I wonder what possible motive Aljazeerah could have had in posting this story on their website:

You thought of him as an Irish American Catholic. But John Kerry, Democratic presidential candidate, has Jewish roots

From cnn.com:

"Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek escaped injury when he apparently fell asleep at the wheel of his pickup truck and it drifted off a road, sideswiped a string of mailboxes and crashed into a ditch, the California Highway Patrol said.

Do we think more or less of Al Franken owing to these revelations? We're not sure.

Tonight:

8 p.m. to 11 p.m. -- Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's Second Annual ``Flavors of the Middle East'' fund-raiser; Carriage House, 149 East 38th St.

Chabad territorial dispute in New Jersey may turn on messianic debate:

However, outside observers, speaking off the record, suggested that the matter is rooted in the feud that has split the Chabad-Lubavitch world since the charismatic Schneerson died in 1994 ? a split between those who believe the Rebbe is Moshiach, or Messiah, and those who do not.
Although no one would speak openly about such matters, one observer noted off the record that Beis Moshiach ? House of the Messiah ? a publication of the messianist Lubavitch movement, is said to be readily available at Carlebach?s center, and the Yechi prayer, a prayer for the Rebbe?s return, is said to be regularly recited at services conducted under the auspices of the Chabad House at Rutgers. The Yechi prayer ? ?Long live our master, our teacher and our rabbi, King Messiah, for ever and eternity? ? is considered a touchstone of the messianist faction of Chabad.

One question that is relevant to ask about the Noonan/Gibson interview: How is it that Noonan is stil covering this beat when her most popular reporting on the story -- the Pope's endorsement -- turned out to be a sham?

Yeshivat Noam in Teaneck is hosting a fundraising concert with the Blue Fringe Band and Avraham Fried; two more disparate performers, I belive you could not find. The ad they've got up at OnlySimchas I find pretty funny:

On "The 5th Wheel" right now, Micah Katz, former neighbor, attended Yeshiva High school in Atlanta; dunno where he went in Israel or what have you. What is it with guys I used to know and dating shows? Is this just inevitable with the huge growth of reality television?
Strangely, his friend Jeff is referring to Micah as a Lutheran that he met in seminary; Micah says he was engaged twice. Public lives of the people we know: wacky.

Mel Gibson talks the Holocaust (via Bernstein at Volokh).

'YOU'RE GOING to have to go on record. The Holocaust happened, right?" Peggy Noonan asks of Mel Gibson in the Reader's Digest for March.
Gibson: "I have friends and parents of friends who have numbers on their arms. The guy who taught me Spanish was a Holocaust survivor. He worked in a concentration camp in France. Yes, of course. Atrocities happened. War is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps. Many people lost their lives. In the Ukraine, several million starved to death between 1932 and 1933. During the last century, 20 million people died in the Soviet Union."

Noonan pushed him about the Holocaust because of accusations that the actor's father questions the attempted extermination of all Jews by Hitler. Of his dad, Gibson says, "My dad taught me my faith, and I believe what he taught me. The man never lied to me in his life."

Noonan: "Give me the headline you want to see on the biggest paper in America the day after 'The Passion' opens."
Gibson: "War Ends."

Did you guys know about Yiddish Google? (Thanks, Dave)

Two feminism/female-related events next month:
1) JOFA conference, February 15-16
2) OZ Women's Health Program, February 22

Elder Avraham calls plagiarism on parody site Frum.net. What gives?

EphShap is starting a new blog devoted to idiocy and is seeking contributors.

After a three-week break, Jewsweek's new issue is up.

So it just occurred to me that the New York Jewish Film Festival takes place in January, and that I might have missed it; sure enough, today is the last day. Check it out, though, as individual films may soon be heading to a theater near you.

In yesterday's Reliable Source, we had a Jewish senator (Lautenberg) getting hitched, and an antisemitic Congressmember (Moran) getting engaged. At least they can agree on one thing: they both married women just over two-thirds their own age.

Shakeup at the BBC following a damning government report.

