In Other Jewish Newspapers: Leno’s Jewish Joker, Baltimore’s Kosher ‘Crab,’ London’s Phallus Fracas
PARTY POOPERS?: Israel is gearing up to celebrate its 60th birthday. But some Israelis think the money that is going to the extra-special gala celebration could be put to better use. The New York Jewish week has the story.
‘ANTISEMITISM 2.0’: The Jewish Week searches Facebook, YouTube and other popular interactive Web sites for antisemitism — and finds plenty of it.
LENO’S JEWISH JOKER: Brooklyn’s Jewish Press has a great interview with Marvin Silbermintz, a kippah-clad Orthodox Jewish writer for Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show.” His advice for an aspiring young Jew interested in writing for Hollywood? “Aspiring young Jews? Take a shower.”
WE ARE RIGHT: The divide between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews has been a hot topic of discussion — and hand-wringing — of late. The Orthodox-oriented Jewish Press, however, thinks it’s a simple matter: “it’s the Orthodox who are getting it right and should be emulated — not the other way around.”
A LITTLE BIT KOSHER: New Jersey Jewish News editor Andrew Silow-Carroll explores the ways in which Jews set their own dietary practices, noting that many of us pick and choose from among the laws of kashrut, sticking to a regimen one might call “kosher lite.”
BEST OF BALTIMORE: The Forward may have the Forward 50, but the Baltimore Jewish Times has its “Favorite 54” — a list of the best things about Jewish Baltimore — from hometown boy gone Hollywood Barry Levinson to the “everything bagel” at Goldberg’s. Given the well-known culinary predilections of the Baltimore area, crab is an important presence on the list — at least in variations more acceptable to the kashrut-keeping consumer, such as the imitation crab at Seven Mile Market and the Utz Crab Chip.
MORTGAGE MESS: Robert Sklar, publisher of the Detroit Jewish News, reports on a local Jewish effort to address the mortgage crisis in his hard-hit metropolis.
BRIDGE TOO FAR, PART III: A new development in the ongoing saga of a Houston highway overpass that has been commandeered by sign-holding anti-Israel protestors: Houston cops have decided it’s protected speech. The Jewish Herald-Voice has the latest.
FROM KAIFENG TO SEATTLE: A descendant of the ancient Chinese Jewish community of Kaifeng pays a visit to the less ancient Jewish community of Seattle. The Jewish Transcript is on the scene.
HEBREW FOR ‘ABRACADABRA’: Visiting scholar Arthur Kurzweil tells Portland Jews about the Jewish origins of “abracadabra” — and performs a few magic tricks himself. But as an observant Jew, he’s careful to tell his audience that he doesn’t have any special powers, Portland’s Jewish Review reports.
STANLEY SPEAKS: Stanley Gold, the business titan who saved Disney, is now turning his attention to saving Los Angeles’s Jewish community federation. The federation’s new chairman lays out his battle plan in an opinion article for the L.A. Jewish Journal.
SCHOLAR SAVED: Hebrew Union College pays to bring an embattled moderate Muslim scholar from Macedonia to Los Angeles, the Jewish Journal reports.
NO CAMPUS FOR YOUNG JEWS: An independent task force charged with examining antisemitism at the University of California at Irvine — where the established Muslim student group regularly brings extremist speakers to campus — concludes that Jewish students “should consider enrolling elsewhere.” The task force was originally convened by the local Hillel, though its connection to the panel was eventually severed. In addition to blasting the response of the university’s administration to the climate on campus, the task force also criticized the local ADL branch, the Jewish Federation of Orange County, the American Jewish Committee and Hillel, according to the L.A. Jewish Journal.
MATCHMAKER, MATCHMAKER, MAKE ME RICH: The San Diego Jewish Journal speaks with Patti Stanger, host of the new Bravo series, “The Millionaire Matchmaker.” Stanger’s Millionaire’s Club, which she started in 2000, serves busy millionaire men and the women who want to marry them. And she appears to have a decidedly old-fashioned (and mercenary) understanding of what these ladies like. “The women want the covenant relationship which means that they get to stay home and raise the kids while their husband goes off and slays the dragons at work,” Stanger tells the Journal.
GLASGOW FOR VANUNU?: The Glasgow City Council is planning to debate a motion praising Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli scientist who was jailed for 18 years for divulging secrets about Israel’s nuclear weapons program to a British newspaper. Scottish Jewish leaders are not pleased, London’s Jewish Chronicle reports.
LONDON PHALLUS FRACAS: A Christian group is leafleting outside a London synagogue and assailing Britain’s chief rabbi over a sculpture owned by a Jewish art collector that depicts Jesus with a phallus. The Jewish Chronicle has the story.
HARD TO BE A PIMP: An Israeli brothel owner has been fined and sentenced to prison time by a British court, the J.C. reports.
OBLIVION IN BABYLON: Diaspora Jewry is dying, argues Calev Ben-David in an essay for the Jewish Chronicle.
HEBREW BEATS YIDDISH: For the first time, more residents of Canada are now native Hebrew speakers than native Yiddish speakers, The Canadian Jewish News reports.
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