Okay, look, I admit I’m a conspiracy geek. I’m the person who would not be surprised one bit if some type of archaeological evidence surfaced proving that a lost tribe of Israel somehow wandered over to what is now Southern Ohio around 500 C.E. I was completely obsessed with Area 51 in college (such a shame one couldn’t major in government dissidence back then.) I look at ancient alien archaeology and crop circle photos the way your creepy neighbor looks at porn. I still totally believe Anita Hill. (Please do not send your 9/11 craziness to me because I’ve already heard it all, m’kay?)

So if anyone’s going to believe in Bible Codes, it’s me, right? Finding secret messages in the Torah embedded there by aliens sounds like something that would keep me up nights with a flashlight, a siddur and Art Bell on the radio. I mean, it’s been scientifically vetted, and actual rabbis teach the theory. Sure, it’s to evangelical Apocalypse mongers what the Celestine Prophecy was to flaky New Age whackdoodles, but gosh, everyone needs something to believe in. Counting letters in the Pentateuch to predict earthquakes isn’t nearly as weird as reading goat entrails or whatever.

Except I picked up Michael Drosnin’s bestselling book the other day on the bargain table at Barnes & Noble and I have to say I think I could probably make the same connections if I smoked some weed and got down with my daughter’s Hello Kitty wordfind. I may be getting cynical in my old age, though I am always open to listening to your conspiracy rants in the comments section.

However, I must should out a big, wet todah raba to reader Darren for tipping me off to ShalomStacy’s blog, who shows there are still many Jewish mysteries to be explained. For instance, there is clearly a secret mission being carried out via all Mac-to-Microsoft software icons to subliminally teach basic Hebrew to those who come in contact with its interface. How else to explain THIS?

Clearly you do, or you wouldn’t be reading this blog. But some taste better than others, especially when dipped in chocolate. Or covered in toffee and powdered sugar. Or so help me, enrobed in jewel-like candy shell that melts on the tongue like butter from heaven.

The very crunchy, fun people at OhNuts must be as meshuggeneh than I am, because they’re giving away at $30 gift certificate to one lucky Yo, Yenta! reader in honor of the holiday of pranks, candy and silliness knows as Purim. (Yo, locals — see you at the JEA carnival on Sunday!)

So my hungry friends, $30 is a lotta delish for you and your family. You can enter this contest in three, easy ways, and you don’t even have to spell “megillah”:

#1: Go to the Oh Nuts Purim Basket Gift page. Pick out the tasty item that makes you salivate the most. Come back to THIS POST on Yo, Yenta! and leave a comment in the comment section with the name and the URL of said tasty item. Got that? Pick it, tell me about it here. (Mine, of course, are the Purim Chocolate Wine Bottles, because incorporating two vices in one mouthful is brilliant.)

#2: Go to the Oh Nuts Facebook Page and become a fan. Post on the wall your tasty item, the URL and be sure to tell them Yo, Yenta! sent you!

#3: Follow @ohnuts on Twitter and tweet daily, “Win a Purim Basket from http://bit.ly/aWXLzp Follow @ohnuts RT to Enter Daily. Oh, and I worship yoyenta.com!”

Please enter via #1, then shout about it using #2 and #3. Loudest and proudest wins the sugary salty buzz of their dreams!

Still have time to kill between reading Yo, Yenta! and playing Farmville on Facebook? Then you absolutely must play Ethan Friedman’s Jewish crossword puzzle for Tablet. According to the press release about the word challenge, “Friedman makes the connection of how Jewish culture leads to the type of thinking needed to successfully complete such puzzles.”

In terms of the difficulty scale set by the almighty New York Times, it’s got to be a Monday or a Tuesday because I haven’t yet stamped my foot or thrown my laptop against the wall in frustration. But if I don’t finish by sundown I will revisit the suspicion that I do not, in fact, harbor the intelligence of my ancestors and was adopted.

Friedman is a protegé of NYT crossword macher Will Shortz and created this one in honor of this weekend’s American Crossword Puzzle Tournament taking place in Brooklyn — I bet if my mother-in-law still had all her wits, she could kick some tuchus there.