I agree that it's a pleasure to watch scandal envelop those newsy brits, but does the Jpost article on the subject need to be classified as news when it's as editorialized as any article I've ever seen? Note that it's not marked as analysis...

Yuter sends in a link to The Brick Testament. Of course, as we've said before, it's not only the ultra-Orthodox that have a problem with nutters.
The ratings system is hilarious; Luke Skywalker as Isaac -- precious.

"Oh, crap, we paid off the wrong rabbi." Yada finds this gossip column, which cites criticism of Madonna from a Kabbalah rabbi for her allowing hunting on her property.

"Three hundred years ago, it was quite acceptable for people to shoot and hunt for food,? Ian Broadmore, head of the Kabbalah School at Hellingly in East Sussex told the London Evening Standard. ?But there is a world of difference between that and shooting birds for fun. The birds are part of creation, created by God, and as such, are part of God.?

"Apparently there is more than one Kaballah organization," says Madonna's rep, who points out that the group criticizing the singer is not the same one Madonna belongs to.

A note: please don't paste entire articles into comments; a link will do fine.
As well, please don't post things knowing they're unrelated; please just e-mail such things, instead.

There are two cute stories out there with Yeshiva University's name in them.
In the first YU is cited as a potential visit in Hanan Ashrawi's tour of the United States; our sources tell us that Sociology Professor James Vrettos has been hoping for this, but that YU's PR department didn't know about it. So what's gonna be? A disinvitation? A requirement that she debate if she comes?
The second, from Reader Shaya, has YU head and shoulders above all other schools on the students-studying-abroad front. Cute, but oh so artificial.

You never thought it would happen, but I've been singled out as too frum by Meredith. In response to my earlier post making light of the rabbi who was upset to find restaurants claiming to be serving veal were actually serving pork, Meredith writes:

There's a palpable distinction in Jewish law between sins committed be'meizid, intentionally (Brenner: "Gimme the pork chop special", Waiter: "Sure"), and be'shogeg,unintentionally (Brenner: "Actually, make that a veal tenderloin", Waiter: "Riiight"). Weiss is correct in noting that veal, a cut of meat which can be kosher if slaughtered and prepared correctly, is treyf if prepared in a non-kosher eatery. But that"s no reason to take beef (sorry, I couldn't resist) against a Jew who opts for treyf veal instead of pork. Better treyf veal than being oiver, in violation, the additional prohibition of eating a pig. When someone tries to keep one mitzvah you shouldn't go off on him for not keeping another.

Joseph A. D’Agostino, the associate editor of a very very right-wing conservative online magazine, Human Events, screams about the ADL, Abe Foxman and “The Passion of the Christ”

ADL Continues Anti-Christian Jihad

Now that Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Director Abraham Foxman has finally seen Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, he still doesn't like it... Perhaps Foxman wants Gibson to ignore the involvement of the Jewish establishment at that time in the death of Christ, and perhaps he himself wants to ignore the movie's reportedly unambiguous portrayal of the pagan Pontius Pilate's responsibility for the death of Christ...

Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights President William Donohue has been doing battle with Foxman and ADL... "Regarding the Mel Gibson movie, The Passion of the Christ, you were quoted... '[Gibson is] hawking it on a commercial crusade to the churches of this country. That's what makes it dangerous.' This is very disturbing...To say the film is dangerous because the people who are previewing it are church-going Christians is an insult to practicing Christians..."

Foxman... twists every fact to fit his theory that the movie...portrays Jews and only Jews as responsible for the death of Christ. For example, he co-authored an op-ed...that said:

"In Mr. Gibson's film, there is absolutely no ambiguity as to who is responsible for the death of Jesus—it is the Jews. Roman soldiers are seen bribing Jews to come out en masse to his trial by the Sanhedrin..."

So aren't the Romans involved in getting together this bloodthirsty crowd? Aren't they partially responsible...?

Police believe bomb found in Tel Aviv's Azrieli complex tied to criminal activity

Police said Wednesday afternoon that the suspicious object found in the underground parking lot of Tel Aviv's landmark Azrieli Towers skyscraper complex was indeed a bomb and was probably connected to criminal figures...

