Category: Jewish

Judge Kimba Wood Responds to Imbalanced Simchas for Jewish Babies

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date November 22, 2010

In my second year of rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary, I took a year-long seminar that focused on Jewish life-cycle observances. Of course, we covered all the basics like the bris, the Jewish wedding and the Jewish funeral. But we spent more time discussing life-cycle events that traditionally had been given short shrift. In fact, we devoted a great deal of time discussing appropriate ceremonies for the birth of a Jewish baby girl.

For generations, the birth of a baby boy in Judaism was cause for great celebration. The bris, or ritual circumcision, meant a crowded home event with festive foods, speeches, singing, and celebration. Relatives and friends would travel great distances to attend the bris on the eighth day of the baby’s life, carrying gifts with them for the elated parents. The birth of a baby girl often meant nothing more than a synagogue honor for the newborn’s father while mother and baby were still in the hospital. In recent time, it has been a naming ceremony after baby girl’s first month, or any time in the first year when the parents got around to it.

Beginning with recommended rituals for welcoming a newborn girl into the Jewish faith by the authors of the 1960s classic The First Jewish Catalog: A Do It Yourself Classic and continuing more recently with Debra Nussbaum Cohen’s wonderful Celebrating Your New Jewish Daughter: Creating Jewish Ways to Welcome Baby Girls into the Covenant-New and Traditional Ceremonies, greater attention has been paid to welcoming ceremonies for Jewish baby girls.

On Thanksgiving Day, 2005, my wife and I welcomed our twin son and daughter into the Jewish covenant with separate ceremonies that took place in the synagogue one after the other. We figured that they were born minutes apart, so their naming ceremonies should be minutes apart as well. On the eighth day of their lives, they would become part of the Jewish people in rituals that were different, yet balanced. Our son had the traditional bris and then our daughter had a “Simchat Bat,” in which she was blessed by her female relatives in a candlelighting ceremony. Rather than wait a month or longer to bestow a Hebrew name on our daughter, we chose to make both our son and daughter the main event of this life-cycle event attended by many friends and family.

I am feeling nostalgic as the fifth anniversary of that special event, in which neither male nor female was favored above the other, approaches. And so, I had to smile when I read about Judge Kimba Wood’s recent decision in a case in which a lawyer asked to be excused from court if and when his pregnant daughter’s baby turns out to be a boy. Kimba Wood was one of the judges nominated by President Bill Clinton to be Attorney General of the United States before Janet Reno was eventually confirmed. Both she and fellow nominee Zoe Baird were brought down by stories involving their nannies. Wood is also known as the judge who sentenced the “Junk Bond King” Michael Milken to ten years in prison.

Apparently, like me, Kimba Wood recognizes the unfairness in making a big fuss over a Jewish boy’s birth, but seeing a Jewish girl’s birth as a lesser event. Here is the letter to Judge Kimba Wood by attorney Bennett M. Epstein, with Wood’s response following:

Dear Judge Wood:

I represent Mark Barnett in the above matter, which is scheduled for trial beginning November 29th.

Please consider this letter as an application in limine for a brief recess in the middle of trial on the grounds known (perhaps not now, but hereafter) as a “writ of possible simcha]”.

The facts are as follows: My beautiful daughter, Eva, married and with a doctorate no less, and her husband, Ira Greenberg ( we like him, too) live in Philadelphia and are expecting their first child on December 3rd, tfu tfu tfu. They do not know whether it will be a boy or a girl, although from the oval shape of Eva’s tummy, many of the friends and family are betting male (which I think is a mere bubbameiseh but secretly hope is true).

Should the child be a girl, not much will happen in the way of public celebration. Some may even be disappointed, but will do their best to conceal this by saying, “as long as it’s a healthy baby”. My wife will run to Philly immediately, but I will probably be able [to] wait until the next weekend. There will be happiness, though muted, and this application will be mooted as well.

However, should baby be a boy, then hoo hah! Hordes of friends and family will arrive from around the globe and descend on Philadelphia for the joyous celebration mandated by the halacha to take place during the daylight hours on the eighth day, known as the bris. The eighth day after December 3rd could be right in the middle of the trial. My presence at the bris is not strictly commanded, although my absence will never be forgotten by those that matter.

So please consider this an application for maybe, tfu tfu tfu, a day off during the trial, if the foregoing occurs on a weekday. I will let the Court (and the rest of the world) know as soon as I do, and promise to bring pictures.

