Kosher Eucharist / יוקאריסט כשר

Sometimes I wonder if the increasingly debilitating pain of having to venture out in public during the daytime might be somewhat alleviated if I could amuse myself with telepathy. What’s going on under the gel-encrusted quills of an ars? Do the Yazam cops realize that the more heat they pack, the more it looks like they’re compensating for spending all day riding on a Kawasaki Ninja built for two? Is there anything at all going on in the Breslovers’ heads beyond the persistent zzt-zzt of two remaining synapses trying desperately, and failing utterly, to connect? And, most intriguing of all, do all those seminary girls know their goddamned skirts are dragging on the ground?

Imagine if you could spend one fine Jerusalem afternoon in the area of the Ben Yehuda midrachov finding out:

The more inexplicable ruffles my skirt has, the more Hashem loves me.

Speaking of my skirt, I know it’s dragging on the ground, but my willingness to ruin my clothing just shows the boys that my daddy has money.

Ohmig-d, is that RIVKAH EISENBERG?! I haven’t seen her in at least two days! I must express my pleasure upon unexpectedly seeing her in public by shrieking her name at the top of my considerable lungs!

Are her elbows uncovered? Slut.

I mean, sure, I’ve been fooling around with Moshe from Neveh…well, and Josh from Neveh…well, okay, the entire 12:30 Gemara shiur from Neveh…but they kept their kippas on during, and I wore the skirt with extra ruffles, so it doesn’t count. I’m still a virgin.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter, what happens in Yerushalayim stays in Yerushalayim.

Ha! Like Las Vegas! I am sooo funny. Wait until I tell Aliza that one.

I wonder why I haven’t got my period yet…

Ohmig-d, is he looking at me? Ohmig-d, he’s cuuuuuuute! And look how long his tzitzis are! His middos must be even more ridiculously outsized!

G-d, my feet are sweating in these Uggs.

That reminds me, I need to go pick up my engraved heart pendant from Hadaya. The fact that I spent several hundred dollars to get my name crudely etched in a misshapen silver heart shows the boys that I have abundant self-esteem, and also that my daddy has money.

Oh, we’re at Fro-Yo. Bleh. I don’t feel like ice cream. Ever since I started throwing up in the mornings last week, I haven’t really been too hungry. I should probably go to the doctor. But for now, maybe cutting back on the ice cream and losing a little weight will be good for me. I swear, my belly is starting to pop out of my ruffles. Fat fat fat.

But at least I’m not like Adina. That denim skirt doesn’t do much to hide her tush. That’s not even ghetto booty. That’s Warsaw booty.

Ha!

I can’t wait until Zolly’s tonight. I am going to drink, like, eight drinks, and I am going to yell out “WHOOOOOOO!” after every one. I’ll show all the boys my middos. And my boobs.

Ha! Just kidding! I am sooooooo funny.

Speaking of my boobs, have they gotten bigger? Sweet!

I hope I don’t pass out at Zolly’s like last time, though…

I don’t even know whose apartment that was. Good thing I got back in time for morning shiur.

Ohmig-d, cute Israeli soldiers! I should go up to them and say “I love the army!” in Hebrew. The security guard at the sem taught me how. How did it go? Ani mufkeret?

Oh, cell phone’s ringing! Ugh. I need to get a new phone. If I keep this crappy Nokia, how will the boys know my daddy has money?

Hours upon hours of thrills.

—

This post brought to you by:
Raekwon - Ice Cream

Steven Plaut is concerned.

Steven Plaut knows that lurking out there in the fuzzy reaches of your Chevy’s radio dial is a dark and insidious threat ready to topple the temple of enlightened Western society like a shorn Israelite.

Steven Plaut recommends that you lock up your daughters and sequester your sons to save them from the sedition-fomenting rhythms of…rock and roll.

Are you a Jew who believes that the highest priority for Jews is promoting recreational drugs [and] rock and roll music…?

Steven Plaut fears the excessive swiveling of the youth’s hips.

Steven Plaut doesn’t really trust those greasers.

Steven Plaut just fails to see what’s wrong with nice music like Perry Como.

Steven Plaut suspects that, somehow, the Negroes are involved.

Of course, Jerry Lee Louis and his great balls of eternal damnation are not the only thing on Steven Plaut’s mind - Steven Plaut is, after all, one of our generation’s greater thinkers, and the looming threat of the coloreds wanting to share drinking fountains occupies only a small part of Steven Plaut’s man-sized intellect. Steven Plaut has other crusades. Steven Plaut has proof that reefers make your daughters go from “steady” to “all the way.” Steven Plaut has seen firsthand that marijuana leads to only one ignominious end: shamelessly fornicating in the mud while Simon & Garfunkel urge open revolt in the streets. Steven Plaut heard “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” in college and bought a gun.

