Here’s a job title you’ve never heard before: Haredi action movie director.

Despite a tradition of shunning popular culture influences, it looks like Israel’s Haredi population is now beginning to embrace the power of film as a communications medium (hat tip to Reuters). Take, for instance, the plot summary of “Cry of the Dead”:

After nights being haunted by the apparition [of a friend believed to have died in a car accident], the pious Jew is instructed by his rabbi to repeat an ancient incantation, at which point, the troubled spirit, visible only to the audience, disappears to the next world.

(Hope I didn’t ruin the movie for you.)

Don’t expect Stephen King-style gore or a J.Lo-esque romantic comedy to make any cameo appearances in the Haredi cinema genre. In fact, due to “chastity laws,” women are not even allowed to appear in the films. Also notably absent is any kind of murder or violence. Car chases, of course, are still mutar (allowed).

Producer and director Roni Zarfati said what distinguishes the industry is that it remains instructive. “Inside the story there is an ethical message or a teaching, unlike the secular world where movies are just thrills,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t make comedies or even action movies.”

(Just no comedies or action movies involving women in any way.)

And of course, there are some people who fear film in general will lead to dancing. (I mean, other bad stuff.) And they do quote my favorite source, “a leading haredi rabbi and educator who declined to be identified.”

“Even if the films are done with the right intentions, there is a danger that allowing our children to watch films will make such mediums more acceptable and could lead to sinning,” said a leading haredi rabbi and educator, who declined to be identified. “Family life will also be in danger as people start to watch films. The centre of haredi life is the Book,” he said.

Well, let’s face it, I’m the only married one among the Jewlicious posters. I believe I’m the only father as well (right, Muffti?). I am the only one of us who has to deal with the reality of Jewish education, and while I have posted about many things over the past months, the one topic that has been consuming my attention is this one.

It ain’t easy to provide Jewish education to your child because there are so many compromises involved.

The problems involve cost, quality and the general benefit.

The first question is that of the benefit. What does a Jewish day school education mean to a child? Will it make him a better Jew? Perhaps, but I believe our Muffti – he of the 3rd place in the Bible Quiz – grew up in a Jewish day school system that is among the better ones in North America, and today he is an avowed atheist. Then again, he is undeniably connected with his traditions and background. Perhaps his identity as a Jew, and his general comfort with his Jewishness are the reason he can afford to be an atheist. He is, after all, secure in the knowledge that he is a Jew.

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Haaretz just wrote a cute article about the upcoming Jewlicious trip in their Anglofile section. They got it mostly right too. Mostly but not completely:

In an effort to attract a broader cross-section of Jewish youth, the birthright israel program is bringing a group of North American bloggers who write for the “Jewlicious” weblog to Israel for the first time next week.

None of the trip participants are actually Jewlicious bloggers. Some comment on Jewlicious, some have their own blogs, some visit the site without commenting and some chose the trip simply because it’s run by IsraelExperts on a convenient date, but none actually post articles. The article also reported:

“We cherish our editorial independence,” says Montreal-based David Abitbol, who founded the Web site together with Laya Millman and will be a group leader on the trip. “It means we can say nasty things about people we don’t like and we can call [Jewish philanthropist and one of the key funders of birthright israel] Michael Steinhardt a `pimp daddy’ for telling people to hook up.”

Let no one think for a second that we do not like Michael Steinhardt. I’ve never met the man but I think he does awesome work on behalf of the Jewish world – and I’m not just saying that. Several friends have been Steinhardt Fellows and I’ve been following his activities for a while. And yes, I did call him a pimp daddy but that was clearly a term of endearment. Let it be known that ck is always in favor of Jews hooking up with Jews! Just like Michael Steinhardt!
(note: interview was conducted at 5 am)

Anyhow, enjoy the article. I hope they don’t cancel the trip … Oh and happy Lag Ba’omer!

Make sure it’s from the new Rebecca Keys line.

This one is called the “Pink-Punk-Shabbos-Yom-Tov-Princess” Shaitel, with the caption “Make way Shabbos Queen, here comes the true Eishet Chayel”.

Perfect for the Ba’alei Tshuva crowd.

