Humor IV

My parents live in the Bay Area. They don't watch much cable news, and don't understand my penchant for regularly torturing myself with O'Reilly, Hannity, Hageee, and of course, reruns of this crap.

This, however, did get their attention. Enough to have old Abbot Yid get me on the phone and yell, "Who the hell is this jackass?" Aside from interactions with old Chinese female drivers, Abbot doesn't really get angry; just annoyed that he has to share precious oxygen with goofballs who joke about blowing up firemen memorials.

So I wrote this to ease the pain.

Al Qaeda Declines O'Reilly Offer

International terrorist organization Al Qaeda has politely turned down Fox News Anchor Bill O’Reilly’s offer to attack San Francisco, California. O’Reilly made the proposal last week, after saying that San Francisco had, in his mind, “declared itself its own country”. O’Reilly said that, were he President of the United States, his first act would be to negotiate a separate peace with the group in which they were given permission to attack the coastal metropolis of 740,000. “And if Al Qaeda…blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.”

Al Qaeda responded over the weekend via its West-Coast spokesman, Farouk Jabir Iqtab. Iqtab said, “At first we were all pretty excited. Being addressed personally by the head of ‘The Great Satan’ and all. Usually we have to content ourselves with some dipshit Secretary of My Ass or a lame op-ed. I told the guys that we were moving up in the world.”

Wahid al-Khattak, assistant to Iqtab, added, “We’ve had our eye on the Golden Gate city for quite a while. You should see our files back in the cave. Every intelligence-gathering mission we send there comes back with the best stories. The food, the sights, the ocean, and of course, a lot of really fun places to plant bombs. Sometimes they can barely tear themselves away.”

However, Iqtab said, after further consideration by a committee, Al Qaeda decided against the idea. “It was a very nice gesture, but then we started wondering about possible strings being attached. Like, are we supposed to send a card afterwards? What about a fruit basket? Will President O’Reilly be willing to reimburse us for our costs, even if we provide our receipts? Can we use Oakland’s airspace to fly planes at the Tower? The more we talked it over, the more we realized there were all these loose ends that really didn’t seem to add up.”

He added, “It’s not that we don’t want to blow the home of both American Sodomites and that Rice-a-Roni crap off the face of the earth. It’s simply that we think we can get a better deal if we focus on the rest of the country, too. Also, last we checked, Mr. O’Reilly was not actually the President, so we’re not sure if this offer is really any good. Our lawyers are still looking into it.”

Franklin Fillmore, a History Professor at Princeton, also raised concerns about the proposal. “Historically, attempts to ‘buy off’ expansionist enemies with a small fraction of what they want hasn’t had a very good track record. I mean, sure, sometimes it works, but usually it just winds up turning into a Hitler-and-Czechoslovakia; Vikings-and-Russia; America-and-anybody else-kind of thing. Give people a beachhead for free and all you’re really doing is inviting them to continue.” Fillmore suggested O’Reilly take one of his classes next semester, or, failing that, open the occasional book.

O’Reilly refused to comment, but San Franciscans had some strong reactions. According to a poll submitted by the San Francisco Chronicle, 30% of San Franciscans said O’Reilly could “suck their nuts”, while 25% said he could only admire them from afar. When asked what San Francisco’s reaction should be, several spirited suggestions were offered, including being shot out of a cannon at the Coit Tower, dropped off in the “bad part” of Baghdad super-glued to a pig and an American flag, and, the most popular, tied to a chair and forced to watch his own show for several weeks.

The Joys of Censorship

As any good Yated-head can tell you, the best thing about censorship is that it protects poor impressionable young minds from having to think for themselves.

Take Mark Mathabane's "Kaffir Boy". No, really, you can go to Burlingame, CA and get a copy- the school has over 100 that they took back from the students. Seems a parent complained about a child-rape scene. Never mind that it actually happened and that it uses it to demonstrate a number of powerful points (none of which are pro-butt rape, incidentally). No, heaven forbid. Page 72 must be excised.

Mathabane's used to this by now. Read his eight-year-old response.

Another round-up

Since it seems that's all I have time to bother with these days:

- Someone please explain this to me. Please, please, please. They claim this is some sort of "key", but that's certainly not what my filthy mind came up with.

- Vishnitz decides that it's tired of Satmar and Bobov having all the fun. Which dynasty will be the next to splinter. Ger? Skver? Krotchsnif? Please let it be Krotchsnif, that would make for a really fun few weeks. Also, is it just me, or did Satmar have much better faction names? Sure, Aaronis and Zalis didn't sound super-cool, but compared to Srulists and Mendelists? The Mendelists sounds like a short-lived Social Democrat group in Tsarist Russia. Oh, and Ynet and Haaretz really aren't very good at giving background information on this stuff. Some entertaining lines, though.

What is different about Vishnitz, one of the world's largest and wealthiest Hasidic sects, originating in Romania, is that neither side in the feud bothers to attribute the struggle to ideology. This is a soap opera, each of whose chapters is lapped up in the ultra-Orthodox world and beyond.

...The Mendelists say this is the latest in a series of "acts of terror" against them. The other side says the attack was precipitated by a break-in a few days earlier into an office in Kiryat Vishnitz, in which the only copy of a collection of lessons given by the grand rabbi in his younger years was stolen. "These are the words of the living God that we keep and publish each Sabbath, and we live by them," a source said. "Then came this gang and sowed destruction; they took our soul. There is mourning and shoa in Vishnitz."

Godwin?

And why is nobody pointing out that Vishnitz already split thirty years ago when Moshe and Mottel Hager divided up their fiefdoms into America and Israel? This is a sub-split.

- The Conservative seminary in Israel has said it won't admit gay and lesbian students, as this is a violation of halakha. As a friend pointed out, this would be slightly more notable if the Conservative movement in Israel wasn't so small, both in comparison to the total population of the country, as well as the Conservative movement itself. If the Schechter Seminary wants to follow in the path of Joel Roth, more power to them, but it remains to be seen whether this will have any substantial effect on the implementation of the Law Committee's decision. Interesting commentary from Roth in that last link, btw.

- A father in Israel is working to change the way people think about victims of terrorism, particularly when it comes to memorials and monuments.

Yossi, a Haifa resident who works as a project manager at Amdocs, has been dedicating every free moment in the past few years to make Israeli citizens remember terror attack victims as they remember fallen IDF soldiers.

"I believe there is a terrible discrimination on the moral level between fallen defense establishment members and murdered civilians, and I am doing my best to change the current situation," he says.

Some fascinating stuff.

- And the winner is...

Man, talk about desperate for chametz. Still, it all goes to charity, so it's a nice little story (until the guy's wife sees the bill).

- Another item showing us the slippery slope of telling everybody and their grandmother they're a lost tribe. I hope someone's taking notes. Incidentally, if the Pashtuns are really Jews, does this mean Karzai can make aliyah?


- And lastly, a shocking note from our friends at Yated- apparently non-religious Jews who sell chametz only because the Orthodox force them to may not ACTUALLY believe in the legality of the sale!

Many manufacturing plants and stores that are owned by non- religious Jews make the customary sale of their chometz before Pesach. The problem is that they do not regard it as a sale in any actual sense. They are just carrying out the instructions of the Rabbinate or other kashrus supervisory body so that they can retain their kashrus certification. Is such a sale effective?

...HaRav Eliashiv told us that the sale of chometz by a nonobservant Jew who signed on the commonly-used document empowering an agent to sell his chometz for him to a non-Jew, cannot be relied upon. Such a document has no validity whatsoever and is worth no more than the paper on which it is printed. The chometz must be regarded as having remained the Jew's property over Pesach and its consumption or any other form of benefit is forbidden. The proof that there has been no sale is that if the buyer wanted to actualize the transaction, the nonobservant seller would object that he only signed the document for religious purposes, not to be carried out.