Shoppers had to be evacuated from the mall while police sappers supported by fire crews midday Wednesday removed the suspicious object. The pedestrian bridge over the Ayalon freeway linking the mall to a train station was also closed...

Tel Aviv police chief Yossi Sedbon said earlier in the day that it was initially unclear whether the device, which Israel Radio said weighed some two kilograms and was connected to a cellular telephone, was really a bomb or a fake.

Police sappers took the device to an isolated area for a controlled explosion.

Since the World Trade Center attacks in 2001, Israeli security officials have voiced fears that terrorists might try to strike at the complex in a "mega-terror strike," its two tall towers a symbol of Tel Aviv as the nation's commercial and financial center.

It is also located adjacent to the Kirya Defense Ministry compound, Israel's Pentagon.

Whew! And I thought the Orthodox community was closeted.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no...oh, wait.

(Thanks, Josh)
Oh, hey, caption contest.

Israeli Affirmative Action

Panel says 8% of civil servants must be Arab by 2007

Eight percent of civil servants will be Arabs and people from other minorities within three years, the Ministerial Committee for the Non-Jewish Sector, headed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, decided on Tuesday.

This decision follows an order by Sharon earlier this month that every state-run company must have at least one representative of Israel's Arab community on its board of directors by August.

The committee decided last August to adopt a plan to promote equality in the state-run companies. As part of the plan, the panel ruled that 8 percent of state employees must be from the non-Jewish sector, including Arab Christians and Muslims, Druze and Bedouin, within the next three years, rising to 15 percent the following year. All ministries and government offices will have to comply with the decision.

Houston restauarants serve pork instead of veal, religious indignation ensues:

"That's incredible. It's scandalous," said Rabbi Brenner Glickman, the president of the Houston Rabbinical Association and a rabbi at Beth Israel Synagogue, when I told him about the test results.
Serving pork and calling it veal is one of the most onerous frauds in the restaurant industry. The eating of pork is forbidden to Jews and Muslims, and deceiving them into eating it is a violation of their civil rights.
Jews who keep strictly kosher and Muslims who keep strictly halal can't eat in most restaurants. But Glickman explained that the majority of Houston Jews attempt to follow the spirit of kosher law rather than keeping strictly kosher.
"I do not personally keep a strict kosher diet," he said. "Like many Jews, I like to eat out in restaurants, but I abstain from ordering dishes with pork or bacon or shellfish. So this issue is very relevant to me. Substituting pork for veal is reprehensible. It means that Jews who eat in these restaurants who are trying to observe their religion are being deceived into violating the Torah. It's repulsive."
Glickman said that lots of people think Jews don't eat pork because of some outdated fear of trichinosis, but that's not true. Biblical scholars more accurately describe the avoidance of pork by Jews as a deep-seated religious taboo. "Eating pigs is to us what eating horses or eating dogs is for other Americans," Glickman said with disgust.
"Substituting pork for veal is doubly immoral," said Sheikh Omar Inshanally, imam at the Main Center of the Islamic Society of Houston, North America's largest Islamic community organization. "Not only is it dishonest business, it is also interfering with somebody else's faith." The Islamic community is particularly vulnerable to this kind of cheating, he said.
"Muslims who are trying to consume only halal products have to rely totally on the information provided by the seller," he said. "The label on the bottle or the words on a menu are all we have to go by if we're trying to stay halal. Even if Muslims aren't very devout, they still won't eat pork. Substituting pork for veal is a major, major offense to us as Muslims."
Salman Al-Khatib, a spokesman for Houstonmuslims.com, said that the news of these tests will have a major impact on many Houston ethnic communities. "In the Pakistani and Indian tradition, from the time of childhood, you don't eat pork. What people don't realize is that halal is a very serious concept. These are foods that are prohibited by God."

I've been spending the larger part of the morning reconstructing my address book; if I should have your phone numbers, please drop me an e-mail.

A few people, but most recently Rabbi Uri Goldstein, sent in a link to coverage of the Nefesh conference. The headline, "Piousness may mask an emotional disorder," while nothing new to readers of The Commentator, volume LXV, is news to most of the J-comm, it seems.

