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Old Jewish joke:
Three Reform rabbis are bragging about how liberal their synagogues are. One starts off “Our temple is so liberal, we allow smoking on Yom Kippur.”
The second says “That’s nothing; on Yom Kipper we brought in a caterer and served ham sandwiches.”
The third says “Ah, you two are practically Orthodox. At Yom Kippur, our temple had a sign up: Closed for the Holidays.”
And now, the news: Many megachurches will be closed December 25th. (via GetReligion)
Three Reform rabbis are bragging about how liberal their synagogues are. One starts off “Our temple is so liberal, we allow smoking on Yom Kippur.”
The second says “That’s nothing; on Yom Kipper we brought in a caterer and served ham sandwiches.”
The third says “Ah, you two are practically Orthodox. At Yom Kippur, our temple had a sign up: Closed for the Holidays.”
And now, the news: Many megachurches will be closed December 25th. (via GetReligion)
Talk about things that suck
Sep. 15th, 2005 10:36 pmI first read about this in a Christopher Hitchens article, and figured it might just be a drunken hallucination, but no, it’s real. As if regular circumcision wasn’t bad enough, the ultra-Orthodox version apparently includes a practice called metzitzah b’peh, or oral suction, in which the mohel sucks the blood off of the infant’s penis after cutting it. This became controversial after three Brooklyn infants came down with herpes, one fatally. Of course the ultra-Orthodox are arguing that direct oral contact is a necessary part of the ritual, even though the Rabbinical Council of America recommends using a sterile tube.
My sister’s due to give birth to a boy in a few weeks; I’d better call and make sure they’re not using an Orthodox mohel.
My sister’s due to give birth to a boy in a few weeks; I’d better call and make sure they’re not using an Orthodox mohel.
The comedy never stops
Aug. 22nd, 2004 02:05 am“Hey, remember that movie, The Frisco Kid? They should’ve called it Haftorah, Will Travel.”
It beats the persecution
Apr. 17th, 2004 10:47 pmDavid Bernstein, of the Volokh Conspiracy, quotes from the April 26th issue of People Magazine (which isn’t online):
She’s got the deejay blasting Beyonce and a computerized light show. She has nearly 100 friends crammed into Manhattan’s ritzy Bryant Park Grill. She’s got the gift table groaning with Tiffany bags and guests greeting her dad at the door with “Mazel tov!” Everything is perfectly poised for 13-year-old Kimya to have a world- class bat mitzvah, except for one tiny detail:
Kimya isn’t Jewish.
Welcome to the strange new world of faux mitzvahs, where non-Jewish teens like Kimya Zahedi—whose parents are Iranian-born Muslims—and Taylor Lasley, African-American and Presbyterian, get to party like it’s 5764 (that’s 2004 on the Hebrew calendar). A centuries-old Jewish tradition, bar mitzvahs (for boys) and bat mitzvahs (for girls) mark the passage from childhood to adulthood with rituals like candlelighting and slicing braided bread called challah, as well as with elaborate and often expensive celebrations. Now more and more non-Jewish kids areinsisting on their own bar or bat mitzvah-style parties—without the religious rites and months of studious preparation—when they turn 13. “You see how you can have so much fun with so many people,” says Kimya, who attends one or two bar or bat mitzvahs every weekend in and around her wealthy neighborhood in Alpine, N.J.