Steven Plaut also warns to you beware of Mobius.

[Jewschool] is the baby of one Dan Sieradski, who calls himself “Mobius”,and who describes himself as an “Orthodox Anarchist”. I guess he has not gotten around to reading what Pirkei Avot and the sages had to say about anarchy. He attends Yeshivat Simchat Shlomo, a Carlebach-tradition yeshiva. Sieradski is ferociously anti-Israel and writes glowingly of such critters as Norman Finkelstein. He uses the term “progressive” like most other people use punctuation marks. He denounces those who criticize leftist anti-Semites. He claims to be an artist and a poet… The Jerusalem Post recently cited him and his pro-hashish lobbying efforts when debating whether marijuana is in fact “kitniyot hametz ” and so prohibited on Passover for Ashkenazim. He organizes hip hop “music” events in Jerusalem.

Steven Plaut knows that jungle noise doesn’t deserve to be called music without quotation marks. Steven Plaut would give Engelbert Humperdinck head for a backstage pass. Steven Plaut makes love to his wife, who no doubt checked out long ago (you can only take so much of a man who screams “KAHANE CHAI!” as he climaxes), to the strains of “Afternoon Delight.” Steven Plaut thinks “Afternoon Delight” is a kind of cocktail.

Steven Plaut’s mama got a wooden leg, with a kickstand.

He writes for some other web sites for Jewish stoned hippies, where he celebrates anti-Israel hoodlums. On the other hand, he has called for boycotting sources of hashish associated with terror groups, preferring nicer suppliers…All of which brings us to the mystery of his web nickname “Mobius”.

I have not seen it explained but I would like to venture a hypothesis. Maybe Mobius will confirm or deny it here in a comment. I suspect that “Mobius” may be shorthand for the expression “Moses is my Pusher!”

Steven Plaut is bringing back the pun. Steven Plaut should probably stick with slander.

Steven Plaut apparently thinks our greatest prophet would move ganja. Outcry is limited, though - Steven Plaut may be right. Steven Plaut thinks burning spliffs automatically transforms one into a hippie. Steven Plaut is unaware that hippies don’t smoke blunts and listen to Liquid Swords - hippies smoke out of pipes named “Gandalf” and blithely allow Widespread Panic to continue to justify its existence. Steven Plaut believes hippies are fucking stupid. Outcry is limited, though - Steven Plaut may be right.

Steven Plaut thinks a cocaine user is qualified to be a president, but a hash smoker is unqualified to express a political opinion.

Steven Plaut is entirely undistinguished as an academic, and compensates by snapping at the heels of his colleagues.

Steven Plaut’s junk is half the size of Shulamit Aloni’s.

Steven Plaut blogs on Arutz Sheva, the journalistic offspring of a terrifying three-way between Abraham Cahan, William Randolph Hearst, and Julius Streicher. Jayson Blair was sandak.

Steven Plaut said shit about Neve Shalom that wasn’t half as bad as this, and his ass got taken to court.

Steven Plaut is worthy of your scorn.

Something is rotten in the state of Israel.

An old enemy stalks the streets and synagogues of the country, the country whose very purpose was to provide one place to which the enemy could not gain access. Hate-twisted visages, cruelly familiar, leer from dark corners. Lips curl around utterances thought to have been relegated to painful memory.

Yes, the Nazis have arrived.

A concerned Jew can hardly pick up the morning paper here in the Holy Land without being greeted by news of not only the manifestations of the eternal Judenhass in its traditional strongholds (i.e., everywhere), but a rising surge of anti-Semitic hooliganism right here at home: Israelis found running neo-Nazi websites, anti-Jewish slurs flying around the streets of Tel Aviv, teenagers burning Israeli flags and stealing mezuzot.

A cursory examination of these chilling reports of blood and fire in Israel reveals a common source: the sizable community of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. The loose interpretation of Jewishness found in the Law of Return and the ever-collapsing economic situation within Russia have led to a tide of immigrants whose relationship to Judaism, whether physical or spiritual, can barely (if at all) be quantified. This tide of Slavs, whose blond hair, blue eyes, upswept noses and lack of respect for our beloved heritage threaten to dilute our blood and our tradition, is proving disastrous to the orderly running of this state, which is first and foremost a state for the Jews. These Russians will be our undoing.