Today, no one disagrees with the fact that people with obsessive-compulsive disorders can easily hide among the ultra-Orthodox community, which might mistakenly interpret the individual's over-meticulous attention to the observance of the commandments as piousness.

Professor Twerski's lecture on "Dilemmas Facing Mitzvah-Observant Families in the Modern Era," reflects the revolution that has occurred in recent years in ultra-Orthodox society, which today recognizes the fact that alongside conducting a religious lifestyle and the observance of the commandments, religious people also need mental health, satisfaction and meaning in their lives.

Read and scroll down.

Numerous people have credulously e-mailed in the link to the FrumRoller. A number of bloggers have linked to it, credulously as well.
EuroTrash e-mailed last week with easy identifiers for why it's fake:
1) While the need for a stroller for eight kids borders on the impossible, the product description advertises hand-holds for an additional eight kids to walk alongside. Sixteen kids can't be done, no matter how much IVF one's willing to go through.
2) The URL is screwy, and if you click on anything you get a regular URL.
3) The root, Frum.net, is a parody site.
QED.

For fear of further promoting the uber-geekiness that is Lord of the Rings fanaticisim, I was considering not linking to this source-criticism parody. Surely, we can all agree, at least this is an example of the method going too far. (via Easterblogg)

Feeling a bit nauseous...
The actual headline to this story isn't as bad as how it's referenced on Newsday's front page: Hipsters Explore 'Kosher Fabulosity'
<'shudder'>
A very late feature on the whole Jewcy thing.

With no advertising, save Web logs and word of mouth, the T-shirt has become the accoutrement of choice for a new breed of Jewish hipsters from Manhattan to Los Angeles. They listen to bands like the Hasidic New Wave and Hip Hop Hoodios, delight in the Yiddish-inflected humor of the magazine Heeb: The New Jew Review, and read a new raft of young, transgressive Jewish writers.

"I think it's too soon and too inchoate to call it a movement yet, but I really do believe there is something profound and exciting going on right now with young Jews who are trying to connect with Judaism in thoroughly untraditional and in thoroughly new ways," said Joshua Neuman, 31, publisher and editor of the 2-year-old Heeb.

And so today, NY Daily News readers know what Protocols readers already knew:

What would Jesus gross?: Mel Gibson has been accused of a lot of things since he made "The Passion," his controversial movie chronicling the crucifixion of Christ. But nobody accuses him of ignoring the Hollywood profit motive. National Public Radio is set to report today that Gibson is planning a whole line of products timed to the film's release next month, including "Passion" T-shirts and other merchandise. Gibson flack Alan Nierob tells NPR that every studio licenses film-related tchotchkes, and his client would be foolish to do otherwise.

I know that any fool can criticize, but I just can’t hold back. What the hell is up with JTA!? On Tuesday, this was posted as breaking news:

‘Fiddler’ tradition begins anew

A revival of “Fiddler on the Roof” opened on Broadway last Friday. The revival of the musical about life in a shtetl first opened in 1964. Alfred Molina stars as Tevye, the role popularized by Zero Mostel in the original.

Jewish liberals who hit critics. Add Al Franken to the list already occupied by Thomas Friedman and Chaim Seidler-Feller.
So, as a Jewish liberal, I begin to wonder: Is it my destiny to deck someone soon? And whom? But then I remember: I'm not a useless, aging Boomer whose lifelong ambitions have long since found their fulfillment zenith and now left to wallow in sorrow and pretend to an engagement with reality.
(via Jarvis)

For those who've been reqesting it, our RSS feed is: http://protocols.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Hi, all.

The yarmulkebra certainly is thought-provoking. But I believe that our purveyor of the scurillous skullcap was anticipated by Susan Jacobs, an artist from the Upper West Side who has been mass-producing a form-fitting tallit katan for women since 1999. As The Jewish Week reported in April of 2001, Jacobs faced a fair amount of criticism for her creation:

...in December of 1999, when Jacobs first revealed her creation to the
public, jaws dropped. Some viewers were horrified by the sensuality of the holy
garment -- a spaghetti strap, white silk camisole with tzitzit attached to four
brilliant corners, covered in metallic fabrics of golden and turquoise weave.


