Of course, you’ll still have to pay $19.99 each for them, but I couldn’t decide which one of Ohiso.com‘s hilari-tees (heh, heh, did I make that up?) deserved this week’s dubious honor.

This is the fifth time the superfantubulous Jewishly Japanesey duo Ellie and Akira of Ohiso.com have been featured here — and didja know they rock an awesome blog in addition to their clever J-shirts?

The schmatta on top refers to Maimonides’ epic Guide for the Perplexed (oh yeah, that link leads to it in its entirety, baby) would certainly befit your favorite scholar. It is doubtful I would ever wear it, unless it was referring to the Cliff’s Notes. More likely I would buy one for Rabbi Belzer and wear the other one while picking my son up from Sunday school. Should I ever wake up early enough to get him there in the first place.

(*Though I don’t want to lead anyone to think I’m a better Jew than I actually am, for some reason I feel the need to tell you I do hold a few of the 613 mitzvot near and dear, like #11. And #26-#40. However, with my sad southpaw handwriting, #16 probably isn’t going to happen. #341 sounds very useful if one was lost in the wilderness, but it’s forbidden. And once we get into the 400’s and animal sacrifice, I might as well be Hindu.)

You’d think it’d be a nice cuppa tea, a big important rabbi getting all chummy with the pope. But when it’s crazy pro-lifer Rabbi Yehuda Levin trying to rally the Vatican “to combat the widespread ‘homosexualization’ of the Holy Land and of Western Civilization,” it tastes like crappy Eastern bloc instant coffee with sour goat milk.

Levin called an “emergency meeting” with Catholic leaders last week to discuss teaming up to address the rampant immorality of today’s society, offering up the Orthodox Jewish community as “junior partners” in the war against “abortion-on-demand, internet pornography, radical homosexuality, and no-fault divorce.” In a nauseatingly sycophantic terms, he calls the Catholic Church “the big boy on the block,” which sounds pretty damn gay to me.

The whole article may piss you off, or maybe you’d like to be Levin’s bitch, but let’s all pray the future of Jewish Catholic relations doesn’t rest upon this guy. After the recent progress the Conservative movement has made towards acceptance and celebration of gay marriage and rabbis, seeing this in the mainstream press only sets a unified Jewish world back by decades.

Is this what is meant by rainbowing on someone’s parade?

BTW, this gorgeous rainbow tallis, available from JewishBazaar would look so fine on the next rabbi to visit the Vatican.

Though I’m not advocating its wear for anybody, I suppose this is the T-Shirt of the Week, from — where else? — T-Shirt Hell.

The outlaw part of me snickers at this one for its cheeky self-insulating humor — “No one can insult me if I bring the bar down low enough myself” — but as a Jewish mother I would be horrified for my kids to see say, their hipster uncle wearing this. Even though they seem to grok that this time of year is not about some Chanukah vs. Christmas smackdown, St. Nick extinguishing Chanukah candles with urine is an image I’d prefer not to have burned on their impressionable little brains (along with news footage of Iraq, animal cruelty and Britney Spears’ labia.)

Man, I don’t want to fight a war on Christmas. After last year’s Santa and the Snake tsursis, I vowed to meet the “overwhelment” (a term coined by an fascinating book called The Law of Attraction) of Christian culture with positive Jewish messages to show my kids that while we are a minority (and on the geographic and cultural outskirts of the minority at that), we have so much and so many ways to celebrate who we are and from where we came. I am also trying gently to instill the idea that we owe it to our ancestors to inform others about our Jewishness proudly without acting defensive or entitled. Which translates into training the boy not to spit out snottily “We’re Jewish!” when some well-meaning store clerk mentions the S-man.

For the most part, the kids are too busy helping me create our own awesome holiday to wonder why don’t have an 8-foot Frosty the Snowman in our front yard. We hosted a Chanukah gathering a few nights ago for a few non-Jewish families who expressed interest in “learning about our rituals,” and though they looked a little nervous when we chanted the prayers (El Yenta Man told them that this was the part where we sacrifice a Christian child; such a sicko, that guy) it turned into a lovely party of wine-laden philosophic musings and an epic dreidel tournament presided over the warm glow of the menorahs. Even though one of the neighbor children kept asking “Where’s the black candle?” My son rolled his eyes and was all, “Totally different holiday, dude.”

Ideally, my children’s Jewish identity will be rooted in sharing our celebrations with Jews and non-Jews, and may our non-Jewish friends share their rituals with us. Yesterday’s JPost ran a terrific column by Wendy Mogel called Why Can’t David and Rachel Enjoy the Christmas Glitz? that wonders that what it would be like if instead of trying to keep Christmas from infecting our Jewish kids, we relaxed and made gingerbread houses and drove around looking at lights.

Who knows? Maybe we’d all learn to laugh at a drawing of Santa pissing on a menorah.

BTW, posting may be slow for the rest of the week. Because I feel compelled to practice what I preach and I’m a mother martyr of the highest degree, I’m making latkes for 30 first graders for the school holiday party tomorrow and it may take several days for my burn-spattered hands to recover typing capabilities. Happy Chanukah, y’all!