[Sidenote: for a COMPLETE list of Middle Eastern hottie/dead leaders, see this link.]

I am concerned. Muammar Gaddafi doesn’t have a place to sleep during his stay in the United States, having been denied by the Dirty Zionist town of Englewood, New Jersey,possibly denied by Jewish conspirator Donald Trump, and turned down at a number of major New York hotels.

To help him feel a little more at home in his Bedouin tent cum traveling Ringling Brothers Flying High Top as he continues to bring the Haterade on America (and Israel), I’ve graciously come up with a list of locations should feel free to use.  You can thank me later, Mo Mo.  Preferably by giving me my own AK-47.

1.  Newark, New Jersey-Its crime rate has plummeted to only 60% shootings every day!
2.  My home hood near Susquehannah Univesity, Pennsylvania, where there’s only a slight chance he’ll get cancer
3.  Clearfield, Pennsylvania, where he could possibly choke to death/die of cholesterol poisoning from a 5 lb burger
4. Some place in New York where there is a very small chance he could get run over by an epliplectic lorry driver (WTF is a lorry?)
5.  And the most obvious place?  An actual Bedouin Tent! Granted, it’s a restaurant and probably they could stick him near the sink or something, but still.  Duh, MoMo.  Think on your feet.  How did you ever stay in power so long.  You should just hire me to do all your major decisions for you.  First decision Ouiki would make? (yes, that’s right.  There’s no V in Arabic, so you have to substitute with a U.  No wonder Lybia never got anywhere.  How retarded is that? Oueri.)

A while ago, I revealed that Mr. B and I would be going on a mini-Birthright for him.  Except it wasn’t free.  Because it’s kind of awkward for married people to go on Birthright.  Since I’ve already been, and I’m not a big fan of him walking drunk down Ben Yehuda Street asking Israeli girls to “show him their weapons.”  Plus, married people are lepers and we, like, aren’t really supposed to mingle with single people. Is there a Birthright for married people? Beshertright?  (Note: I’ve never called Mr. B my beshert in all my life.  Usually just my tsuris.)

Anyway, long story short, I gave him the Birthright rundown of Israel over the past two weeks.

Here is us, jetlagged to hell in historic Yafo with the historic Tel Aviv behind us and some historic German tourists (meaning they were old as hell) taking our picture.   What you don’t know is that we have also just taken 5 doses of acid in order to smile after landing at 5:00 am and hitting the ground running.  Zionism is hard, people.

Here’s us, stirring up some bidness at the Dome of the Rock, which Mr. B noted was “not as shiny as I expected,” and “was highly disappointed in the whole thing.”

And here’s me with some guy that was roaming the mean streets of Jerusalem that knows the best humusiyot in on every Jerusalem hill.  You can never be too careful out there.

I bet you’ve been wondering where I was.  Well, I’ll give you a hint.

No.  Not with Amy Winehouse.   I was at a Russian Jew wedding.  Eight hours away.  So, I’ve been all discombobulated, especially since we are leaving next week for Eretz Nehederet.  So, I’m cheating a little bit.

Here’s a post about Ukraine or something.

So, you know how ck recently had a post about the UJC Community Heroes?   I’m over it.  You know why?  A certain Genia Brin.  Not only is she the mother of Sergey Brin, who I totally could have married and now been Beemin’ up and down Mountain View, but also she decided to spearhead HIAS’s MyStory project, which is a social network for ex-Soviet Jews to share their immigration story.

This network totally ruins my chances of writing the Great American Novel about how Hard it is to be all Russian Jewish and immigranty and angsty, when thousands of other people have had the same experience, and can now chronicle it ON A SOCIAL NETWORK.  They are giving away all my trade secrets of immigrant sorrow. I mean, it’s true that there’s Gary Shteyngart and Emil Draitser and Eugene Mirman and Sana Krasikov and Mark Budman , but whatevs!  If I wrote a book, wouldn’t you be shocked to know that, for example, my earliest memory is of my mom breaking my shovel on a frozen lake in Yaroslavl, Russia?  I cried for at least forty minutes.  Well, that’s touching and all, but HOW CAN I TOP BEING IN A GHETTO IN MINSK?  I can’t.

Time to accidentally hike into Iran or something. I gotta up my game.

As you may be aware, living in Israel can have serious consequences.  That’s because the State of Israel commits horrible crimes against humanity every day. These manifest themselves in the form of hideous Israeli wedding dresses.  Since we are knee-deep in wedding season, I thought I’d take a moment to remind you that tomorrow is Hideous Israeli Wedding Dress Awareness Day (HIWDAD), a day that was made up by me just about fifteen minutes ago as I was going through Facebook pictures of Israeli weddings.   To be fair, Benji Lovitt has been valiantly fighting this troubling trend for years.

If you are familiar with Israeli weddings, you know this dress has been popular for the past five years or so.  You know, the one with the barely-there middle that seems the be reenacting the parting of the Sea that exists between the bride’s upper chestal region and her navel.  (yes, chestal.)