The illustrious Maran's solution? Rewrite the contract so it's super-legally binding. As Yated puts it,

The document must therefore be written in a way that makes it legally binding. When the signatory knows that its terms can be enforced legally, the transaction can be regarded as valid.

Got it. If they know you can sue them, they won't break the contract, and everything's kosher. I guess lawyers are one way to put the fear of Heaven into these folks. (And what holiday celebration would be complete without notarized contracts of sale?) Then again, I guess it's better than having to have haredim threaten the chametz sellers or something- "and just so we understand each other- if you don't sell the chametz with the right kavannah, I'll break your legs."

Quick Round-up

- I find a new target. I anticipate hours of fun. They even make doomsday predictions!

Rabbi Eliyahu Leon Levi, who frequents the Western Wall every Saturday night to recite Psalms and teach Torah, told his students that there is an "evil decree" of war looming on the horizon. According to the Rabbi, Syria is liable to join Lebanon in firing missiles at the Jewish State in the pending war.

..."It's not going to be 'katyushas shmatyushas' this time which have only tens of kilograms of explosives. The enemy will launch, G-d forbid, rockets carrying 500 and 600 kilograms of explosives," Rabbi Levi told his students.

...Rabbi Levi said that though Israel "may, G-d forbid, pay a heavy price initially, the Jewish People would muster strength to crush their enemies leading to a great sanctification of G-d's name through ultimate victory."

He emphasized that the decree can be annulled through prayer, repentance, and good deeds. "In the spiritual world, things can rapidly change. But right now, it appears that war could break out soon after or even during the Passover holiday." Rabbi Levi said that the allocation of food to the needy and the great acts of charity which preceded the Passover holiday made a great impression in the heavenly court and sweetened the judgment to a degree.

"We are on the brink of redemption, and a great war is coming." he said. "Whoever doesn't prepare himself spiritually is at great risk. A person must turn to G-d in prayer and cry and confess his wrongdoings, and rectify his ways. A person must recite Psalms as we do every Saturday night here at the site of our holy temple. The recitation of Psalms constitutes a spiritual rinsing of the mouth from idle talk, as well as from the transgression of causing others pain through our speech. Come with your children to cry and pray before G-d and ask forgiveness."

...Rabbi Levi said that those who recite Tikun Hatzot (the Midnight Rectification) along with a Tikun Yesod (rectification of the covenant of sexual purity) will have an invincible shield of protection (ohr makif) around him.

The kabbalist pointed to sexual wrongdoing, immodest dress, and addiction to pornography on the internet as additional factors which bring about harsh decrees on Israel.

You know, maybe it's just the fact that I've been reading Left Behind comics recently, but I can't help thinking these guys are just like John Hagee with cooler facial hair.

- LGF rants (justifiably) about how Pakistan still isn't doing anything about the Taliban. Rather than criticizing Bush for supporting Musharraf, a bunch of the partisan-blind commenters blame Democrats:

Nothing to worry about.
We know they did not attack us on 9/11. Just ask Rosie and Charlie Sheen. It is all George Booosh!

and

All I can say is for God's sake, let's not monitor these Jihadi's phone calls, banking records, and internet exchanges. It just wouldn't be fair. After all, they're just trying to destroy us. What's the big deal? Can't we just talk?

/Pelosi voter mode off

and

Right now the liberals are fast at work trying to figure out how to meld the two philosophies of liberalism and islamofascism despite the obvious contrary views of the two groups on women, homosexuality, promiscuous sex etc. because in the most important area, being anti western culture, they are on the exact same page.

and

Let's have Ken Starr investigate these people and impeach them.

Then our do-nothing Congress can take over and really give them a good lecturing in front of the MSM.

If Starr is unavailable, I'd then let the US attorney in Louisiana prosecute them, just like he is (not) doing to William Jefferson (D-LA).

Or we could send Rodney King over to reason with them. Beg them to just "all get along".
Yeah, those are really good plans.
Why haven't the effing libs thought of this.

Wow. Those are some nice logic leaps, guys.

- Dennis Prager longs for the bygone days of British Imperialism. Yeah, I was just thinking, what the world needs now is another good Opium War.

It used to be said that "The sun never sets on the British empire." That is how vast Britain's influence was. And that influence, on balance, was far more positive than negative. Ask the Indians-- or the Americans, for that matter. The British colonies learned about individual rights, parliamentary government, civil service and courts of justice, to name of few of the benefits that the British brought with them. Were it not for British involvement, India might still have sati (burning wives on the funeral pyre of their husband), would have no unifying language, and probably no parliamentary democracy or other institutions and values that have made that country a democratic giant, now on its way to becoming an economic one as well.

This is sort of like when people claim slavery benefited black people because it meant they weren't getting chased by lions. Yeah, way to subjugate Indians for a good 200 years, Britain, go you. And incidentally, Dennis, not everything in American democracy was imported by the British- check out the history of New Amsterdam sometime. And obviously the Founding Fathers didn't think that teaching us about "civil service" (which we Cro-Magnon proto-mericans obviously would never have picked up on our own without help) was enough to give Britain a free pass because, well, there was that whole revolution thing. Or maybe you would have been a Tory back then. And news flash, Dennis, being a British colony didn't end every problem in India- there's still that awesome caste system thing going on, for one. If they were so enlightened, why didn't they work on that?

the British government did not confront the Iranians in any way reminiscent of a great country, let alone of Britain's great past. If we judge the British government's reaction alone -- without any reference to the behavior of the British sailors and marines -- Iran was the feared power, not Great Britain, which acted like the supplicant.

Yeah, what happened to the old bad-ass Britain? Why not use some of that awesome trench warfare on them? Or whip out some old-school RAF Spitfires on their ass?

But what really makes one weep for Britain's lost greatness is what has happened since the sailors and marines were released.

The UK Minister of Defense, Labor MP Desmond Browne, announced that the released sailors and marines were all free to sell their stories to the media, "as a result of exceptional media interest." If this is not unprecedented, it would certainly be difficult to find anything similar in the annals of military history.

Actually, not so much. Check out, say, anyone remotely connected with the Great Game. You doof.

And John Tindell, the father of another of the hostages, said the marines were planning to sell on eBay the vases given to them by the Iranians.

What SHOULD they do with them? Use them as chamber pots and shoot them out of a cannon? I once saw someone selling Sharon's bloody head-bandage and Moshe Dayan's eyepatch on eBay! So what?

Oh, the Internet.

Humor Retrospective III

I know this will come as a shock to many of you, but I'm not a real big activist. I wasn't as a high schooler, I wasn't in college, and I'm still not now. It's not that I object to other people being activists as much as I object to general stupidity. The piece below was inspired during my college days.

Unpopular Activists' Fundraiser Gets Mixed Results

Over twenty unpopular activist groups held a fundraiser last night in Chugwater, Wyoming. The groups, some of which hold views almost diametrically opposed to each other, were forced to join together after they discovered that none of them could individually afford to rent out the reception area in the only hotel in town, Casa de Chugwater.

Sandstone Rodriguez, chapter president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Trees, told reporters that he wasn’t happy about having to share space with such “disturbing” groups as the National Lint Union and the Coalition for Effeminate Swedes, but remarked, “You can’t always choose your allies.”

Rodriguez continued: “Yes, it was hard, but it was a small sacrifice to make in order to get our message heard. Remember, people: only you can prevent the ongoing persecution of the trees.” Rodriguez then reportedly accosted protestors from the Minks Make Good Hats Society, setting fire to their various placards and signs, while howling slogans like “Free the Yosemite Two-hundred thousand” and, “boycott toilet paper!”

Another PETT member, Joanna Berlusconi-Jones, delivered a thirty-minute PowerPoint presentation on the “troubling situation of the global power structure”, which she emphatically asserted was “overwhelmingly mammalio-centric”.