Unfortunately, neither Jacobs nor the maker of the yarmulkebra realizes that their fight to publicize the connection between feminine sexuality and the performance of Jewish religious rites with holy objects has already been won. No fair-minded person would deny any Jewish woman the opportunity to don a religious garment; the development of religious objects specially crafted for women simply represents an outgrowth of this progressive advance in the Jewish community.

In truth, with regard to allowing women to participate fully in Jewish religious practice, there remains only one insidious instance of religious discrimination - the practice of bris milah, male circumcision. So long as we do not encourage our daughters to pierce, perforate, or otherwise puncture their reproductive organs in the name Judaism, we cannot rightly proclaim our commitment to the cause of religious gender equity. Let us hope that the light of truth will soon penetrate our religious blindness.

Nissan's got a new car out, the Murano. It's kinda like a minivan masquerading as an SUV; how appropriate.

Via Radosh, the Yarmulkebra, a bra made of yarmulkes. Elderly Jewish women await the Snoodbra with bated breath.

Tonight:

7 p.m. -- Congressmen Gary Ackerman, Gregory Meeks and Anthony Weiner are scheduled to speak at a Queens Jewish Community Council forum on the U.S., Israel and the war on terrorism; Young Israel of Holliswood.

10 a.m. -- Ben's Kosher Deli's matzo ball eating contest; deli, 209 W. 38th St.

The Forward ran perhaps the most Chirac-sympathetic account of the headscarf issue; it doesn't quote a single dissenting voice. The story was written by a relatively-secular French Jew; is that what caused the difference? Either way, the story is not a balanced report, and shouldn't have passed the editors' desk without that perspective.
One aspect of French education highlighted in the story is the fact that private religious schools can receive government funding; the fact that such an issue is worth so little mention in France and a subject of much debate in the United States speaks to Americans' efforts to separate church and state properly. Of course, France doesn't think the church has any role in government either. How to make these realities cohere? Answer that the French don't recognize religion's existence.

I usually make a habit of not arguing with those who are far more intelligent than I am. Today, however, I am willing to make an exception for William Safire in light of his most recent column in the Times.

Much to his Conservative chagrin, Safire sees that many Democrats are fleeing Howard Dean, who has been branded as unelectable, for the safer duo of Kerry and Edwards. Safire wisely takes aim at this pair, not missing an opportunity to knock Wesley Clark as well:

But the political philosophy these two men have embraced is lopsidedly leftist: In this campaign, they have clawed their way up the greasy pole of politics with a pitch that is pure populism. Both men have risen high in Democratic polls with a brand of class resentment and soak-the-rich rhetoric rooted in the old-fashioned liberalism of Ted Kennedy.
I used to think that the battle within the Democratic Party would pit the centrist Clinton Restoration, using Clark as its sacrificial lamb this time around, against the maverick antiwar, antiestablishment legion that Dean had excited. Though Dean also railed against the rich, his signature attraction was his antiwar anger.
As Dean machine-gunned himself in the foot -- in gaffes that dismayed Iowans weeks before his primal pep talk -- his support did not switch to Clark, the inept amateur handled and financed by the Clintonites. Instead, many disillusioned Deaniacs went to a third faction that has long been lying in the Democratic weeds: the proponents of class warfare propounded for a generation by Ted Kennedy.

Class warfare may work in primaries but tends to backfire in the general election. Would it work for Kerry-Edwards? Ask Al Gore.

A postscript to my last post on the ADL and the Passion film. Apparently, Foxman spoke with the LA Times on Friday:

his organization is preparing an 11th-hour appeal for a cinematic postscript to the movie.

