow – I have lots of work to do then. Uh… gotta register www.arablicious.com, think of irreverent, Muslim-related stories, change my name. Oy. So much to do! Oh… scratch the oy…
Shabbat Salaam Aleikoum!
This is one thing I will definitely be following! Luckily Sambelina, Madge & Mr. Bad and others are there right now representin for Montreal, so I am sure I’ll get first hand accounts. Friggin hippies… heh.
So how about a post mortem on the failed MatchNet / JDate IPO? See the cool thing about that whole debacle is that in their preliminary filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an IPO, much information was made public, giving us an unprecedented inside look into the workings of a veritable Jewish institution.
So why was the IPO withdrawn? I mean the industry itself is due for some massive growth – according to Jupiter Research, online dating is expected to grow by 60% into a $642 million industry by 2008. Also, according to the Online Publishers Association, online dating was the No. 1 segment of content purchased online this year, growing 49% to $450 million. Had the MatchNet IPO gone through, it would have been the only public company in the industry and may have allowed investors the opportunity to participate in this dynamic market segment.
And yet the IPO failed. In it’s disclosure MatchNet revealed large and growing losses ($10.9 million), decreasing revenue per client (down 17%) and an increase in the subscriber churn rate. The losses were attributable mostly to the 233% increase in marketing costs and increased competition. One of the main raisons d’etre for the IPO was to raise more money for marketing.
MatchNet was anticipating going public for monhs, if not for years. They were planning an IPO in a post-dotcom crash market where there exists much competition from both other dating sites and from wildly popular free social networking entities (like friendster.com). Any potential investor would be and ought to be cautious about investing in such a venture. One would want to make sure that management was spending money wisely and in a sober and well thought out manner.
Both co-chaimen of the board gave themselves a 265% bonus increase in 2003 – that’s $1.4 million each. This kind of information would give any conservative investor pause. I mean they lost money that year. They were planning an IPO – they ought to have been acting with restraint. One would have to wonder what kind of bonuses they would give themselves once the company was fattenned with IPO cash. The bonus was just a numbskull move that may very well have cost them big time. They may still do an IPO in the future but next time around, even stupid ol’ non-MBA me would advise them, “don’t come off looking like such chazers!”
Like, it was one thing when she was getting attitude from her cheerleading coach Marilou Braswell for not participating in team bible study and prayer groups, but when the coach demoted her from the football cheering squad and into the less prestigious men’s and women’s basketball squad, well, Jewish cheerleader Jaclyn Steele was like, oy – enough!
Coach Marilou Braswell was fired for “discourteous and disruptive behavior” when she told the cheerleading squad about the discrimination allegations, according to Braswell’s termination letter.
In order to curry favor with Braswell, cheerleaders felt obliged to participate in prayer groups, Baptist style Bible study and had to “act” religious. Braswell seemed to have issues with Steele’s Judaism as well as with another male cheerleader’s homosexuality.
“It created an atmosphere where if you were not Christian or didn’t want to participate, you weren’t treated as well as the other girls,” said Deborah Lauter, southeast region director for the Anti-Defamation League, which helped Steele with her complaint to the university.
Braswell claimed the prayers were nonsectarian and that once prayers were even said in Hebrew. Braswell will be appealing her firing. In the meantime, Jaclyn, you’ll be relieved to know, is back with the Football squad, shakin’ her tuchus and violating the sabbath, but with her Jewish integrity, like otherwise intact. Like totally.
Yes. The only reason this story is here is so that I could put up a graphic of a cheerleader in a Jewlicious uniform. Sorry.
Martha Stewart dying? Better Homes and Jihads? No, the newest Web site for Muslim women is called Al-Khansa and it is the first “jihadist” publication aimed exclusively at women.
“The blood of our husbands and the body parts of our children are our sacrificial offering.”
Reportedly founded by the former head of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, Abd-al-Aziz al-Muqrin (offed by Saudi security forces this past June), the gayly decorated Web site offers modern Jihadi women a plethora of advice and handy household tips aimed at offering support to their radical Islamist husbands in their conflict with the authorities.
It also gives them specific advice on how to bring up their children in the path of jihad, how to provide first aid and what kind of physical training women need to prepare themselves for fighting…Some [articles] take a somewhat patronising attitude, dwelling on supposed female weaknesses that must be overcome in the cause of jihad – such as over-dependence on home comforts like TV and air conditioning.
Next issue?
Mmmm. Sassy!
The New York Times wraps up the Olympics well:
The moment stretched on into an unforgettable sunset scene. Kissing his gold medal, staring up at his flag with his anthem playing, Fridman made Israel tangible, real and impossible to ignore. Who in the world would not recognize this man?
It has been brought to my attention by a friend outside of Israel that some of the ‘goings on’ that are taken for normal here are, in fact, noteworthy.
Specifically, Orthodox Jews who smoke pot.
I guess I’ve just been here too long to think of it as strange. But yes, there is a significant sect within the religious population who do not view the use of cannabis as contradictory to religious behavior, and sometimes even in line with the service of God.
These people, this group, is made up largely of old-school hippies who were followers of a certain famous, influential and controversial rabbi, and members of the younger generation who found religion through nature, hippy ideals and following Phish. These groups are primarily located in the small village established by the followers of this rabbi that still thinks it’s 1973, and in the enclave of Nachlaot in Jerusalem.
This is hippy-religious Israel. Musicians, artists and rabbinical students. These people are all serious about God and Torah and living Halachic lives. Some are raising families, a few have jobs, many study in Yeshiva.
Within this group, not only is marijuana occasionally used as a recreational drug, it is also brought into the realm of the spiritual experience. Much like the innocence of drug-experimentation in the American 1960s, many view it as an exercise in ‘Tuning in’ and achieving higher consciousness. Sacrilegious? Not in this Chevre.
