Ha’aretz reports:

The Prime Minister’s Office demanded on Wednesday that Attorney General Menachem Mazuz review the issue of recognizing those injured in attacks by Jewish terrorists as terror victims.

There are also moves in the Knesset, one initiated by an Arab Israeli Member of Knesset belonging to one of the “Arab” lists, and one initiated by a Jewish Israeli Member of the Labor Party, to change the law that forced the Ministry of Defense to rule on the killing of four Arab Israelis that it wasn’t a terrorist attack.

…MK Mohammed Barakeh (Hadash-Ta’al) submitted to the Knesset Tuesday an amendment to the law governing compensation for terror victims that would entitle Arab Israeli families hurt by Jewish terror to money from the state.

Barakeh’s ammendment will recognize as victims of terror anyone hurt from “hostile activities by a terror organization,” and not just those hurt by “organizations hostile to Israel.”

(more…)

Chabad of Metairie (a large New Orleans suburb now mostly underwater) rabbi Yossi Nemes is trapped in his house. Rather than leaving, Rabbi Nemes decided he and his family would help to shelter people who for whatever reason remained in New Orleans and did not go to the Superdome. Now 13 people are on the second floor of the house, unable to go downstairs or leave because of rising floodwaters, and are running out of water. Rabbi Nemes contacted his parents earlier today to say that everyone was still safe, but time is not on anyone’s side in New Orleans. So please, everyone here, say a prayer for the safety of Rabbi Nemes, his family, and everyone still trapped in the New Orleans area.

Meanwhile, the 11,000 Jews of New Orleans are all homeless and scattered across the country. Please do what you can to help them, materially, spiritually, whatever. New Orleans’ Jewish community is almost three hundred years old – don’t let this be the end of it. You can read updates about the state of the exiled New Orleans Jewish community and about the situation of Rabbi Nemes on Chabad New Orleans rabbi Yochanan Rivkin’s blog here.

Remember: we are all responsible for each other.

Remember Sean Gillespie? In April 2004, he threw a Moltov cocktail at Temple B’nai Israel in Oklahoma City.

It turned out to be a bad idea. The synagogue’s security camera saw all, and he was charged with various crimes such as carrying a firearm during a crime of violence, damaging a building used in interstate commerce and having an unregistered destructive device. (Muffti particularly liked that last one). If that weren’t bad enough, Sean made things worse by attempting to send a letter to the synagogue, explaining that one of his motives was causing a holy war. His sentence is a whopping 39 years.

The meaning of the word ‘terrorist’ has been subject to a great deal of scrutiny on both normative and descriptive levels. Recently, the Israeli Ministry of Defense declared that Zada, murderer of 4 Israeli Arabs on a bus weeks ago, was not a terrorist. Israeli law demands that one is only a terrorist if one is part of “enemy forces”. Since Zada was Jewish, it i s hard to construe him a part of an enemy force. By Israeli law, therefore, he fails to qualify as a terrorist. It follows from there that his victims are not victims of terror and hence not subject to special compensation.

Sound fishy to you? It certainly does to MK Mohammad Barakeh. Barakeh (re) submitted a petition to make the definition more inclusive:

The decision raises a strong scent of racism, which distinguishes between a Jewish terrorist and an Arab terrorist.

It is noteworthy in this regard that Sharon was happy to use the T-word after Zada’s attack.

The amendment was first proposed in 1990 after Ami Popper shot 7 Palestinians at a bus stop in Rishon Letzion. Muffti thought this was sort of interesting since while the debate has traditionally focussed on the ‘freedom fighter’/'terrorist’ dichotomy. In this case, however, it is more of a ‘murderer’/'terrorist’ distinction that is at issue. But Muffti is happy to turn the floor to you guys as he is sure opinions will come fast and furious.

Or, as they’re known in Chinese characters, “Jews.”

“There are many Chinese characters for ‘you-tai,’ or Jew, but the combination that is currently being used refers to an animal of the monkey species and has the connotation of parsimoniousness,” Chien Hsi-chieh, the director of the Peacetime Foundation of Taiwan, said recently.