I would like to see him do a postscript. Let him say, 'I did this film because I believe I was inspired by the Holy Ghost. I believe that Jesus suffered for all mankind. Some people want to put the blame for his death on the Jews. Don't do that. I've said I wanted to make a "Passion" of love. Blaming Jews for Christ's death would make this a "Passion" of hate.' "

"Because it's now likely that more people will see his Passion in two months," Foxman said, "than saw all the Passion plays ever staged in the previous 2,000 years."

Gibson's Company Blasts Jews Who Saw 'Passion' Film 'in Stealth Mode'

Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of the Christ' Global Anti-Semitism, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Top Agenda for ADL National Meeting

So we didn't actually dialogue about this....

Reader Shaya sends in a URL to get Free Passion promotional merchandise! Sign me up!

A Muslim, a stripper, and an American conservative walk into a bar. The Muslim wins.

"Ron Arad is in Lebanon"

After years of saying he had no knowledge of the fate of missing Israeli airman Ron Arad, Hezbollah’s leader now says Israel’s most famous PoW is in Lebanon.

At a news conference in Beirut yesterday, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah denied Israeli claims that Arad is in Iran.

“The Israelis claim that Ron Arad is in Iran and I categorically deny this according to my personal follow up of the issue,” said Nasrallah, who is close to Iran and whose militant guerrilla group is backed by Tehran.

“Ron Arad is in Lebanon. He is not in Iran or elsewhere,” he added. Nasrallah, however, did not shed any light on whether Arad was dead or alive.

Speaking of people "going down that aisle in the near future," Jewsweek Editor Benyamin Cohen got hitched a week ago. In attendance, among others, were legal expert Rabbi Michael Broyde and most-eligible-UWS-bachelor Rabbi Ezra Cohen. For those readers who attended Camp Munk or lived in Atlanta in recent decades, you'll likely recognize Rabbi David Silverman.

I just posted this at Kosher Bachelor, but I take some issues with the way the Jewish Press concludes its editorial on kosher meat and Mad Cow disease:

Yet this all has even greater resonance given the attempt these days by the Forward newspaper to create the image of the Judaism of the ages as a primitive, anti-Gentile set of beliefs.

Friend of the Elders Mikey Butler has passed away after a long struggle. I've been thinking about whether or not to post this, but I think that, just as families receive greater joy through the comments of those who know their relatives at OnlySimchas, perhaps comments here by the many readers who knew Mikey can provide solace.
A webpage had been set up for him here, and there is information about his funeral here.

I have little doubt that the comments to this post will be filled by screaming and name-calling, but there is what I think is a pretty relevant story at Nerve.com about a 23-year-old virgin female having sex for the first time. This is probably helpful for readers who are going down that aisle in the near future.

If anybody has heard a speech by a rabbi addressing Jews' relationship to non-Jews in light of the recent coverage, please contact me by e-mail.

Yay! The Atlantic Monthly's annual annotated version of the State of the Union is up!

Comments when I get the time to read it....

So Benny Morris responds to the nasty letters sent to haaretz about the his interview two weeks ago.

He starts off backing down from his initial position a whole lot. But suddenly, in the middle, it seems he snaps:

"In the modern age, no one has been more racist and more intolerant of "the other" - Kurd, Jew, Sudanese Christian and animist, Maronite Christian, etc. - than the Arab states. The constitution of Jordan, one of the more moderate Islamic Arab states, even includes a clause prohibiting Jews from being Jordanian citizens. The Arabs' attempt to annihilate the Jewish Yishuv [pre-state community in Palestine] in 1948 compelled Israel to uproot them from the Jewish territory. "

"Mr. Barakeh: Enough of your hypocrisy. Only one side in the conflict in our region is under the threat of annihilation and that's the Jewish side, and you know it. So it was in 1948 (see, for example, the declaration by Azzam Pasha, Secretary of the Arab League, on the eve of the Pan-Arab invasion of Palestine, about how the anticipated slaughter of the Jews would rival the carnage wreaked by the Mongols during their 13th-century invasion of the Middle East), and so it could also be in the future. The deep hatred among the Arabs of Palestine and the proximate Muslim world for the Zionist enterprise constitutes an infrastructure for such a future genocide. There is no such hatred for anyone among the Jews or in me."