Muffti has a theological question that you people seem eminently qualified to answer. Let him begin with an analogy.

Terminator 3 has roughly the following conflict set up: A terminator named T-800 (played by California’s Governor) comes back in time to protect John Connor, a young (possibly schizophrenic) man who later leads the resistance. A separate terminator (T-X) is sent back in time to kill Connor, and she’s very very tough (and very very hot). Anyhow, there is a great deal of shooting at John Connor causing him a great deal of angst, fear and concern. Not to mention ducking and covering.

One might, however, wonder at the last bit. If he trusts T-800, Connor comes to know something about the future: namely, that he will survive and lead the resistance. Doing so is incompatible with being killed by the very very hot T-X. So, had he reasoned it through carefully, he may well have come to the conclusion that whatever she did, no matter how many bullets went flying, he shouldn’t worry much because what he knows entails that none of those bullets will hit him: the future seems to make him invulnerable in the past. (This is related to an old paradox regarding time travel: you can’t go back in time and (permanently) kill your grandfather since if you did, you wouldn’t be born to do the actual time traveling. So, in a sense, your grandfather is protected by the laws of logic.)

Now, one plausible line of response in the case of Terminator is that Connor didn’t know, or at least wasn’t fully confident, that he would survive. After all, the terminator could be lying. Or perhaps it was all an illusion. As the bullets came closer and closer, Connor might well have started to doubt that he would survive until the future and that would explain his ducking and covering etc. (Of course, he in fact does survive, but that doesn’t mean that he knows that he will.) So, we can explain Connor’s apparent irrationality: despite having evidence about the future, he had counter-evidence at the present time suggesting (misleadingly) that he will die soon unless he ducks and covers.

OK, enough analogy. If you are still with Muffti, consider the following. Rambam requires that we can honestly, truly say:

I believe with perfect faith in the coming of Moshiach.

If we truly believe this, then we have some information about the future. Namely, there will be a time at which the Moshiach comes and does all the Moshiachy things. But this means that no matter what happens in the world, our faith dictates the coming of a Messiah.
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Because I write so much about singles stuff, it seems that everyone–single, married, divorced, old, young, religious, secular, men and women and everyone else who fits other unlisted categories–has an opinion to share. Occasionally, I get a piece of “fan” mail that’s worth sharing (total text reproduced verbatim and unedited for full effect):

I read your column, as in the current Jewish Week for example, and while I find it deals with the topic in an adlescent way, I want to tell you that you have real talent/skill as a writer, a flair for expressing the written word. Topic notwithstanding.
I’m not sure why people already in their 20’s and even 30’s are not just getting married and having families – instead are going through the high school crushes, “non-dating” dating, having “friends”, etc. But that’s beside the point. Your writing is terrific.

To review:
1) My writing deals with the topic (in this case, “non-dating”) in an “adlescent” way, but I have “flair.” No quicker way to win my approval than the one-two compliment-insult combination.
2) Hey look, it’s our favorite topic: why don’t people in their 20s and 30s just get married and procreate already? Because it’s that simple.
3) He likes my writing. (I like that ending.)

To address Point #2: Is it true that all of us are acting like a bunch of adolescents at summer camp or in high school? Or are crushes and infatuation part of the process of discovering yourself and others, no matter what age you are?

And just for fun, ever wonder which Brat Packer/80s movie character you are? I already had a strong suspicion. But if you’d like to “get tested,” feel free.

I met this woman just the other day. She had just returned from March of the Living and was telling me about her experience visiting Auschwitz. This is how the conversation went:

March of the Living Chick (MOLC): So then they told us about those Jews with the hats.
ck: Huh? With the hats? Like you mean yarmulkes?
MOLC: No, those Jews with the hats with the special name …
ck: I’m still not getting you …
MOLC: These Jews had hats and they helped the Germans with the dirty work so that the Germans wouldn’t kill them right away.
ck: Uh… you mean the kapos?
MOLC: Yeah they wore special caps, right? That’s why they called them that, right?
ck: Uhm (long pause) Yeah. That’s it.