Such has it always with that branch of our people who have chosen to make their home in the shadow of the onion domes. Enlightened Western European Jews feared, with good reason, how the teeming, hirsute masses of the Ostjuden would reflect on their civilized co-religionists should their lagomorphic breeding rate cause them to spill over into cultured Europe. Not for the Russian Jews were the sublime verses of Goethe, or the thundering operas of Wagner - they preferred to busy themselves with their primitive business of tradition, of matchmakers, of Sabbath prayers, of sunrises and sunsets. So numerous were they that even the Pale could not hold them - they gathered together their meager collections of candlesticks and holy books and inflicted, by the millions, their schmaltz and onion stink upon the narrow alleys of New York City, undoing in one fell, liver-scented swoop all the attempts by their more refined Jewish predecessors in the New World to make a secure place for the Jews. It is their Semitic uncouthness that, more than anything, brought down the Nazi hammer upon our heads.

But these unfortunate troglodytes were at least, in the fundamental sense of the word, Jews! Their stock was of the people Israel! How much worse is it then that now again these tides of Russian Jews threaten to destroy everything for which we have fought - and they’re not even really Jews! They spraypaint blasphemy onto the walls of our places of worship in Zion, they attack us in the streets, and they howl at the doors of other nations as well - even America, where neighborhoods from Brooklyn to Brookline are sullied by the harsh and nasal consonants of their pidgin tongue!

Something must be done. Somehow, the Russian question must be satisfactorily, and permanently, answered.

Some less-informed commentators have proposed that the “Russian problem” in Israel stems from a failure on the part of the Israeli people to absorb Russian immigrants, to provide them a welcoming home and economic security, to respect their own cultural heritage. This is rubbish. We, the Israeli Jews, would accomplish nothing more than a tremendous waste of time by trying to assimilate these Russians into our society and religion. Our tradition is not for them, our God is not for them - their narrow Slavic minds, so thoroughly undistinguished in the fields of science and art and all else we hold dear, simply lack the capacity to grapple with the magnificence of 4000 years of accumulated Jewish thought. We may as well try to teach Talmud to dogs. Best, then, to leave behind this fantasy of assimilation.

So what must be done? I offer this most humble of propositions: since we cannot risk the lives of our children and, indeed, the future of our people by allowing this insidious foreign element to live among us, we must cordon them off. First, we must pass special laws in the Knesset barring Russians from marrying, or even fraternizing with, normative Jews, for fear that they will infect our society with love of the drink and ponderous, brooding literature. These laws will extend to all recent Russian immigrants and those of Russian immigrant descent, even the ones who may be technically Jewish - their connection to the tree of Israel has been long severed anyway. Russian-owned businesses will be seized by the state to prevent the danger of anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi materials being distributed through them. Afterwards, special “Russian quarters” would be established in Israel’s towns and cities, providing the Russian community a closed-off environment in which to conduct its affairs, educate its children and speak its language without spilling over into the dominant Jewish community.

The second stage would then be to wait to see if the problem resolves itself. I, however, am a realist, and it is apparent to me from my observations of heavily Russian areas currently existing within Israel that when Russians congregate, they inevitably plot to foment discord and strife in their benevolent host nation. Such is the nature of the Russian people, and something that mere segregation will doubtless fail to overcome.

Therefore, I propose something more comprehensive, a “Pitron Sofi,” if you will, to the Russian question. Any casual observer will note that the Russian community is characterized by its lack of employment in trades of use to modern society. Why should we suffer the burden of hosting these people if they refuse to work towards the betterment of general society and instead keep their coin guarded closely within their community? If they are to be here, we must put them to work. I move that the government and the major Israeli corporations establish a network of reeducation/work camps all over the country, in isolated locations, where Russians will live out their lives, safely separated from Israeli Jews, stamping out bowtie noodles for Osem and guns for the IDF.

I predict that after several years of this, the solution to the problem will work itself out.

I speak not as an elected official, or a cleric, or a head of industry, but only as a simple Jew and Israeli patriot. I love nothing more than my people and my country, and I will not stand idly by while sinister forces conspire to destroy her. I expect that many will disagree with what I have written here, but remember that our tradition, from Abraham to Moses to Elijah, has always venerated the words of the lone voice in the wilderness. I want only to see glorious Israel triumphant over her enemies. Is that so much to ask?