Apologies for the slow posting, folksies — there have been many distractions from this so-called Jewish life as of late.

First off, Savannah’s only Jewish Irish dancer performed at this weekend’s Irish Festival, a glorious three-day cultural extravaganza of green that will only be outshone by next month’s whisky-soaked ginormous homage to St. Patrick. Our Yenta Girl kicked up her heels like a real little leprechaun, and her papa and I were overcome with pride (and perhaps a few pints of Guinness.) Still, we refused her requests to buy her a Celtic cross for the door of her room.

And then there was Valentine’s Day, another culty obsession with a saint that’s become an excuse — nay, an obligation — to indulge. I remember giving out little cards to classmates when I was when in school and maybe getting a heart-shaped cookie and some apple juice, but these days it’s morphed into a terrifying sugar free-for-all. I paid a visit to the children’s school the Friday afternoon prior and it was like ADHD Shutter Island over there. Kids with frosting-smeared mouths and chocolate-smudged fingers were running through the halls maniacally laughing and rocking by themselves in the corners; I had to run mine around the park for an hour before the buzz died down enough to get them into the car. Still, it was kind of cute. El Yenta Boy’s teacher had the kids draw up some “love and peace squares” on fabric in the vein of Tibetan prayer flags, which look precious tied together and draped across the classroom even if one or two still have a lollipop stuck to them. I’m still trying to figure out how to incorporate a related project into my Shalom School curriculum — Purim prayer flags? Maybe.

It’s hard to be this close to New Orleans and not get swept up in Mardi Gras, so the weekend was full of parades and people in purple and yellow and green harlequin outfits whooping it up before they’re supposed to behave themselves for six weeks for fear of the Easter Bunny’s wrath. I’ve never had much of an urge to experience a true Who Dat, New Orleans-style Fat Tuesday because sheesh, I’m Jewish, right? I mean, it’s the crazy celebration before all the Catholics get serious about Jesus’ demise, which some still enjoy blaming on the Jews. Seems like a good time to take a vacation to Miami or something, which is just what New Orleans’ Jews used to do. But Tablet published Justin Vogt’s interesting article on the “Krewe du Jieux,” a Mardi Gras parade community that’s either a self-hating ritual full of disturbing clichés or a iconoclastic, stereotype-smashing reclamation. Or both. I still haven’t made up my mind. I don’t know — how do you feel about drunken revelers cheering on a French Quarter rendition of the “running of the Jieuxs”?

Which brings us to today, Ash Wednesday, the solemn acceptance of a smudge on the head to signify the countdown to Easter. I have been known to be obnoxiously ignorant of the practice, and even though I’ve come a long way, it’s better for everyone that I don’t leave the house today so I won’t be tempted try to chase people with a nice clean paper towel. And I know y’all think I bend reality into pretzels to confirm my suspicion that everyone is Jewish, but according to this article from the Phillipines, the ritual of spreading ashy shmutz on one’s forehead is actually borrowed from Judaism. Frum friends: Do we do that before or after we swing the chickens?

So there you have it, the Yenta’s foray into forbidden territory, which may not be over as I have an unholy fascination with Peeps. I might be a bad Jew, but I take consolation in that I’d undoubtedly be a worse Catholic.

Richmond Hill is a little town north of Savannah that’s nice enough, I suppose. From my few visits, it seems like your typically white, churchy Southern enclave where people move to get away from the crime and bad schools in the city. All I really know about it is that there are lots of golf courses and that rock star Gregg Allman lives there.

Oh, and I’ve seen the sign on the way in that says “Richmond Hill: A Henry Ford City” and yes, it gives me the creeps. But I figure if people want to name their town after a rabid anti-Semite that‘s their business, and I simply take mine elsewhere — I’ve got enough problems. Henry Ford spent a lot of time in coastal Georgia and helped develop the economy back when jobs were scarce, and I’m not going to pick a fight trying to convince this particular population of people that his deep-seated hatred for Jews is a valid reason to revoke his hero status.