Berlusconi-Jones commented: “Remember, people, both humans and plants are predominantly composed of the same four elements, but just because humans have things like bones and hair, we assume we’re so much better than them! Over and over again, history repeats itself. Once we thought superiority came from being pale, and now we think that it comes from having brains and written language. It’s all a lie.” PETT members in the audience showed their support by displaying fur tunics emblazoned with the message, “Stop the Hewlett-Packard Holocaust”.

Many people in attendance seemed convinced by Berlusconi-Jones’ argument. She noted, for instance, that there has never been a single documented case of plant warfare, much less plant genocide, and also theorized that plants are probably much more in tune with nature, “almost like a kind of green-skinned Indian”. She concluded her talk by showing a graphic video entitled “The Horrors of the Paper Mill”, and passed out clay tablets with recommendations of how people could cut down on their paper consumption, including the much-talked-about “wipe with your hand” method. PETT representatives then reminded the audience that they had a booth set up in the back where people could buy souvenir tunics and bumper rocks, but pointed out that they would only be accepting credit cards and coins.

Another group in attendance was the controversial Water Liberation Front, whose spokesperson, Susan “Drip” Dropowski, also addressed the crowd. “For too long have our watery brethren been held in unjust bondage, whether in dams, reservoirs, or water fountains. With your tax-free gift of just fifty-five dollars, it can end right here!”

The WLF, which has been placed on a terrorist watch list by the FBI, has claimed responsibility for many attacks over the years, with targets ranging from beer distilleries to hydro-electric power-plants, as well as a large number of Alhambra trucks. Dropowski vowed that America would “know no peace” until it stopped “the rape of mother ocean, as well as her sister lakes, swamps, ponds, and tributaries”.

The fundraiser was cut short when a fight broke out between members of two rival groups, the Committee for the Legal Defense of Crazy Straw Collectors, and the Covenant of Low-Rider Jeans, also known colloquially as the “Buttcrack Brigade”. According to police commissioner Francis Hall, “Words were exchanged, and then they got hold of some sort of bricks that some idiot had been passing out, and before you knew it, we had a serious rock-fight on our hands.” The police arrived quickly and broke up the brawl using a combination of pepper spray, tasers, and immobilizing foam, which one angry demonstrator quickly chastised them for, saying the company that made the foam was suspected of testing its products on animals.

When asked, the manager of Casa de Chugwater said that he would absolutely be willing to host the groups’ next get-together. “Only this time, I’ll ask for the money up-front.” The night’s final tally of raised funds, after costs and damages, was a combined six dollars and eighty-three cents, plus three boxes of surplus clay tablets, and a ball of lint. When informed of this in the police lock-up, the activists cheered, with one saying, “even better than last year!”

Humor Retrospective II

This one got me into a fair amount of hot water...

Terrorists Sue Gang-Bangers over Misappropriated Acronym

A Palestinian Terrorist Organization is suing a Los Angeles based gang for illegally using allegedly its trademarked acronym. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (or PFLP) says that it only recently became aware of the existence of the gang, known as the “Playaz Fo’ Life Posse” when they saw one of their members on the popular TV show “Cops”.

According to Popular Front veteran Ali Basher, “There was a young man getting arrested. He had a tattoo that said ‘PFLP’ and he said he wanted to give a shout-out. We were really flattered. It’s not everyday you hear about the Popular Front on the Zionist-controlled Television media. This was going to be good publicity. But then we hear, “This goes out to all my boyz down in lockdown! Playaz Fo’Life Posse 4 Eva!’”

Basher was reportedly crestfallen.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” he told reporters in an impromptu press conference held in a secret arms tunnel. “We’ve been using that acronym for over thirty years. Ask anybody.”

The historical record is on Basher’s side. Most Middle-East and terrorism experts concur that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was created in December 1967, shortly after the Six Day War. In 1968, the Popular Front joined the Palestine Liberation Organization, adopting its doctrine of “armed struggle” against Israel. Other Popular Front goals have included overturning conservative Arab regimes and combining Marxism with Palestinian nationalism. It has received the awe of terrorists worldwide for its “innovative” attacks on enemy targets.

But the Playaz Posse says these facts are irrelevant. “This is one fucked up piece of litigation, yo,” said gang leader Jamaal Stevenson, known colloquially among his peers as “Greasy Steevie”. “We’ve done our homework. The PFLP acronym is part of the public domain. There was never any filing of a trademark or copyright whatsoever.”

When asked to respond to this, a senior PFLP member responded, “Well, gee, I could have sworn we mailed it in… whatever could have happened to it… Especially since we have such great postal service! Asshole!”

Stevenson was unfazed by the criticism: “There’s nothing illegal about what we’ve done. We’re just being singled out because our organization has a high proportion of lower-class African American youths.” He cites the fact that other organizations have used the PFLP acronym in the past, and there has never been any talk of legal action against them. Stevenson, a part-time law student at UCLA, has filed a counter-suit against the PFLP on charges of race-based discrimination.

Several days ago, PFLP founder George Habash gave an exclusive interview to Barbara Walters as part of a “special” edition of “Twenty/Twenty: Friday”. In it, he responded to the allegations of racial bias and discrimination.

“First, I would like to point out that there have only been two other groups who used the PFLP name. In both cases, not only were they fellow Palestinian freedom fighters carrying on the armed struggle, but they also had the professional courtesy to change their names slightly to avoid confusion and potential conflict. The PFLP is known for two things: fighting the Zionist oppressors and our kick-ass acronym.”

Habash pointed out that the Playaz Posse had also seemingly co-opted the color red for their uniform, which has been standard Popular Front attire for decades. Stevenson fired back, calling it a “freaky coincidence”, and alleging that the colors are a sign of solidarity with another LA gang, “The Bloods”, with whom the Playaz Posse is affiliated.

“What it comes down to is this,” said Stevenson on Wednesday. “The PFLP has, at maximum, around 800 members. We have about 2,000. They are currently fenced in on all sides by the Israeli security barrier. We have freedom of movement, thanks to the mediocre but functional Los Angeles public transportation system and our ‘tricked-out rides’. They may have blown up airplanes, attacked schools, and killed disabled old men… but we tangle regularly with the LAPD. You tell me who’s more hardcore. You punks want to start a feud? We’ll fucking bury you. Now, if you want to be cool, maybe we can work something out. Like, you’ll stop being a bunch of whiny bitches, and we’ll beat up some Jews once in a while. But if you want to start shit, you better know who’s going to finish it. What’s that, Popular Front Pussies? You say something? Yeah. That’s what I thought. Bitches.”

The PFLP has yet to return comment.

Humor Retrospective I

Americans Trade Insults; Stereotypes

Today in Phoenix, Arizona, the 13^th Annual National Stereotype Swap-Meet began. Religious and cultural leaders from all over America were in attendance, and organizers said that this year’s turnout was the most diverse in the Meet’s history. “Yeah, there are still some hold-outs,” said Squanto Eisenberg, a Jewish Native-American. “For instance, those stuck-up Amish assholes still refuse to answer our calls. I don’t know what their damn problem is. Why can’t they just be cool like the Mennonites?”

The Swap-Meet is a five-day event that includes lectures and workshops on the damaging effects and historical roots of stereotypes, concluding on the final day with the actual swapping. There are several different ways of participating in the swap: one long-standing method is the Stereotype Auction, in which delegations place different stereotypes on the docket and others bid on them. Another approach is to engage in an actual exchange, such as the great Swap of ’98, in which Polish-Americans traded away their long-cherished position as focal point of many of America’s “lightbulb” jokes for French-Americans’ snotty attitude and love of cheese.

The event is not without detractors; some say it makes a mockery of the painful history of the stereotype. An outraged Reverend Al Sharpton appeared on “Larry King” last night, denouncing the Meet: “I was shocked when the Poles traded away their ‘lightbulb’ status. They earned that ridicule through years of sacrifice and perceived ineptitude. It’s part of their heritage; it can’t be given away! That would be like if blacks suddenly decided to stop playing sports, or if Jews started flunking Math. If you take away the stereotypes, you take away the culture!” In keeping with his long history of boycotting things, Sharpton has announced he will boycott the Swap-Meet.