[...]Members of Taiwan’s Jewish community, some of whom are fluent in Chinese but not in the ancient Mandarin writing system, are following Chien’s campaign in the media. None would comment publicly for this article, since “the complex and varied way of writing Chinese characters is beyond most Westerners’ comprehension,” one longtime Jewish expatriate in Taipei explained.

Jews are not the only people that written Chinese discriminates against, Chien added. He also recommended that the Chinese world community replace the current term for Islam, “hui,” with a better combination of characters, “yi-si-lan,” because the current term has a negative connotation of paganism.

In Chinese, there are three words for “river,” and eleven words for “rice“. Maybe they could add another word for Jew that doesn’t have the xenophobia element? Without any knowledge of how Chinese characters operate, I have a few suggestions:

* Use a variant on whatever character means “lion,” in tribute to the tribe of Judah.
* Use a character depicting a man crossing a river, to capture the meaning of the word “ivri”
* Use whatever symbol they use to depict Israel

And while we’re changing things, let’s give those former Ishmaelites a new character too. How about someone kneeling, or some other image that captures the meaning of Islam as “submission”?

While perusing Haaretz Online today I came across this really stupid interactive flash ad. See, it’s a game right? All you have to do is place your mouse over the ad and your pointer becomes a boxing glove. Then, using skill, guile and dexterity, you click your mouse until you beat the crap out of Osama Bin Laden. Once you knock him out you are sent to a Web site where, after following certain conditions (get 17 of your friends to sign up to various stupid services) you can ge a free crappy Celeron chip laptop. I dunno, I just found it disconcerting to see the fear of post-9/11 terrorism exploited by companies like BMG, Disney and Discover. Man I wish we had a category called craplicious.

But not all is bad in today’s Haaretz. Taysir el-Heyb was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment for the wrongful death of Tom Hurndall an ISM activist who was shot in the head. Today his family is shunned in their village, but not because of Taysir. The reason is because Taysir’s sister violated all kinds of taboos and enlisted in the Border Guard. This is actually a really interesting article which blames the IDF for placing an unqualified recruit in a position of authority. Read all about it here

There’s also an interesting article that asks why it is that only one of the nine A Star is Born finalists has ever been Ashkenazi. A Star is Born is Israel’s version of stupid TV show American Idol and the article presents an interesting statement on the current state of Israeli ethnicity. Of course it could have all been summed up by simply stating that Sephardic Jews are innately… cooler, but that doesn’t fill up column space much does it. Read all about it by clicking here. And never mind the stupid Osama ads …

Michael’s home city, Muffti’s party playground on Death Row.

I would like to take this moment to announce that I am staunchly anti-hurricane. Ever since Ivan chased me out of New Orleans last year to take refuge in the aptly titled Plano, Texas over Rosh Hashana, I have had a sneaking suspicion that hurricanes are not only destructive, not only terrifying, but indeed, anti-Semitic. First Ivan gives me a High Holidays in suburban Texas, and now Katrina is barreling in on New Orleans with Category 5 winds, primed to sink that shining city on a hill an average of 6 feet below sea level into the Gulf.

I briefly considered making a stand, printing up bumper stickers, wearing a Star of David armband, refusing to make any sort of contingency plan because of my firm conviction that Hashem would avert the hurricane at the last moment, and calling Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana governer Kathleen Blanco “Nazis” until the hurricane stopped or I drowned, but then rationality won out and I cancelled my flight and stayed in my mom’s house safely in Yankeeland.

And to be perfectly honest, while I suppose in a way it’s stressful to have one’s home city about 12 hours from potential destruction, it’s not like I’m passionately in love with New Orleans or anything. All of my friends have been robbed at gunpoint at one time or another, and just yesterday, in another hurricane-related incident proving detrimental to the Jewish people, somebody stole a friend of mine’s car so that they could evacuate instead of her. She got out with someone else, minus her car. So, really, I’m not going to shed any huge number of tears if New Orleans (which is now almost entirely evacuated anyway), a city rife with crime and smelling mostly like puke, becomes part of the Gulf of Mexico aquatic ecosystem, if you catch my drift.

And if it so happens that events transpire to make my dear and wonderful institute of higher education accessible only by boat, well, Hebrew University, here I come.

So screw you, Katrina.