Every time I am in a majority-Jewish setting, such as in a synagogue, an Israel event, or TJ MaXX when they are having their 50% off sale, I get the feeling that other people don’t think that I’m Jewish.  I usually get this feeling because people tell me they don’t think I look Jewish.  In one particularly harrowing incident at Holy Land Restaurant in Northeast Philadelphia about two years ago, I spoke to the waitress in Hebrew.

פלאפל שלכם טוב מאוד.  מתגעגעת אותו מארץ.  קשה למצות אותו בחול” , I said, smiling at her.
(Translation: Your falafel is most excellent.  Oh, how I pine for falafel from Eretz Israel.  It is hard to find such sustenance in the New World.)

She started.  “You Jewiiish,”  Bracha (Or maybe it was  Vered) asked me.

“Ken,” I replied, a bit flustered.

“Bat you don look Jewiiish!  Nat even a little beet!”

I burrowed down into my thinah pool of shame.  Just because I looked like an Aryan poster child didn’t mean I had to go through this kind of discrimination.

What is my point in telling this story, except to show off that I can spell mitgaga’at in Hebrew?  Now, blonde Russian Jews are becoming more accepted in Israeli society, going so far as to being hot in the Knesset!  Ok, so the blonde in this story, Anastasiya Michaeli Samuelson, is actually an ethnically Russian convert to Judaism.  But  it’s a start.

The Forward writes about her,

A Russian-born convert to Judaism, former beauty queen and celebrated TV personality, Michaeli is, in many ways, the perfect bright and sunny face for Lieberman’s highly controversial political party, one often accused of advancing a racist agenda. Michaeli, a kind of younger Sigourney Weaver look-alike, adamantly rejects the charge. “I am not a racist,” she insisted.

The pixie-haired blonde immigrated to Israel from St. Petersburg in 1997 and converted to Judaism in 2000. She wed her husband, Yossi Samuelson, a Latvian-born Israeli Jew 10 years her senior, twice: once in a Russian civil ceremony after the birth of their first child, when Samuelson was employed in Moscow by Tadiran, an Israeli electrical supplier, and a second time after her conversion, when she and Samuelson already had three children and were living in Israel.

Influenced by her Soviet upbringing with its emphasis on “patriotism” and “loyalty,” and its view of Judaism as a nationality, Michaeli doesn’t distinguish between being a good Jew and an Israeli patriot. “Judaism is at the basis of why we have this country to begin with. It’s not just a religion,” she said.

So inspired was I by her story, that I decided to see if I could follow in her footsteps (minus the part where the Forward says that she’s a lot like Sarah Palin, because that’s just crazy.)

What’s that?  No?  Don’t quit your day job?  Ok, ok.I’ll just live vicariously through Anastasiya  for now.

A Self Congratulatory Post and another Jewlicious Prank!
Jewlicious began 5 years ago on July 2004. In that time we have written nearly 5,000 posts and generated nearly 70,000 comments. We’ve also run 5 Jewlicious Festivals, the last of which attracted nearly 1000 participants, much to the consternation of the Long Beach Fire Department I’m sure. I’ve been blessed to be associated with some of the coolest people I know as fellow writers, including The Middle and Muffti who were here right from the get go. Running Jewlicious is often a thankless task. Unlike others, we never got fancy shmancy funding for offices in New York equipped with a wet bar, ping pong and fooz ball tables. But I did get to meet and befriend some awesome people, like the army of volunteers that make the Jewlicious Festival happen and most notably Rachel Bookstein, her husband Rabbi Yonah, and their totally edible children.

There are other things that make working on Jewlicious so rewarding, like running into people that know me from the blog in Jerusalem and being told the role we played in their decision to attend Hebrew University or some Yeshiva or a MASA program. One message I got the other day totally made me smile as well. An ex’s niece sent me a message on facebook wondering about the provenance of all the notes I wrote. Turns out Renée had no idea what Jewlicious was but “I really enjoyed the ones I had read! Seriously, I found all of them to be well written and pretty interesting! (The one about JDate was very amusing, as was “Dear Hamas, Take Me!”)” She later added that “Oh! I forgot to mention that some of my friends where reading the stories from jewlicious.com ! They really enjoyed them!” Renée is an unaffiliated Jewish student at McGill and exactly the sort of smart, talented kind of Jew we always wanted to reach. Also appreciated are kind words from colleagues I deeply respect like Matthue Roth over at My Jewish Learning and Dan Brown at eJewish Philanthropy.

Less fun is some of the bile and invective I’ve attracted from members of the doucheoisie over the years. One former blogger is still telling anyone who will listen to stay away from Jewlicious and from me, years after I have had any interaction with him. This has been cutting into my bottom line and despite all my efforts to just stay out of his way, he doesn’t seem to know how to stop. So the gloves are off asshole. Expect repercussions.

