Archive
Not a day goes by that I don’t think, “Of course he married a shiksa.” This is what I think while watching television. Is that sick or what? Perhaps something has infected me. Maybe it was something I ate. But now all I can think about when I see a Jew on a screen is, […]
OK, so technically, Amazon is having a Kindle sale on nearly 1000 books through July 27th, with prices ranging from $0.99 to $3.99. The selection includes such must-haves as Susanna Clarke’s wry English fantasy epic Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell ($2.99), cult classic Pride, Prejudice and Zombies ($0.99), and Roger Ebert’s compilation of his most […]
A lot of things suck about Jewish eating culture, like keeping kosher, keeping kosher for Passover, and the fact that the kosher Dunkin Donuts at 86th and Amsterdam in Manhattan closes at 9 p.m. But fasting is the worst. I should say now that I’m actually a pretty good faster. I drink enough before the […]
“So this is where deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon exists: In a vast white space populated by magically appearing and reappearing figments of his imagination.” [+972 Magazine] PunkTorah, of all people, becomes only the second outlet (after us, of course) to do any real reporting on the demise of JDub. [PunkTorah] Herman Cain proves his […]
Here’s something interesting: Among my different groups of friends (or should I call them “circles” of friends now?), it’s my Jewish friends that have taken to Google+ most readily. And it’s not just my Jewish friends, but it’s my camp friends, the most far-flung, geographically disparate circle of friends I know. This made me think […]
The Reading List is back! Albeit with less regularity. And it’s the summer. So it’s Summer Reading. Israel has a hockey team? Ice hockey? And they win things? [Tablet] Once again, republicans are predicting Jews are going to leave the Democratic party in droves–for real this time! And once again, they’re dead wrong. [Philadelphia Inquirer] Once […]
With pretzels and cold beers waiting on a fold-up table, guests were greeted upon arrival at DeLeon’s rooftop release party with a warm welcome and the and a copy of the band’s new CD. But behind the excitement and rush of energy were the frowns and blank stares that gave away that last night’s event wasn’t just a concert–it was the beginning of a sad goodbye.
JDub Records announced last week that the Jewish record label will “wind down,” eventually closing its doors for financial reasons. For one year short of a decade, JDub’s mission was to “discover, curate, and promote unique, proud Jewish voices and role models in the mainstream,” according to the July 13 press release that first revealed the bad news.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, founder and president of J Street–the self-proclaimed “Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace” lobby–has faced a lot of flak since his organization arrived on the scene three years ago. Facing controversies from the left and right, on and off of Capitol Hill, J Street–and Ben-Ami–have at times struggled to get their message across.
“A New Voice for Israel,” Ben-Ami’s first book hits the shelves tomorrow. The book describes Ben-Ami’s personal and professional journey to the helm of J Street, the issues Israel faces and why he thinks the American Jewish conversation on Israel needs to change. Ben Sales spoke with Ben-Ami about the book. Here are some of the lobbyist’s thoughts on students’ place in J Street, Jewish organizational dynamics and that other Israel lobby–AIPAC.
Earlier this week, in my video eulogy for JDub Records, I wrote about the impending loss of JDub as a loss of some measure of honestly come by culturally Jewish coolness: Perhaps the saddest thing about it is that the official Jews try so hard–and fail so spectacularly–to market Jewishness to us as the epitome […]
In the world of fiction, from “Hellboy” to “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Adolf Hitler and the Nazis are often given to fantastical machinations. In the world of Scott Kenemore’s new work of not-at-all historical fiction, “Zombies vs. Nazis: A Lost History of the Walking Dead,” the Third Reich sends three of their best agents to Port-au-Prince, Haiti to uncover the mysteries of the undead.
Kenemore is the author of five other semi-historical zombies novels, including “The Art of Zombie Warfare” and “The Zombie Pirate Code.” “Zombies vs. Nazis” is a short series of letters between the Nazi agents and their superior, known as Obergruppenfuhrer (a high paramilitary Nazi rank of the SS). The letters tell the story of how these agents discover successful Voodoo zombie rituals in Haiti. The agents’ leader, Gunter Knecht is both arrogant and sadistic, having proudly strangled a cat during SS training. With him are the more human, curious Inspector Gehrin, and the incompetent and fearful Inspector Baedecker. Together they pose as Jesuit lepidopterists from The University of Bonn.