I like to call my friend Andy “The King of the Jews.” And when you’re King of the Jews, you’re busy. And so it was with great fanfare but super efficiency that he sent me a one line announcement via AOL instant messenger, to wit:

baby sasha arrived. 7 lbs 3 oz

Mazel Tov to Andy, his lovely wife Catherine and the adorable twins. Stay tuned for information on Andy’s other baby, The MatzoBall Party coming sooner than you know!

As you have probably heard by now, Ala’a Za’akik, 25, an Islamic Jihad member from Beit Omer, blew himself up near the entrance of a bus stop in Be’er Sheva. Ala’a aroused the suspicion of a bus driver and two security guards and the latter pursued him. Both were injured in the blast, as were some 50 civilians. Islamic Jihad and Fatah claim responsibility.

Details at Jpost.

Addendum. Muffti, in his haste to post, forgot to mention the bravery of the two guards. Their pursuit of the bomber likely saved many. Lu’ay Abu Juma, 27, and Pavel Srotzkin,23, a Jewlicious salute goes out to you guys.

Large social gatherings combined with nuptial induced social-anxiety disorder and an open bar are a dangerous combination. The closer the friend, the more I drink at their weddings. If I was a more mathematically inclined person, I could probably figure out a formula, but it’s suffice to say I was properly smashed at Simone’s wedding (so were most people actually, blame the assortment of good imported scotch).

Simone, my real life Penny Lane, the talented writer, with whom I have crashed while homeless so many times they started calling me the fourth roommate, the only person I know who can appreciate and laugh at the natural drama of life as much as I do, who almost wore fairy wings to her wedding, has up and got herself hitched.

I was so sad to see her go, but if the past few days is any indication, I think she and her rockin new husband Yoni Liss (of the JReport) will still be the funny dramatic, hilarious party people I love (they are taking their honeymoon in Amsterdam, after all).

As hard as my friends getting married, is I love the informality of Israeli weddings. Almost always outside under the stars, with hand made wedding dresses that cost a few hundred dollars, guests wear sandals and nice but not fancy clothing, assigned seats are rare and wedding crashers are expected, cause at the end of the day, everyone here is family. At a fraction of the cost of American goyisha style weddings and 10 times the simcha (from what i’ve experienced) there’s just nothing like it, even when The Grateful Dead is half the music set.

So Simone and Yoni, here’s wishing you the biggest biggest mazel tov in the world. Mamish a gevalt, you guys are the best, mamish.

First Jewish Boxing Champ since ‘78
Dmitriy Salita is the NABA junior welterweight champ after knocking out Shawn Gallegos in the ninth round of a scheduled 10-round fight at the Hammerstein Ballroomin New York last Thursday. The Jerusalem Post reports that Salita is the first Jewish champion since Mike Rossman took the light heavyweight crown in 1978.

In a ringside interview after the fight Salita stated:

I am feeling good now, it’s very good when hard work pays off. I really had a hard training camp and feel that this closes a certain chapter in my life. Now I will take a little time off, enjoy the summer and get the energy to start working hard again.

Salita, who is also a practicing Orthodox Jew, was accompanied on stage by proud new father Matisyahu, the Hasidic Reggae Sensation. Mazal Tov to everybody!

Hell, no one else was sayin’ it so the atheist of the crew figured he’d jump in. Apparently this week’s parsha is ‘devarim’. You may remember the book of Deuteronomy such biblical texts as Kings II, 23:25 and Chronicles II, 34. The book was ‘found’ during the reign of Josiah as renovations to the temple were going on.

Have a great shabbat and a nice weekend.

Hey it’s almost 5 am. And I just found this California yid band called Netzer. They have a track called Mayim (yeah THAT Mayim) done in a Thrash Punk/Reggae/Jewish Rock style. I dunno. Maybe it’s the odd hour or whatever, but this cover is strangely compelling. Especially the Reggae part. Listen to it by clicking here. Dude’s photo-rich Web site is here. Check out their concert pics!

UPDATE: The guy whose Web site this came from is a messianic Jew. Thus I no longer feel I have to hold my tongue. This track is the biggest piece of crap ever. So crappy in fact that it had to be shared with the world. Please feel freeto heep scorn upon Jews for Jesus and this awful, awful track.

