This Lady Gaga parody made the rounds around Chanukah time, but I must’ve been too bizzy putting herbal salve on my latke burns to catch it. Some of the Jewish celebs have questionably Jewish backgrounds (I thought Britney decided she isn’t a Jew anymore?) but still, you’ll want to shake your tuches. Enjoy!

So my mom called me the other day to make sure I’d seen this article in the Phoenix New Times titled “Jew Roundup.”

Yup, you read that right.

The subhead of “They’re Pouring Over the Canadian Border to Flood Graduate Schools and Bank Parking Lots. Legislation from State Senator Russell Pearce Aims to Make Them Rue the Day They Ever Entered Arizona” confused me even further.

Is this for real? Why is it accompanied by a horrible illustration straight out of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”? What kind of anti-Semitic, TeaDoucheBag hijacked the usually liberal (if subpar) journalistic bent of one of the country’s largest alternative newsweeklies? Does J.D. Hayworth really think he’s going to win John McCain’s seat by talking sh*t about Jews?

After I read it through three times and asked a couple of people far more intelligent than I for their opinions, I realized that this was intended to be a piece of satire. OHHH. M’kay. Wow. Still not funny. At all.

Written by wackadoodle Village Voice executive editor Michael Lacey, the article is supposed to lampoon Arizona Republicans’ draconian attitude towards immigration – as in, replace “Mexicans” with “Jews” and the inanity and racism becomes clear. Except that I think it’s backfired for him.

Lacey is no stranger to inappropriate uses of stereotypes to make a point — he recently invoked the N-word to demonstrate how silly he feels to be a middle-aged white guy.

Read this example of bad taste and bad journalism here, but maybe put away all sharp objects first. Your thoughts, please.

Sunday was Holocaust Rembrance Day, and the turnout was a standing-room only for Yom Ha’Shoah program at the JEA. Which means that the Holocaust is a bigger draw than a saltwater swimming pool and Zumba. But whatever.

Mayor Otis Johnson showed his support by showing up, and it was satisfying to see all the post-b’nai mitvah teens there, reading with appropriate solemnity the introductions of our handful of local survivors. It was a unifying moment for this community, each of the three strangely divided factions of Savannah’s Jewish world coming together for a rare moment of humility and prayer.

It went down a lot like the last two Yom Ha’Shoah services I’ve attended at the JEA: Short biographies spoken in hushed tones, a thought-provoking poem or performance, awards given out to the winners of the high school Holocaust writing contest held every year. Last year, the Israeli emissary, Maya, had all the children color butterflies and pasted them all over the auditorium to add an element of peace and hope to as we honored the six million, which was lovely.

Things took a darker turn this year, however, when the guest speaker, Joseph Wyant, took the stage. Mr. Wyant isn’t Jewish, but he was a young American soldier sent to Dachau the day after the Allies defeated the Nazi’s in early May, 1945. He sat off to right of the podium while his middle-aged daughter read from a letter than he had written to his own father describing what he saw at the Nazis’ largest concentration camp. In his early 20s at the time, this soldier put pen to paper about the stench of the bodies, the desperation of the barely-alive “skeletons with skin,” the horrific machinations of a system designed to work people until their living conditions and lack of nourishment rendered them useless, then exterminate them and burn their bodies without a trace.

There were no butterflies or “Life Is Beautiful” moments here — just a graphic story of Nazi ugliness and a nation who let it happen right under their noses. In his letter, he questioned how the Germans and Poles who lived around these camps — and there were hundreds — could have been ignorant to what was transpiring every day. The young soldier Wyant reported every detail with a clear-eyed compassion, understanding that by witnessing the mess, he was charged with telling the world what happened here.

The letter went on and on — people began to squirm, some of the young children had to be taken out. Wyant’s daughter finally looked up apologetically, saying “There’s still another page and half…if you want I can just take questions…” but the crowd encouraged her to finish. When she did, there was a standing ovation. I found out later that Wyant himself was supposed to speak for a few minutes, but his daughter had called that morning and said that he had Alzheimer’s, and this was shaping up to be a particularly bad day. She had wondered if it would suffice to read the letter — which until now had never been read in public or posted for view. We’re all hoping the family will agree to publish it on the Yad Vashem web site so that future generations can read Wyant’s courageous account of what he found at Dachau.

It’s these stories that give meaning to “Never Forget,” a phrase that’s drummed into our little Jewish heads so hard and so often that it literally becomes uncool to treat it with honor. Except in less than ten years those who survived the Holocaust and those who were eyewitness will be gone, and unless the hipsters take their legacy into their own hands, people will forget. And if they do, another sociopathic anti-Semite will convince the world it’s okay to do horrific things.