Well, after an exchange like that what else could I do but get a couple of Jewlicious embroidered caps so that the participants on the taglit-birthright israel, IsraelExperts’ Discover Israel Jewlicious trip can recognize laya and I at the airport. Yes I know. That made no sense at all.

We’re totally bogged down with last minute preparations but what the hey, it’ll be so excellent. You’ll be able to follow our adventures here and at MyIsraelTrip.com (MIT? Get it?) AND we just got word that the aptly titled MegaEvent will be broadcast live on the Web. What’s the MegaEvent? 5,500 Taglit-birthright israel trip participants from around the world getting together in Jerusalem to hear PM Ariel Sharon deliver a welcoming address which is followed soon thereafter with a whole bunch of singing and dancing and flag waving and such. We’ll remind you closer to the June 5th broadcast and maybe you can see us! We’ll also let you know when we’re at the Kotel and you can see us on the Kotel cam of your choice. Fun-o-ramma, huh? Props to IsraelExperts again for putting up with us!

Because I enjoy Bob Dylan and Theodor Herzl juxtaposed (but not as much as Laya does), I thought I’d share this JTA article about Jerusalem’s new Herzl Museum.

Apparently (unlike Raymond) not everyone loves Herzl:

Hebrew University historian Rachel Elbuiam Dror says that in official Israeli circles, Herzl remains what she calls “the Zionist icon” — the man who helped create the Jewish state. But younger people, expressing themselves in music, film and popular culture, challenge that image: They are unwilling to put Herzl on a pedestal, above reproach or question.

In a popular song by the Israeli rap group Dag Nachash, “The Zionist hip-hop,” the lead singer imagines confronting Herzl. He tells Herzl of “all the details of the cruel and tough reality of Israel/I told him of the traffic accidents/And I told him about the handicapped people on strike/And I told him about the quarter-million unemployed/And I told him about the corrupt politicians/Herzl did not respond, only smiled widely putting his hand into his pocket/I tried to tell him there’s no peace and there is no security and that I’m fed up of living in constant fear/Herzl put a tablet on my tongue and said ‘If you swallow it, it won’t be a dream.’ ”

“If you swallow it, it won’t be a dream.” Unfortunately, that famous line was cut from the original script of “The Matrix.”

Bob Dylan’s birthday today and the biggest party is in India (Bob Dylan nite, Shillong’s biggest festival after Christmas, 33 years running). Go Figure.

If you happen to be in his hometown of Hibbing on Tuesday, head over to the Bob’s Birthday Barbecue at Salvation Army parking lot. That’s gonna be one rocking time. While you’re there be sure to drive down the newly named Dylan Drive.

Bob is one of my great-movers-and-shakers-of-history crushes, right up there with Theodore Herzl, and arguably the most compelling Jew boy of the 20th century. All of his albums are in popular circulation in the soundtrack of my life and a source of endless fun and inspiration. His words render me humbled, and no praise or pose that I would be capable of composing would give him the credit due for his influence in my life alone (though sometimes I am moved to try anyway).

I’ll give it another shot for Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham v’Rachel Riva, a.k.a Bob Dylan’s Hebrew Birthday on the 27th of Iyar, next week. (Anyone else note the irony that he’s named after a false messiah?)

In the mean time, Happy 64th Bob!

I recently received a few books in the mail from publishers wanting to get free publicity on Jewlicious my feedback. Below are reviews of the first two books I’ve read.

Schlepping Through the Alps : My Search for Austria’s Jewish Past with Its Last Wandering Shepherd by Sam Apple
Sam, a typically neurotic Jewish writer, meets Hans, a Yiddish singing Austrian shepherd while the latter is in New York singing his songs. Hans’ father is a Jew and his mother is a gentile Austrian who was tortured by the Gestapo for being a communist. A year after their initial meeting, Sam heads off to Austria in order to follow Hans and his sheep around as an apprentice shepherd and chronicle his life. This book is both funny and heavy at the same time. The heaviness comes from the obvious themes dealing with the holocaust and prejudice – hello! A book that discusses both sheep and dead Jews, hello! Obvious much? But the book is funny too – Hans is definitely eccentric, Sam writes poetically about being knee deep in sheep poop, and several other whimsical passage make for a riveting and original work.