Speaking of repercussions, and this is where the fun “prank” part of the post comes in, there’s a current blogger who has jumped at any opportunity to talk trash about me, accusing me of being a cyber bully, an utterer of anti-gay slurs and a thief. He wrote a typically shoddy Birthright related post the other day about Momo Lifshitz of Oranim and used an image that I created to illustrate it. When informed by one of his readers that I held the copyright on that image, rather than give credit where credit is due, he merely switched the photo to another one of Momo.

But that’s where the dolt fucked up. Not only did he not acknowledge the source of the image, he linked directly to the image thus not only violating Oranim’s copyright, but also stealing their bandwidth! Thus, much in the vein of previous Jewlicious pranks (see this one against Nazis and this one against an anti Israel douchebag), the staff at Oranim gave me and everyone at Jewlicious a much appreciated 5th anniversary gift:

I’m not mentioning this thief’s name nor linking directly to his site (though feel free to use this URL) so that we can at least derive some compensation by laughing at him for as long as possible. Once he figures out what an idiot he is, then I will link away. In the meantime, thanks to everyone for everything. You all rock!

With so much craziness going on in the world, we have to stick together and show solidarity for Israel. Jewlicious has joined the largest Israel Festival in the USA to help bring you an amazing show by MOSHAV. Join us for an afternoon of fun, music, and friends. Vendors, food, Israel vibe everywhere – there will be 10-20,000 people there. ONLY $5 Check out the Jewlicious Booth where we will have a free gift! This is going to be a huge party and we look forward to seeing you!

MOSHAV play at 4pm so you want to be there by 3 to get parking and make your way to the stage.
Join the Jewlicious Facebook Event here
Israel Festival
Sunday, May 3, 2009 10 am – 7 pm
At Woodley Park Admission $5
All day fun for adults, kids and families — Rides, food, and a variety of booths and more….
For more info: www.israelfestival,com or 818-757-0123

REPEAT! Moshav @ 4pm on the main stage….don’t miss this show for Israel!

THAT JEWLICIOUS FEELING!

On stage in the final hour of the record breaking 2009 Festival, BEN PERLSTEIN (LA), Festival Production Manager, and long time Tour Manager for MATISYAHU, steps in on guitar. REB LEIBISH, Montreal’s Ghetto Shul Rabbi on Sax. ADAM WEINBERG (Miami), Matisyahu’s acoustic accompaniment of choice, and Jewlicious Festival’s National Music Director. Filmed by Scott Drucker.

Three days of non-stop fun, music, food, films, workshops, and games. You have to experience Jewlicious to know what its about.

Four more videos and updated YouTube Channel – check it out.

Save the Date – America’s Largest Israel Independence Day Festival is May 3rd, and Jewlicious is proud to be a sponsor. Over 20,000 people are expected at this year’s day-long festival featuring multiple stages, art-fair, food vendors, performances from some of Israel’s biggest acts, games, and other attractions. Entrance is only $5. Stay tuned for more details about the Israel Festival and have a HAPPY PASSOVER!

[Facebook Event]

FRIDAY NOV 21: SHABBOS WITH MATISYAHU!
Come join one of the most famous American Jewish musicians for a FREE SHABBAT DINNER.
Join us for a brief, private service at 6pm, followed by dinner at 6:30.

LOCATION: Chabad at 1261 S Arville St, Las Vegas 89102

SAT NOV 22: MATISYAHU IN CONCERT!
Shavua Tov! Shabbat’s over and it’s time to celebrate the new week by seeing Matisyahu in Concert! Hillel will be subsidizing tickets, but the amount will be dependent upon student interest.

House of Blues – Mandalay Bay
3950 Las Vegas Blvd South
Doors open at 6pm. on Sat. Night. Nov 22

You may have noticed something different about Jewlicious… allow me to explain. Those of you who are my facebook friends would know that October 9th was my birthday (thanks for the greetings!). This year, this otherwise joyous occasion fell right smack in the middle of Yom Kippur. This of course did not make for a very happy birthday to me. So what I did was I went to hebcal and found out that my Hebrew birthday is on the third of Cheshvan which begins the evening of November 1st. Meaning… right now!

So I thought it would be a nice thing to freshen things up a bit and thus I am releasing this new design tonight in honor of my Mom because apparently I came out sideways when I was born. Don’t ask…

Anyhow, you’ll notice that the comments now support gravatars. You can upload your gravatar, basically a photo or some other depiction of you, at gravatar.com. It makes for a more friendly comment section I think when you can associate a face or a depiction to a nickname. It’s easy to do and takes like 5 minutes.

Also, Jewlicious writers will be able to use the built in functionality of WordPress to place images where they like and even add captions without having to enter any extra code. You can see that demonstrated in the photo here of my Mom (Brakha – of the famous shakshuka recipe) and my Dodah Channah. Mom was in Israel this summer and we spent a lovely day in the old city. She prayed and cried at the Kotel (”I didn’t cry!” “Yes you did Mom, I have the pictures…”) and then I kind of tricked her into going into the Arab shuk which she hates. She’s smiling here but really she wanted to strangle me. Afterwards we had coffee at Mamila which both Mom and Dodah Channah loved. She said that the old neighborhood they razed to build the Mall was a dump. Oh well.

