kvetchy, camp-mourning jewish child
I amuse myself. If Josie doesn’t stop talking about Ga-ga (not the Lady, the Israeli dodgeball game) I am going to pound myself into unconsciousness with a volleyball. Thus my venting in Tablet magazine this week.
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This week in Tablet magazine, I ponder shatnez, the rule in the Torah that prohibits wearing clothes containing both wool and linen. In the past, I only thought about shatnez when thinking up retorts to intolerant religious people yelling about Adam and Steve. [click to continue…]
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If I were to buy a $78 Halloween costume that my children would find creepy and refuse to wear, it’s this one! Because it is awesome!
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I got a bunch of email after this picture of Crystal hit the wires:
Honestly, I hadn’t seen Crystal in four months and I picked up the phone and left her a message: DO YOU REALLY LOOK LIKE THIS? I DON’T THINK YOU LOOK LIKE THIS. BUT IF YOU LOOK LIKE THIS YOU ARE COMING OVER HERE AND I AM FEEDING YOU. [click to continue…]
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My current Tablet magazine column is on cyberbullying. My editor Liel and I strove for a Jewy take on the subject, but for better or worse, the piece is pretty universal. Right now one of the bullies we mentioned is tangling in the always-lively comments section. It is, um, not so civil!
Meanwhile, New York City’s Department of Education just proposed a change to the city schools’ Discipline Code: now cyberbullying (defined as “intimidating and bullying behavior through electronic communication”) will be subject to a disciplinary beat-down. [click to continue…]
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Israel is considering denying citizenship to Jews whose conversions to Judaism were performed by Conservative or Reform rabbis. There’s a bill in the Knesset that would give the (ultra-Orthodox) chief rabbinate authority over all conversions; this would overturn an Israeli Supreme Court decision allowing citizenship to all Jews converted by rabbis from all branches of Judaism. The chief rabbinate already controls marriage and divorce. Whee.
When I talk to American Jews who are ambivalent about their Judaism (“it’s anti-feminist! it’s rigidly cerebral and text-obsessed! it’s a throwback!”) I try to say that Judaism is a pluralistic religion; there are many ways to practice and at least three distinct philosophical and theological paths. I say that Judaism does not have to be a completely patriarchal, wimmin-oppressing, chauvinistic, isolationist religion of fucktardedness. And then something like this happens.
I hope Israel (and hey, America) can come to terms with how much power it wants the ultra-Orthodox to have over its coreligionists. If I wrote about this for Tablet magazine the readers would disembowel me, but think about it: who is a bigger threat to democracy in Israel, the Arabs or the ultra-Orthodox?
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Important summer safety interruption: Drowning doesn’t look like drowning. This piece by a maritime safety expert (a former New Orleans Coast Guide helicopter search-and-rescue swimmer) gives you a checklist of what drowning actually looks like. Hint: Not the way it does in the movies.
Once I got a hint of how quickly something horrible can happen at a backyard pool. A friend was sitting with her legs in the water, next to her two-year-old son. She was looking over her shoulder, talking to someone behind her, as her little boy leaned forward and (I think deliberately) fell in. It was like a toothpick piercing an olive. He went straight down, straight to the bottom — he was too young to even give the clues in Mario Vittone’s story. Another mom at the BBQ said, “Um, is that your son in the water?” She turned back, looked, screamed a curse, leaped in and yanked him up. He was under for maybe 20 seconds. He coughed and sputtered and then was absolutely fine. He didn’t even cry. But the fact that he just slipped quietly under, with no flailing or splashing, was haunting.
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Maxie had a playdate with her pal Kiran. They made a “velvet rope” out of paper chains taped between the couch and the wall of the living room. Kiran sat at a desk in front of the rope and asked “Are you on the list?” He then crossed off our names and Maxie opened one end of the “rope” and let us in. We were not allowed to sit — we had to stand behind a chair. The “performance” consisted of Maxie wearing a tutu and a swath of gold fabric tied around her middle like a bandeau, with a boa tied around her forehead, hurling herself energetically off the couch and chairs like a pinball. It lasted maybe 30 seconds.
Thank God we were comped.
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Artist Kelly Light is running a charity auction of affordable work by terrific illustrators, printmakers, painters and children’s book artists, all to raise money for wildlife affected by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Here’s how it works: The moment something you like goes on sale, you send an email saying you want it. If you’re the first emailer, you have one hour to donate $50. The money goes to the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies and the International Bird Rescue Research Center. Kelly has already raised over $7400. Brava!
I was too late to bid on this work by kidbook rock star Mo Willems. I hadn’t known he was from New Orleans. The sad pigeon makes me want to cry.
I love this linocut print by German artist Maria Bogade:
And this miniposter by Courtney Autumn Martin, made with a combo of digital painting and pencil drawing:
Wouldn’t that look cute in a kid’s room? The answer is yes. The fundraising project, called ripple (get it?) is definitely RSS- or bookmark-worthy. Go bid!
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Really scary-looking 4-alarm fire in the East Village last night. One address, 150+ firefighters, dozens and dozens of fire engines. As usual, our neighborhood blogs were on top of the story fast. Check out these pictures from East Village Grieve (found on the twitpics of a guy named Josh Spear):
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