Very truly yours,

Bennett M. Epstein

Judge Kimba Wood’s response:

American Jews Bar Mitzvah Jewish Judaism and Technology Teens

Bar Mitzvah Lessons in Cyberspace

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date November 21, 2010

Cross-posted to the Jewish Techs blog at The New York Jewish Week

Why shlepp your kid to the synagogue for her bat mitzvah lessons when she can dial in virtually?

A recent article in the New York Times shows how the tech savvy bar mitzvah tutors have taken to the Web to make the process more convenient for them and their students.

If dating, shopping and watching TV can be revolutionized by the Internet, why should bar and bat mitzvahs be immune? Parents who once might have turned to their local synagogue for Hebrew lessons and spiritual guidance are now turning to Google, where a quick search on “bar mitzvah” turns up sites like MyBarMitzvahTeacher.com (“the easiest way to prepare for your bar mitzvah”), barmitzvahlessons.com (“NO synagogue fees, membership dues, building fees”), and Jewish-Wedding-Rabbi.com, whose founder, Rabbi Andrea Frank, also conducts other “life cycle” ceremonies, including pet funerals.

Need to learn the prayers that precede the Torah and the accompanying haftarah readings? There are YouTube videos for that. At OneShul.org, “the world’s first community-run online synagogue,” the founders imagine Web-only bar mitzvahs, with an e-minyan, or group of 10, gathered via Skype. And they have a citation from Maimonides to prove it’s O.K.

There have always been families who bypassed synagogues for their children’s bar mitzvahs, traveling to Israel or holding a ceremony in a hotel. But, limited by geography, they generally worked with tutors who lived nearby. And while the new do-it-yourself approach has been enabled by the Web, it has its roots in demographic and attitudinal changes among American Jews, who are increasingly less likely to join synagogues, just as more of them marry outside the faith.

“Our generation doesn’t view Judaism as an obligation,” said Rabbi Jamie Korngold, aka the Adventure Rabbi, who offers an online bar mitzvah program. “It’s something that has to compete in the marketplace with everything else they have in their lives.”

No doubt, many traditionalists will find the idea of Jewish pre-teens logging in to learn their bar or bat mitzvah portion unappealing. Some will argue that part of the experience is the face-to-face tutelage with the cantor. Others will scoff at the change noting that if previous generations had to endure the hours of preparation in the synagogue, then so should today’s generation of would-be b’nai mitzvah.

Of course, many will simply note this as one more way technological innovation has changed the way synagogues do business. And if 12-year-olds can log off Facebook for a few hours a month to learn their haftarah, then that’s a good thing… isn’t it?

Read the entire NY Times article, “Bar Mitzvah Studies Take to the Web,” here.

Internet Jewish Jewish Youth Music Teens Web

Yes, Jews Rock Too

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date November 16, 2010

Here’s my latest post for the Community Next blog “Rabbi J in the D”:

We all know that Jews can rock. After all, you only need to listen to Bob Dylan or Gene Simmons of Kiss to know that. But there are also some Jewish singers who are rocking Jewish music… and I don’t mean Jon Fishman leading Phish in “Avinu Malkeinu.”

I remember in 1999 when the Jewish rock star Rick Recht came to the Jewish summer camp where I was working (Camp Ramah in Nyack, NY). He had all the little kids dancing and screaming like they were at an arena concert with 20,000 fans. Then he worked his way into a cover of a Dave Matthews song and had the teen and 20-something staff members hooked.

Recognizing that there was a need for an Internet radio website dedicated to Jewish rock music, Recht has created Jewish Rock Radio. “Jewish Rock Radio was launched to provide a mass communication channel utilizing the power of music to attract, inspire, entertain, and educate Jewish youth while providing information about a variety of meaningful engagement opportunities for Jewish youth.”

The channel will expose new and established Jewish artists, as well as provide education for artists to professionalize their music and marketing. Recht didn’t want to simply create another Internet music channel. He wanted to give back to the Jewish youth who have been his biggest fans through Jewish youth groups and Jewish summer camps. As the site explains, Jewish Rock Radio is also “for Jewish youth to share their experiences with each other about a variety of national Jewish programs in which they have participated; and, to inspire and create a ‘path’ for Jewish youth to participate in Jewish life as Jewish composers, performers, songleaders, and teachers.”