To those survivors, who smelled the stench, whose bodies and souls starved, whose families were murdered in front of their eyes and yet managed to not only make new lives but create new Jewish families, to rebuild our peoplehood into something strong and mighty and still loving in spite of it all, I make you a promise: I won’t forget. And my kids won’t forget either — I will drum this message into their little Jewish heads with visits to the Holocaust museum and give them the tools to confront Holocaust deniers.

And if I may be so blessed with grandchildren, I hope to read them Mr. Wyant’s letter. Sure, they’ll squirm and think I’m uncool — but they will know who they are and what happened to one third of the Jewish people so, so long ago.

This morning I was reading in the UK’s Jewish Chronicle about Footsteps, a Chasidic “recovery” house in New York where those who have left sheltered religious communities get schooled in the ABC’s of secular life:

Footsteps was set up in 2003 by Malkie Schwartz, a young woman from the Lubavitch community who, in the process of becoming secular, realised how much support others in her position needed. It provides career and college guidance and training in basic computer skills. It also provides peer support meetings, social events, and a library and computer lab.

I never really thought about it, but I imagine it would be incredibly difficult to go from living in an extremely protected, observant environment to navigating the world at large. Even though I share Old World DNA with its followers, I have to say Chasidic culture often seems foreign to me, and while I respect the emphasis placed on family, I think it’s bunk that some women need permission from their husbands to do things like go to college or, say, wear pants. I admire things about my many observant friends’ lifestyles, but I can certainly understand why a person raised in an environment with so many rules might want to live a different kind of life.

Footsteps definitely offers training in cornerstone skills to set oneself up for success, and I deeply respect the courage it takes for a person to leave their loves ones. It occurs to me that with my unorthodox background and heretical attitude towards most things rabbinical, I might be particularly suited to helping these Chasidic rebels adjust to life outside the eruv. So I’m thinking of developing a curriculum called “Becoming a Bad Jew 101” which would include sections such as:

* Burn the Sheitel And Let Down Your Hair
* Chicken Parmesan: Go Right Ahead, ‘Cause Hens Don’t Lactate
* How to Shake Your Lulav At the Club
* Borscht: Just Say No
* Men and Women Together In Synagogue: It Won’t Cause Spontaneous Combustion

Snarky, I know. But I get the feeling those Chasidic rebels will do just fine as long as they keep their senses of humor sacred.

T-Shirt available at Zazzle.com.

A lovely Shabbos to all, however rebellious it may be!

That’s the takeaway line from Marjorie Ingalls’ thoughtful column “Kids These Days,” and it pretty much sums up how I feel about Passover.

Ingalls writes about dichotomous wish have the seder be accessible and “fun” for the kids while at the same time teaching the complex meaning of the meal. (You, with the plague finger puppets, you know what I’m talking about, right?)

Ingalls’ Orthodox background means she experienced “the real deal” growing up, which surely did not entail masks and party favors. Conversely, because I didn’t go to Jewish day school and my parents weren’t strict about following the haggadah to the letter every year, I’m the obnoxious schmo trying to add more tedium to the seder. Or at the very least, finish the haggadah instead of wandering over to the couch to sleep off the food-and-Manischewitz coma.

For someone who continually errs on the treyf side of life, you might be surprised that I’m such a stickler for keeping with the order of things on this one. But sheesh, Passover is about our ancestors’ miraculous release from bondage and their subsequent forty-year walk in the desert; the very least we can do to honor them is to sit still for the damn story.

Listen, before you go accusing me of self-righteousness, you should know that I may have once put vodka and cranberry in the Shabbos kiddush cup. I’m all for elastic Judaism. But the seder shouldn’t be something to get out of (like Hebrew school) or dumb down (ahem, Tot Shabbat.) I want my children to understand that our lives are full of freedom because Moses and Miriam led our courageous foremothers and forefathers out of Egypt with nothing more than the words of an invisible God — that’s faith. On all others nights we can take that for granted, but on this night, you can sit that little tushy on a pillow and listen without expecting to be entertained by Dora the Explorer’s Map of the Exodus.

To answer Ingall’s question, “Is this a seder or a circus?” I say: This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no foolin’ around.

But I will admit to really enjoying the finger puppets, which I made dance on my father’s head during “Dayenu.” But I think Stephen Colbert has me beat:

Where do you stand? Read the whole article here and lemme know.

