Look who it is on the cover of L.A.’s Jewish Journal! You remember her, Mare Winningham? The WASP-y girl who was too prude to bump uglies with Rob Lowe in St. Elmo’s Fire? She’s so Jmerican she’s making us look bad.

The Washington Post reports on one Reverend Lon Solomon, born Jewish but a now born-again pastor bent on saving souls, especially us heathen Jews. (You’ll have to register on their site to get the full story.)
“At Metro stops and parks throughout the region in August, the church will launch what Solomon promises will be the most ambitious evangelical outreach ever to the area’s Jewish community. Hundreds of church volunteers will sing hymns on street corners and distribute literature aimed at converting Jews.”
Ick, this smacks of inquisitions, crusades and pogroms when Jews were given the choice to “eat the cracker” (our euphemism for converting to Christianity) or die. They may not be raping and pillaging, but gangs of streetcorner evangelists present a certain encroachment to freedom of religion and thought.
Frankly, we think people should mind their own f’in business when it comes to religion– you believe yours, we’ll believe ours and we’ll see ya after all this is over. However, we like to play little tricks on people with enough chutzpah to come to our homes (or get in our faces) uninvited and try to convert us. Last year, when a couple of acne-sprinkled Mormon boys showed up at our very off-the-beaten-path door, we pulled out our Gates of Prayer and invited them to pray with us. They left an hour later after a long soliloquy (ours) on the greatness of God and His wish that we respect the Word.
If you’re in the D.C. area and you run into any of these preacher creatures, act fascinated with their “we are the only way” crapola and then start davening like your life depended on it. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to engage in any intellectual rhetoric–it will fall on deaf ears.

In London last spring, filthy rich synagogue member Brian Maccaba was accused of being a “sex pest” by Rabbi Yaakov Lichtenstein for making indecent proposals to married women. Maccaba, father of six, reportedly offered a million dollars to shtup his kids’ religious school teacher, also married. Other complaints surfaced and the rabbi called Maccaba out as the perv he is. The response was total denial and a lawsuit against the rabbi. London’s High Court decided on Friday that what Maccaba thought was slander was actually a pretty shrewd character assessment on the part of Rabbi Lichtenstein. The case was dismissed and Maccaba went down trying and denying.
As much as your mother would like to believe otherwise, Jewish men can still be pigs. Even the British ones.

Saw a couple of thoroughly Jmerican movies from the comfort of the sofa over the weekend. First was It Runs In the Family, a nepotistic family comedy starring Kirk Douglas (post-stroke but still funny and dignified) as the aging patriarch of a Jewish family (not the religious kind, the New York-bagelly kind.) His real son, Michael Douglas, plays the screen son, a the bleeding heart liberal in lawyer’s clothing (who, we must say, still looks pretty fine for a man in his 60’s.) Topping off this Jewish royalty extravaganza is Michael’s son Cameron, who spins a spot-on caricature of a Trustafarian stoner boy. Kirk’s ex-wife, Michael’s mother and Cameron’s bubbe plays the graceful matriarch and the totally unrelated, unJewish but completely fabulous Bernadette Peters is the lawyer’s wife. The plot is a bit corny, but the bits between the characters made us plotz.

Muchas gracias to Boy Genius Julio, who pointed us to The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob. Elastic-faced Louis de Funes stars as a bigoted businessman who gets kidnapped by a Third World revolutionary; pandemonium ensues as they disguise themselves as chasidim and are mistaken for visiting rabbis. We forgive it for being French, rather unpolitically correct and set in the 70’s, because it’s ridiculously funny in a Robert Benigni way– with a dash of Herbie the Lovebug thrown in.

The charges brought against Winona Ryder for her 2001 kleptomaniacal shopping spree at Saks Fifth Avenue have been reduced from felonies to misdemeanors, as long as she keeps her fast fingers to herself for the duration of her probation. Now, what kind of message does this send to rich shoplifting brats? If you have enough money and don’t actually need to steal, the district attorney will do legal gymnastics to help you preserve your reputation? If you swiped a watch or two to feed your kids, though, you can bet your tuchis you’d be hung out to dry.

From Jewsweek’s Jewriffic Awards, the week’s “most remarkable things in Jewish culture,” comes this classic line from Patrick Swayze via Entertainment Weekly:
“To me, Dirty Dancing wasn’t about Swayze shaking his ass. It was about the cool, funky Jewish girl who gets the guy.”

That’s right, stud, and don’t you ever forget that nobody puts Baby in a corner.

Bluegrass rabbi Michael Stein gets people’s toes tapping to L’echa Dodi and other Sabbath country classics at Temple Aliyah in L.A. tonight. Wish we could be there, but we’ve got front lawn tickets to Jewish bluegrass great David “Dawg” Grisman at the JCC tomorrow.
Wishing y’all a Shabbos full of music, wherever your tastes may lie.

…The Kabbalah Center has swooped a former President into its all-celebrity consuming grasp? It looks like one of those infamous red string bracelets to us, fer shur. It’s really not that bad– Clinton is the closest thing to a Jewish president this country has ever had.

This was forwarded to our inbox by someone who knows someone who knows the cousin of the guy who works at the coffeeshop where this girl gets her latte everyday:

Subject: Invoice 6/12/04
Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 17:15:59 EDT
Dear Dana:
On June 5, you agreed to accept dinner, paid for in full, by me, based on
your stated offer that we would go out again. In that you have ignored all
overtures to said follow up meeting, you are hereby considered in breach of
contract.
To that end, you are being invoiced for 50% of the cost of the dinner,
pursuant to the offer. For the record, the offer presented you with the option of
not going out again and paying for half of the dinner, or going out again and
not paying at all. You accepted these terms, choosing to go out again, as stated
above, but have since failed to deliver your end of the agreement. In that
this was merely a promise to meet, and not a promise to marry, the agreement is
binding under New York law and does not require a written agreement (i.e.
statute of frauds).
Furthermore, this is absolutely not a joke.
Your share is 50% of $74.51 which is a total of $37.25. Payment in full is
expected within 30 days.
You may remit to:
Andrew Goldberg
720 Greenwich Street, #4d
NY NY 10012

Andy. Bubbeleh. Is the thirty-seven bucks worth what such pettiness has done to your reputation? Dana didn’t like you, man. Maybe Miss Schnurrer should have coughed up her half at dinner if she didn’t want to go out with you again, but you’re never going to find love counting pennies.

When we were little children we used to dream about going to the Oscars and walking down the red carpet. Until our fantasies became nightmares haunted by an ongoing Velcro-voiced narrative of “Oh! Did you see this gown? She looks like P. Diddy in drag! Oh, please!” When Joan Rivers took over the red carpet commentary, we knew we’d never, ever go to the Oscars (even if we were nominated by the Academy) for fear of her raspy wrath. But on this side of the screen she’s pretty damn funny.
Joan, who looks like she’s been frequenting the same plastic surgeon as Michael Jackson, has ditched her post as E!’s Oscars Wicked Witch and signed a fat deal with the TV Guide Channel. Her daughter Melissa, who has no discernible career skills other than concurring with her mother and vapidly flashing her flawless orthodontia, will join her, of course.