But Richmond Hill is Dick Kent’s neighborhood, and the Jewish, West Point-educated former Marine has been campaigning for years to remove Ford’s name from the sign. He hasn’t had much success in rallying city council members to his cause, even though his point is sound. “To call Richmond Hill a ‘Henry Ford City’ implies endorsement from the city government of a man who had a very dark side to his personal history,” he told the local press this week.

Kent’s ten years of polite relentlessness has paid off: Both the Savannah Morning News and the Bryant County News ran stories this week about how Richmond Hill mayor Harold Fowler is “entertaining the notion to come up with a slogan that is acceptable to all the citizens” of his town. Not that it means Fowler will be handing Kent the sledgehammer, but if you know anything about local Georgia politics, this is a tremendous step forward.

What surprised the snot out of me was SMN editor Tom Barton’s op-ed lauding Kent’s position and lambasting Richmond Hill’s backasswardness by still hanging on to the idea that having Henry Ford on its sign is a good and decent thing.

“A Henry Ford City”? What does that mean? If you know U.S. history, it could appear to mean, “No Jews or dogs allowed.”

Not that I don’t feel the same way, but it’s just weird to agree with the newspaper for once.

Jewish tweens are a’squealing over Moshiach Times Band, a kepa-and-denim-rocking quartet of kids who are using the years between their bar mitzvahs and yeshiva to kick out some punk-flavored religious jams. Thanks to Heeb for posting this kosher answer to the “Disney-spawned Christ-humpers,” and I’d like to think I would have titled this post “The Jewnas Brothers” if JDub Records hadn’t thought of it already.

Here’s Tzdaki (lead) , Elijah (drums), Navi (guitar) and Jesse (bass) with “One Mitzvah At At Time”:

I don’t know whether to bang my head or daven. Instead of teeny little bras, do their fans throw snoods?

A coupla months back I shared the magic of Fool’s Gold, a band out of L.A. that mixes up Hebrew lyrics and complex tribal syncopation. For years I thought I was all alone out here in my love for African high-life music and the ba-dunka-thunk of the dundun, but according to Mordecai Shinefield in today’s Forward, American-Jewish-African-pop music is practically its own freakin’ GENRE now. SWEET.

The article mentions Fool’s Gold as well as a jazz reed blower Jacques Schwarz-Bart and the crazy cool Afro-Semitic Experience (how can you not love a song about a torah afloat in a leaky boat?), but I was completely surprised to see hep-to-the-moment band Vampire Weekend in there. Turns out lead singer Ezra Koenig is an Upper West Side brutha, and sees the Jewish-African connection as perfectly obvious:

“Growing up Jewish, you are presented with three images of your people. Desert nomads building pyramids. Eastern-European shtetl-dwellers with big beards. American liberals who eat Chinese food all the time. Now do you see where I’m coming from?”

I think so: Hipster Jews are having a collective identity crisis, and that’s a good thing for people who like to dance.

Rock your Shabbos with Vampire Weekend’s new album, which debuted at #1 in the UK last month.

Yesterday was Tu B’Shvat, the birthday of the trees.

It’s always been one of my favorite holidays, a fine excuse to pop lots o’ pomegranate seeds and shlep my Shalom Schoolers out to the square for some arms-to-trunk action on an oak tree, but for some reason this year I don’t feel so rah-rah about it all.

Judaism teaches us that we are responsible for our environment, and so many of us do our very best. We wash out the cream cheese container and put it the plastics pile for recycling, we buy organic produce that comes from a sustainable farming system instead of the stuff blanketed in pesticides and flown across the world, maybe we even compost our dinner scraps and take five-minute showers and bring own our bags to the store every single time.

On an individual level, most of the people I know deeply care about the planet, take responsibility for reducing their waste and would sacrifice just about anything to ensure a healthy, clean planet for their children and grandchildren and beyond. If there’s anything more we could do to stave off climactic chaos, we’d do it, right?

The thing is, it wasn’t individuals who created the disaster — of biblical proportions, according to some — that we’re headed for. It’s the cumulative effect of corporate greed, bad governmental policy, industrial short-sightedness and a cultural tide of consumption that reusing a Ziploc bag can do very, very little to reverse.

