Details Mag: Jews Are Smoking Hot
Congratulations, Jewish women: You are officially “the ethnic fetish du jour.”
So says the men’s magazine Details, which bestows the dubious honor in an article in its December issue, informing readers that “America can’t get enough smoking-hot Semitic tush.”
Reporting that Jewish women’s unglamorous “Fran Drescher rep” is a thing of the past, the article cites the “smoldering image” of actresses Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Emmanuelle Chriqui and Rachel Bilson, describing the performers as “cultural mutts…who have little in common beyond sultriness and Star of David necklaces.”
The group’s newfound desirability is doubly impressive, the magazine adds, because of the demographic odds against it, noting that Jews represent a “truly tiny minority” at just 2.2% of America’s population.
The article finds further evidence for its claims in the world of pornography — specifically the subgenre known as “frum porn,” which it describes as “raunchy photos of religious Jews getting busy” — and goes on to interview two Jewish porn stars, including “hard-core superstar” Joanna Angel, who says she grew up in an Orthodox household and fasts on Yom Kippur.
Jewish men, for their part, recently enjoyed their own golden age as objects of desire, a trendiness that the article attributes to the “cuddly schlubbiness” of Jewish characters in the comedies of Judd Apatow. Jewish women’s accomplishment is even more impressive, however, because these women exert their appeal through “sexual energy” — and because they’ve had to displace “the old stinging JAP stereotype of frigidity, whininess, and big hair.”
Culture, the magazine suggests, may lie at the heart of Jewish women’s appeal. “It’s no secret that the Jews are comparatively cool about sex,” opines the author of the article, Christopher Noxon. “From the racy Purim story of hottie concubine Queen Esther” to the works of Philip Roth and Erica Jong, “the Jewish tradition is a veritable orgy compared with Christian culture.”
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