I believe Sde Boker, the kibbutz that was home to David Ben Gurion, is likely to see a significant rise in tourism shortly. Ynet (Yediot Aharonot’s website) reports that Ben Gurion’s gravesite is a popular destination for losing one’s virginity.

It appears his grandson, Yariv Ben Eliezer, approves:

“If the information is true, I think it’s great. I’m happy that years after my grandfather died, he continues to inspire our youth and still gives the country an erection.”

“But I wouldn’t have thought a cold, hard stone was the best place to have sex,” he said.

No, perhaps David and Paula Ben Gurion’s old bed might be a better place. Or their kitchen table. Maybe his old study with the musty books?

“Come tourists, we invite you to have erections at the home of Israel’s founding father.” I’m confident this is one way to bring out visitors down to the Negev. To generate additional revenues, they can sell Ben Gurion condoms and Paula Lubricants, not to mention a Lion of Zion Vibrator (tip shaped like a star of David).

It also wouldn’t hurt to have a sex therapist on hand, cuz these people need one.

And yes, David Ben Gurion foresaw this. Kind of.

The Mission
“… Let me add just a few words on the importance of the
Midrasha. What this country needs is not only science and technology. But the spirit of the pioneering – and we shall need it for many, many years. The spirit of pioneering is the moral power which springs from vision and the belief in vision, and which arms the man imbued with it to overcome obstacles which appear insurmountable to the ordinary person. Every project in the Negev demands such a spirit, and every project strengthens that spirit. Without it, it is not easy to live in the Negev.

But the Negev, more than any other region, has a special quality which evokes in man wonderful powers which are normally dormant, or which he is unaware of, powers which reside in every individual, but which rarely come to the surface. The Negev turns an ordinary person into a creative human being. This spirit of pioneering is also demanded of Israel’s scholars, and particularly its teachers. Our teachers must not be simple people who have mastered the art of imparting knowledge of a particular subject; They must be guides in the full sense of the word – or teachers in the old sense of the word – People who by their spiritual quality and by their integrity serve as an example to their pupils.

“And this is the purpose of Midreshet Sde Boker. We seek to build a scientific research and teaching center which will be a source of moral inspiration and courage, rousing people to a sense of mission, noble, creative and fruitful.”

David Ben Gurion
January 1965

Maybe, finally, the desert will bloom.

Okay, I couldn’t resist the pun. But for those who didn’t get it, guess which notorious and wildly corrupt international organization largely funded by US dollars has been using said dollars to make and distribute swag in Gaza saying “Today Gaza, Tomorrow the West Bank and Jerusalem”! (Hint: despite what is no doubt your initial assumption, it is not the cast of “The Real World Khan Younis”).

Give up? It’s the United Nations!

That’s right, you heard right, thanks to the generous outlay of the United Nations Development Program, interested parties can get their hands on the wildly popular bumper stickers, T-shirts, mugs and banners. The slogan and campaign are the brainchild of the Palestinian Authority (apparently they had never heard of CafePress), who after a brief and unconvincing period of restraint decided to claim responsibility for Israeli disengagement with all the subtlety, diplomacy and skill of a 14 year old losing his virginity.

The U.N. support of the Palestinian Authority’s propaganda operation in the midst of the Israeli evacuation of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip has provoked outrage from Israeli and Jewish leaders, who are blaming Turtle Bay for propagating an inflammatory message that they say encourages Palestinian Arab violence.

“The intifada worked. That’s contextually what this message is saying,” the director of U.N. affairs for the Washington-based Jewish organization B’nai Brith, Amy Goldstein, said.

The Arabic slogan, which refers to disputed territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, has become ubiquitous in Gaza, where Israeli soldiers this week are evacuating 21 settlements. It’s served as the central message of a Palestinian Arab effort to spin the withdrawal as a victory.

A special representative of the United Nations Development Program in the Gaza Strip, Timothy Rothermel, told Fox News that his office provided financial support for the production of materials that make up the Palestinian Authority’s propaganda campaign, timed to coincide with the Gaza pullout. The Palestinian Authority’s withdrawal committee developed and produced the posters and other items using U.N. money, Mr. Rothermel said.