I know “Separated at Birth?” jokes perform stand-up on the deck of a 50-and-above singles cruise liner plying the lake of fire at the lowest level of Comedy Hell, in the brooding shadow of its capital Pundemonium, but when watching Star Wars tonight I couldn’t help but be jolted by the similarity between a certain Imperial governmental official and a certain Israeli governmental official. Observe these sallow princes of men:

Grand Moff Tarkin:

Ehud Olmert:

Uncanny, no? And “Tarkin” sounds like a Jewish name. Of course, the similarities extend only as far as physical appearance and probable ethno/religious heritage - when it comes to effective, decisive leadership, Grand Moff Tarkin is obviously the superior man. Grand Moff Tarkin promised to blow the shit out of Alderaan, and goddammit, Grand Moff Tarkin blew the shit out of Alderaan. Ehud Olmert promised to blow the shit out of Hizbullah, and goddammit, Ehud Olmert blew the legs off of a generation of Lebanese children.

The more you tighten your grip, Olmert, the more voters will slip through your fingers.

I have a bank account. I’m not entirely sure why - I’m lucky if I have enough spare cash for a daily meal, which renders the concept of a decentralized system for the storing of money somewhat irrelevant - but I do. Not only do I have a bank account, I have a bank account at the absolute worst bank in Israel (a distinction roughly analogous to being the most enthusiastically human flesh-consuming dictator in sub-Saharan Africa), a bank whose conception of customer service and fiscal responsibility is summed up by its name alone: Discount Bank.

I actually have my own name for it. I’ll give you a hint: the word “Discount” has three vowels, and I take one out.

I have an account at Discount Bank because when I first arrived in Israel, I didn’t have any friends who knew well enough to inform me that opening an account there is the same as setting fire to your money, except of course when set fire to your money the lighter doesn’t demand you sign in triplicate and provide ID each time you strike the flint. So I blithely opened an account, and the money began to trickle out before the sullen clerk was even done demanding to know why I have a Russian middle name.

The banking system in Israel bears some explaining for my foreign audience. In most of the civilized world, according to my admittedly limited understanding of all things even vaguely related to money, the bank/customer relationship goes roughly like so:

Customer: Hi, I’d like to keep my money here.
Bank: Alright. We’ll hold onto your money and make it easily accessible, reserving the right to use it as capital for our company’s investments. In case we make a bad investment, the federal government will ensure that you, personally, suffer no financial loss. In return for your patronage, we’ll pay you a small monthly allowance based on the amount of money present in your account. What color cooler do you want?
Customer: Blue.

In Israel, of course, things are different.

Customer: Shalom, I’d like to withdraw some money from my account.
Bank: We’re sorry, the money in your account is not available at the moment.
Customer: Why the fuck not?!
Bank: It’s currently tied up in some investments. If you’ll look over the forms, which you signed in triplicate, you’ll see you’ve authorized the bank to do this.
Customer: What fucking investments?
Bank: Your capital was requisitioned because Mr. Nzeogwu in Lagos just sent us an e-mail saying he only needs another $2500 before his bank will release the $500 million fortune of a Texan oil baron who was tragically killed by Masai warriors while on safari. Once Mr. Nzeogwu’s money is released, your money will be returned to your account. Minus the standard 300 shekel investment fee, of course.
Customer: I’m going to kill someone.
Bank: Sorry, that service is not available at this branch. You’ll have to go to the branch at which you opened your account.

You see, the rent is due tomorrow, and thus I found myself at the downtown Discount Bank today with a comfortingly thick wad of shekels in hand, struggling to resist the powerful urge to run away with it to Laos where I could use it to rule as a god. Naturally, because it’s Discount Bank, there were only two open service windows and a line of fat old women, fat old religious women, and freichot (Discount’s target demographic) snaking back to the door. Naturally, because it’s Israel, I only use the word “line” because there’s no simple, elegant, monosyllabic English word for “disorganized mob of people pushing, complaining, talking on cell phones and playing Israel’s national sport, known simply as ‘I’m-behind-you-so-guard-my-place-in-line-while-I-go-grab-a-hafukh-and-a-Panai-Plus’.” (I have my own corollary game I start playing when Israelis pull this shit, which I call ‘When-you-come-back-and-demand-to-cut-in-front-of-the-person-now-behind-me, I’ll-pretend-I’ve-never-seen-you-before-in-my-life.” It’s fun to play!)