Supporters disagree, saying the Meet is therapeutic, and allows people of different backgrounds to learn about each other without stereotypes- and then to assign them new ones on an arbitrary basis. “It’s fun!” German-Japanese-American Dieter Shizawa told reporters. “I get bored of constantly being seen as a highly-efficient Nazi who can’t drive. At least with this, I get a nice change. It also lets us explore stereotypes without all that touchy-feely crap. After all, we don’t want to look gay or anything.”

As indicated by Shizawa, this year saw the first-time attendance of members of the GLBT communities, as well as, in a startling move, a contingent of Southern White people. “We’ve been stuck in the same damn roles for well-on two hundred years,” declared Billy Frank Johansen. “Can we please get something new? I’m tired of being a Bible-thumping, sister-screwing, racist redneck. I’m thinking of trying for something Latino. Yee-haw! … I mean, Olé!”

Not surprisingly, the most popular and sought-after stereotype continues to be “largest penis size.” There have been several complaints that African-Americans have been hogging this one for way too long, and it’s time to let others take a turn. Jewish community representative Irving Feldman was particularly adamant on this point: “For thousands of years, we Jews have gotten the shit-end of the stick when it comes to stereotypes. Sure, people say we control the world through finance and media, but is that really going to help our young men on a date? I think not.”

Some other categories include: Worst drivers; Biggest alcoholics; Poorest; Laziest; Criminally-inclined; Terrorism-inclined; Unintelligent; Superior in Athletics; Ugly women; Good at Math; Good with Money; Completely unintelligible; Control the Media; and Predilection towards incest. The festivities will conclude with some wholesome family-oriented entertainment, including “Racial Slur Sack Racing,” “Who Wants to Control the Federal Reserve?” and “Civil War Clue.”

President Bush was also on hand for the opening and delivered a short address, in which he declared, “I dream of a world in which Jews are lazy, Mexicans are terrorists, Asians marry their sisters, White people control all the banks, and Sikhs have huge dongs.” Bush added that it is his hope that one day the “stupid and smelly countries” that make up the rest of the world will adopt similarly progressive views on stereotypes. “Until then, screw ‘em.”

Humor Retrospective Intro

I have been accused of many things over the years, but a small ego is not one of them. To that end, I present for you, the imaginary reader's enjoyment, and me, the narcissicistic blogger's gratification, some old humor pieces that have been kicking around my hard drive. Some are political, some aren't. Hopefully most are mildly amusing. I'll be posting a few in the next few days. If there's any positive response I might start trying my hand at this humor thing again- it might be a nice change to just fisking people all the time (I mean, how many more times can I make fun of Abir before they come beat me up? Eighteen? A hundred and twenty?)

Here's an oldie but goodie:

Lemmings Protest Offensive Game

A coalition of angry animals began a nation-wide boycott of the popular computer and video game Lemmings over the weekend, saying it perpetuates offensive stereotypes. Lemmings Against Defamation and Libel Everywhere began their protest last Friday by protesting in front of stores that carry and sell the game. Sasquatch Smith, LADLE’s National Spokes-Lemming, commented from a protest in Akron, Ohio: “It is offensive, and frankly, outrageous, that so-called responsible ‘family’ and eco-friendly companies like Walmart, Comp-USA, and Electronic Boutique are still selling games that not only misrepresent Lemming intelligence, behavior and culture, but also encourages their genocide! Why not start selling ‘Jew-hunt’ while we’re at it?”

The outrage is not limited to the Lemming community. In the past few days, LADLE has been joined by other notable activist groups, including the high-profile Ducks Opposed to Unwarranted Car Hijacking in Ecuador, as well as Sloths, Queers and Unions Antagonistic to Space Heaters.

Lemmings, originally created as a game for the Amiga computer in 1990, was extremely popular, spawning multiple platform versions such as Atari and Sega Genesis, as well as eight sequels, including Xmas Lemmings, 3D Lemmings, and, charge critics, the “extremely inappropriate” Lemmings Paintball.

The object of the first game was to guide a group of lemmings from one point to another, avoiding traps by using special abilities, such as climbing, floating, mining, building, and, most controversially, suicide-bombing. Lemmings 2: The Tribes saw the “continued exploitation” of lemming culture by introducing players to a tribal system that LADLE says is “grossly misrepresentational.”

“I don’t know where these people get their information, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard of this ‘Tribe of the Beach,’” remarked Lemming Elder Josh Digs-in-Dirt. “Those creepy, green-haired characters don’t even look anything like us. Maybe they saw one of our youngsters at a punk show and thought we all dress like that? I dunno.”

Sunshine Robinson-Greenberg, head of the human-dominated Guilt Complex Brigade, which was also in attendance, angrily pointed out, “There has only been, to my knowledge, one lemming suicide bomber in the past 50 years, and I believe they’ve repeatedly apologized for it. How much longer do they have to have it shoved into their faces?”

LADLE reiterated its fear Monday that continued sales of the game might result in increased anti-lemming hostility, discrimination, and even violence. Smith charged, “This game doesn’t merely glorify suicide among our already fragile and susceptible youth; it also glamorizes ‘helping’ us make our grand exit. What happens when little Bobby McGamer sees a poor, defenseless lemming family crossing a busy street and gets it into his head to “assist” them? After all, he probably has a lot of experience playing “Frogger”, too. I tell you, this is a hate crime waiting to happen!”

Amiga Vice-President Karen Cranston responded, “Obviously not everything in the game is 100% accurate. But that’s simply the nature of the industry. It’s called creative license, thanks very much. Why don’t these activists go after the really outrageous fact-twisters, like those Warcraft jerks?”

This is not the first time lemming activists have made national headlines. Last year the Lemming Legal Assistance Fund led a class-action lawsuit against the Walt Disney Corporation for a 1958 documentary entitled “White Wilderness”, which apparently sparked the original “Suicidal Lemmings” myth. During the trial, it was revealed that a lemming migration sequence which showed hundreds of lemmings hurtling off a cliff was in fact, faked.

LLAF Chairman Ichabod Sanchez explained: “We discovered declassified Disney documents proving that the several dozen lemmings involved in the film were kidnapped by hired Inuit goons, then cruelly herded off a cliff into a river, where most drowned. All of this was filmed and then used in the movie.” LLAF sued Disney for 15 million dollars in emotional distress and damages, as well as on charges of kidnapping, depraved-indifference, animal cruelty, and libel. The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount, and included a public apology from Walt Disney’s head (puppeteered by his younger brother Roy). Subsequent LLAF and LADLE press releases have also condemned Far Side cartoonist Gary Larson for his own role in the ongoing propagation of the “malicious suicide libel.” Larson refused to comment for this story.

Teachers and other supporters of the game argue that it teaches its players, particularly children, important problem-solving skills. Local twelve-year-old Tom Owens explained, “To advance, you need to develop observation, coordination, and teamwork. It’s kind of like Pee-Wee baseball, but without sweat.”

Yet LADLE remains unconvinced. Said Smith, “Teaching kids how to do puzzles is great. But why lemmings? Why not just give them Tetris and Jenga and be done with it?” He continued: “We only want what every advocacy group wants: recognition of our pain and suffering, and the acknowledgment that it trumps everyone else’s. If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you throw us from a great height, do we not splat? If you offend us, shall we not sue? In conclusion: God Bless America.”

Beaten to the Punch

Saw this interesting ditty over on Sultan Knish. Too bad Landoverbaptist beat him to it back in 2003. Their was funnier, too.

I had a similar experience writing The Onion-style fake news pieces for a college paper a number of years ago- several jokes I made and used wound up showing up on The Daily Show months later. I'm not saying I'm a comedic genius. Just that some of this humor isn't that hard.