Finally I guess the most dramatic change is the featured content gallery at the top of the page. It will contain direct links to previous posts that for whatever reason we decided to feature. It’ll add some splashiness and added functionality and, as always, more work for me.

Anyway… hope you like the new theme. Hopefully it’ll take us into our 5th year in style. I still have to tweak it a bit and if you encounter any problems let me know.

On Sunday, October 26th your night belongs to Jewlicious & Jcafela…

Join hundreds of LA young professionals from 8 of the city’s largest Jewish organizations for a fall blowout party unlike any other!!! Join us for live jazz, refreshments at KULA on Santa Monica Blvd, for a very fun evening.

Free Parking, prime location, a great way to end the month of holidays.

500 attended our last party in September.

Tickets $15 advance, $20 at the door. Click here to pre-pay.

Mazal Tov! This is the 4000th Jewlicious post after a little over 4 years. In that time, we’ve inspired 56,666 approved comments, held 4 Jewlicious Festivals, run 10 Jewlicious Taglit-Birthright Israel trips, sponsored and co-sponsored countless events in the US and Israel, been interviewed dozens of times by media outlets large and small and 125,937 Web pages currently link back to us. We’ve served 264 banner ads, 134,821,018 times. These banner ads were paid for by a wide variety of businesses and organizations from the New Israel Fund, to JDub Records; from Aish Hatorah to American Apparel.

While Jewish communal organizations scramble to advertise with us, wishing to access our broad demographic, in the more than 4 years of our existence, the number of grants we’ve received (not including co-sponsorship of our Festivals) total exactly zero. To be fair, we started applying a little over 2 years ago, we’ve been finalists and we were even selected last year as part of the Slingshot 50, but we’ve never received any organizational funding as a result. As one Director stated “it’s tough to understand Jewlicious from afar.”

Yeah, I guess that’s true. The fact is that we kind of enjoy our independence – it’s what gives us our street cred I suppose. I can’t help chuckling on an almost daily basis when we are criticized for being both right wing and left wing, both extremely religious and unremittingly secular. At our Festivals and events you’ll see young Jews of every orientation and denomination – where else can you observe Lesbian eco-activists interacting with right-wing Ultra Orthodox Jews? Our blog is similarly made up of a dizzying variety of yiddles ranging in age from 19 to 45, ranging in identities from atheist to Hassidic, united solely by an abiding interest in Judaism in all its manifestations.

Now I know I was recently the subject of a Jerusalem Post article that much to my embarrassment called me Mr. J-Blog. Truly, nothing could be further from the truth. Jewlicious owes its success to a number of things – a healthy and robust Jewish blogging community that we are but a small part of. I’m no Al Gore. He didn’t invent the Internet and I sure as heck am NOT Mr. J-Blog.

But more importantly, Jewlicious owes its success to my fellow bloggers, now numbering over a dozen – you guy are the best! In particular, I owe a big debt of gratitude for the hard work put in by TheMiddle, Grand Muffti, EstherK and Rabbi Yonah who have been with us from the beginning. One of the things that makes Jewlicious unique is that we’re not just a blog – we’re out there in the real world and none of that would have happened without Rabbi Yonah Bookstein and Rachel Bookstein – the driving forces behind the Jewlicious Festival. I am humbled in your presence and grateful to be associated with you all in any way shape or form.

Finally, I’d like to thank our countless visitors. Every time you read our articles or leave a comment – even when you disagree with us, you inspire us to continue cranking out whatever it is we crank out. Jewlicious is about pride, conversation and unity. I know these are concepts that are “tough to understand from afar” but those of you who are close to us know exactly what they mean. Those of you who don’t understand, well…

What does the future hold for Jewlicious? I don’t know. We’re going multilingual so we can spread Jewlicious love to all corners of the Jewish globe. We have a Russian version of Jewlicious up and running and we’re planning a French one too (any volunteers? I mean voulez-vous blogger avec moi ce soir?). We have applied for grants in the hopes of professionalizing the “organization” as it were. The hope is to assure it’s continuity and to meet the demand for more activities while still remaining that “lovable garage band you hope never makes it.” Luckily the folks behind Jewlicious are a passionate lot, so despite our total uselessness in grant writing, I suspect we’ll be around for a while yet. We’ll see. In any case, thanks bunches.

In order to attract new donors and provide a memorable prize for participants, we are creating a limited edition Best of Jewlicious Festival CD featuring artists who have performed at our Festivals in the past. This compilation will be professionally produced by our National Music Director, and crafted with beautiful eco-friendly packaging

Consider helping to fund this CD with a tax deductible donation.

All the musicians are donating their songs for this project, and the CD will be used for promotional purposes only. For donations of $18 or more we will send you a CD.

As you can see this is a Jewish unity event like no other in LA and Jewlicious is pleased to be a co-sponsor.  Bringing together a wide variety of groups from the greater LA area for an end of summer, pre-Rosh Hashanah party.  If you didn’t find love at the Love Fest, and are still looking for Holy Days partner, check out the JCafe LA party.  JCafe LA’s party is put together by Aaron Kemp, for the benefit of the entire LA community.

