Haredim and the Internet… part whatever [Haaretz]
Hmm… so it’s tough to know what to make of it, but whatever you think, it’s an intriguing report. Maya Epstein writes:
“To put things into proportion, both the Arab and Haredi communities are relatively impoverished, and their proportion of households with Internet is lower. But among those who do surf, they tend to be friskier than the non-Haredi Jewish population.
First of all, only 55 percent of Israelis with below-average income have Internet, compared to 85 percent of Israelis with above-average income, according to the survey, which was commissioned by Google Israel and conducted by Dr. Yuval Dror, Head of Digital Studies at the Rishon Letzion College of Management.”
Guess they’ve seen “Charlie Bit Me” after all. And yeah, we’ve posted the above video before. But it seemed fitting again for some reason.
Jewish ‘types’ and the sci-fi flick [Cracked]
We only occasionally post blatant comedy around here (because we are all very, very serious all the time, clearly): an Onion post here, a satire write-up about ultra-Orthodox Jews and the Internet there. To rectify that, here’s a post from Cracked.com. They make jokes, and stuff.
“Now, I know some of you are saying, ‘Wait a second. So what if the Jawas share some undesirable traits that are consistent with the negative stereotypes of Jews? Gladstone, aren’t you being the racist here by seeing greedy little creatures and instantly thinking ‘Jews’?’ That is a very fine point! And yes, that’s entirely possible. All I have to say in response to that is um, well, he does call them Jawas. Seems less than accidental that they have a ‘J,’ ‘W’ and ‘S’ in one word like that. I tried longer than I care to mention to see if there any other such words in the English language. Aside from the obvious ‘jaws,’ the closest I came was ‘JelloWombats.'”
JelloWombats, indeed.
Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. I want peace for Israel and Palestine. Prepare to… die? [Salon]
This isn’t exactly big news, but turns out movie and television star (just star, basically) Mandy Patinkin had something eloquent to say about Israeli-Palestinian peace. The actor, perhaps best known for his role in “The Princess Bride,” was recently quoted as saying the following:
“Patinkin is a supporter of the Israeli left that advocates a two state solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an end to settlement building in the West Bank.
Patinkin said he wants his grandchildren ‘to be able to have Hummus with their neighbors in Hebron,’ a West Bank town.”
Amen. Even the six-fingered man could agree with that. (On second thought…) Tablet Magazine also featured the following:
“Mandy Patinkin, the (Jewish) actor whose most famous role is in 1987′s The Princess Bride, is a board member of the liberal group Americans for Peace Now. And currently, according to an APN spokesperson, he’s on a tour of East Jerusalem organized by the related Israeli organization Peace Now. Patinkin, Claire Danes, and other cast members of the Showtime series Homeland are in Israel to do some filming—appropriate, given that Homeland is based on the Israeli series Halufim (Prisoners of War).”
Fertility and motherhood [Forward]
It’s no surprise that we have an obligatory Mother’s Day-related post (by the way, “Hi Mom! I’m on the Internet!”), but this one’s good enough to transcend its holiday connections to just make for a powerful read.
“This past year my husband and I completed an intensive process to become certified as adoptive parents to a special–needs child. But, because we are in our 40s, we were warned that it might take a couple years for us to find a match. Over the years we’d been through numerous doctors and treatment plans, multiple operations and procedures. Our marriage had been tempered by physical and emotional pain, disappointment and tears. We knew how to wait.
And then, before our official clearances were even finalized, our son suddenly came into our lives. An out-of-state agency emailed us a photo of our little boy. Handing my husband the iPhone image of our son, his sweet face slightly obscured by a feeding tube, I said, ‘This is our baby. Can’t you just feel it?’ A few weeks later, after clearing a final array of legal and logistical hurdles, we were spending 12 hours a day with our son in the NICU. A couple of weeks after that, we brought him home.”
I think I have something in my eye.