Sam also spends his time in post-Jorg Haider Austria looking for remnants of the deeply ingrained anti-semitism that allowed the Austrian people to greet Hitler like a returning hero. Indeed, the Holocaust seems constantly present in this book. Schlepping is like a combination of Jonathan Safran Foer and Tom Robbins and contains multiple divergent dualities: introspective and instructive as well as deeply tragic yet often whimsical.

I totally enjoyed reading and thinking about Schlepping. The theme that stuck with me, the one that seems to be a common element of many Judaically themed works of fiction, is that of memory. Jonathan Safran Foer in Everything Is Illuminated talked about memory being the 6th sense of all Jews and he may have something there:

Touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing…memory. While Gentiles experience and process the world through the traditional senses, and use memory only as a second-order means of interpreting events, for Jews memory is no less primary than the prick of a pin, or its silver glimmer, or the taste of the blood it pulls from the finger. The Jew is pricked by a pin and remembers other pins. It is only by tracing the pinprick back to the other prinpricks – when his mother tried to fix his sleeve while his arm was still in it, when his grandfather’s fingers fell asleep from strokiung his great-grandfather’s damp forehead, when Abhaham tested the knife point to be sure Issac would feel no pain – that the Jew was able to know why it hurts.

Think about what this means and get back to me!

The J. A. P. Chronicles by Isabel Rose
In this debut novel by Isabel Rose we meet seven well-to-do Jewish New York women who were once bunk mates at a prestigious summer camp. The seven get together at a camp reunion 10 years later. We meet Ali, a documentary filmmaker who was a tortured outsider, but attends the reunion in order to film a documentary about the camp. Ali is a hipster who lives on the Lower East Side with her Irish Catholic boyfriend. She has purple hair, a ring on her rhinoplasty-free nose and is pregnant. At the reunion, Ali decides to do a documentary featuring her bunkmates in order to find out what her former tormentors have been up to.

We then meet Dafna who seems to be on a perennial quest to get married, while her best friend Beth is planning the perfect wedding to a man she pretty much dislikes. Arden is a semi-homeless drugged up floozie who is in and out of rehab and strange men’s beds. Jessica is an actress who seems stuck doing summer stock. Laura is a powerful talent agent secretly fighting breast cancer and Wendy, who seems to have an idyllic life in a wealthy suburb with her perfect husband and lovely children is actually (gasp!) having an affair with her former female head counsellor.

Sprinkled throughout the book are references to shopping, fashion, popular mood altering prescription drugs, lots of sex with sheygetzes, derisive references to shiksas, sexual abuser Rabbis, gang rape, girl campers gone wild etc., in other words ideal summer chick reading material. The popular girls chronicled here get their comeuppance one way or another and all the sympathetic characters live happily ever after.

To whatever extent this book is an accurate description of the lives of next generation of wealthy, influential Upper East Side Jews, well… what can I say, we’re in trouble. But if this sort of thing interests you and you want to relish a sometimes funny story of vengeance set in New York, get it. Truly an ideal summer book.

Here is the actual winner of Miss Tznius 1989, a controversial victory, because by the time of her Prom, Shmushi Feigelstock was already married! Esther wuz robbed!

So, the secret’s finally out: my yeshiva high school had a prom. And I was one of the organizers. On paper, this would have constituted a major rebellion, were it not for the support of most of my classmates’ parents. If anyone–classmate or parent–had strenuously objected to our efforts, or if the administration had received official notification of our subversive plans to dance with our classmates, we probably would have had to cancel. And there was the possibility, however slight, of suspension in those last days before graduation.

It was a homegrown affair: we rented space at a Conservative synagogue in Rockland County, NY, where a friend’s mother was the Hebrew school principal. We got a caterer, also through a personal connection. We got a DJ. We bought pre-printed invitations in a stationery store, and with the calligraphy skills I had attained in fifth grade, I filled them out with the relevant details and addressed the envelopes. (To this day, I have random addresses and zip codes floating around my head, cluttering space that undoubtedly could have been used for Pulitzer-winning ideas.)