And if you are interested in getting into a reality TV show, the folks from Arranged Marriage – are going to be on hand interviewing potential candidates.

Well, after many emails and endless phone calls and the crunching of many, many pixels, 60Bloggers.com is up. What’s that site all about? Well, May 8th is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the modern State of Israel. You’ll notice lots of events happening in Israel and in communities around the world meant to commemorate this historic occasion. 60Bloggers.com is meant to do the same, but on the blogosphere. Consequently, we’ve put together a nice broad group of bloggers, some well-established, some relatively new, representing (I hope) ideological, religious and geographic diversity. Over the course of the next 60 days each will write one blog post on 60Bloggers.com where they will write something related to how they feel about Israel at this momentous juncture in time. We don’t plan on editing any of the posts for anything except for formatting, spelling and grammar, so really, anything is possible. We’ve already got our first post up – 60 Ways I Love Israel by Rachel Bookstein, Hillel Director of Long Beach Hillel and “stylist” of the Jewlicious Festival. In the coming days we’ll have posts by Bruno Bitter of Jewish Hungarian blog Judapest, Harry Rubenstein from The View from Here and Jerusalemite, Esther Kustanowitz from My Urban Kvetch, Tomer Altman from OyBay – and the list goes on and on. You can see who else is participating on the side bar, and of course, you can count on me to keep you updated.

So… what are you waiting for? Go visit 60Bloggers.com and tell all your friends to do the same!

60Bloggers.com is a joint project of Jewlicious and the Let My People Sing Festival.

In the past year, Jewlicious has recorded 1262 visits from what Google calls the Palestinian Territories. What sort of insight might we be able to gain from this informal interaction? Well, it seems the vast majority of the traffic, 84% of it, came from search engine results. The top keywords were as follows:

1. israeli girls
2. israeli sex movies
3. palestinian singles
4. hot israeli girls
5. israeli sex movie
6. arab hot babe
7. escort israel
8. german colony restaurant
9. israel girls
10. hot israelis

Other notable keywords were: address sex home in tel aviv, balestine gay (not a typo), gay arab shoes, gay nazis pic, homophobia palestine, natalie portman zionist, sex children egy 15year photo (??? I don’t want to know…), shakshuka recipe and of course miri eisin. The rest of the Arab world evinces similar themes – Egypt, with 8,664 visits has israeli girls, israeli babes and hot israeli girls as top key words (shakshuka is in there too). The United Arab Emirates with 8,023 visitors has Israeli girls, Israeli babes and Jewish babes as their top key words. Israel, with 398,342 visitors in the past year had jewlicious, israeli babes and shakshuka as it’s top three keywords.

Look, one tends to get overwhelmed by everything here in Jerusalem. Political machinations and intrigue can get so infuriating that you learn to tune it out as a survival mechanism. Me? I’m just some guy on a lap top in Jerusalem – I wouldn’t even call myself a pundit. I really don’t know much about anything, but I do know how to read Web stats. I also know I’d love to live in peace. I don’t know how that’s going to happen, but if I may give a tip to everyone attending that peace summit in Annapolis, it’s this: If there is ever to be a just and lasting peace in the middle east, I sense that it’ll somehow involve hot babes and shakshuka.

Do with that what you will.

So this was my first GA… The General Assembly – The Superbowl of Judaism in all of its glory, in Nashville, Tennessee.

I arrived at this enormous hotel – The Gaylord Opryland Hotel Resort and Convention Center, but it might as well have been the Miami Orange Bowl. I checked in – “Nice hotel room!” I thought. “Remember, to thank the UJC for such a lovely overseas invitation.”

Later, I walked half way across the hotel – past this Christian Zionist convention that was also taking place there and Jews young and old began to appear. They were draped in blue name tags – pins with the Israeli and American flags intertwined and Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies in hand. These treats were available free everywhere within the GA – Don’t ask! I was honored with a customized name tag festooned with a blue ribbon hanging from the pin titled “Speaker” and a yellow one titled “Press.” As I passed by my fellow super Jews, I received nods of recognition – The honor of being a GA speaker.

(more…)

I used to think that the guys that run Heeb Magazine were a bunch of douchebags. I was more often than not appalled by their smarmy, self congratulatory articles, their cliquish insider humor and their ethnocentrism presented in the guise of an oh-so-sophisticated world view.

Well – they’re still douchebags. Every last one of them. Oh sure, Photographer Seth Olenick is really friendly and a talented photographer, and David Kelsey is really passionate about everything, and Rebecca Wiener is a very very serious writer and Josh Neuman is… is… very astute in that way that only Yekkes can be. But still. Douchebags.