Jewish Rock Radio (JRR) is the flagship program of Judaism Alive, a nonprofit 501(c)3 formed in 2009 to strengthen Jewish identity and connection for youth through their love of music, musical instruments, and online interaction. While Jewish teens will continue to fill their iPods with Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Beyoncé and Jay-Z, now they just might add some Jewish rockers to their playlist like Naomi Less, Blue Fringe, Josh Nelson and Socalled.

Cross-posted to the Jewish Techs blog

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Donor Recognition Gone Wild

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date November 9, 2010

There is usually some form of recognition when donors give a significant amount to an organization. The plaques that decorate the hallways of hospitals, symphony halls, universities, and museums is nothing new. In the Jewish community, there seems to be a longstanding joke about the large amount of plaques dotting the walls to recognize donors.

Locals in the Detroit Jewish community often quip that they wouldn’t be surprised if a certain large synagogue in town put donor plaques above the urinals in the Men’s room. And in rabbinical school, I recall a discussion about the irony that in a faith tradition that recognizes the Maimonidean philosophy that the ultimate form of charity is to give anonymously, there are so many ways we recognize donors by name. Of course, the names on synagogue sanctuaries, on Jewish Community Center gyms, on Torah covers and in the inside cover of prayer books, and on the walls of day schools are all lasting legacies to the donors or tributes to the memory of their loved ones. I’ve long believed that donors, both those who create large endowment funds and those who give on a smaller scale, deserve recognition for their generosity and benevolence.

But as this satirical video demonstrates, sometimes donor recognition does go too far. This funny video from Israel was sent by Dan Brown of eJewishPhilanthropy, who is currently in New Orleans at the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly amidst thousands of Jewish donors and those working to secure their charitable gifts. Even if you don’t speak Hebrew, you will understand the premise of the video.

Detroit Football Jewish Michigan Sports

Is Football for Jewish Kids?

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date November 8, 2010

I often joke that the point of a bar mitzvah is to celebrate the Jewish boy’s realization that he’ll have a much better chance of owning the professional team than playing on it. It’s tongue-in-cheek humor, but the fact remains that there are many more Jewish professional sports team owners than Jewish players.

In Detroit, it might be more accurate to say that Jewish boys who want to play pro sports grow up to be sports reporters on the evening news. Growing up in Detroit, the sports directors of all three major local networks were Jewish men. Eli Zaret on CBS-2, Bernie Smilovitz on NBC-4 and Don Shane on ABC-7.

Eli Zaret is now a reporter for the Detroit Pistons. Bernie left Detroit for New York in the mid-90s only to return two years later. And Don Shane came to Channel 7 in 1989 and never left. I was thinking about the stereotype that Jewish boys don’t play football last night as I watched the late-night news broadcast on Detroit’s ABC affiliate as they replayed Don getting tackled on the sidelines by University of Michigan quarterback Tate Forcier in yesterday’s U-M win.

I got to know Don pretty well in the early 90’s when I was a babysitter for his two children. Don lives across the street from my uncle and aunt, and in high school I would play basketball with the guys in that neighborhood at my Uncle’s house, including Don, on Saturday afternoons. Later that night, I would babysit for my cousins or Don’s kids. I loved talking sports with Don because he not only knew everything there was to know about local Detroit sports, he was often the first to know.

In all fairness to Don, the hard hit he took on the sidelines yesterday as he prepared his post-game report had nothing to do with whether Jewish boys play football or not. He was standing innocently on the sidelines when Forcier was forced out of bounds and was pushed directly into him. He suffered a split lip that required four stitches and a pretty nasty headache (reports confirmed it wasn’t a concussion). Impressively, Don managed to conduct his post-game interviews and even shared some laughs with Forcier.

So, even for those Jewish boys who make the conscious decision to become a sportscaster instead of a football player, remember that sometimes reporting from the sidelines can be a full-contact sport too.

And while I never played high school football (although as a 6-foot-3, 220 pound guy I was desperately recruited each year by the coach), I am impressed by this all-Jewish San Diego high school football team making headlines. The JTA article about this Jewish day school’s football team includes this great question: “Was the stereotype of the Jewish mom or dad, too fearful of their child getting hurt to let them go out for football, turning end over end on its way out of bounds?”

Maybe a few of these Jewish kids will forgo a career as the team owner or sports broadcaster and actually wear a uniform for a pro team some day.