I don’t know who these two Sports Nutz are, but their Jewish fantasy baseball is pretty funny…if Tablet hadn’t posted it first, I might’ve been offended:

Last week in NYC, dreadlocked musical moppet Michelle Citrin and Jewish robot guy William Levin acoustically answered the fifth question of Passover with their viral hit “20 Things To do With Matzah”:

Check the original here:

So about now you’re probably entertaining thoughts of gooey crust pizza and Wonder Bread sandwiches, am I right? Eight days is a loooong-ass time to not eat bread or any other poofy pastry, but I figure it’s not nearly as hardcore as running away from Egypt and wandering around a desert wasteland for 40 years. A little suffering for the palette is the least we can do to honor our ancestors’ intestinal fortitude.

Though he writes his own kosher reality when it comes to shrimp, El Yenta Man has been quite disciplined about not sneaking off for a bagel this year. I think it’s because he went a’Googlin’ for the meaning of chametz and found out that the spiritual consequences of violating Pesach law are pretty serious. Leave it to Wikipedia to make a believer out of my husband. I think he’s in the garage right now, trying to figure out how to make Passover-friendly beer.

Even though we come from Ashkenazic origins, we don’t get too crazy about avoiding kitniyot, which includes rice and pretty much every bean under the sun. These foods were forbidden during Passover in the Middle Ages because they could be confused with chametz, which seems like the same logic that ruled chicken has enough texture to be considered fleishig even though mixing a chicken’s meat with its milk is obviously impossible because chickens do not lactate (and I should know, ’cause there’s one scratching around my yard right now. And I mean no disrespect to my observant friends at all here; it’s just that as a do-it-yourself Jew, I must find ways to justify my halachic laziness.)

In any case, it’s gonna be a challah-less Shabbos, which is cool, ’cause Moses and Miriam and the idolaters had a whole lot less. I’ll be cooking up one of my favorite ways to keep up the matzah enthusiasm in Yentaland until Tuesday night, when we’ll celebrate the end of Passover with a fat pizza and a six-pack of beer.

And by the by, the end of Passover marks the sixth anniversary of Yo, Yenta! Thanks for hanging with me these last six years in blogland, friends.

Yo, Yenta!’s Matzah Lasagna

You will need:

8 squares of matzah

2 1/2 cups (or if you’re my kind of cook, a jar of store-bought) tomato sauce

A small can of tomato paste

Olive oil

A pinch of brown sugar

Half a chopped white onion

Handful each of chopped mushrooms, olives and capers (if you don’t like any of ‘em, leave it out)

A bag of baby spinach

Cottage cheese

Feta cheese

A bag of shredded mozzarella or Italian blended cheese

1 egg

Italian spices

Salt to taste

Sauce:

Heat up a saucepan on medium with a couple of generous pours of olive oil. Throw in the onions, mushrooms, olives and capers and brown ‘em up. Add your basic sauce and let bubble a little; add tomato paste until smooth. Sprinkle in a little brown sugar; it really ties in the flavors. Turn to low. It’s gonna be a little thicker than you’re used to, but that’s what we want. Trust me.

Filling:

Dump about 3/4 of the container of cottage cheese and half the container of feta into a bowl with the egg and spices. Mix until creamy – I use a whisk, but a handheld mixer would work even better.

Assembly:

Now, unlike regular lasagna, in which noodles absorb water and should be a juicy, bubbly mess when done right, matzah lasagna should be as dry as possible before it goes in the oven so that the matzah doesn’t turn to soup. Every other recipe called for rinsing the matzah to soften it; I thought this sounded like squish waiting to happen, and I recommend skipping it.

Spread a little sauce on the bottom of the pan and place two dry matzah squares side by side. Spread on a few tablespoons of cheese filling, not too much, but cover your corners. Add a layer of spinach, which will give up plenty of liquid to soften everything up. Shprinkle generously with shredded cheese. Dollop on a little more sauce to cover it all.

Repeat previous steps two more times. It will be tall. Push gently into the confines of the baking dish with one last layer of matzah. Then it’s more sauce and another cheese shower. Cover tightly with tinfoil and bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes. Let cool before serving!

Options:

Add some soy crumbles sizzled in olive oil to the sauce to “beef” it up a little. Also, sliced zucchini or eggplant seared in olive oil can be substituted for any of the layers … mmmm…..

I prepared this at 1 o’clock in the morning (damn insomnia) and let it sit in the fridge overnight to bake the next day, which may have contributed to the superdeliciousness of it all. I hope yours turns out just as well.