Tatts and Jews – two things that, despite traditional prohibitions, are beginning to become more and more related. I mean the idea of Jews getting tattoos is still considered novel enough that the topic is persistently newsworthy. It has been noted that many secular Jewish parents who don’t mind if their kids keep kosher or go to synagogue, freak out at the idea of a tattoo. A lot of that has to do with the uncomfortable associations that tattoos have with the holocaust as well as the popular myth that Jews with tattoos cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery.
Gal Friedman took the gold medal for the windsurfing event in Athens on Wednesday, Israel’s first ever gold at the Olympics! Seriously, it made me tear up. Yaaay!
Hey, check out the video of the Gold medal awards ceremony by clicking here and choosing 21:00 broadcast (The site’s in hebrew so be warned). Thanks for the heads up Yoni!
The fact that you are reading this at all is a sign that we’re in trouble.
Well, well, it’s been quite the heady week for the gang at Jewlicious. We have gotten way more attention than we deserve given that this project is barely a month old. I think it started when Luke Ford of Protocols said we were a great site. At around the same time, Asparagirl of the Yuppies of Zion was all “How much do I love the new blog Jewlicious? ” This was followed by several flattering references and links in other Jew blogs like Patio Pundit and JMerica (who erroneously credited Jewlicious with tanking the MatchNet / JDate IPO). Finally, much to our surprise, this past Saturday night, Jewsweek called us one of the 16 hottest people, projects, accessories, and trends in Jewish culture today.
So uh… we’re flattered and all. But we’re also kind of, well concerned. I mean, why are you all here? What is so damned compelling about the ramblings of a bunch of nobodies? I guess that’s what blogging is all about. It applies in general to the redefinition of the relationship between traditional media and the public. In our case it also says something about the dynamic between the Jewish public and the traditional community controlled media. Let’s face it, Bubby and Zayde’s Jewish weekly newspaper is simply no longer relevant to a large cross section of its constituency.
Speak for ourselves and speak out
LOUD!
Can’t be ashamed cuz we gotta be
BROUD!
The Iron Shiek
June, 2003 show in Pittsburgh
Palestinian-American rapper, The Iron Sheik aka Will Youmans talks to the San Francisco Chronicle about uh… being both Palestinian and American, and a rapper. OK, I started that out quite snarkily, but this long article is actually note worthy for several reasons.
The Sheik discusses the Palestinian immigrant experience – describing how Palestinian Americans deal with prejudice and suspicion in a way that is reminiscent of American Jewish experiences.
French Jews are getting it from all sides. Muslim inspired anti-Jewish attacks are well documented, and now we are witness to the latest outrage – the vandalism and arson of a modest Jewish community center charged with the task of feeding the poor. The vandalism involved the daubing of swastikas and badly spelled hate messages (”Without the Jews, the world is happy”) on the walls of the center and suggested that neo-nazis were involved. However, Agence France Presse reported that some previously unknown group has made a claim on an Islamic Web site that it is behind the attack.
Either way, it’s not so good for les Juifs. Sure, President Chirac is outraged, and sure Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin contemplated the possibility of sending the arsonists to jail for life under tough new French anti-hate laws, but… well, what the hell happened to France?
In what has got to be either a case of strong editorial independence, or an instance of journalistic wrath caused by unpaid advertising bills, Haaretz has just busted JDate for using porn actresses in its banner ads.
Hungarian porn model Kari Gold, 18 (pictured to the right) claims she has no idea how her photo came to be used by JDate in publicity banners for its dating services. She says however that she has a boyfriend and is not in fact looking for “a Jewish husband from a good family.” Unless he’s a film producer of course. Also featured in the publicity campaign was adult actress Devon Sweet.
MatchNet Israel CEO Ehud Levy pretty much admitted it was a mistake. What on earth is going on at JDate anyway? And what’s with Haaretz skewering its single largest online advertiser, twice in a row? I get the feeling there’s something up over there. If anyone has any clue, please let me know – I can be reached at ck@jewlicious.com.
First there was the patio pundit – my friend Marty who posts his blog from his patio overlooking beautiful Marina Del Ray in socal. Now, there’s me, the patio dimwit, posting from my patio overlooking Old Montreal, China Town, and a street named after a Quebec premier who’s election ushered in a modern day exodus of Lower Canada yids.
Yeah, I got high-speed wireless Internet access from some kind soul’s err… quasi-unsecured WIFI connection and it totally rocks. I am such a geek sometimes. OK, often. Whatever – this is cool. Shavuah Tov.
Today is the 75th anniversary of the Hebron riots, described as “a two-week orgy of pogroms [that] took place in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Safed, Hebron and a number of smaller locales in British-ruled Palestine, at the end of which 83 Jews had been killed and hundreds wounded.” The Forward describes how the attacks were not spontaneous and how the British did little or nothing to help. Most of the victims came from well established religious communities that had been living in the region for hundreds of years, whereas the newer settlements, populated by Zionists were protected by pre-existing defense forces, and suffered relatively low casualties.
What is also interesting is how the Jewish communists back in the US actually marched in solidarity with the arabs who they claimed were provoked by the presence of the Jews. I thought of this as I passed the weekly friday vigil in front of the local Israeli consulate organized by the local chapter of women in black. Across the street from them was a group of pro-Israel folks, flags aflutter, who counter protest there every friday as well.
The Hebron Riots were a definitive part of Israeli history, the lessons of which reverberate to this very day. The exact nature of these lessons however, are not quite as clear. Some people seem to have learnt them, others… not so much. Whatever. Shabat Shalom y’all.
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