And yet… Heeb has grown and evolved by leaps and bounds. Everything gets better and better. So yeah, grab the latest issue of Heeb from the newsstand, or subscribe. The content often riles me up BUT it is always compelling. Of course, that’s not all of it. They just had to invade MY domain. I’m talking about the Internet. HeebMagazine.com has been running for a number of months now and it contains a blog section that’s pretty good. But was that enough? Noooo! They also just released the Heeb 100:

They’re young, smart and innovative… and oh yeah, they also happen to be Jewish. No, we’re not talking about the staff at Heeb Magazine; we’re talking about the second installment of the Heeb Hundred, a roundup of 100 people you need to know about. They are bloggers and newspaper publishers, comic artists and novelists, chefs and fashion designers, and while they’ve already got stellar resumes, we believe that the best is yet to come from each of them

I don’t agree with all the choices but the content was crisp, the descriptions were bite sized morsels of written yumminess that had me scrambling to Google to find out more information about the chosen yids AND they didn’t make too many obvious choices, ie “This is Shlomo. He’s from New Jersey and writes a Jewish blog (!) that uses foul language (!!) and is representative of the New Jew movement (!!!).” They’re all Jew-ish but successful and interesting (for the most part) in their own right. I spent 2 hours going through the site and I’m going back. Might I recommend you do the same thing?

And remember, Jewlicious is running a FREE trip to Israel this winter with the support of those shmeggeges at Heeb Magazine. There’s still time to register so if you haven’t – get cracking! Visit Oranim at israelfree.com, register, and choose the Jewlicious trip to get in on this fun time party action! Greatest booty shakin’ experience since cousin Marvin’s Bar Mitzvah when Aunt Fayge got down to Bootsy Collins. Good times, good times.

The free trip to Israel is a gift of Taglit-birthright israel.

Every once in a while we get people asking “who the hell are you guys anyway?” Even more often, people we know are surprised to find out that we are the folks behind Jewlicious. We’re not coy really, at least most of us aren’t, we’re just not big into self-promotion I guess. Also and more importantly, we’re not big famous Jewish celebrities or academics. With the exception of one blogger, none of us are Jewish community professionals, and even that one professional, Rabbi Yo, is very unconventional. We’re basically the Jews that you meet, when you’re walking down the street, we’re the Jews that you meet each day…

If after having read this, you want to drop us a line or whatever, just go to our contact page and do so.

aaron
aaron grew up in the san fernando valley, but living with israeli parents guaranteed seeing much of the world before he finished yeshiva day school. he writes short stories, poems, and viral videos. he blogs at life in samsonite, where he rants about his love life, ecology and sustainability, jewish stuff, and technology, and those special people that bring everything together.

Arielle
4 years of synagogue pre-school, 12 years of Religious School, 2 semesters of college Hebrew, 6 years (and counting) of Jewish communal work and now…writing for Jewlicious. My parents are so proud. Originally from a diverse and welcoming suburb of Philadelphia – I’m a single Jewish girl living and working in a nameless two-horse town in the Northeast. That’s my cat in the picture; my neurotic attempt at semi-anonymity,at least until you want my autograph and digits.

3 random facts about Arielle:
-I fall somewhere in between “neo conservative” (what? everyone else said it!) and bleeding heart liberal, depending on the issue.
-I wrote a college essay about Ramona Quimby (google her, if you must)
-I have a penchant for bagels & lox, Yuengling, DSW and 80s music, especially Europe’s Final Countdown

beth
Beth is just eager to find a nice group of Jews with which she can gossip about other more famous Jews. She’s a celebrity monger but also loves to dish about tv, music, films (mostly indie movies she forces her husband to watch on Netflix and any movie that contains subtitles, which doesn’t exclude OJ Simpson 70’s flicks) She loves pop culture trivia and spent her college years at the University of Michigan playing 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon in the cafeteria and only registering for classes she could show up to in her PJs. It was a limited selection so she majored in French. In 2004, she published a book called “10 Secrets I Learned From The Apprentice.” Unfortunately she never met Donald Trump, but if she did would ask him if his hair were really orange. She likes orange very much, but her favorite color is Magenta cause it rhymes with blue placenta.

ck
I have a love / hate relationship with Jews. Don’t even get me started. I am the product of 11 years of Hebrew day school, a year at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and far more University education than is healthy. I have this never ending fascination with Judaism, similar to a little kid who derives endless pleasure from contemplating his belly button.

I love Israel, and I especially love Jerusalem. Love begins and ends in Jerusalem. I’ve led 9 Taglit birthright israel trips, the next one in January will be with Heeb Magazine and Oranim, and I’ve been to Israel more times than I can count currently live in Jerusalem. I’ve been involved in any number of Jewish and Israel advocacy organizations but I have always felt that grass roots stuff I’ve been involved with has been more effective and satisfying. I’m kind of a shit disturber that way.

