By Sarah Breger
Ari Teman, the founder of JCorps, won the first Jewish Community Hero award this week. JCorps is an organization that runs programs for young Jewish volunteers in cities around the world. [JTA]
TNRtv put together a video on the anti-Semitic group Westboro Baptist Church as they protested against Jews and gays outside synagogues and schools in New York this week. The video shows that with the Jews from Great Neck the Westboro Baptist church may have met their match. [TNR]
Frederic Aranda’s gripping photographs of the Lubavitch community on Tablet. [Tablet]
The Forward announces their picks for the top 50 Jews of the year. You are not on it. [Forward]
Time’s Joe Klein and The New Republic’s Jamie Kirchick’s discussion on Israel and the media turns nasty at the GA. [WAPO]
Categories: Politics
By Sarah Breger
Every law and crime TV series has its requisite “super-Jew” episode, featuring members of the Orthodox Jewish community involved in some sort of wrongdoing. And the The Good Wife is no exception. The new CBS procedural drama starring Julianna Margulies as the wronged wife of a philandering and possibly corrupt former State’s attorney, found itself in a fictional Ultra-Orthodox community last night. In the episode “Unorthodox,” Margulies takes on the case of Hasidic couple, who is being sued for not fixing an
eruv pole that falls on their property on Shabbat. Confused? The eruv is an enclosed area (usually created by wire or poles) where observant Jews can carry on Shabbat. Since the couple were Sabbath observers, they wouldn’t use the phone to call someone to have it fixed—thus making them liable according to the plaintiff.
Keep reading →
Categories: Politics
By Sarah Breger
“I have not seen a crowd this size since my bar mitzvah,” Rahm Emanuel announced before launching into his talk for the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations this afternoon. Emanuel addressed the crowd of over 3,000 Jews in place of President Barack Obama, who canceled in order to attend a memorial service in Fort Hood. Following a speech that was (most likely) drawn from Obama’s prepared one, Emanuel pledged the White House’s unwavering support of Israel. Calling this “a time of peril but also of opportunity,” he added that “no one should allow the issue of settlements to distract from the overarching goal of lasting peace.” Emanuel seemed to be coming to the conference both as an insider and an outsider, sticking with Obama’s message but becoming emotional when describing his Israeli father, his childhood trips to Israel and the upcoming Bar Mitzvah of his son in Israel. He added that he would be taking $18 dollar checks for the celebration at the door.
Categories: Politics
By Sarah Breger
Check out the new issue of Moment, including our cover story on Britain’s Brainy (and Jewish) Foreign Secretary!
Categories: Politics
By Sarah Breger
Two South Carolina GOP officials published an article defending Republican Sen. Jim DeMint—who was attacked for letting federal money go to other states—by using some previously unknown Jewish wisdom.
There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves. By not using earmarks to fund projects for South Carolina and instead using actual bills, DeMint is watching our nation’s pennies and trying to preserve our country’s wealth and our economy’s viability to give all an opportunity to succeed.
The Jewish Democratic South Carolinan Sen. Joel Lourie said he was “outraged by the remark. DeMint himself called the comments “thoughtless and hurtful” while State GOP Chairwoman Karen Floyd also called the statement absolutely unacceptable.
The two officials later apologized for their remarks. [HuffPo, AP]
Categories: Politics
By Sarah Breger
This is why I love academics: They take the ordinary, banal, and regular and infuse it with such overwhelming importance you are likely to think the blister cream used in the 1940s was just as important as D-Day (and who am I too argue it’s not?). But this new book, co-written by a Jewish studies professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, ratchets it up a notch. Ladies and Gents: Public Toilets and Gender examines “the cultural meanings, histories, and ideologies of public toilets as gendered spaces,” and is being touted as “the first multi-disciplinary book about potty politics.”
Of Jewish interest is a foreword by prominent feminist theology scholar Judith Plaskow, as well as an entire chapter called “The Jew on the Loo: The Toilet in Jewish Popular Culture, Memory, and Imagination.” I am trying to imagine what’s in there—this definitely was not a course offered in Jewish Day School. [Temple University Press, Women's International Perspective]
Categories: Misc · Politics
By Sarah Breger
For religiously observant employees, the decision to “rock the boat” in the workplace is a tricky one. If you keep Hallal should you go the steakhouse with your co-workers or explain why you can’t? If you are Sabbath observant, how early do you leave on a Friday to get home before sundown, and is it worth your co-workers thinking you are slacking off?
While these may seem like small issues, as members of different religions practice more openly, employers are being asked—and sometimes forced—to accommodate their religious employees. In an article published in The National Law Journal, Sheeva Ghassemiow examines different cases where employers have been confronted with the practice of Islam and the challenges it presents in the workplace. Keep reading →
Categories: religion
Tagged: islam, law
By Sarah Breger
While the upcoming production of “Shalom Sesame” has been receiving a lot attention, this week the New York Times Magazine focuses on “Shara’a Simsim,” the Palestinian version of “Sesame Street.” [NYT]
The next logical step in Israeli PR? The porn industry. [Forward]
Florida Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson, a Jew, is drawing critisicm for his use of the word “holocaust” when discussing health care reform. This follows Grayson’s earlier declaration—”The Republican health care plan is this: Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.” Memo to Joe Wilson: It’s on. [The Nation, Politico]
Who needs Hebrew School when you have the Transportation Security Administration? The TSA breaks down one of the wackiest Jewish holidays for its employees:
Observant Jewish travelers may carry four plants—a palm branch, myrtle twigs, willow twigs, and a citron—in airports and through security checkpoints. These plants are religious articles and may be carried either separately or as a bundle. Jewish travelers may be observed in prayer, shaking the bundle of plants in six directions.
And they didn’t even need to use the term palm frond. [TSA]
Categories: Arts & Culture · Politics
By Sarah Breger
A majority of American Jews approve of both Obama’s and Netanyahu’s handling of US-Israel relations but do not agree with Obama’s call for a settlement freeze, according to a recent poll.
The American Jewish Committee’s 2009 Annual Survey of Jewish Opinion found that 70 percent of those surveyed called U.S.-Israel relations “somewhat positive,” while 11 percent called them “very positive.” However 51 percent disagreed with the Obama Administration’s call for a stop to all new Israeli settlement construction while 41 percent agreed. (This may be a sign of a shift in American Jewish opinion as Obama received 78 percent of the Jewish vote last November.)
Notably, a majority of American Jews would support a U.S. military strike on Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. Fifty-six percent of American Jews would support the strike (which is an increase of 14 percentage points from last year) and 66 percent of respondents said they would back an Israeli strike on Iran.
14. Would you support or oppose the United States taking military action against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons?
Categories: Politics
By Sarah Breger
Rugalech makers take note, cupcake are the new key to Mideast peace. [NYT]
Beyonce to perform in Israel. No word if HOVA will accompany her. [Ynet]
Want a fashionable way to wear non-leather shoes to Yom Kippur services? When you buy a pair of TOMS, you also make a donation of a pair of shoes to a child in need. [Heart & Sole]
A Foer family “bad mutha-sukkah” sukkah. [Forward]
Tablet has a collection of songs to get you in the repenting mood. [Tablet]
And in case you need something to atone for:
Categories: Misc · Moment Magazine