Even James Lovelock, the superscientific dude who hypothesized the concept that the planet is its own organism and warned about global warning 40 years ago, says there’s not a whole lot that can be done at this point — we’re basically just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

“Enjoy life while you can. Because if you’re lucky it’s going to be 20 years before it hits the fan.” ~ James Lovelock

I know, I know, I’m a downer today (if you really want to get depressed, check out the list of the world’s worst human-generated disasters.) Maybe I took yesterday’s JEA viewing for the kids of Dr. Suess’s “The Lorax” too seriously — the part when the last truffula tree falls always brings a catch to my throat — but I can’t help but feel a bit hopeless about it all. It seems to me the that the mustachioed munchkin’s legacy of “UNLESS” is going to come with a much bigger cost than any of us are prepared for.

But you know what? Our tradition says we should plant a tree, and more trees couldn’t hurt. And I’m already in the habit of recycling and carrying my own bags to the market. I might as well finish the grant I’m writing to fund an organic garden at the kids’ school. Even if it doesn’t matter a lick of the fire that’s gonna come up from hell, it’ll keep me busy.

Ironically, it’s beautiful day in Savannah — that’d be Zone 8b for those of you in the planting mood after all this doom n’ gloom. Not too cold, perfect for turning some soil in the backyard to prepare for some seeds we’ve gotten started in the kitchen window. Think I’ll roust myself out of this apocalyptic torpor and grab a trowel.

Sheesh, if we’ve only got 20 good years left, I’d sure rather spend it outside, with the trees and my kids and the birds and the bees, than anywhere else.

We’ve finally gotten some footage from our sponsor Dave, who’s been in Haiti all week assisting with relief efforts. Besides distributing supplies and helping with triage, Dave and his anonymous Flip cameraman have managed to capture the scope of international presence in decimated Port-Au-Prince.

Here’s a tour of an outdoor hospital run by the IDF, with a spontaneous op-ed speech about why and how the Israelis managed to be the first responders after the disaster:

For more of Dave’s on-the-ground videos including street footage, check out PrimeTime’s YouTube Channel.

I personally have not heard from my Brother the Doctor, who was deployed as part of a FEMA international medical response team last week as well, but according to this piece in the Arizona press, he is hard at work performing trauma surgery at a facility right outside the city.

He did manage to text our mother yesterday with the following image of his accommodations:

My mother forwarded it me, with the message “Well, I guess we can’t call him ‘The Prince’ anymore…”

For reals, we are kvelling to have a family member who has the skills to provide so much help to people in need. In the Yenta house we’ve made some donations, but El Yenta Boy has decided on his own that there is one form of tzedakeh that’s going to fulfill his deep and sincere need to serve: We need to adopt a Haitian orphan.

“Please, Mom? I’d take care of it and feed it and let it sleep in my bottom bunk…”

I told him that he can barely keep the snake cage clean and that generally, we don’t refer to human beings as “it,” but that I’d discuss it with El Yenta Man.

In the meantime, a wish for a peaceful, sheltered, delicious Shabbat to all.

Mazel tov to Laura Spector, who recently qualified as the youngest member of the U.S. Biathlon Team. Laura’s the daughter of my dad’s medical school roommate, and we’re awfully proud to have a connection, no matter how tenuous, to a real, live Olympic athlete. (And until talking until you’re blue in the face becomes a recognized sport, it’s as close as we’re gonna get around here.)

Though I’ve known what a biathlon since watching an 80s afterschool special starring Tracy Pollan as a winter athlete who gets kidnapped by some creepy Deliverance guys while training in the snowy backwoods, but here’s a little education for those of you who missed that one: A biathlon is any sport that involves two disciplines, but Olympically-speaking, it usually refers to a race that combines cross-country skiing and rifle-shooting.

Since Laura hails from chilly Massachusetts, I can understand the skiing part, but just how does a nice Jewish girl get involved with big guns? I don’t know, but maybe she’ll give me an interview when she’s returned from Canada, perhaps with a medal! Until then, here’s the Dartmouth student explaining her love of the sport to USA Today:

Cheer Laura and the rest of the American athletes on during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver next month — from the comfort of your sofa and with the convenience of your DVR, of course.