Currently working for DrummerWeb, where we host and design Web sites for a wide range of clients, including a number of Jewish groups, most of whom have no idea of my involvement in Jewlicious. I’ve lived in Jerusalem, Paris, New Orleans, New York and Boston.

dahlia
Choosing as her namesake a famous Jewish warrior queen, dahlia is a proud Jew and Zionist, now residing in the Great State of Israel. She is working on her Masters at Tel Aviv University, and is a self-proclaimed expert on the Middle East. She likes chocolate, M-16s, ballroom dancing, and long walks on moonlit beaches. Fun fact? She’s sort of a nerd and likes Israeli folk dancing. But don’t let that fool you, she still has a black-belt.

dani
You can’t get any Jewier then growing up in Brooklyn, but advocating for Israel on campus and authoring a kosher travel blog, Dani has managed that feat. He spends his days directing his minions of pro-Israel campus zombies, and moonlights by traveling the world… kosher style.

Dani was somehow chosen to the Jewish Week’s “36 Under 36: The Next Wave of Jewish Innovators”… and we’re very proud of him.

Networking at over 50 Israel related conferences, Dani is connected to every Jew on Facebook. He is going for an MBA in International Marketing so he can write witty bios for himself. Go find him on Facebook, Twitter, on one of his blogs, or on Gchat.

Dani is busy. You may be interrupting.

esther
The author of beloved blogs My Urban Kvetch and JDaters Anonymous, and senior editor of new magazine PresenTense, esther is also a singles columnist with the New York Jewish Week. She also recently began writing Good For the Jews, a new blog at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Typically, our bloggers write their own intro but Esther’s been busy spreading the Kvetch across America. Thus this will have to do until she submits something. This also gives us a chance to gush about how cool we think Esther is and how thrilled and flattered we are that she would share her unique take on things with Jewlicious. Mamish flattered. We are not worthy. And yes, I am indeed currently sober. [Esther's note, 9/06: I was supposed to submit my own bio, but this paragraph that CK wrote was so flattering and captured such a memorable moment that I'm hesitant to change it. So if you want more info about me, you can see the articles and bio on my professional website, EstherK.com.]

froylein
European mix with a love for silly puns just as for warm vanilla pudding & tomato soup (in that order), languages hardly anyone knows, healthy doses of kitsch, Brooklyn, interactive pop-up books, warm socks on winter days; tends to forget birthdays, anniversaries, names, faces, calling back; avoids celery; would donate for hip-replacements to hipsters; whistles in the shower.

* The photo above is not of froylein. But it’s the closest we could find.

grandmuffti
Just goes along with any damn fool idea ck comes up with. This has included starting a Web design firm, being one of the leading harassers of Nazis online, torturing the congregation of the 3rd oldest synagogue in the US and other stuff that can’t really be discussed right now.

The product of Toronto’s finest Hebrew day schools, grandmuffti is currently completing his PhD in Philosophy. [He's done! He's done! He's Dr. Muffti to you, fools!] This explains his rigorous logic and often unintelligible ramblings (unintelligible to you. Trust me, if you were smart, you’d totally understand).

Grandmuffti hates continental philosophers, loves the band Tool, plays guitar and used to have hair below his shoulders. One day soon, he will actually write his own profile, and put up a photo …

Jamie Kirchick
Jamie works for The New Republic and is a columnist for the Washington Examiner and the Washington Blade, the former owned by a major supporter of the Christian Right and the latter being the biggest gay newspaper in the United States. He blogs for both TNR’s “The Plank” and produces much neo-conservative bile for Commentary’s “Contentions”. He writes regularly for The New York Sun and his opinion pieces run in newspapers ranging from the Los Angeles Times to the Wall Street Journal Europe. He is a lover of Israel and the Ramallah gay scene in particular. He knows his Bubbie must be proud that her grandson is affiliated with a website called jewlicious.

Leah
Leah Stern grew up in Miami Beach, and graduated from the University of Miami. She is a freelance journalist who has been published in The Miami Herald, Miami Sun Post, Detroit Jewish News, New York Jewish Week, Jerusalem Post and Haaretz. Stern resides in Jerusalem, where she is a correspondent for the Israel Broadcasting Authority English News. She is also producing a documentary on Israel’s Disengagement from Gaza. Leah has toured across the United States speaking about her experiences living as a new immigrant and working in Israel as a Journalist, She is also an ROI120 alumni.

phoebe
Phoebe enjoys the Zabars cheese counter, “Yossi and Jagger,” and fin de siècle Zionism. Her goals in life are to understand French Jews and French-Israeli relations, to become fluent in Hebrew, and to own several large and furry dogs. She thinks Alfred Dreyfus was sort of good-looking, and would have had an affair with him if given the opportunity. She considers herself a neoconservative mugged by reality, a social liberal, and a Jewish nationalist. Phoebe has her own blog, appropriately titled “What Would Phoebe Do?” Well, uh… join Jewlicious apparently. Bienvenue Phoebe!

harry
Harry is a prophet, sent by Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu to illuminate His People Israel with the light of Rock. However, since a prophet is never appreciated in his own city, Harry was forced to flee Jerusalem for the greener pastures of Modi’in, where he produces one of the first Israeli blogs, The View From Here, doesn’t produce a well-loved podcast, collects Vietnamese kitchen utensils and battles zombies. In addition to his passions for Rock and hummus, Harry enjoys firing tank-mounted mag machine guns and makes a mean cholent. He intends to grace Jewlicious with much-needed Israeli cultural content and paeans to the many fine culinary establishments of this most Zionist of Entities.

rabbi yonah
Chasidic Zionist, tree hugger, save the whales, meat eating, music loving, baal teshuva, stand up proud yid. If you want more see my bio here. And how did this Rabbi come to mash-up with Jewlicious?