Hmmm... come to think of it, maybe I'll post some of that stuff.

More from the Activist

I made the mistake of looking at Mark Oppenheimer's Slate archive and found this gem from last Yom Kippur. Not only is Mark not a fan of multiple haggadot, he also apparently is annoyed by fact that some Jews aren't praying the right way.

The rabbinic sages... never intended for Yom Kippur to be the only day of atonement, just the most important one. The Jewish tradition provides for a daily prayer of contrition, called tachanun. But with the spread of Reform and Conservative Judaism, few of whose adherents pray daily, its recitation has become scarce.

Because praying the magic penitential prayer would actually make Jews better, right? Is that the insinuation here?

In this fall away from regular contrition, Jews are hardly alone, for tachanun's slide into desuetude has mirrored a similar trend among Christians. The Christian faithful, too, used to steadily make confession. But the Reformation nearly killed off the practice among Protestants, and in the 40 years since Vatican II, Catholics have also dropped the practice en masse. On this Yom Kippur, Jews and Christians may wonder if a return to old rituals of accountability might do us some good.

Ok, first of all, Mark. "desuetude"? There's no real reason to use that word over, say, "dis-use", unless to make yourself feel smart at your reader's expense. That's what we in the biz call an "asshole move."

And you seem to be displaying the same arrogance problems you did in your other column. Yeah Jews and Catholics, get your asses in gear! You lazy bastards! Get back in the booth or in shul and feel guilty, say that tachanun, regardless of whether it means a damn thing to you or not. It's just like Amos would have wanted. It's not like Judaism really cares about sincerity anyway.

Reform Jews do not pray tachanun. But for Orthodox and even Conservative Jews—a majority of American Jews, that is—its recitation is supposed to be daily, with the exception of the Sabbath, festivals, and other joyous occasions, like the day of a wedding.

Actually, Mark, a Conservative friend of mine tells me that everybody hates doing tachanun and people use any excuse they can to avoid it- "any mildly festive occasion; the entire month of Nissan; the rebbe's son's half-birthday, or the alternate Tuesday after a full godamn moon".

Btw, Reform has been the largest American denomination for a while. Check it out: Orthos + Conservatives = 36% at most. Majority of Jews? That's some awesome math there.

I guess what I'm trying to say, Mark, is, "What the hell are you talking about?" Do you know?

The prayer generally begins by repeating David's cry in Samuel II, "Let us fall, I pray thee, into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are many, but let me not fall into the hand of men." Worshipers used to enact this "falling" by lying completely prostrate on the floor. Today, one sits and buries one's head in the crook of an arm instead. David's invocation is followed by Psalm 6 (for Ashkenazi Jews) or Psalm 25 (for Sephardic Jews), and the prayer ends with a pleading for mercy.

Except, my friend says, on Mondays and Thursdays, when they read Torah and add tons of other prayers and apparently making tachanun about eight times longer, but hey, 3 out of 5 ain't bad.

It's impossible to know how many Jews think contrite thoughts while praying tachanun. Only a minority, even of the Orthodox, are fluent in Hebrew, so while the words are deeply moving, their urgency may not be apparent to most worshipers.

Because we all know that knowing the language your prayers is written in always translates to sincerity. Just look at Protestants.

And most weekday services I have seen are conducted at such breakneck speed that real meditation on the words' import would be an unlikely feat.

Hey Mark, such is the dilemma of morning prayer- folks have jobs to go to. They aren't going to wake up even earlier to go to shul and have a meditative experience; it's just not going to happen. (More likely they'd fall asleep.) Right now you have to bribe folks with schnapps just to get them to show up.

Finally, tachanun has purposes other than begging for forgiveness; it's a general prayer of unburdening, not just of one's sins but also of one's worries and fears.

And that's great, but again, where are you going with this?

Nonetheless, putting your head down in your arm somehow reminds you that prayer is meant to be humbling, a gesture of one's own weakness. The first time I saw this embodied contrition, it was almost embarrassing to watch. It seemed to render the worshipers so vulnerable.

Mark, not to interrupt your love-fest or whatever, but I don't see the connection between using your arm as a pillow and vulnerability. If that works for you, fine, but don't make this out to be some universal thing. And my Conservative informant tells me that there's a whole bunch of laws you have to go through which dictate exactly where you put your head (in your arm, on your forearm, if there's a Torah scroll, if you're not wearing teffilin, etc). So even in the moment of nude Jewish humbleness, there's still fun rabbinical legalism. Sorry to harsh your mystic buzz.

That, I would guess, is what the Catholic rite of confession is like: naked, unprotected, scary.

Mark, please stop talking to yourself. Seriously. You are an awful religion correpondant. Why don't you freaking ASK a Catholic dude?

And just as tachanun has declined among Jews, confession (once officially known as penance, now as reconciliation) has become far less routine among Catholics, many of whom no longer know that it's required.

Hey, let's SHOOT them! Damn Catholics. This is great- now Mark is Pope of two religions. Let's get some Muslims and guilt-trip them, too.

Its decline has numerous causes. In the United States, fewer Catholic neighborhoods exist to reinforce religious observance. Vatican II's emphasis on empowering the laity led many to question their rituals for the first time, and millions decided that rote recitations of sins were unnecessary. Then, too, the status of priests has been falling for decades, and the recent pedophilia scandals make them seem the most unlikely of confessors to many.

Or maybe they just stopped wanting to do it, and so they did. I mean, the weird humiliation factor doesn't seem like it would have helped keep it a fun priority on the list.

It would be naive to think that more people performing more regular rites of contrition would instantly change the world. Regular Catholic confession did not prevent the Crusades. And I doubt that Jews were better people when they occasionally practiced now-archaic contrition rites like malkot, in which a Jew would lie on his face in synagogue the day before Yom Kippur while another lashed him 39 times with a leather strap. There's no evidence that Episcopalians who do penance are more humane than Pentecostals, who have abandoned priestly atonement rites.

Damn straight. Now where's the but, Mark?

But theologically speaking, the hope is not that my act of atonement will enact improvement on a broad scale—it's that the observance will help improve me.

But if religion is self-directed, then you should be able to reformulate whatever rituals you want.

If there's one area in which ancient religions and modern secularism are in accord, it's that our thoughts can influence our actions.

Thanks, Oprah.

Paying close attention to our failings can help us overcome them—this is why Alcoholics Anonymous works, after all, and why many people benefit from psychotherapy.

No comment.

Tachanun provides a routinized opportunity to take stock of the promises we make to ourselves. Saving up a year's worth of sins for Yom Kippur, on the other hand, can make them seem either impossible to recollect or too great to surmount. The goal is the same, to hold oneself to account, but it can elude us on the day that we feel most required to find it. Tachanun, like confession, offers chances throughout the year to find help along the way.

So are you saying people who aren't doing tachanun should? Or that this is another thing to take a look at? WHAT'S THE POINT?

Ugh. Once again, Mark, do whatever you want- but stop talking up tachanun- do YOU do tachanun, btw, Mark? You never quite clarified that- as if it's the end-all-and-be-all of Judaism. Jeez. Get the hell off your high horse and stop guilt-tripping people for, God forbid, deciding what parts of their religion they actually want to follow.

Armchair Activists

I'm occasionally accused of being an armchair activist, which isn't really true. I'd like to think I don't really tell people how to live their lives, rather, I try to expose a bit of stupid now and then and encourage people to be slightly less-assholeish. But if a family tradition, say, making your own haggadah, works for you, then go for it.

But some dudes think this is bad. Specifically, Slate's Mark Oppenheimer. It seems the idea of so many different haggadot really puts a bee in his bonnet (or, for the yeshivish, a nit in his kippah). Why?

There are only four or five important translations of the Bible into modern English, and each generation needs at most two or three translations of Homer. We couldn't possibly need so many Haggadot—the Hebrew plural—and it's worth interrogating why we think we do.