Detroit Education Jewish JTS

The Adin Steinsaltz Talmud and the Global Day of Learning

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date November 4, 2010

In 1994, following the death of my maternal grandfather, David Gudes, I received his entire library of Jewish books. In his collection were all of the volumes of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz’s translation of the Talmud into English that had been published thus far. These beautiful light-yellow volumes prompted me to start learning Talmud as a college freshman. At first, I would sit in my dorm room by myself and try to make sense of the Aramaic with the assistance of Steinsaltz’s translation. Then I began learning with my friend and first chavruta (study partner) PJ Cherrin in the library of the campus Hillel. Those Steinsaltz volumes proved helpful as I began to navigate my way through the “Sea of Talmud.”

In rabbinical school, at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Steinsaltz English edition was banned from use because it was considered to be a crutch for those who were too challenged by the puzzling Aramaic of the text. In other, more traditional, circles Steinsaltz was shunned because he altered some of the long-standing conventions when he placed his commentary in the space traditionally reserved for the commentator Rashi and changed the traditional layout and pagination in his translation.

While I wasn’t allowed to use my grandfather’s Talmud set with Steinsaltz’s English translation, I often referred to the Steinsaltz translation of the Talmud into understandable Hebrew. The addition of vowels, punctuation and a contemporary commentary made Talmud study much more accessible for me and for many thousands of other students.

Steinsaltz’s undertaking is coming to an end with his publication of the final remaining Tractate (Chulin) into the more manageable Hebrew (his English translation ended after only a dozen or so volumes were complete). In celebration of this milestone, Rabbi Steinsaltz has declared this Sunday to be a “Global Day of Jewish Learning” to raise awareness about the joys and spiritual reward of Jewish study. Through Rabbi Steinsaltz’s organization, The Aleph Society, and with the leadership of Detroit native Rachel Weiss Berger, a website has been set up for individuals to locate resources for self learning.

I am excited to be one of the local teachers who will lead a session on the “Global Day of Jewish Learning.” My session will explore the theme of water as it runs through Jewish texts and tradition. Water is an appropriate subject for a day when the world celebrates the work of a man who helped the Jewish people navigate through the Sea of Talmud.

Celebrities Hollywood Humor Jewish Social Justice

Star-Studded American Jewish World Service Public Service Announcement

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date October 29, 2010

I often hear complaints that Jewish organizations don’t market themselves well. Even when they try to be cool and attract the younger demographic, they often fail by being hokey or forcing the humor.

Well, the American Jewish World Service has solved that problem. The solution is as simple as having Judd Apatow round up his A-List celeb friends and giving them a hilarious script to read on camera. And that’s exactly what Apatow did for the 25th anniversary of the American Jewish World Service, which celebrated that milestone as well as the 70th birthday of the AJWS director Ruth Messinger at a $1,000 per ticket event at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

The video is extremely funny, but it’s also a bit racy with some of comedian Sarah Silverman’s patented minority humor. For that reason (and probably a few others), the public service announcement begins with a disclaimer that it is not approved by AJWS.

I considered listing my favorite parts of the PSA, but there are just too many. The video includes Don Johnson, Gilbert Gottfried, Sarah Silverman, John Mayer, Jerry Seinfeld, Susan Sarandon, Sir Patrick Stewart, Andy Samberg, Ken Jeong, Tracy Morgan, Helen Hunt, Dane Cook, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Denis Leary, Triumph the Insult Comedy Dog (Yes, he’s Jewish!), and many others.

Watch the entire video to the end so you don’t miss celebrities trying to speak Yiddish, Ben Stiller suggesting to rename the organization “JAWS” to get publicity on Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, Brian Williams attempting a Tevye impersonation, and Lindsey Lohan shouting “Challah!”

Okay, here’s the video:

Celebrities Humor Jewish Television

Grover or Telly: Who’s More Jewish?

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date October 25, 2010

Here’s my latest blog post for Community Next’s “Rabbi J in the D”

When asked who is the biggest Jewish celebrity on Sesame Street, most people immediately respond “Mr. Hooper.” And that’s not a bad answer since both Mr. Hooper and his alter-ego Will Lee were Jewish.

However, there are two Muppets who are competing over the award for the biggest Yid. And if you guessed Elmo, you’re wrong. Elmo is not a Jewish name and based on the hours of research I did (you can ask Count exactly how many) it would appear that Elmo is actually a Presbyterian.