I bought a dress that was black, largely lace, and fairly revealing considering all the dresses I’d had before (or even since). We had a piece of material added in the back to make it a little more modest, but still, this dress would not have won me any Miss Tznius 1989 competitions.

There was only one boy I wanted to go with from school, but there was literally no chance that he would ever ask me. So I asked a friend of mine from camp. I had had a huge crush on him the summer before, and had even dared to tell him about it. Even though he didn’t feel the same way, we stayed close, and were both going to Rutgers in the fall: I couldn’t think of anyone better to have at my side as I left high school behind. But his mother told him he couldn’t go because he had too much work to do before he graduated. (I still think that may have been an excuse.)

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Since I was a Jawa-sized Jewess, growing up in New Jersey and attending Jewish schools, I have been drawn to the mythology of Star Wars. I saw all three movies (because then, we knew them as a three-movie deal instead of three parts of a nine-part series, three parts of which would never be developed, and the other three parts of which would be prequels that explained stuff that we already knew about the lore of the Star Wars Universe) in the theater (1977, 1980, 1983). My little brother started collecting all those Kenner action figures, our family got a VCR and taped Star Wars off TV, and our education truly began.

Memorizing the movie was much easier than we’d thought. “Luke, we’re gonna have company…” “TK421, do you copy?” “Into the garbage chute, flyboy…”"I’ve got a bad feeling about this…” “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy…” “I have the death sentence on twelve systems…” Honestly, I wasn’t even sure what that last sentence meant…if he had the death sentence on twelve systems, how was he still in a bar at Mos Eisley? But I dismissed the logic and embraced the magic. How many times did I see “Episode IV”? I stopped counting after 50. (That’s right. 50.)

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One could be worried for the 20 year old Scarlett Johansson. Having two staight films with horny Jew boy Woody Allen, one of the unfortunate icons of American Jewry. One could think he has plans and designs for a new muse in his life, despite her denials.

But I am not worried. For one thing, she is too old for him. And as Rahulio points out, Woody doesn’t date Jewish girls anyway.

In Gothamist’s recap of what opening night screenings of “Revenge of the Sith” — which they termed the “Nerdocalypse” — were like:

…many were hoping to find significant others — some were even hunting for their own “Princess Leia” or “Han Solo.” Insanely long Star Wars lines are hotter than JDate–who knew?

Jewlicious is undergoing some renovation. We’ll be back full strength soon! One of the things being considered is requiring registration in order for people to comment. This will allow you to go back and edit your comments, prevent people from commenting under someone else’s alias and save us from the evil of comment spam which at over 5000 spams a day is really begining to be a pain in the ass. I am certain you’d prefer we spend more time writing comments rather than fighting spam, right? Please let us know what you think though.

The Solution:
So the JPost reports that Israeli couples will be able to apply to a committee to request their choice of sex for their baby during the embryonic stage. Yes, the technology exists, and although the procedure has already been applied in certain extraordinary cases, this was highly unusual. Now it will become a more regimented process and many more couples will be able to take advantage.

Couples, even single women, who want to choose the sex of their baby in the early embryonic stage for social — and not just medical — reasons can now apply to a new committee appointed by the Health Ministry. The seven-member body, to be chaired by Prof. Vaclav Insler — chairman of the National Council for Gynecology, Neonatology and Genetics — will rule on whether pre-gestational diagnosis (PGD) will be permitted to select a girl or a boy.

The Problem:
Well, lots of Gush Katif parents are thrilled with this new sex selection committee because the Israeli government is seriously considering charging the youths who have been arrested for their road-blocking activities as criminals. The repercussions in Israeli society can be dire because the IDF may refuse their enlistment or reject them if they try to join high quality units.

If the youths are charged and convicted, they will face difficulty enlisting into the IDF and getting accepted into elite units, lawyers representing the protesters said Wednesday night. Their only way to prevent the IDF from seeing their criminal record is if Katsav pardons them before their enlistment.

Attorney Naftali Wertzberger – who represents almost all right-wing activists arrested in the Jerusalem area – claimed double the number of youths would have participated in Monday’s protests if it weren’t for their fear of having a criminal file opened against them.