Look, Moses had a stutter and Aaron was busy having bells sewn on his robes, so who do you think really kept it together during the exodus from Egypt?

Miriam, that’s who. (That would be Moses’ and Aaron’s older sister, not the Mexican transsexual entertainer, for those unfamiliar with the haggadah.)

She was clever enough to reunite Moses with his mother to nurse after the pharoah’s daughter pulled him out of the bulrushes. She was a prophetess whose faith that God would deliver the Jews across the sea was so strong she thought to pack tambourines to celebrate once they were safely on the other side. And while everyone was wandering around parched in the desert, she always knew where the water was. Isn’t it about time paying honor to her is a part of everyone’s seder?

Ever since I heard my feminist cantor cousin Michal Matter sing Debbie Friedman’s completely rockin’ Miriam’s Song, we’ve had a goblet of fresh, cool water on the table. Sometime after the second cup of wine and the night seems impossibly long, I think of Miriam’s peaceful strength and unending patience — can you imagine the kvetching she must’ve endured?

The addition of Miriam’s Cup to the other symbolic items of the seder is a fairly new tradition, but it’s an essential one. Risa Borsykowsky provides some wonderful background in her article at JewishGiftPlace.com — read it and enter the contest to win this gorgeous silver kos Miriam by artist Emily Rosenfeld.

The ritual of Miriam’s cup might not be in the haggadah, but you can create your own follow this one. You can incorporate it right after someone goes to the door to let Elijah tip his yarmulke and it’s a nice opportunity to pay homage to all the Jewish women whose stories somehow got left out of history.

Another way I like to honor Miriam is breaking out the tambourines and dancing around the table, which totally freaks the older generation out. Little Yenta Girl loves this part, and I think she deserves her very own tambourine, either this Rosie-the-Riveter fabulousness from Kavanahcards.com or artist Betsy Platkin Teutsch’s “Moon Sailor” featured in the current Jewish Woman International. Banging tambourines during “Dayenu” is lots of fun, too, but sometimes certain grandparents get grumpy and yell about this.

And of course, there’s Debbie Friendman’s song. Did you listen yet? Here are the lyrics so you can sing along and shake it like ya mean it — it starts with the chorus:

And the women dancing with their timbrels
Followed Miriam as she sang her song
Sing a song to the One whom we’ve exalted.
Miriam and the women danced and danced
the whole night long.

And Miriam was a weaver of unique variety.
The tapestry she wove was one which sang our history.
With every thread and every strand
she crafted her delight.
A woman touched with spirit, she dances
toward the light.

CHORUS

As Miriam stood upon the shores and gazed across the sea,
The wonder of this miracle she soon came to believe.
Whoever thought the sea would part with an outstretched hand,
And we would pass to freedom, and march to the promised land.

CHORUS

And Miriam the Prophet took her timbrel in her hand,
And all the women followed her just as she had planned.
And Miriam raised her voice with song.
She sang with praise and might,
We’ve just lived through a miracle, we’re going to dance tonight!

(One last rousing CHORUS!)

And the women dancing with their timbrels
Followed Miriam as she sang her song
Sing a song to the One whom we’ve exalted.
Miriam and the women danced and danced
the whole night long.

Now go out and make some noise for Miriam!

Now that you’ve stocked up enough matzah and macaroons to feed the IDF, consider these items to ensure a calm, collected Passover psyche:

In one lil’ click, you can send a greeting to family and friends, near and far, Jewish and not. My main music main Craig Taubman has teamed up with American Greetings to create a really classy, lovely, interfaith Passover e-card that calls up the “free spirit” quality of this season. Each of the organized Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — have a connection with this springtime ritual, which in turn goes back to a time before humans organized much of anything. Freedom is for everyone, and we can all get behind food, right?

The tune on the card is Craig n Co’s Jew-age rendition of “Eliyahu Hanavi” from the CD Passover Lounge, a relaxing collection of non-tradtional tunes to expand the mind and heart. I can attest that there’s no better soundtrack to accompany the body’s metabolism of four glasses of wine. Order it now and get it in time for your seder!

If all the guests get to be too much for your stress threshold, better add 2005’s When Do We Eat? to your Netflix queue and move it to the top. No matter how deep into the dysfunctional void your family gathering might fall, there’s no way it’s gonna be this bad. It won’t be as funny, either, but it’ll make you feel better while digesting:

If all else fails, pile up the seder pillows and make a fort under the table.