I’ve managed to narrow the field down to Grover and Telly. In the video clips below you can watch Grover discuss the need for a day of rest. The Shomer Shabbos furry blue Muppet seems to really find inner peace and spirituality on Shabbat.

The second video shows Telly teaching the viewing audience to play Dreidel. He’s either a true Hanukkah-lover or he has a serious gambling problem.

So, you be the judge. Is it Shabbos Grover or Dreidel Telly? (Leave your vote in the “comments” section.)

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Synagogues and New Technology

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date October 14, 2010

Cross-posted to the Jewish Techs blog (The NY Jewish Week)

Yoram Samets, of Jvillage Network in Burlington, Vermont, wrote an interesting essay for the eJewishPhilanthropy blog titled “Purposeful and Passionate: Synagogues in the Age of Facebook.”

Ultimately, I think he was being too delicate with synagogues by letting them know that it’s okay to move slowly in adapting to new technology. He writes that “synagogues lagging behind cultural change is nothing new. In fact, there are those who would say synagogues should operate from a thoughtful, process-driven perspective and adopt change slowly. In essence, I would agree with that. The challenge is all in the balance.”

I agree that synagogues need to maintain balance and be sure of themselves as they transition to new technology (social media, Web 2.0, online learning, etc.), but I’m for pushing them to move quicker. They’re very good at “slow.” The successful results will come when the synagogues pick up the pace.

Whenever I talk to synagogue leaders and rabbis about the adoption of new technologies, I encourage them to “just do it,” rather than waiting to go through the normal (read: slow) process within the institution. By the time a committee is formulated and it meets six times to decide if the synagogue should have a blog, the youth group should have an official Facebook presence, and the rabbi should be tweeting, we’ll already be on to the next “Big Thing.” Four years ago, I led a Webinar for Darim Online to teach rabbis how to start blogging. Some of them said they would need to get permission from the board first. Rather than going through the red tape, I encouraged these rabbis to just start a blog and post some of their thoughts regarding the weekly Torah portion. Some of those rabbis have thanked me in the ensuing years for pushing them to open their “Torah” up to a borderless audience on the Web. They soon realized that in the 21st century, their wisdom shouldn’t only be disseminated to their synagogue membership and no further.

There are so many opportunities for synagogues to capture through social media. If rabbis wait for young people to come in the front door, they’ll be waiting a long time. Networking is outreach and outreach is networking. I’ve been asked to officiate at the wedding of a young couple while chatting on Facebook late at night with the groom, a former high school student of mine. Synagogues should be jumping at the opportunities for innovative approaches to community building, scholarship, and engagement. I think Phillip Brodsky’s novel idea of a Social Sermon through the use of social media is a great concept that synagogues should adopt. Synagogues need to be pushed, not coddled, into the Age of Facebook.

Back to the Samets article. He writes, “Synagogues have the same opportunity of using technology to build a bridge between the synagogue experience and today’s culture. Technology needs to be an outward-looking tool for greater connectedness for the community. While there are a number of creative synagogues doing remarkable outreach and engaging more members, too few synagogues have been able to emulate their example and create an operational model that will lead them and their communities to a stronger future… Technology is only a tool. And when used to its maximum benefit, it is a tool that enhances our purpose, our mission, and our movement.”

In these fast-moving technology-driven times, Samets comes up with four P’s that synagogues must look to in order to reclaim our Jewish movement in today’s American culture: “Purpose, Passion, People, Projects – the rest is all detail… And through the process you will find out the power of the potential of connectedness in the community, in the synagogue and online.”

Lisa Colton, of Darim, blogging at her organization’s JewPoint0, writes about the Jewish New Media Fund. Essentially, three of the nation’s largest Jewish foundations – the Righteous Persons Foundation, the Jim Joseph Foundation, and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation – announced recently that their newly created endeavor, the Jewish New Media Innovation Fund, will help energize the community to focus on the need for new media innovations, and to help bring them to life. I hope synagogues take note (and full advantage) of this great opportunity.

Technology isn’t going to slow down for anyone… not even synagogues!

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NJ Jewish Standard & Carl Paladino

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date October 14, 2010

While last week’s decision by the New Jersey Jewish Standard to apologize for the inclusion of a gay wedding announcement and then retract the apology made big news, I didn’t have a chance to weigh in on it. But now, that New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino has essentially done the same thing regarding the anti-gay comments he made to a group of Hasidic Jews, I thought I’d comment on both matters.

