AJWS PSA- best ever!

Atone Phone

Thanks Harry, but I'm still not sorry for having wronged you by kicking your puppy....

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Atone Phone - Emmy Awards
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox News

and the phone call....

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Atone Phone - Jon Stewart Calls to Apologize
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox News

Yom K at Sea

At great piece by a Jewish lobsterman about Yom K in Maine and at sea.

l'shana tova!

Going to Shul in Beirut

My friend John Nahas has an article about the restoration of the Beirut Synagogue.

No wonder he signed with NY

NBA star Amar'e Stoudemire is Jewish::

The former NBA Rookie of the Year and current New York Knick recently disclosed that his mother was Jewish, and has publicly embraced his roots – peppering his Twitter updates with Hebrew and now visiting the country with his girlfriend Alexis.

Marranos in Medellin

Interesting piece on Sephardic crypto-Jews in Colombia, gracias Che Miles.

Hava Nagilah

Check out this cute video on the origins and meaning of Hava Nagilah:

Hava Nagilah, What Is It? from Katahdin Productions on Vimeo.

Kaifeng Jews

Shey-shey Naomi for this piece on Kaifeng Jews.

Twilight in Calcutta

Interesting piece on the twilight of Calcutta's Jewish community. Merci Tala.

Reconquista

An interesting piece on Spain's returning Jews in GlobalPost.

Kosher Chinese

Interesting article on Chinese-Israeli burgeoning ties in line with the Shanghai Expo. TY Naomi.

Hineni

There is an article about my uncle in the website for his synagogue.

Janukkah Rap

This is the HipHop Hoodios video on Janukkah. Gracias, Ché Miles.

Whitefish, Montana; Shalom on the range; Paulianity

“If you live in New York or any other big city, you are Jewish. It doesn’t matter even if you’re Catholic; if you live in New York, you’re Jewish. If you live in Butte, Montana, you’re going to be goyish even if you’re Jewish.”
-Lenny Bruce

Well apparently Mr. Bruce was wrong. Check out this interesting piece on Jews and an Israeli dog in Montana.

There is also a good piece in Harper's about Crypto-Jews in the American Southwest.

Meanwhile, I stumbled on an interesting piece on whether Paul (as in the Wandering Paul of Tarsus) remained more Jewish than previously thought.

7 Years of good luck

Check out this article about Jewish girls as sex symbols. Thanks Yael. Oy. Image above is from Details, as is the story. Meanwhile, from the story comes the Year of the Jewish Woman calendar including the image below:

                                                               Those are matzah balls!

Jerusalem Flash Mob by Nefesh b' Nefesh

Check out this hysterical Jerusalem flashmob:

Japanese Wallenberg

My friend Kenya sent me over a link about a Japanese diplomat who helped save Jews in WWII. Hmmm...was he trying to save Jews....or carry out THE FUGU PLAN!!

Jewcy II

The second part of my Jews of Tijuana story is now up on Jewcy.

Jews of TJ on Jewcy

I have a front-page story of the Jews of Tijuana on Jewcy, a Jewish news website. They are running it as a two-part series. They are also now featuring my blog on their blogroll.

Who is a Jew? UK-style

An interesting piece in the New York Times about a case in the UK regarding what it means to be a Jew.

The New Jews

An interesting piece from CNN about "the New Jews" Thanks Mark.

Jewish pirates

From an email forwarded to me:

This is about the most famous Jewish Pirate, Jean Lafitte. It was written by a former professor from Temple University, Professor Bernard Glick:

Many of the pirates of the Caribbean were Sephardic Jews who turned to piracy to get revenge on the Spanish Catholics who expelled them from Spain in 1492, murdered their families and stole their property. Six of Barbarossas chief officers were Jewish! This article sheds light on one of the most famous Jewish Pirates: Jean Lafitte the Jewish Pirate. One of the things I do since I retired from Philadelphia's Temple University is lecture on cruise ships. My signature talk is the 50-century old history of piracy whose practitioners I call the Seafaring Gangsters of the World.

A few weeks before my first gig, I sent a draft of the talk to my history buff sister, Phyllis. She liked it, but was very unhappy that I had not mentioned Jean Lafitte. I told her I didn't include him because I intended to deal with the economics, the sociology, and the politics of piracy. She said I simply had to talk about Lafitte because he was unique. He was a Sephardic Jew.

