We’ve posted this one before, but considering the popularity of porn we figure it warrants a fresh look. Israeli rabbi Shlomo Eliahu has composed a prayer of repentance for Jews who use their computers for something other than e-mail, work and meeting nice people. It goes like this: “Please God, help me cleanse the computer of viruses and evil photographs which disturb and ruin my work…, so that I shall be able to cleanse myself (of sin).”
Eliahu, the chief rabbi in the northern town of Safed, Israel, wrote the benediction as a result of the mass amounts of incoming queries from Orthodox Jews fretting over ever-alluring internet sex sites. Eliahu recommends the sex-obsessed recite the prayer when they log on to escape temptation, or even program the purifying prayer to pop up on their computer screens to counteract the damaging effects of entering a porn site, whether on purpose or by accident. We’re sure your boss will love that, but we guess if you’re already looking at porn at work, you have bigger problems.
Frankly, we at Jmerica don’t have a problem with porn, unless it’s scary animal stuff or in the realm of sick, perverted, we-don’t-even-want-to-think-about-it. If that’s you, then maybe you should print out the prayer and stick on the back of the bathroom door instead.

Oh, man, we were so excited to find this entire site dedicated to shredding Jdate, not because we’re little and they’re GIANT, but because there’s nothing remotely Jewish about the site except for what the subscribers bring to it. The whole operation could be run by Moonies for all we know, bent on censoring Jewish profiles until everyone sounds like illiterate children. We promise y’all: everyone here at Jmerica is Jewish (except for the boy-genius programmers, and they will be by the time we get this thing really cookin’.)
Got a JDate complaint? Post it here, where we will revel like barefoot, dancing Davids pulling back the slingshot on Goliath.

Ooooh, Something Jewish UK reports via Jewschool that the Beastie Boys have finally put their mouths where their roots are. Their new album To The 5 Boroughs features the lyric “I’m a funky ass Jew and I’m on my way” and numerous other positive references to Judaism sprinkled in with their usual profanity. We’ve always stuck by our homies, even when they went through their Buddhist phase.
The album gets released June 15. Download-savvy fans can try http://www.beastieboys.com/ for a taste; the rest can preorder a copy.

Rabbi Susan Fendrick reviews The Jewish Pregnancy Book, written by a obstetrician/rabbi husband/wife team (she’s the doctor, he’s the rabbi. Their parents must be kvelling their asses off.)
We wish we’d had this one around when the Jewish women we know were pregnant–maybe there’s an ancient homeopathic remedy for excessive kvetching.

Have you ever watched people playing video games? Their eyes wild with adrenalin, wrists twisting around a joystick and hollering as if life on Earth truly depended on annihilating the dragon ninja–it’s kinda freaky. And, as your mother would sniff, an enormous waste of time. But a new trend in game development has better health in mind for all the X Box addicts out there. The Journey to the Wild Divine by Wild Divine Project uses Kabbalah and other meditative tools to inspire relaxation and decrease stress, and CyberLearning Technology has a successful alternative to ADD using neurofeedback. They’ve even got games to cure phobias, raise self-esteem and lower your blood pressure. Of course, that makes playing video games practical and useful, which is kind of beside the point.

There’s nothing special about a boozy crowd doing the “wave” at the ballpark, but what it they’re parting the Red Sea? 10,000 people have been attending the “Faith Friday Nights” minor league baseball games in Kentucky, a promotional event dreamed up by the Nashville Sounds marketing department. The evenings feature a Moses bobblehead giveaway, with Samson, Noah and other Biblical heroes on deck.
Author Michael Novak says “You need chants and songs, the rhythm of bodies in unison, the indescribable feelings of many who together `will one thing’ as if they were each members of a single body. All these things you have in sports … sports are a form of religion.”
The whole thing would a great way for flexi-observant Jews to celebrate Shabbos if it wasn’t deep in fundamentalist Bible Belt country and the pre-game entertainment wasn’t “personal testimonies” about Jesus from the players. And the hot dogs were Hebrew National, of course.

We are hugely saddened by the news that Lenny Kravitz is not, in fact, Jewish and will no longer be blogged in this space. We are sitting shivah and have placed blankets over all his posters (but no matter what, Let Love Rule is still one of the top ten albums ever created.)
The good news is that our old favorite sassafrass Nell Carter is a celebrity Jew. Unfortunately, she’s dead. We wish we’d worshipped her more while she was still around.

It used to be that Jewish princes and princesses had the corner on plastic surgery with nose jobs at 16, then a few nips and tucks after they’d become kings and queens and the castle starting sagging. It’s always been something of a quest for our kind to fit in, to look a little more like the Anglo-Saxon neighbors, to be a little more Farrah and little less Barbra. Our parents wanted that for us, and many of us have been happy with our new noses and corrected overbites. But nowadays, even the plumber has had lipo and an eye lift– it’s just so damn bourgeois already.
We agree with J. Weekly‘s Jessica Ravitz, who thinks it’s just gone too far. With icky shows like “The Swan,” where contestants compete for a beauty pageant sash by undergoing a dozen different surgical “improvements” and leaving their dignity behind with their sucked-out fat tissue, she wonders what this evil “entertainment” teaches young Jewish children (hint; nothing good.) We say screw homogenous, ridiculous beauty ideals. Let’s love our schnozzes, people, and teach the children to love theirs.

We figure KISS bassist Gene Simmons would probably eat anything with the fur still on it, but we were pretty surprised to hear he ate his words. After talking trash about Islam a few weeks back on Australian radio (see Jmerica archive 5/18/04, then denying it, then realizing one can’t really be misquoted on the radio, clarified his nasty remarks by explaining he wasn’t calling the entire culture vile, only the very bad people within the culture. “I was asked about extremists…and that’s what I was talking about — only extremists.”
Takes one to know one, honey.