The Obvious Conclusion:
Do you see the beautiful symmetry here? All that the parents of future road-blockers have to do is request baby girls instead of boys, and then they won’t have to worry about elite combat units and their offspring shall be free – FREE, I tell you – to block all the roads they want to their hearts’ delight.

I love Israel.

I’ve been outed.

So I’ve been very busy and have forgotten for a number of nights to, ahem, place a little something under the pillow in exchange for a young one’s fallen tooth. When young one expressed disappointment, bad Dad made a joke of it telling young one that perhaps the Tooth Fairy was on vacation in Hawaii. Young one didn’t buy the lame excuse, but kept believing that some Tooth Fairy largess was imminent. Finally, one evening, I remembered my task and dutifully went to place a dollar while removing the tooth. By the way, the first two teeth, being front teeth, each earned $5 dollars, and I decided that I was not going to shell out $5 per tooth any more.

Okay, so today another member of the family told me that the young one had told her that she shouldn’t tell me, but that he knows there was no Tooth Fairy, but that it was Daddy (that would be me, Bad Dad) who had come into the room, lifted the pillow and replaced the tooth with money. It seems what I thought was a very light movement of the pillow registered as an earthquake and woke him up.

Is it time to also tell him there’s no Santa Clause?

I struggle with labels, really I do. I’ve long said that everyone these days seems eager to slap a new and inventive label (Hippiedox, Conservadox, Flexidox) on themselves in order to describe their uniquely complex and nuanced relationship with Judaism ( e.g., “I go to an Orthodox shul, but go to the gym Shabbat afternoon, and will take the subway because, like a Shabbat elevator, it stops at every station anyway”). As a result, no label really means anything anymore.

So, during my brief period on Frumster, I aligned myself with the most newly founded and most liberal category or label: “Traditional and Growing.” I chose this label because not choosing a label was not an option, and because this seemed like the most moderate, the most liberal, the most (if not exactly) resemblant of my observance. All the other labels included terms that I would never use to describe myself: yeshivish, black hat, ba’al teshuvah, etc)

Because the people contacting me were never people I could see myself with religiously (and because none of them seemed to possess anything resembling a sense of humor), I deactivated my Frumster profile last month, but today, got this message from their customer support team informing me that I’d been “reclassified.”

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Now you no longer have to wait for our infrequent photos of hot Israeli babes to get your hot Israeli babe fix. The Israeli Celebrity Source comes to your rescue with a Web site that features extensive galleries of Israeli actresses, singers, professional and semi-professional models and more! Apparently there are no male actors, singers, professional and semi-professional models and more in Israel. Also, there do not seem to be any Israeli actresses, singers, professional and semi-professional models and more who are not like hot chicks. I’m sure that’s an oversight and they’ll fix that right away. In the meantime, go ahead and immerse yourselves in the uh… finer aspects of Israeli culture.

We all know what talented musicians the Hip Hop Hoodios are. We recently featured their new video Gorrito Cosmico, they played at our Jewlicious conference and they are a client of mine. They’re pretty chill dudes too. Well, they were pretty chill until Heeb Magazine pissed them off with an ethnic slur aimed at latinos.

That’s right. A magazine named after an ethnic slur against one group printed an ethnic slur against another. Imagine that. Here at Jewlicious, we are shocked. Shocked! But seriously, what the hell is going on at Heeb anyway? Is this what they have to resort to in order to shock? Feh. Heeb is so over (but Seth Olenick is hella cool). Do however continue and read the whole story as we reproduce a letter sent out by Josh Norek and Abraham Vélez that details this outrage. Read it, it’s pretty bombastic! Go Josh and Abe! Olé!

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Alison Stern Golub, a writer living in Israel, relays a story about a friend of hers who found himself in a bar in Beer Sheva, staring down an Auschwitz-style tattoo on a guy too young to have been in the camps on anything other than a March of the Living trip. Turns out, he got his grandmother’s blessing to have her concentration camp number inked into his flesh as a tribute.

I’m not sure what kind of “licious” this is. But since there’s no “Shoah-licious” category (and I’m not suggesting that there should be…), I’ve filed this under Jewlicious and Popalicious.