Got into blogging as an addiction with ck in the summer of 2004. He helped us design and create BeachHillel.com which broke ground for being well, a Hillel Blog. In DC they hadn’t even heard what a blog tastes like….

Happily got ck to agree to fly to Long Beach, having never met me, for Jewlicious@TheBeach 1. They actually believed that we had made a conference! Imagine if it had just been an elaborate plot by a gang of rival bloggers to lure them into the open and take away their wifi connections. This was clearly before the days of Blogger Protection Teams, and Secret Blog Service. Oh and I love every Jew, especially the ones that I argue with here. There are my closest cousins. Oy, luv em so!

Stop on by for Shabbat Dinner if you are in the LA/LB hood.

Sarke
The new bloggirl in the class. Try to make her feel welcome, kids. She’s never sure whether the journalist / writer / editor / webcontent consultant / startup junkie part of her resume ought to be mentioned before or after the mother of four boys part. Having lived in Israel for her entire adult life as a wedded dweller of religious suburbia…nay!…an active (although at times rather subversive) participant thereof, it may be surprising to find the likes of SarKE on this hip urban mockathon. She is truly honored to have her worlds collide in this fashion.

Catch her between loads of laundry and conference calls – being by turns sentimental, self-indulgent, and overly-serious – at www.the-word-well.com. Make sure to comment on it.

steve
Steven H. Pollak has written for the Baltimore Jewish Times, the Atlanta Jewish Times, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and American Jewish Life magazine. In addition, Steve’s writing has appeared in numerous legal and business publications. Steve enjoys hunting wild boars which he then donates to non-Jewish orphanages. Prior to his current gigs he enjoyed a brief but lucrative career as a pirate on the Barbary coast. Ok. Those last two things were lies. Sorry. He can be reached at steve@jewishliteraryreview.com

the_middle
Wishes to remain anonymous. Has been acquainted with ck for years and yet, ck has no idea what he looks like. But amongst the things ck does know and can share is that he has been a tireless advocate on behalf of Israel and Jews, jousting with all manner of neo-nazis, anti-Israel propagandists and ignorant folk in general. He is relentless and thorough but still possessed of an open mind and pleasant disposition.

ck forgives him for his unhealthy obsession with the infamous French Hill spitting incident and his Haredi fetish. Oh and the_middle has an interest in falafel making utensils.

spawnof6
Spawnof6 is the daughter of Rabbi # 6 on the Big Jews list in Newsweek. How much does that say about me? Absolutely nothing. I’m the product of Jewish Day School, was raised in New York, Los Angeles, and Jerusalem, and yet, I still don’t hate Arabs. I currently live on the Upper West Side, go to school in Boston (Go Wellsley!), and am waiting to move to Jerusalem. I love good hummus but it’s hard to find it out in the Diaspora, hence the appeal of Aliyah. I have glasses but I only wear them when I want to look smart. Luckily, I was wearing them when I met ck and he thought I was smart/cool enough to write for Jewlicious.

vicki
Vicki was born in Russia and raised on vodka and cynicism. In the United States, she really began to feel Jewish around the time she went on March of the Living to get away from a bad breakup and has since organized more Israel festivals than Golda Meir. She believes her two-month internship in Tel Aviv gives her the right to be a smug and discerning shakshuka critic. Currently she’s sold her nerdy soul as an international trade analyst, and muses frequently about how she’s the cheap man’s Shalom Auslander, except minus the religion, at her blog, vickiboykis.com.

Wendy In Furs
Hi! I’m Wendy. I’m new to JBlogging, and am quite fascinated by it. My job does not even remotely allow me to do this sort of thing publicly and so I, with great hesitation, join The Middle as Jewlicious’ second anonymous blogger. Where I live and what I do are not as important as what I know. I hope you will be entertained from time to time and I do look forward to being a member in good standing of the Jewlicious community. Some people say blogs are no longer relevant today, I say you must be in old media. Or boring. Or both. And no, I don’t actually wear furs. Ever.

Y-Love
Y-Love is a black orthodox rapper, who won “Best Jewish Hip Hop” over Matisyahu in the 2006 JMA’s. He rhymes in Aramaic so there isn’t much competition, but that doesn’t yetzer hara him into just getting by. He is a brilliant MC who weaves Kabbalistic themes into the many languages in which he spits. Y-Love has performed with Lou Reed, DJ Spooky, Hadag Nachash, Matisyahu, & Steinski at venues ranging from Princeton to Irving Plaza. He is a contributing editor to Jewlicious.com, the web’s leading Jewish blog, as well as to his own site Thisisbabylon.net, a site already beginning to gain notoriety for its unabashed critiques of Antisemitism, racism, and Islamophobia.