(more…)

[Jpost reports that:] Hamas and Islamic Jihad announced today that the PA is fully willing to allow the terrorist groups to retain arms, despite their stated intentions to maintain operations against Israel. As Musa Abu Marzouk, senior Hamas leader in Syria put it:

We stressed during the meeting that the Palestinians have the right to continue the resistance [against Israel] and that there would be no attempt to collect weapons from the resistance groups…The weapons of the resistance were founded to defend the Palestinian people and resist the occupation…The Gaza victory was achieved with the weapons of the resistance, which is the only strategy to drive Israel out of the rest of our lands.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei concurred:

Gaza is a part of Palestine, and there will be no calm until the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

Muffti guesses it’s no surprise that the negotiations had a “cordial atmosphere” to them. It’s fairly easy to agree when no one is disagreeing, after all. And really, who can blame the Palestinian Authority? As the IDF has proved several times over, operating against the wishes of these groups is definitely NOT fun.

In other good news, the Popular Resistance Committees who operate out of Gaza claimed to have developed a missile with a range of 15 km (called the ‘Sajil’), which puts Ashkelon squarely within its range. Muffti supposes the PRC will enjoy a complete lack of disamament.

It’s August 24th, 2005. The forecast calls for more of the same.

There is no doubt that anger lingers on both sides, and there have been many mistakes made by both sides. Having said that, the Jerusalem Post had an editorial today (read it!) that reflects my thinking that for the most part both sides behaved with respect for each other and for the state of Israel. Obviously this was heartbreaking for many Israelis regardless of political affiliation, but in the end there was relatively little violence and a great deal of understanding. From the J Post editorial:

And at the height of that process, time after time, we witnessed the extraordinary sense of responsibility, to themselves and to the good of Israel, demonstrated by both sides.

There was shouting and wailing from the protesters, but rarely was a hand raised. Rabbis and other mediators kept the resistance within the boundaries of non-violent protests. Soldiers and policemen pulled themselves out of the grasp of some protesters who attempted to prevent them from continuing the one-at-a-time pullout, but they too did not raise their fists.

At one point, people with their tefillin were being extracted from the [synagogue], but even as the soldiers were pulling them out, they were taking a few moments to ensure that those tefillin were not damaged, indeed that they remained centered on the foreheads of the evacuees.

(more…)

After a week of pursuit and nagging, Kristina Grish finally acquiesced and agreed to drinks and an interview with the Grand Muffti. When Muffti called her a ‘hottie’ a few posts back, he was dead wrong. ‘Hottie’ is a majour understatement and it is crystal clear why Jew after Jew succumbs to her temptations. Of course, Muffti didn’t, but that’s largely because she was totally uninterested she has a (lapsed) catholic boyfriend who goes by the unfortunate sobriquet ‘Mr. Maybe’. Her eye-candy features aside, KG is also an engaging, fun, intelligent woman who charmed Muffti with amusing anecdotes and interesting insights. Muffti returned the favour by laughing a lot, asking a couple of questions and, well, paying for dinner and drinks.

Muffti had a great time and he hopes Kristina did too. We talked, we laughed and Muffti walked her home. He’s thinking about writing a book of his own, How Jews can Rob Shegetz’s of Their Shiksa’s and he can now honestly report that if you are as charming as Muffti, prepare to coif more than three black current mojitos [hat tip to Voyage]. Unfortunately, there aren’t any dirty details to relate, and not because Muffti is some kind of gentleman. Perhaps, however, there will be another outing sometime soon where Muffti won’t have to front like he’s some kind of reporter. You will be glad to know that Kristina promised Muffti a real date if things don’t work out with Mr. Maybe. That has to be worth something, right?

Below is a review of KG’s latest work, Boy Vey! The Shiksa’s Guide to Dating Jewish Men, accompanied by bits and pieces from the interview. Quotes from the book have a page marking; otherwise, all quotes are directly from Grish’s lovely lips. KG cast a lot of pearls, but since this swine forgot to bring a recording device, you’ll have to settle for the few choice quotes that were preserved. Oink, Oink.
(more…)

I have no idea why I leave for a few days and none of our Canadians picked up this story. They brag about loving maple syrup and hockey, but for heaven’s sake folks, this is Leonard Cohen from Montreal! If he ain’t Jewlicious, who is?