In his prime, Lafitte ran not just one pirate sloop but a whole fleet of them simultaneously. He even bought a blacksmith shop in New Orleans, which he used as a front for fencing pirate loot. And he was one of the few buccaneers who didn't die in battle, in prison, or on the gallows. Though I didn't lecture about Lafitte at first, a circumstance of serendipity has made me do so ever since. I was flying to Norfolk, Virginia. The man in the seat next to me wore a skullcap and he began chatting with me in Gaelic-accented English. Though born in France, the friendly passenger now lives in Switzerland. We quickly established that we were both Jewish and that both of us had taught in Israel.

Then we had the following conversation: What are you doing on this plane? I asked. I'm a mathematician. I work for an American company and I'm flying to Norfolk today because it has the US Navy's largest naval base and my company is trying to get a Navy contract. Now, what are you doing on this plane?

My wife and I are picking up a cruise ship in Norfolk.

Taking a vacation?

Not entirely. I'll be giving lectures on the ship,...... as many, in fact, as there are full days at sea.

What do you lecture about?

Since cruise lines frown on controversial topics. I have talked about Israel once or twice, but I usually talk about Latin America, which is my second specialty, or the Panama Canal or Mexico's Isthmus of Tehantepec, or the voyages of Captain Cook to the South Pacific. But I always begin a cruise with a lecture on pirates. The kids love it and the old folks like it too.

Are you going to talk about Jean Lafitte?

No. And I repeated what my sister had told me.

He pulled out his wallet and handed me a business card. It had Melvyn J. Lafitte written on it.

Then he said, I am a direct descendant of Jean Lafitte. Your sister, Phyllis, is absolutely right. Our family, originally named Lefitto, lived in the Iberian Peninsula for centuries. When Ferdinand and Isabella re-conquered Spain and expelled the Jews in 1492, most of the Jews fled to North Africa. Others went to the Balkans or to Greece and Turkey. But some Sephardic Jews, my ancestors among them, crossed the Pyrenees and settled in France, where Jean was born in about 1780. He moved to French Santo Domingo during the Napoleonic period. However, a slave rebellion forced him to flee to New Orleans. Eventually he became a pirate, but he always called himself a privateer because that label has a more legal ring to it.

In 1814, the British sought his aid in their pending attack on New Orleans. However, he passed their plans to the Americans and helped General Andrew Jackson beat them in 1815. A grateful Jackson, not yet President, saw to it that Lafitte and his family became American citizens. And, by the way, did you know that there is a town of Jean Lafitte, as well as a Jean Lafitte National Historical Park in Southwestern Louisiana?

I was flabbergasted, not so much by the saga of Jean Lafitte as retold by a proud descendant, but by the fact that the two of us had met so coincidentally in the skies over Georgia. Melvyn Lafitte lives in Geneva and I live in Portland, Oregon. These cities are 5,377 miles apart. Unlike him, I am mathematically challenged, so I don't know what the statistical probability is that a descendant of the Franco-Jewish-American pirate Jean Lafitte would board an airplane and sit next to me as I was agonizing over whether to mention his famous ancestor in my forthcoming talk.

Jewish history is replete with vivid coloring.

The Fugu Plan

I wanted to do T'fillin before my journey to Japan, so I trudged down to the UW Chabad house but found the location abandoned to an AEP frat house. I made a call to the Seattle Chabad and found out that there was another place a few blocks away. I called the rabbi and he gave me directions to his house. I trudged with all my stuff to find Rabbi Estrin's house. He was a young Rabbi with a young family. Some Chabadniks were also there, preparing for an outdoor camping adventure. I got to do t'fillin and we chatted about Jews all over the world and especially in Japan. He informed me of something an amazing story that I will look into: the Fugu Plan.

Apparently, the Fugu Plan, named for the pufferfish- a delicacy that is poisonous if prepared incorrectly, was a Japanese plan around WWII to settle the Jews in Japan so that they could help the Japanese control the world. The Japanese got their info on the Jews from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, so if the Jews were so powerful then the Japanese would settle them in small colonies in Japan and use their power to take over the world. There was a book about it, which the Rabbi showed me. The wiki entry scoffs on the veracity of it, but it sounds interesting to me. I will keep you dear readers posted on the story.

Maccabi Mike

Check out this interview with my cousin Michael Rockower, who is playing goalie for the US team at the Maccabi Games in Israel.