The cranky chef who inspired Seinfeld‘s infamous “Soup Nazi” episode is making up in business acumen what he lacks in social grace: Al Yeganeh has already sold 123 take-out franchises from Princeton to Toronto of “The Orginal Soup Man,” with an eventual goal of thousands of outlets in mall food courts and airports, as well as a line of frozen soups.
Even though store owners will be “strongly discouraged” from shouting “No soup for you!” at their customers if they fail to meet the Yeganech’s rigorous requirements of having their money ready and standing “to the extreme left” after ordering, the chef will be enforcing his special brand of culinary psychosis on employees and customers via WebCam.
This guy appears to be a meglomaniac of the highest order (he claims he made Jerry Seinfeld famous) but those who have tasted the holy broth claim that he’s a genius. We’ll be sure to search out gourmet soup next time we’re at the mall food court (but only if Cinnabon is closed.)

Humble hat tip to IsraellyCool for story and links!

Rabbi Ari Emkin reminds Jewish pet owners in this week’s Cleveland Jewish News that halachic law applies to your dog. That’s right, Rex: No mixing cheeseballs with Alpo, no fetching the paper on Shabbos, no chametz-kibble on Passover (in Israel, even the zoo animals kept to a matzoh diet last week!) But don’t fret the details; at least you don’t have to book a banquet room for a “bark mitzvah.” (Not our joke. But funny, nu?)
The Talmud also forbids owning a dog or any other pet that “instills fear or harm, whether bark or bite.” Does this mean there can be no such thing as a Jewish Rottweiler?

Thank you, JewZoo, for solving the mystery.

As long as we’re on the subject of European anti-Semitism (see post below), here’s an excellent essay by Times of London columnist Julie Burchill about the British boycott of Israeli universities.
She shames British academics for getting sucked into “herd-mentality” cruelty while Britain currently plays host “to the biggest ever annual number of violent anti-Semitic attacks, both on people and on property, since the 1930s.” For a country that flaunted their superior civility after the Allies defeated Hitler and “showed the cultured Krauts the true meaning of civilization, we are going through our own dark night of the anti-Semitic soul.”
But, our British brethren ain’t backing down. The Jewish Chronicle reports that both Jewish and Palestinian groups are fighting back against the boycott, believing it is everyone’s best interest to “build bridges, not walls.”
So we’re not crossing England off our “no travel” list yet. But even as we get back to reporting on happier things this Monday morning, we’re keeping our eye on Europe—as should all Jews.

At a fund-raising dinner for a women’s philanthropy group last week, Vanity Fair journalist Marie Brenner warned that France is fast becoming the world’s most dangerous place for Jews. She cited statistics that show a 90% rise in physical attacks in recent years and 40% of polled Jews would like to leave the land that gave us champagne, stinky cheese and that cute Audrey Tautou. As a result of this “virulent new strain” of anti-Semitism, Brenner is calling for American Jews to help French Jewish youth obtain visas and to open their “doors and hearts” to these latest refugees of the Diaspora. “We helped the Soviet Jews,” says Brenner. “Now there’s a need again.”
Scary. Since the French government seems more preoccupied with important issues like copywriting and forbidding the publication of all nighttime images of the Eiffel Tower than enforcing laws to combat hate crimes, does this mean we should give the Statue of Liberty back?