This man creates visions of Jewish Canada by simply existing. Sure, he grew up in Westmount instead of the poor streets of St. Urbain – commemorated forever by another winner of the Canadian Governor General’s award, Mordecai Richler – and has allegedly gotten laid by more non-Jewish women than Tom Jones. Not only that, but he’s now a Buddhist monk, although I have no idea whether that means he now no longer beds non-Jewish women, especially since his latest girlfriend is quite a hottie (they’re putting out an album together soon). But let’s face it people, just hearing the name “Leonard Cohen” conjures up visions of circumcized snowflakes generations of Canadian Jews toiling in the hard Montreal winter.

By the way, allow me to pause here for a second:

Leonard Cohen –
Jewish, Canadian, Montrealer, winner of Governor General’s award

Irving Layton –
Jewish , Canadian, Montrealer, winner of Governor General’s award

Mordechai Richler –
Jewish, Canadian, Montrealer, winner of Governor General’s award

A.M. Klein –
Jewish, Canadian, Montrealer, winner of Governor General’s award

Saul Bellow –
Jewish, Canadian, American, Montrealer, winner of Nobel Prize for Literature

Okay, truth be told, Cohen conjures up Jewish Montreal, but also lazy days lounging on Greek islands while figuring out what life is about and writing poetry between steamy sessions with Marianne. The dude got lessons in life and love from Irving Layton, and then went out and DID IT. He took his Canadianism, his Judaism, his cosmopolitanism and somehow managed to influence millions of people with his music and poetry. How many poets actually become known by millions for their poetry? Leonard did it. And he did it with style.

Unfortunately, it seems that the 70 year old living legend finds himself virtually broke after a lifetime of work. Yup, it happened to Billy Joel (Jewlicious), Sting (Roman Catholic) and countless other stars, and now it’s happened to Cohen – he’s apparently been ripped off, allegedly by his longtime manager and possibly by his investment manager. The story in all its gory details is available in this Macleans article.

The bare essentials are: lifetime of work; millions of dollars; trusting others to manage funds; going up a mountain to spend some years becoming a Buddhist monk; learning accidentally, after coming down from the mountain, that the $5 million slated for one’s retirement and inheritance to kids is gone and nobody is willing to accept responsibility; getting one’s lawsuit of advisor pre-empted by advisor’s lawsuit; getting one’s lawsuit of manager pre-empted by friends claiming she’s imbalanced and on verge of possible suicide. He’s now facing a mess, the prospects of all that money lost, having to work hard at an advanced age, and the ugliness of lawsuits.

Fortunately, it seems that Cohen doesn’t live it up so it may not be all that bad.

That second article also notes that the Buddhist has not given up his Judaism. It seems he enjoys traditional Shabbat dinners with some singing beforehand, in Hebrew. Now imagine that deep voice that you heard as a teenager, just before going out on a date with Becky, as it sings “shalom aleichem mal’achei hashalom,” preparing to bite into some brisket and matzo ball soup…and among the beauty, you might hear the torment of a man betrayed.

God, I hope for his sake that he’s not celibate.

The Jerusalem Post recently launched a series of blog posts and columns (although the online differentiation between the two is not immediately clear to me) about life in Israel. Some current topics include “The Rabbis Made Me Gay”; (written by “Yaffa,” a lesbian Anglo-Israeli living temporarily in the US), “My Day on the Temple Mount” (written by Ben Zion, a Rutgers student/JPost intern), and “Jerusalem Wanderings: Lunching With Bibi” (written by the otherwise unidentified “Jerusalem Gypsy”) attempt to paint a portrait of Israel’s diversity.

These blogs and columns are part of a JPost initiative called Cafe Oleh, which (according to the site) is designed “to provide the new immigrant (oleh hadash ), the veteran immigrant (oleh vatik), the potential immigrant, and anyone else who is interested in real life, people and happenings in Israel, a window on our everyday society and what we have to offer.”

An events calendar, a comprehensive listing of resources in Israel, an Ask the Expert section, and a Cafe Talk section (which profiles local personalities and businesses) round out the site.

(Cross-posted to My Urban Kvetch)

Mullahs add “fish stealer” to official list of anti-Semitic insults and then wonder why we didn’t just smuggle something more important as long as we were at it.