Newspapers, and especially Jewish newspapers, will never be able to please everyone. Stating that the newspaper is for the entire community is actually a shortsighted mission statement because every Jewish community will have its factions that neither read nor care about what is published in certain Jewish newspapers. Whether it is the decision to run advertisements for non-kosher restaurants or print interfaith wedding announcements, the Orthodox community will boycott the paper. And a Jewish newspaper that has a bias toward the Orthodox won’t be of much concern to a progressive audience.

Ultimately, what happened at the NJ Jewish Standard was neglect. The paper’s editorial board and staff neglected to have a thoughtful process about whether to publish gay wedding (and engagement) announcements in the first place. And when there was backlash from the Orthodox, they should have debriefed on the matter, gathered information, and sought counsel from local rabbis and Jewish leaders before issuing an apology. The quick decision to apologize for publishing the engagement of Avi Smolen and Justin Rosen (who, by the way, seem like a very nice couple and will be married by my colleague Rabbi Josh Gruenberg) and then making the statement that the paper will never again run such an announcement turned into a public relations nightmare. It took days until James Janoff, the publisher, issued a retraction of the editor’s statement which said, “The Jewish Standard has always striven to draw the community together, rather than drive its many segments apart. We have decided, therefore, since this is such a divisive issue, not to run such announcements in the future.”

The engagement announcement of former Camp Ramah in Nyack staffers
Avi Smolen & Justin Rosen, who will be married this month.

In a statement posted to the paper’s website, Janoff said the New Jersey Jewish Standard probably should not have reversed its policy so quickly, “responding only to one segment of the community.” He said he is now holding meetings with local rabbis and community leaders, and will be printing many of the letters “that have been pouring in” on the issue. Without saying that the paper will print same-sex marriage announcements in the future, my sense is that in time they will.

Now on to Carl Paladino, who I’m convinced is a wish that was granted to Jon Stewart for his last birthday. Today’s New York Times reports that the alliance between Republican Carl Paladino and Yehuda Levin, an Orthodox rabbi from Brooklyn, has fallen apart, with the rabbi denouncing Paladino on Wednesday for his apology over remarks he had made about homosexuality on Sunday. It turns out that Rabbi Levin wrote Paladino’s anti-gay speech, so he was obviously angered when Paladino did a 180 and apologized for his “poorly chosen words” and said he would “fight for all gay New Yorkers’ rights” if elected governor.

I’m not really sure how Paladino could be so naive to think that, in the 24-hour news cycle era, his offensive anti-gay remarks wouldn’t be broadcast all over the country within hours. During a meeting with a small Orthodox congregation that was arranged by Rabbi Levin, Paladino said that children should not be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality was acceptable, and then he criticized his Democratic opponent, Andrew Cuomo, for marching with his daughters in New York City’s gay pride parade. While his comments obviously went over well with the Hasidic group, they didn’t play very well for the rest of the world.

There are some pretty funny lines in the NY Times story including Rabbi Levin explaining where he was and what he was doing when he learned of Paladino’s apology (emphasis is mine):

Rabbi Levin said he was especially upset that Mr. Paladino gave him no notice that he planned to back away from the comments. “I was in the middle of eating a kosher pastrami sandwich,” Rabbi Levin said. “While I was eating it, they come running and they say, ‘Paladino became gay!’ I said, ‘What?’ And then they showed me the statement. I almost choked on the kosher salami.”

So, was it a kosher pastrami or kosher salami sandwich, Rabbi Levin? And I love how he had to mention that it was “kosher.” Did he think that folks would question whether he was eating a non-kosher sandwich?

The Times then had to clarify that Paladino hadn’t actually become gay (of course):

Mr. Paladino, of course, had not become gay, but had announced that he wanted to clarify that he embraced gay rights and opposed discrimination. In explaining his views, Mr. Paladino and his aides noted that he had a gay nephew who worked for the campaign.

So, what did Rabbi Levin have to say about Paladino’s gay nephew?

“He discovered now he has a gay nephew?” the rabbi said. “Mazel tov! We’ll make a coming-out party!”

So, my question is: If the Hasidic Rabbi Yehuda Levin makes a coming-out party for Carl Paladino’s gay nephew, will the New Jersey Jewish Standard announce it in their paper? You just couldn’t make this stuff up!