This Week’s Links

By Sarah Breger

The White House is planning on cutting invitations to the annual Hanukkah party by half. Shockingly, Jews in Washington are complaining. [JPost]

Moment columnist Eric Alterman declares war on The New Republic, saying the publication is bad for the Jews. [theNation]

But the real question is: Are vampires good for the Jews? Twilight screenwriter says yes. [The Jewish Journal]

Rabbi David Wolpe disagrees. [The Jewish Journal]

Hillary Clinton Crushing on David Miliband

By Sarah Breger

Pssst…H has a crush on D…pass it on. In a profile in this month’s Vogue, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed that she is smitten with British Foreign Secretary—and this month’s Moment profile (and cover story)—David Miliband.

“Well, if you saw him it would be a big crush. I mean, he is so vibrant, vital, attractive, smart. He’s really a good guy. And he’s so young!”

Miliband seems to be enamored of Clinton as well:

“She applies intellect but also psychology to the dossiers that she’s studying. She uses her experience in a very impressive way. She brings it to bear in a way that enriches a conversation but doesn’t swamp it. She learns from history without being trapped by it. I think it’s also important to say that she’s delightful to deal with one on one. She’s someone who laughs and can tease, and she’s got perspective as well.”

But does he like her, like her?

Read about the object of Clinton’s affection here.

Costco to sell the Torah (but not in bulk)

By Sarah Breger

Costco, the retail megastore, plans to sell a special illustrated Torah, JTA reported yesterday. The Torah will appeal to Jews and Christians who don’t have access to Jewish bookshops, according to the Torah’s distributer Neal Warnick. “It deserves to be in Costco,” he said. Moses would be proud.

Study Confirms Suspicion that Jews and New Yorkers are Actually Interchangeable

By Sarah Breger

A new study released last week finds that outside of New York, Jews are more likely than non-Jews to have elements of a New York accent.

“The Survey of American Jewish Language and Identity” reports the results of a survey of 25,179 American Jews and 4,874 American Gentiles. There are many intriguing finds in the study, including that older Jews are more likely to know Yiddish words while younger Jews are more likely to know Hebrew words.

Interestingly, “Jewish terms” are being used for religious rituals, replacing their American translations, the survey found. Jews of all religious stripes are increasingly using the term “shul” instead of synagogue” and “leyn” instead of “read Torah.” Although the authors of the survey are not sure why…

This Week’s Links

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]

 

An Eshet Chayil* in The Good Wife

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.

Rahm Emanuel addresses the GA

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.

The Nov/Dec issue has arrived!

By Sarah Breger

Check out the new issue of Moment, including our cover story on Britain’s Brainy (and Jewish) Foreign Secretary!

In for a penny, in for a pound

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]

Jewish “Potty” 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]