Referred to as “kosher pork of the sea” (wait til Jessica Simpson wraps her head around this one), scientists from Bar Ilan have discovered the long lost shabut fish

The Babylonian Talmud, which contains numerous discussions about the fish, specifically notes that some of its organs taste like pork (although how the sages were able to make the comparison is not clear).

The great commentator Rashi wrote that it was the brain of the fish that tasted like pig meat, and that it served as a kosher option for people who yearned to eat the forbidden meat.

Certainly does raise an eyebrow. How did they know it tastes like pork? I pass no judgements. In any case, researchers and fish farmers in Israel are very excited to start growing the fish, so secular and religious Israelis alike can have a nice kosher alternative to pork.

Failed Messiah, however, is less optimistic:

Look for Rav Ovadia Yosef to permit the fish and the ‘leaders’ of Modern Orthodoxy in America to ‘defer’ to the position of haredi leader Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, who will most certainly ban the fish on the grounds that “we” (i.e., elderly sheltered Ashkenazi rabbis frightened of the world, who have the pallet development of your average three-year-old and who regularly dine on anything once healthy cooked in copious amounts of chicken fat and salt, and washed down with the Israeli version of Tang and an occasional piece of dry sponge cake) do not have a mesora (tradition) of eating it.

Pork fish, huh? While we’re at it, lets try to find the fabled shrimp chicken and lobster apple…

Jewlicious takes me places. It’s taken me to Long Beach, California for a student conference (which may, even, inspire a sequel). It’s taken me to additional fame on local TV. And tonight, it took me to the premiere of Meital Dohan’s original show, Bath Party.

In Israel, Meital Dohan is a star of stage, screen and television. In Israel, she’s been nominated for Israeli Academy Awards*, but here, she’s just another actress with an off-Broadway show, trying to make it in America. Which works fine for her, since that’s what the show’s about: her attempt to live the American Dream (”I came here with a suitcase, $500 and a vibrator**”), but in possession of a distinctly Israeli accent and demeanor.

The autobiographical show, presented at NY’s HERE Arts Center (the theater that developed acclaimed works like “The Vagina Monologues” and Camryn Manheim’s “Wake Up! I’m Fat”), takes the audience through the immigrant experience through a thespian lens. Dohan is told that because of her accent, “we need to find you a part where you don’t have to talk.” She is advised that she needs to stop complaining and put some clothes on, because in America, “we don’t complain,” and “we don’t like sluts in this country.”

The play, which begins as a fairly self-indulgent portrayal of the actress, evolves into more of a commentary on the compelling appeal of an American Dream which, for many immigrants, may ultimately be unattainable. The one-person show format, in which the performer spends the show speaking directly to the audience, can be awkward–but in this case, the problem is circumvented by the participation of two additional cast members, who serve as costume changers, set reorganizers, and allow Dohan to play off people other than the audience members. Dohan is at her best when interacting with her fellow cast members, and (surprisingly) when interacting with guest cast members via pre-recorded video bits.

Variety said that Dohan “looks like a tough Audrey Tautou” [sic] and Yediot Achronot said, “talented Meital Dohan represents young Israeli culture.” Dohan has bright, expressive eyes that do recall Tatou and the Myrna Loy-type actresses of the silent era, when an actor’s face had to do the speaking for her. But the wide-eyes make frequent and piercing contact with the audience, even during extremely provocative dancing, which makes you think less of Amelie and more of Kylie Minogue.

One word of warning: The show is not kid-friendly, and would certainly not be part 4 of the Tznius is Hot series, as Dohan is in various states of undress throughout the show (although there is no live nudity–sorry, boys). And if you’re expecting her to share her political opinions about the “matzav” or the disengagement, you’re out of luck. Dohan’s purpose is not political; it is an exploration of her journey as an artist and an expression of her longtime fixation on becoming an American.

Bath Party runs through at HERE (145 Avenue of the Americas, between Spring and Broome) through September 18. Shows run Tuesday-Friday at 7pm, Saturday at 3pm & 7pm, and Sunday at 7pm.