...Theologically speaking, there's no problem with multiple Haggadot. While most of the Haggadah consists of Bible verses and traditional prayers, passages of interpretation constitute a significant portion of the text, and there's nothing sacrilegious about altering them or quarreling about them at the Seder, the Passover meal...Thus a raft of modern Haggadot (and supplements to them) have been designed to provoke disputations and appeal to different ideologies: feminist, liberationist, Zionist, humanistic, multicultural, and so forth. Many people create their own Haggadot, often with themes like "freedom" or "diversity"—there's even an open-source project to customize yours.

So what's the problem? Well, because they detract from the unity of the tradition, apparently.

Diversity within a religious tradition can be a source of strength, but it can also be a weakness. One of the inarguably great aspects of religion is how it gives communities of people shared experiences: Jews the world over know about the Haggadah's "four questions," the singing of the rousing hymn "Dayeinu," and the traditional foods on the Seder plate. Although traditions vary from region to region—and the Seder, conducted in the vernacular, thus comes in as many versions as there are languages Jews speak—there are certain common Passover rituals that most Jews will recognize.

So what? Why are these things in conflict? Not everybody does Passover the same way- go to a Sephardic seder and you'll notice qite a few differences. And I did an Italian ladino version of Dayenu last year that, while a little strange, was perfectly unobjectionable.

The question, then, is how diversified and variegated a cultural tradition can get before it loses meaning to the people who invented it.

DUH?

It's one thing to add an orange to the Seder plate, an innovation meant to honor Jewish women. But what if one family uses a Haggadah that focuses on vegetarianism, while another reads from one about Palestinian liberation?

So fucking what?

Both noble causes, to be sure—but are the families celebrating the same holiday?

Considering that both haggadot are meant to give an additional context to the overlying focus of the holiday, I'd say, YES. Giving two different drashes on the same story doesn't invalidate the central commonality. What kind of question is that?

If they're not, then when their children marry someday (after a touching courtship commenced when they were counselors at a Jewish summer camp), will they see Passover as shared cultural patrimony, something that unites them, or will they have fraught quarrels about which version of the holiday to pass on to their children?

Are you serious, Mark? The biggest problem with people celebrating different versions of the same holiday is not how it affects the larger state of Jewdom, but the fact that it creates inter-Jewish mixed marriages? Shit, why not have everybody marry their cousins and be done with it. And what prevents people from using MULTIPLE haggadot? There are TWO nights you can do seders, after all, and the holiday does come around every single year. Worrying about dueling Passover haggadot is like saying that an Ashkenazi from the US shouldn't marry an Israeli because they have conflicting fried food customs on Hanukkah and their kids might feel conflicted in the great latkes versus sufganyot debate.

All traditions splinter, and the good fragments will survive while others eventually prove ephemeral. And a Judaism that was hard and unbending would be worse than one that's too flexible.

A nice freebie. What else you got, Mark?

But there is a deeper problem, I believe, with Haggadot popping up like matzo balls in April. The diversity of Haggadot is a symptom of the unease that many Jews feel about Judaism. For some, the unease is political: Passover is a holiday about liberation, so the Haggadah has special meaning to those who feel that Judaism today is insufficiently attentive to left-wing political causes. For others, the unease is just a species of what all secular Americans feel around religious tradition, and Jews like this are always looking for a Haggadah that is "contemporary" or "relevant" enough to produce religious sentiment with a minimum of embarrassment.

Hang on, the fact that Jews are actively making Judaism meaningful and relevant to them is a bad thing because it suggests Judaism isn't meaningful and relevant to them? What the hell kind of argument is that? These people are ENGAGING with their Jewish identity and tradition. As long as they aren't making up complete horseshit and claiming it was delivered on Sinai (Kabbalah Center), where's the harm?

Many Jews think that if only they could tweak the liturgy just so (or associate the religion with enough Hollywood stars) they would feel better about Judaism.

What an inane bullcrap strawman. Seriously, Adam Sandler?

Such longings misunderstand the complex nature of religion.

Which Mark Oppenheimer, prophet from Sinai, has divined through a lifetime of talking to himself.

Liberals' desire for religion purely in service to social justice is as wrongheaded as conservatives' conception of religion as social control, and "relevance" is not the only test to apply. Religion makes some of us better people some of the time, but that's not all it's good for. You could found a religion whose core teachings included universal health care and a woman's right to choose, but it would have all the aesthetic grandeur—and durability—of the Green Party.

And now aesthetics are the marker of meaning and value? So Catholicism beats the Jains because they have nicer stuff and hats? What the hell are you talking about, Mark?

I try to work for peace, animal rights, and higher taxes, but while my Judaism supports those values, I got them from my secular mom and dad. Judaism, to me, is other things: a reminder of my grandmother when I say the mourner's prayer in her memory once a year, a closeness to my neighbors, several of whom will attend a Seder at my house. It helps me appreciate the art of Genesis, say, or Bernard Malamud. Religion is richer, and more interesting, than its implications for public policy. Passover is, too.

I'm happy that Judaism has nice cultural implications for you, Mark. I'm sure it does for millions of other Jews, too. But to suggest their Judaism isn't authentic because it involves politics or tweaking the liturgy as opposed to fond memories of Bubbe or Malamud is moronic. What makes YOUR version of cultural Judaism supreme?

The Haggadah I like best is the old Maxwell House Haggadah, filled with the "little kitschy scribbles" others find objectionable. According to Maxwell House, nearly 40 million of these handy little booklets have been distributed since 1934, when the coffee company first hit on an ingenious way to win Jewish customers' loyalty. The 2007 edition is, like all its antecedents, apolitical and middlebrow, geared for mass appeal. But it's clear and concise, and, most important, my parents and my in-laws all grew up on it.

In other words, it's the nostalgia appeal. Again, great for you, Mark, but why should everybody HAVE to use the same Haggadah? I'm unconvinced it really makes a difference. And this isn't about relevance- a giant coffee can on my Haggadah isn't very relevant to me, either- how about a little variety once in a while? If you want to use the reprint of the Haggadah your alter zeide brought with him smuggled in his colon as he fled the Cossacks from darkest Belarus, go ahead, but why knock other people's minhags? Aren't they as legitimate- and pigheadedly subjective- as your own?

What it lacks in poetry, it makes up in ubiquity. It's the Haggadah most evocative for my extended family, and there's majesty in that simple claim, a claim that no better, smarter, more beautiful edition could ever make.

Everybody's tradition was new once, Mark. If you like Maxwell House, then that's your choice. But OWN it, damn it. Don't pretend like the Maxwell House haggadah is timeless or without its own contexts, an ancient custom that miraculously appeared and was passed down from Moses or found in a cave somewhere. It's a freaking coffee company, for crying out loud, this isn't like some esoteric secret the Baal Shem Tov pulled out of his ass. In your rush to avoid being "trendy" or relevant, you're forgetting that every choice we make about what traditions, rites or rituals we follow is itself a choice- and I for one don't see what's gained by making everybody march to the beat of a single drum, or making everybody read Hebrew in the same Yiddish pronunciation (or Sephardic, for that matter!)

No, another new Haggadah won't "transform" Passover- but since when has that been the claim? And is the alternative, magically eliminating everybody else's family haggadot except for the one YOU like, somehow supposed to bring people together? Judaism is heterodox, it IS pluralistic, and ESPECIALLY when it comes to home observance- that's part of what makes us so interesting as a religious civilization and a people. Yes, part of religion is the sense of community and shared experience, but that doesn't have to be the result of some enforced uniformity. We are a people, but we're also individuals. We're families, AND we're family. That's how it's been for as long as anyone can remember, for better or worse, and that's what we've got to work with. We can't go back to a single tradition, and I for one wouldn't want to.

