Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has taken quite a bit of criticism over her recent “no meat on Saturdays” proclamation. Or, as Brian Dickerson of the Detroit Free Press wrote: Gov. Jennifer Granholm is in “a tall vat of deep-fried tofu.” Granholm reasoned that in Michigan, a state hit hard by the economic recession, it’s become…
A couple of years ago, I wrote about the signs at Balducci’s, a New York grocery store, that advertised their ham as “Delicious for Chanukah.” Today’s issue of the Detroit Jewish News features a full-page ad for the local Plum Market chains of grocery stores. In large print, the ad proclaims Plum Market as “Your…
Smoked salmon, or lox, has long been known as a staple fare at Sunday brunch in Jewish homes. In fact, Jewish people who claim their Jewish identity as only secular are known as “Bagels and Lox Jews.” Well, now an ultra-Orthodox group of rabbis, the Chevra Mehadrin of Monsey, New York, have included lox on…
Corey Haim is not the first Jewish teen actor from the 1980s to die tragically and certainly not the first child actor to overdose. River Phoenix, whose maternal grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Hungary, died of a drug overdose on Halloween morning in 1993. Now, teen heartthrob Corey Haim has died of a drug overdose…
This is a great clip of Jon Stewart being interviewed by Bill O’Reilly of Fox News. The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart rejects O’Reilly’s running mate offer by saying: “I’m not running with you… I’m not gonna be your VP because I know what that’s gonna be. I get one job, and that’s to light the…
While living in New Jersey during rabbinical school, I attended a benefit dinner for the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in which Senator Jon Corzine was honored. Prior to the event, questions were raised as to whether it was wise of JTS to honor a politician while he was serving in office. Honoring Corzine, the former…
I am a finalist in the January/February 2010 Moment Magazine caption contest. Please vote for me by clicking here. This is the cartoon (by Bob Mankoff) and the caption I wrote: Thanks, Mr. Gates, but I think I’ll just wait for Apple to release its version. My other submissions for a caption to this cartoon…
No, Dave Matthews isn’t really going to play a Yom Kippur gig in Chicago, but two Dave Matthews Band concerts at Wrigley Field during Shabbat and Yom Kippur this Fall have been approved. According to the JTA, the music from the concert won’t be heard in the three nearby synagogues (Reform, Conservative, and Modern Orthodox),…
In Judaism there is a concept called “yichus,” which basically means lineage or pedigree. In popular parlance “good yichus” is used to describe someone with connections to a distinguished family. I was thinking about this term the other day while reading Time Magazine’s very witty Joel Stein’s column. Stein decided to research his geneology and…
To paraphrase an old joke: Are the Ultra Orthodox now going to forbid figure skating because it can lead to mixed dancing? Uriel Heilman writes on the JTA Blog, “It was probably the first time in Olympics history that a kippah was an integral part of an athlete’s uniform. When the Israeli brother-sister ice dancing…