My synopsis here.

Hat tip: Lyss at NoBlog

Nerdy American Jews. Pushy Israelis. Last week, I went to a Yom Ha’atzmaut party with over 3000 New York area Jews and Israelis of all political and religious stripes. That party, which ran in co-sponsorship with most of the Jewish organizations in New York, was created and planned by Dor Chadash, a relatively new organization founded by David Borowich, 35, who was “troubled by the lack of contact between American Jews and Israelis living in the United States.” (Quotes and information from Ha’aretz)

“Dor Chadash is an expression of who I am and the identity crisis that is part of my life,” he says. “When I’m here, I feel Israeli, and when I’m in Israel, I feel American. So I thought: Why not combine the two?”

“Actually, both sides are to blame,” he says. “American Jews have this negative stereotype of Israelis, and Israelis have this negative stereotype of American Jews. The Jews here make a distinction between Israel and Israelis. Israel is considered an ideal, the homeland of the Jewish people. A lot of them are very supportive of Israel. They’ll give money. But Israelis are perceived as pushy and aggressive. Not that there isn’t some truth in that. All these Israelis who came to New York and got jobs as movers gave the community a bad name. For the Israelis, the Americans are nerdy. They’re perceived as too polite, too law-abiding. So when you have two groups that have such negative ideas about one another, how can you expect them to connect?” he says.

Borowich, an MBA and former tech guy, also makes some interesting suggestions:

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Don’t worry kids, ck is here…uh…is that a plane?

Five men were arrested and released by Jerusalem Police and the Shin Bet for planning to fire a rocket at the temple mount. The plan consisted in firing a Lau anti-tank missile from a yeshiva rooftop, throw grenades at would be arresting officers and end it with suicide, Muffti presumes by grenade. The intention was to scuttle the looming disengagement.

Worst of all, these fine young lads were unknowingly competing with another plot by involving an airplane. However, Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post conflict over the relevant details. Haaretz claims the man was going to fly a model plane into the mosque. Jpost claims that a 61 year old Ra’anana resident and long time Kahane activist Ilan Hirschfeld was arrested by police for considering to fly over the Temple Mount in a light aircraft. Hirschfeld claims he just wanted to do some photography.

Anyhow, the case seems flimsy. Attorney Naftali Wertzberger went so far as to say:

There is no case here. What we are talking about is an attempt by the Shin Bet to implicate a group of Bratslev hassidim.

None of the conspirators are in custody. The police cancelled a press meeting on the topic. Anyone know what’s going on?

Not going to Israel this summer? Don’t be sad. Neither am I. But join me and we can follow all the whacky adventures on Jewlicious.com!

That’s right – there’s 2 weeks to go before the first birthright israel trip based on a blog departs from New York. Laya and I, as well as the good folks at IsraelExperts are working hard at finishing up the final details to what we’re all certain is going to be one heckuva trip. As you know, we’ll be posting pics and stuff from the trip here. For those of you who wish to experience this trip with us vicariously – you may already visit the message boards at MyIsraelTrip.com where some of the folks going have already started pre-trip chatting.

We’re all looking forward to writing good bloggage too. This isn’t going to be a puff piece series of posts. These trips can be harrowing and tumultuous and we won’t be sparing anything – think of it as Road Rules and The Real World meets Survivor. Anyhow, I just hope you all enjoy reading about it as much as we enjoy blogging it.

And I still can’t believe they let us do this.

Beam me into acting class in Tel Aviv, Scotty…

Method acting goes Vulcan as Shekhina-loving Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy, 74 (can you believe it?), lands his thespian spacecraft in Israel to share acting tips with Israeli actors. The trip is happening thanks to the Federation in Los Angeles in collaboration with the Tel Aviv Cinematheque.

On June 19 he will hold a master class for acting-school students at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, followed by the screening of excerpts of his cinema and television work, and an explanation of what went into making his films.

["In this film role, I was trying desperately to get away from being Spock....and in this film, I wanted people to see me as very different from Spock...and in this film, I wanted people to see me as the opposite of Spock..."]