Mark, do what makes you happy- make your own decisions, and your own traditions- like we've all been doing for thousands of years, and with any luck, will keep doing. Just don't rain on my parade.

Long Overdue

Recent searches:

- "Yehoshua Sofer". We're here, we're crazy. Get used to it.

- "Lazer Brody Abir". Should I feel bad about giving these guys so much free advertising?

- "Ger Hasidism". Awesome hats.

- "Wanting to move to Bat Ayin". Get your head examined.

- "The Book of Pat". A bit of a snooze. Try the Book of Jerry instead.

- "Vatican Guidelines Purchasing True Cross Relics". I'm going to assume there's a memo on this somewhere in their archives. Probably in the same box as all the missing Pius XII documents.

- "Seder Orange Joke". I do not have high hopes for this joke.

- "Friar Yid". At your service.

- "Lazer Brody Racist". Only when he talks about the death of Palestinian kids as wonderful acts of God.

- "Passover Dietary Limits Non-Europeans". You get rice. Which means you can technically have Passover Sushi. Bastards.

- "Orange Rind Seder Plate Feminist". Sounds like a new brand of women's lib fine china. I'm sure my mother would buy some.

- "2007 Alcoholics Anonymous Rape Allegations Against Bob". Man, Bob, this year doesn't seem to be off to a very good start for you. Maybe you should take up cocaine.

- "Painting of the Moschiach by Schwartz". What?

- "Jon Stewart's 9-11 Speech". I am pretty damn sure I have nothing about that here. This may also explain why I have so few readers.

And lastly,

- "Only I Have the Answer Chocolate". Yeah, you tell that chocolate who's boss! Thinks it's so big.

What the Hell is wrong with the IDF?

This isn't an anti-Israel rant, it's an anti-bureaucratic idiocy rant.

Seriously. What. The. Hell.

The soldier sought help from the boot camp doctor after his testicles had become swollen and he suffered from acute pain. The doctor, however, sent him back to serve, telling him he was entirely fit and that he might suffer from a reaction to bad food he may have eaten. The soldier was not even offered a physiological examination by the doctor.

...The affair took a radical turn three months into his basic training, after the soldier's commander refused to release him to a scheduled doctor's appointment. According to the radio, the officer yelled at the soldier to return back to his company in ten seconds, but he refused to leave the office. The soldier insisted on remaining in the office after his superior imposed yet harsher penalties on him, telling him he would not be allowed to complete his basic training.

In his despair, the soldier left his superior's office indignant only to return with his rifle several minutes later, threatening the officer with the weapon in order to be allowed to undergo thorough medical checkups.

At the trial, the soldier's attorney did not bring the fact that his client's behavior stemmed from his deteriorated health and the pain he was in to the court's attention.

The court sentenced the soldier to ten months in an army prison, where the jail doctor declared him fit to serve his term. In prison, the soldier's condition continued to worsen.

The much longed-for help finally came after another doctor in prison referred the soldier to ultrasound examinations at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, diagnosing him with hydrocele. At the hospital, doctors immediately identified a malignant tumor in his testicles and sent him for a partial orchiectomy.

Being still a prisoner, the army assigned a watch on the soldier's hospital room during his treatment, and he is still under watch.

...The IDF said in response that the soldier had not complained of pain or swollen testicles, and that he was sentenced to ten months for illegal use of his weapon. Once his condition became clear, the army said, a recommendation was issued beyond the letter of the law to shorten his jail term.

The guy had to threaten to shoot someone, and then they still sent him to jail. It's like something out of Kafka. Jesus tap-dancing Christ. Let's see if anyone in Israel goes to bat for this guy. There's got to be some response to this.

On JTS and Gays

So it's official (and I'm late, but so what), the Conservative movement is going to ordain gay rabbis. As some of you might have suspected, I'm in favor of this, but not just because I love homos. I also think this is an important step for JTS in grappling with its own intellectual honesty. The Conservative Movement knows full well that it isn't Orthodox, or even Orthodox-lite, and past teshuvahs have reflected this. The CM has made umpteen innovations over the years, from driving to Shabbos to declaring swordfish kosher. Invariably it has alternately been accused of selling out tradition for convenience and popularity and dooming itself by making controversial choices that will "split the movement", the eternal buzzword of terror.

But the reality is that if CM is supposed to be about anything, it should be having modern Jews grapple with halachic tradition, and via a specific process- that's supposed to be what distinguishes Conservative from Reform, at least structurally. For better or worse, Reform emphasizes individual autonomy, whereas Conservative follows its rabbinical bodies, trying to make up for what appears to be control by a small aristocracy by allowing multiple conflicting rulings, effectively creating a spectrum of permissible practice. In theory, I think this is a very interesting idea, in some ways reflective of the interpretive diversity illustrated in the Talmud and other pre-Modern Jewish sources. But at the same time, I think this approach is ultimately more useful, and appealing, on an intellectual level, to scholars and academics, than it is a practical program to keep a movement together. As sad as it may sound, one of the reasons Reform and Orthodoxy are gaining numbers at the CM's expense has to do with the relative clarity of their message: chuck the law, or keep the law. The nuance of the CM, particularly its insistence on having several permissible interpretations, precludes it from having any ideological unity or cohesiveness.

Now, this doesn't have to be an inherent problem, but the reason that this keeps coming up is the phenomenon of the wedge issues- first women rabbis, now gay rabbis, and in a few years, intermarriage and patrilineal descent. When the discussion in question has to do with formulating a policy, in determining whether or not CM is going to abolish something or keep it, it really can't say "both" and claim any pretense of intellectual honesty- and that is partially what alienates it from its rank-and-file. People who want to hear a definitive yes or no on an issue they feel strongly about aren't going to be satisfied with a "some say yes, some say no" answer. Conservative Jews who see the issue of ordaining gay rabbis as being part and parcel of the movement for egalitarianism and human rights aren't going to settle for a half-way solution.Ditto for CJs who see any concession to gays, particularly in the rabbinate, as rejecting halakha. Whether correct or not, these issues have become presented as zero-sum-games, and the Law Committee attempting to have it both ways without first working to counteract this impression only results in pissing off everybody while they spend years hemming-and-hawing before finally doing what everyone suspected they were going to do, which is accept gay rabbis. This is also good for CM's intellectual honesty because the movement was ALREADY allowing rabbis who came out after ordination to keep their jobs, making the whole question particularly absurd- once you allow practicing rabbis to be gay, you really can't still argue for keeping gays out of the seminary.

Some Orthos are understandably pissed. Some are downright wacked. They're using this to smear the CM once again, accusing it of violating halakha, divorcing itself from real Judaism, and so on. They say this reflects the trend of moral relativism, soon they'll have to ordain pedophiles and people who hump sheep (speaking of sheep, btw...) Of course, a lot of this is standard Conservative-bashing as well as an excuse to bitch about gays, as a cursory perusal of the above posts' comments show. What the Orthodox fail to understand (likely deliberately) is that this isn't about the CM rejecting halakha wholesale for "convenience's" sake, or about them willfully "violating the will of God"- rather, it reflects a difference in how they view the mizvot themselves. The CM is looking at this mizvah through the same eyes it did when it allowed women to sit with men, read Torah, and be cantors and rabbis, or when it abolished levirate marriage. It had nothing to do with a conscious desire to reject God or Judaism, it was about making a choice to change the tradition to reflect their movement's values, and the fact that most of their members stayed with them shows that it also echoed what most CJs believed, as well. The CM never worried about whether telling widows they didn't have to marry their husbands' brothers meant they were out of the club; it was in keeping with their conception of halakha as an evolving system that can be legitimately changed via the right process.

