Maccabiah Games are a success!

user submitted picture The JPost reports on the triumphant return of the Maccabiah Games (aka the Jewish Olympics) where Jewish athletes from all over the Globe participate in this world-class competition. In this article they highlight the opening ceremony by offering these notable quotes:
“It’s overwhelming to be in a place where everyone is Jewish from every corner of the world,” he said, minutes before the American delegation marched into National Stadium in Ramat Gan. “It’s wonderful that we have Jews from other countries that you’ve heard of but were never able to place geographically.

“Watching [the Austrian delegation] come out was very emotional for me as a Jew. Knowing that the Austrian Jews are alive and free and competing with other Jews shows that Hitler didn’t win.”
Yes indeed, Hitler is rolling in his grave as we continue to span the Globe and celebrate our unity!

Kabbalah, Lowcountry Style

user submitted pictureWe may be uprooting from the mountains of Northern California for the coastal bluffs of the South sometime in the next year, and we worry that the culture shock will make us irrevocably meshuggeh. But The Island Packet out of Bluffton, South Carolina reports that we’ll be able to study Kabbalah with the locals as we learn to navigate Southern social etiquette and toss back Jack Daniels’ without grimacing.
Photo by Jonathan Dyer of The Island Packet.

Jewish Film Shines At German “Oscars”

user submitted pictureWe’ve read much about the German film Alles Auf Zucker! (Go For Zucker!), mostly by writers who are astounded that a film about German Jews could be funny.
Following the story and eventual reconciliation of two brothers estranged by the Berlin Wall and family dysfunction, the slapstick comedy was nominated for ten out of a possible fifteen “Lolas” by the German Film Academy. It won six, including best film, best screenplay and best actor.
We missed it on the Jewish Film Festival rounds and are waiting for an as-of-yet DVD release, but if the world can wait this long for a German Jewish comedy, we can too.

Yo Yenta! Advice: The Babysitter

Yo, Yenta! Advice Yo, Yenta!
I am a Jewish single mother of two who is trying to get back in the dating scene. My problem is that my babysitter is a very religious Christian woman and I suspect that she is trying to “save” my children by talking to them about Jesus when I’m not there. My older son told me last night that “Jesus is always watching” and that his little brother is going to hell for his sins. She’s been with our family since the boys were small and was very reliable through my divorce. They adore her and so do I, but all this Jesus talk is making me very uncomfortable. Should I let her go?

– Worried Jewish Mother, Atlanta, GA

Yo, Worried Jewish Mother!: Oy, motherhood is hard enough without someone trying to sabotage you at every turn. I can understand that this woman is a vital part of your support system who makes it possible for you to find another Jewish mate. But no matter how much a part of the family she may feel, the fact is, she’s not. You pay her to take care of your children and that is a business relationship, first and foremost. Continue reading

Dispatch From London

user submitted pictureSomethingJewishUK‘s Leslie Bunder reports that Londoners are responding to the terror bombings with their characteristic stiff upper lips:
Incidents like these don’t discriminate. All human beings, whether Jewish or Sikh, Muslim or Christian are targets. As a city that celebrates cultural diversity, Londoners have been united in condemning what has happened. At hospitals across the capital, Muslim doctors and medical staff worked with others to help the wounded and try to save those who were dying. Members of the Jewish community volunteered their time to unite with other Londoners to offer support.
We again offer up our own shock and sadness to our friends across the pond. We hope you find solace in Shabbos, in your family, in the 2012 Olympic bid and the knowledge that there are many more good people than terrorists in this world, even if the latter bogart all the bombs.

Kabbalah Orange Cure? They Wish

user submitted pictureFlorida state officials seem a little embarassed that their attempt four years ago to cure citrus trees of canker with something called “Celestial Drops” has not been effective. In spite of the drops’ “elegant crystalline structures” and “high energy and low entropy” and the claim that the substance was “so pure the company had been allowed to distribute [it] as drinking water,” canker cells remained resistant. Then secretary-of-State Kathleen Harris says she is “in the dark” about whether the mysterious cure she heralded for Florida’s citrus crops was in fact yer basic four-buck-a-bottle Kabbalah water, but she won’t be able to hide if the canker cells start forming red strings around the trees.
c/o Jewschool.

Yo Yenta! Advice: The Fencesitter

Yo, Yenta! Advice Yo, Yenta!
I have been in a relationship with a non-Jewish woman for eight years. I have always been up front about not wanting to marry her, but we can’t seem to break up, either. We lived together until two years ago and ended up being friends, then friends with benefits, then back to couplehood again, although I would never give up my own place (she’s a slob.) I don’t even know if I want to get married at all, to anyone, ever, but I don’t feel comfortable bringing her to family gatherings and including her in the Jewish part of my life, which isn’t even very much. I do love her, what do I do?

On The Fence, Scottsdale, AZ

Yo, On The Fence!: Tell me, it must be the sex. You don’t want to marry her or live with her, you just want to shtup her, right? Why she puts up with you I have no idea-must be the sex. Continue reading

Poland Honors Spielberg

user submitted pictureThe city of Krakow, Poland has bestowed its illustrious “Patron of Culture” award to Steven Spielberg for his efforts to preserve the city’s Jewish history. The director donated $40,000 to a former pharmacy owned by Tadeusz Pankiewicz, the only non-Jew who stayed in the ghetto during the entire Nazi occupation to provide food and medicine to the Jews trapped there and helped some residents escape. The pharmacy is now a museum dedicated to Jewish life before the war.
A much better reason for his mother to kvell than War of the Worlds.
(AP photo)