Jewish Blogs

It is Mommy Edith’s Yahrzeit – Please Quit Smoking Today

In 2000 my mother Edith Zahavy passed away on the 4th day of Tammuz after six months of hospitalization at Mt. Sinai in NYC. She was 79. For 63 years she smoked, mostly menthol cigarettes. The corporate tobacco pushers hooked her into addiction by giving her free samples outside her school, Hunter College, when she was a teenager. They supplied ...

Israel’s Other White Meat

For any kosher law abiding Jew, visiting Israel is an opportunity to eat some of the things that are normally prohibited from eating back at home. What are those things? McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Subway…you know, all those wonderful looking restaurants you pass by every day jealous that you cannot partake in their food’s consumption.Read More: @ myjewishlearning.comReaders found more information ...

Israel’s Conservative Seminary Accepts Gays and Lesbians on Yom Hashoah

The Schechter Institute in Jerusalem is the Israeli affiliate of the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS). It has publicly been holding out on changing its policy concerning the admission of gays and lesbians into its rabbinical ordination program (the only such program for the Conservative movement in Israel). That policy has caused much tension for rabbinical students from the Jewish Theological ...

Israelis, Too, Want That Old-Time Religion

It will take awhile to put the pieces together in a way that demonstrates a clear trend. If anything, the new poll on the religious preferences of Israelis shows opposing trends coexisting. Israel’s Central Statistical Office released its latest results on Monday, and they were picked up immediately by Israeli papers.Of the respondents, all over the age of 20, 8% ...

Israeli soldiers make seminary girls swoon

Chasnoff is a funny guy. He’s also a very nice dude and he just wrote a book (188th crybaby) of which that I have been meaning to get a review copy. His book is a funny memoir about his stint in the IDF and he just made a short video about how he felt as a soldier. For some reason ...

Israeli Movie Stars, the Western Wall, and Other Awesome Mistakes

So. I’m in Israel. We’d just had our two free hours in Jerusalem, virtually the only free time on this whole manic 5-day, 20 hour-a-day conference they call ROI 120. There was a reception with wine and hors d’oeuvres and a former Prime Minister who I’d thought was in jail, but, hey, good for him that he’s not. (Which — oops! ...

Israeli Made Bullet Proof Vest

Didn’t get the gift you wanted for the holidays?On Amazon, here is a concealed BulletProof Vest Personal Body Armor, V.I.P Style Protection Level 3A, light weight, only 4.85lbs / 2.2Kg.This is a top quality level 3A NIJ 01.01.04 with features especially designed for VIPs at risk – like the controversial Talmudic readers of our blog.Read More: @ tzvee.blogspot.comReaders found more information ...

Israeli Army Uses Facebook to Catch Female Draft Dodgers

An article in All Facebook, the unofficial Facebook blog, reports that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has been using the social networking site to nab female Israelis who claim to be religious enough to be exempted from army service. Apparently, their activity on Facebook tells a different story — one the army is interested to learn.Here’s the full article about these ...

Israel Won’t Solve Your Problems: Contemporary Fiction Edition

I have a friend who’s Indian, but who hates reading Jhumpa Lahiri and Monica Ali, women who are celebrated for writing about the lives of the Indian and Bengali immigrants. “It’s all spices and saris,” my friend complained to me once. I happen to disagree–I think Lahiri is the finest writer of our time–but I can see how my friend ...

Israel invites Chilean miners for a ’spiritual’ Christmas in the Holy Land

Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov on Monday extended an official invitation to the 33 Chilean miners who were rescued last week to experience a “spiritual journey” this Christmas in the Holy Land.The men, who were trapped underground for 68 days in a mine in Chile, are invited to Israel with their spouses for a week-long, all-expense paid sightseeing tour of various ...

Israel for Everyone?

Question:I know living in Israel should be every Jew’s dream but it doesn’t seem to be the best choice for my family right now. There are many reasons keeping us where we are including health and financial considerations. Am I wrong for only wanting to go there when Mashiach comes?Answer:As Jews our mission is to bring light into the darkness ...

Isak Gerson’s Church of Kopimism Recognized in Sweden as a Religion

We don’t get the joke. Copyright violation is a crime.Press release from the Church of KopimismThe Church of Kopimism is recognized by the state of SwedenJust before Christmas, the Swedish governmental agency Kammarkollegiet registered the Church of Kopimism as a religious organisation. This means that Sweden is the first country to recognize kopimism as a religion.The Church of Kopimism have ...