Though these divisive issues are always painful, in some ways I think they're necessary in order to give CM a little clarity on exactly what it's standing for. I don't think splits are a good thing, but in its attempt to remain one big tent, CM ultimately winds up alienating more people. If it can figure out exactly where its red lines are, by contrast, then it may be able to do a better job of keeping its members- if its politics aren't to people's liking, they'll go somewhere else (Orthodoxy, most likely, given the general trend of the movement as of late)- but if they don't start firmly reasserting who and what they are, there won't be anything left for people to identify or affiliate with at all. Incidentally, I don't think the ideal for CJ is to become a Reform clone, either- if all it has going for it is more Jewish literacy, a more traditional prayerbook and a few more (theoretical) mitzvah restrictions, I don't particularly see why it should stick around. Instead of defining itself by what it does or doesn't allow, CM needs to examine exactly what it's supposed to BE and move from there.

Levirate marriage was seen as archaic and outmoded, they got rid of it, and life went on. Most likely, this will be the case with gay rabbis as well. The movement may be on the decline, but it has more to do with it occupying the always-precarious middle position and the fact that it's hard to be a serious Conservative Jew and believe in it. The movement may be fighting a losing battle against time and low numbers, but ultimately those and the existential definition issue will be the deciding factor in its future, not wedge issues.

Orange on the Seder Plate... Who Knew?

An almost 30-year-old non-Ortho Jewish urban legend debunked and clarified. Interesting stuff.

Those Bay Area Jewish women who placed oranges on their seder plates last week probably explained the act something like this:

It all began when Susannah Heschel, a leading Jewish feminist scholar, was lecturing at a synagogue in Miami. As she spoke, an elderly rabbi stood up and declared, "A woman belongs on the bimah like an orange belongs on the seder plate."

Thus to show support for the changing role of women in American Jewish society, the tradition of placing an orange on the seder plate began, and Heschel became a household name at many Passover celebrations around the globe.

That's more or less the version I heard, except I've also encountered a variant that said it was a reference to female rabbis.

The only problem is, according to Heschel herself, the story isn't true.

"What you hear is not what actually happened," she recently told a crowd at the Marin Jewish Community Center program on "Women who Shook the Jewish World." "It's been circulating for a long time and it's become a bit of an urban legend."

Here's what actually happened:

Heschel was visiting a college in the Northeast where she learned that some of the students had started placing crusts of bread on their seder plates as a way to express the exclusion of women and homosexuals from Judaism.

Heschel thought this was great. But since it violated the Passover dietary restrictions, she decided to modify the act, placing an orange on the plate instead of the bread crust to represent both women and homosexuals.

"The first year I used a tangerine," the mother of two revealed to the packed room of mostly women and some men. "Everyone at the seder got a section of it and as we ate it we would spit out the seeds in solidarity with homosexuals -- the seeds represented homophobia."

Oops. Go urban legends based on modicums of truth! Also, another victory for "the man" co-opting rituals and ideas and draining them of their original content!

Heschel, chair of the Jewish studies program at Dartmouth College, said she was "horrified" at first by the way the story of the orange metamorphosed.

One, "they took my idea and put it into a man's mouth." Two, "they erased the whole idea of the homophobia that needs to be spit out."

Yeah, boo hoo for you and everybody else who's ever gotten their ideas ripped off. It's a curse of popularity, ma'am. The same thing happened to your Dad, Maimonides, Jesus, and pretty much anybody people encounter in a college survey course.

Of course, this Passover might see oranges appearing on some Orthodox seder plates- though probably for a different reason.

Object Lesson?

So... is the point that I shouldn't think this story kicks ass?

Sigh

They say people deal with loss and mourning in different ways. When my grandfather died from a heart attack at age 48, his immigrant mother tried to console my grandmother by telling her it was all "part of God's plan".

"How can you say that?" she cried. "What kind of God would leave me a widow with two young children and no way to support them?"

Great-grandma had no response.

When my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor (benign and more-or-less easily removable, thank God) a week before my seventeenth birthday, I called a close friend. He was the first one I told. He also told me that "everything happens for a reason." I nearly hung up on him.

In the many years since then, I have looked back and realized that, if the tumor (which had been growing for years and was then the size of an orange) had to be discovered and removed, my junior year was the best time for it to happen. But I do not see a plan there, only "happy" coincidence. I do not have a conception of God who makes such plans. My mother has greatly recovered, but will never be the same (you don't slice things out of the brain without consequences or side effects). There is no plan in that, only the best outcome of a horrible situation.

I can appreciate the desire to view horrible things as part of a divine scheme, though I cannot buy into it. And yet, at the moment when a loved one dies, or a friend is suffering, what can you say? Is it ethical to give pat answers that may comfort them? And if you know it will only make things worse? During the year when my mother was recovering (including several return trips to the hospital to address hemorrhaging and Grand Mal Seizures), we often received what my brother and I referred to as "pity calls". I observed then that the vast majority of the callers seemed to be calling more for themselves than for us- every card, every conversation, seemed to be more about them unloading their feelings onto us, treating us as their therapists, than asking us how we were doing. It was particularly ironic, given the fact that my mother works in Mental Health and many of her friends and colleagues are psychiatrists.

When I had friends who lost parents, I did the only thing I could- I tried to be honest. I didn't tell them it would be ok. I didn't tell them "they're in a better place", or that "it's for the best", or any such horsecrap. I also didn't try to tell them I knew how they felt- I didn't. My mother hadn't died. We got to take her home, not bury her. All I could do was tell them I was there and that we could talk if they wanted to. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. But that was the only thing I could do that I could honestly say I would have wanted someone else to say to me.

So watching this, what can I say? My heart breaks. I think it's the biggest crock ever, and part of me wants to scream at this man's friends, to ask how they can do this, trying to explain this death away, making up a fantastical story about prophecies and allusions and gematria. I don't think this way, my brain and heart don't operate this way, and my God, if he exists, doesn't do the things theirs does. I can't accept this.

But I also know that they're crying on the inside, and that this is their way of dealing with their grief, and trying to honor their friend.

And so I can say nothing.

Searching

Google searches bringing people to yours truly.

- "Yid blog". Yes.

- "Video history channel the siege of Jerusalem 1948". Considering the recent crap the History Channel's been up to (and some of its old chestnuts), I'd just as soon prefer it defer this project for a while. Say, like, until the Second Coming of Nostradamus. Some interesting analysis here on the topic, btw.

- "Kosher Wigs in Miami". Total waste now that the whole city's been banned. Co-ed beaches and all.

- "Kabbala Satmar Wikipedia". Slightly less of a waste of time, since arguing about the first two on the last one can provide hours of entertainment, especially if you're willing to ask a knowledgable friend to translate the comments cursing you out in Yiddish.

- "How does Bobov compare to Satmar?" I'm going to go out on a limb and say they're slightly less nuts, though they seem to be trying their hardest to counter this image (this page has since been gutted to minimize what one poster is sure will "eventually" just be a footnote in Hasidic history, scroll down for the juicy bits). Good luck with that, guys. I'm sure if you work hard, eventually people will think you're just as crazy as Satmar and Chabad (though you'll have to put in extra effort to overtake Neturei Karta).

- "Burlap Sack with hole Orthodox Jewish Sex" Burlap? Sounds chaffing. Come on, man, it's the twenty-first century. We have things like silk and cotton blends now. Just as long as they're shatnez.

Help a Brother Out

What kind of hat is this? All I know is it sort of reminds me of Hamid Karzai's, and I want one.

Name Contest for the 2006 Israeli War

Now that the higher ups have finally agreed the summer "conflict" was, in fact, a war, the race is on to find a good name for it. YeshivaWorld gives us the scoop on some of the favorites:

Many names have been suggested to the committee, including: War of the North, Shield of the North War, The Second Lebanon War, Peace for the North War, War of the Captives, Operation Homeland Defense, and The War to Return the Captives.

War of the North? Were you guys fighting Caribou? And "Peace for the North War" is about as 1984-speak as calling the first foray into Lebanon, "Operation Peace in the Galilee".

Also, if I were them, I would avoid calling to attention to the whole "captives" thing, especially since they still haven't gotten them back.