(Reyut, todah b’ad hakartis…)

*Israeli Academy Award Nominee for Best Actress in God’s Sandbox 2002; Israeli Academy Award Nominee for Best Actress in Giraffes in 2001; Israeli Theater Award (Israel equivalent Tony Awards 2000) for Most Promising Actress in Best Girlfriend; The Cameri Theater Prize for Bad Kids 2002; American Israel Foundation Scholarship 1996, 1997 ; Cameri Theater Scholarship for Deserving Young Actress, 1999… for more, see Meital Dohan’s website.

** Let’s hear it for Jewish vibrators!

So what else is new?

In all this talk about anguished settlers and Palestinian terrorists/government officials (not that there’s much difference) self-importantly bloated with undeserved pride all scrambling to take responsibility for disengagement, I think we may have forgotten the little people of Gaza, the Achmed Q. Falastins and their 87 extended family members.

But don’t fret. Your typical Gazan Arabs are treating the disengagement like Christmas Eid al-Fitr in August. Just look at precious little 11-year-old Hanadi Abd al-Daim:

Eleven-year-old Hanadi Abd al-Daim danced and laughed in the family living room as she watched IDF soldiers drag settlers out of their homes only a few kilometers away.

For over six hours on Wednesday, Hanadi and her older sister Mediha flipped between the Palestinian TV station, Al-Jazeera Arab satellite network, and Israeli channels 1 and 2 on their television set to follow the live action from the settlements.

“I wanted to see how they are taking out the settlers from their villages,” Hanadi said sitting on a mattress on the floor of the TV room still wearing her orange-striped pajamas. “It makes me very happy.”

Like most Palestinians in Gaza, the elementary school girl from Beit Hanun has been glued to her TV set since the withdrawal began on Monday. And like most Palestinians, the scenes of grief she saw on her screen were a dream come true for her.

Her sister Madiha enjoyed watching a Jewish settler who was crying very hard. “He’s crying because he left his home,” she said. “We are happy we are getting our land back.”

Another scene that stood out for the 12-year-old was the burning of a house after its owner lit it on fire. “I was happy,” she said. “We don’t want his house on our land.”

When I was 11 and sitting in front of the TV in the morning in my jammies, I think the only thing bringing me joy was Saturday morning cartoons. But I’m glad to see that something can bring a happy smile to the face of the poor children of Palestine: abject human grief, especially of the Jewish variety.

But the girls’ aunt, who is 19 and already a mother, has her own observation, which I’m sure has come to her through the accumulated wisdom of many years and motherhood:

Hiba, 19, agreed. “I don’t want them to leave a single brick behind,” said the young mother with dark eyes and a head covering. “We want this land clean so we can sow it and develop it as is our tradition.”

Hiba, by sow and develop according to your tradition, do you mean leaving it a barren, fruitless wasteland, waiting until somebody else comes and reclaims it from the swamp/sand/sea, sowing and developing it and coaxing it into producing yields in defiance of all conventional agricultural wisdom, then claiming that it was your cherished holy soil all along? That is what you mean, right Hiba?

Oh, but look, here I am spoiling this joyous holiday for Palestine with my typical Jewish cynicism. Just call me ibn-Scrooge.

I remarked to a friend the other day how surreal it was that just 2 hours away thousands of people’s lives are being turned upside down and this incredible human drama is happening, grief and weeping and heartache, while we in Jerusalem go to work, get grocery’s and make plans for Saturday night.

How very Israeli we have become. Even so, I just spent the last hour looking through these photos, and allowed myself to cry.

“you shall not hearden your heart” (Dvarim. 15:7)

A soldier comforts a settler

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The brave guerrilas assholes of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine celebrating Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, a victory they did not win. Nice head covers. Bright red makes for a great sniper target. I’m just sayin … Hasn’t anyone told these dumbasses that communism is like, SO totally over? Hey! Dumbasses! Why are your women wearing burkas? You’re communists, you don’t believe in religion stupid!

Here we see more assholes from Islamic Jihad celebrating the same victory that they didn’t win. My don’t they all look so menacing.

Let’s hope the Palestinians take advantage of this situation and attempt to live in peace with Israel. These dipshits may look all scary, and if you are an unarmed innocent civilian, they actually can be. But the guerillas and their AK-47 pop-guns have never been a match for the IDF who has always managed to slice through them at will, like a hot knife on butter. Again, I’m just sayin is all …