Tolerant ‘Terminator’

Action Man/California governor Schwarzenegger was in Jerusalem this month to break ground at the New Museum for Tolerance, which some might find ironic. The Californian contingency of Jmerica finds it surreal, but not unpleasantly so. We even watched Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines last week and didn’t vomit. Perhaps the idea that a bodybuilding son-of-a-Nazi can climb his way through celebrity to politics to potential peace in the Middle East has shortcircuited our motherboards.

Mayflower, Shmayflower

user submitted pictureForget those dang white-bread Pilgrims! Historians are celebrating the 350th year of the first Jewish settlers’ touchdown on American shores (that’s the year 1654, for the mathematically-challenged.) Of course, all the cooking, cleaning and housewarming was done by some tough-ass Jewish wives and mamas, as chronicled in The Jewish Women’s Archive. Next time we get pissy about not having a dishwasher, we’ll remember times have been much, much harder…

Daters: Spelling Counts

Cute and Jewish Miriam Felton-Dansky tries out that other Jewish singles site– and meets a bunch of lame-o’s. She was especially appalled by the lack of grammatical finesse from the potential suitors, leading us to wonder if it’s possible to spellcheck an IM. Jmericans: Remember your written personality is the first attribute by which anyone could unfairly judge you, so dredge up that ol’ Webster’s and put it to work. user submitted picture

Jerry and AMEX, Together Again

user submitted pictureJerry Seinfeld will join forces with Superman once again to the fight the evils of unsponsored celebrity and plain old cash in American Express’ latest online adventure, coming May 20. We love Jerry and all, but wethinks Superman is being exploited here in a Costanza-like, shlemiel role–since when does the man of steel take orders from a guy who lies about his waist size?

Watch Your Wallets, Girls

Ivan Urquiza has been convicted of romancing women then stealing their money, credit and MAC lipsticks (okay, we made the last part up) in South Florida. This unscrupulous Lothario told detectives he preferred to target Jewish women because “he thought they would have more money.” Those poor women, since they probably were only dating him because they thought he’d have a bigger schlong.

Man In The Moon Returns?

user submitted pictureAndy Kaufman reportedly died twenty years ago, but no one would put it past him to have faked the whole thing. In fact, he promised that if he had in fact pulled a practical joke on us all, he would return twenty years to the day to have a big belly laugh about it. His best friend, Bob Zmuda, is planning a resurrection party for Andy at House of Blues in L.A., just in case.
We’ll be waiting with a plate of latkes.

The Cat In the Kepa

user submitted picture Entertain the preschooler (or just someone with preschooler reading skills) in your life with Dr. Suess’s classic translated into Yiddish by Zackary Sholem Berger.
A poet dedicated to bringing fun Yiddish reading to the people, Berger blogs Suess-style “Support feline Yiddish. Come buy it! Why not? You’ll like it just fine. You’ll love it a lot!”

We try it: Forget Borders and amazon, with their big corporate vibe! Buy it from an independent bookseller and keep it in the tribe!

(Many apologies, Dr. We hear you rolling in you grave…)

King of Comedy Passes On

user submitted pictureAlan King died yesterday of lung cancer at 76. Many of us are too young to remember this funnyman’s hilarious schtick (except as the evil dude who has the chutzpah to go up against Jackie Chan in Rush Hour 2) but hopefully we can all still appreciate it.
Check out more about his long and hilarious career and have several phone calls worth of conversation to impress your grandparents.