Y’all have to check out Jewgoo’s interview with Magus Peter H. Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satan. It takes a brave Jew to take on the forces of evil, and Mr. Goo asks great questions about what it’s like to worship the Devil and all that. Magus Gilmore clearly possesses intelligence and a creepy dignity, going on about tolerance:
We do not see other religions as being a problem so long as they are not allied with a government and given the power to force us to be a part of their belief systems. Satanists support the idea of a secular society, wherein a plurality of beliefs – including the option not to believe – are open to everyone as a matter of choice, and no one religion may force its morals and beliefs on anyone who doesn’t choose to adopt them of their own free will. We favour a government that fosters maximum individual liberty, and wise social laws to prevent criminal behaviour, so that we can enjoy the benefits of participating in a society.
That’s very nice, isn’t it? How come Satanists never talk about anything interesting like orgies or taking over the world? This guy sounds like your basic moderate Democrat, for heaven’s sake.

Jpost reports that Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski announced his plans to build a flashy 25 foot Shabbat clock at the Western entrance to the city. Many consider the mayor and his expensive project ridiculous, since Shabbat times can be found everywhere in Jerusalem but the bathroom walls.
“Too bad the clock does not include a sundial counting down the time left to his term,” scoffed a city councilmember.

We don’t need a big clock to tell us when to pull the curtains on the week, especially when the info is a mere click away. We look forward to our day of rest like a thirsty camel coming to the oasis, without the smell. Let’s fill up on family, friends and food and be back Monday.
Shabbat Shalom!

Gawker reports the wrist accessory of the season is now a “hot buy” at your neighborhood-destroying, local economy-stomping megamonsterstore Target.
We had no idea “Kabbalah” translates into “crass capitalism” in the Zohar.

The New York Post‘s real estate section counsels apartment dwellers on their doorjamb rights. If the little old lady in 2A is allowed one of those incredibly tacky faux flower wreaths, then you can attach a mezzuzah to the doorposts of your house. However, freedom being what it is, a landlord can’t discriminate against religious objects even if your neighbors are Satan-worshipping freaks who decorate the hallway with cow’s liver.

Our tribe has suffered so much tsuris over the centuries that we lump all our mourning into one day. From the destruction of the First and Second Temples to the Spanish Inquisition to the Holocaust to the branding of Britney, we can fast and pray for better times ahead.
This week’s J. contains an interesting examination of Tisha B’Av (the Ninth day of the month Av) as “the inverse of Chanukah”: During the darkest days of the year we light candles and make merry, while on this lovely day of seemingly eternal sunshine we commemorate the blackest times of our history. We’re a pretty unorthodox bunch, but we appreciate the need to spend a little time tomorrow focusing on how gash-durn miraculous it is that Jews keep turning tragedy inside out and light up the planet.

South African centenarian Philip Rabinowitz earned his spot in the Guinness Book of World Records last week after tearing across the 100 meter finish line in 30.86 seconds, making him the oldest, fastest dude on the planet.
Crazy thing about the race is that the stopwatch snafu’d on his first try that day. Instead of taking it as a sign that running around is an easy way to break his 100 year-old hips, he went back and broke the record. We don’t know why we find this story so compelling, but it gives much hope to our aching 30-something bones.

We just attended a baby shower in the hippie netheregions of Marin County, where guests were given red string bracelets and asked to wear them until the woman of honor goes into labor. Neither the mama-to-be or any of the guests are Jewish; it was more of a pagan, woman-solidarity thing. Nevertheless, we’ve been receiving plenty of wiseass Kabbalah cracks all week.
We know that the whole celebrity-slut red string thing is a heap of schlock, but if our friend’s baby bengel provides an extra shield from the kineahora, then more power to us.

Cute column on the rise of our tribe’s trendiness from Israel’s Maariv International. Contains the scary information that Bruiser here studies Kabbalah.

Toasts all around: Happy Anniversary to our parents, who met on a blind date several thousand years ago and still annoy each happily every day.
Best of Birthdays to the little bro, who may always be smarter, better-looking and cooler than us, but we know he used to be a thumbsucker.
Love you guys.
A mighty Shabbat Shalom to everyone else.

In the San Francisco region of Jmerica, social situations can get kind of hairy for those of us wearing our Jewish heritage on our sleeves. While we’re too preoccupied with shallow celebrity doings and weird Jewish news items to pretend to be an authority on Israeli policies and the history of the Middle East, we can’t help but get rankled when confronted by well-meaning liberal zealots who want to know how we feel about “the situation.”
These folks see the Palestinians as long-oppressed refugees, and since everyone loves the underdog (especially in the Bay Area, where brit milah is considered baby mutilation in some circles), anti-Israeli (and by ignorant association, anti-Semitic) sentiment taints the fog rolling in through the Golden Gate. We don’t mind being unpopular and we’re happy to let everyone have his or her free speech, but it always helps to have some facts on hand when waiting in line at the health food store behind someone wearing an “End the Colonial Occupation of Palestine” t-shirt. That, and a Xanax to keep us from smacking him in the keppe with a bag of mung beans.
Anyway, there’s a new blog from some folks living out in the territories called Yesha Speaks Out (Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Jordan Valley all fall into the header “Yesha.”) Again, we may never know enough about politics to go toe-to-toe with the pundits, but we believe in Israel’s right to exist. The Palestinian leadership does not. We want peace as much as our bleeding-heart neighbors, but we won’t succumb to the f’d up rhetoric of people who can’t get their facts straight.