The only thing worse than waiting in a 45-minute line for a simple cash deposit, watching the bank’s tellers lard up on rugelach and gossip as the peasants grow restive in front of the glass windows, is when somebody in the line, always a woman of a certain age, decides that the most effective way to get everything moving smoothly is shouting complaints about the poor service and loudly lamenting how much of a hurry she’s in: “MAH KOREH PO?! ZEH LO BESEDER! ANI MEMAHERET!! SHERUT AL HA-PANIM BA-BANK HA-ZEH! EIZEH BALAGAN!” This makes the clerks even less inclined to get to work, and it makes me fucking furious. I become overcome by a powerful urge to wheel around and hiss, “If you don’t shut the fuck up, lady, I will memaher all over YOUR panim. Not because I want to, but because I have to. And what the fuck are you in such a hurry for? Are the fucking bourekasim getting cold, you withered bitch?”

Of course, I don’t actually hiss that. Because I’m a gentleman.

But I finally arrived to the teller, a religious woman wearing one of those ridiculous hats religious women have somehow convinced themselves don’t make them look like Jackie O. immediately after eating Aristotle, who, in a dazzling display of confidence in the customer, slowly and deliberately counted my money three times after I told her how much there was - and then made a show of how much of a favor she was doing me by allowing me to deposit a large amount of money at a branch of Discount that was not the one at which I opened my account.

I think the entire Discount experience can be most effectively encapsulated by mentioning what’s been playing on the TV monitors for people waiting in line every single time I’ve been at the bank for the past six months: extreme sports blooper reels. Normally watching a stunt biker toppling off his Kawasaki and shattering his tailbone would make you wince, but after 45 minutes in Discount world, the only thing you’ll be feeling is jealousy.

I’m ill. I don’t mean sniffles ill, I mean fluid-pouring-out-of-most-available-orifices-from-nose-to-horribly-infected-toe ill. Hurts-to-keep-eyes-open ill. Only-thing-preventing-me-from-suicide-is-Playstation-and-an-as-yet-unwatched-season-of-Scrubs ill.

I also just realized that I have not spoken a single word to anyone, including myself, today. I find this oddly reassuring, but I won’t let it distract me from what I intended to ask by writing this post: why why oh fucking why do they not have NyQuil in this miserable sandbox?

Self-medication is a miserable exercise in futility in Israel. The drugs available to consumers without a prescription are as follows:

a) 12 different yet absolutely identical pain relievers/fever reducers ending with “-mol.”
b) Nasal spray so powerful that if you use it for more than three days, your sinuses will melt like a Nazi opening the Ark of the Covenant.
c) Brightly-colored children’s version of above.
d) Ibuprofen (thank God).
e) Flavored lozenges - the glories of capitalism mean that the consumer now has the choice of lemon or cherry.

That’s about it. Anything else, you need a prescription for, or they keep it locked up behind the counter and you have to actually ask the pharmacist for it. That’s right, if let’s say you’ve made a dietary error and your stomach is in open revolt, you can’t discreetly purchase an on-the-shelf bottle of Pepto-Bismol, you have to request the ineffective Israeli tablet-form equivalent (Kalbeten, in case you needed to know) from a pharmacist who is either a barely Hebrew-speaking recent Russian immigrant named “Ludmilla” (Ludmilla was probably chief of radiology back in the Old Country) or a doddering, hard-of-hearing old man given the job by social services - either way, you’ll have to repeat what you need clearly, slowly and loudly enough that everyone jostling you in the line behind you will know exactly why it is you’re pale as a latex glove and doing the bathroom dance.

So the upshot is, when you’re desperately ill and all you want is the sweet release of the drug-induced, mildly hallucinatory sleep that only NyQuil can provide, you’re shit out of luck. Because they don’t have NyQuil here, unless Ludmilla is hoarding it behind the counter for when the sheer indignity of it all just demands a cathartic DXM trip. They don’t have anything effective here, except for that uranium-powered nasal spray. So the only recourse is to improvise, given the limited materials at hand, something that approximates the effect of everyone’s favorite gag-inducing green syrup. Thus, take:

a) Ibuprofen
b) Chernobyl nasal spray
c) Lemon-flavored throat lozenges
e) Liquor

Mix together, and hope you don’t pull a Hendrix during the night, however sweet a release that may seem.

And now for the song of the evening, a selection made ever so appropriate by, yes, lyrics that perfectly describe what I’m feeling right now in my life: “Why why why why why why why? Why why why why why why why why why why?”

Scientist - Gunman

I’m on the evening’s third bottle of Sol - partly because there was a big sale on six-packs at the Russian grocery down the street which, like all Russian groceries in Israel and around the world, reeks of jam-filled pastries, pork and quiet desperation, partly because the three sun-kissed syllables of “cerveza!” (it demands an exclamation point) create a much more exciting word for carbonated hops beverages than “beer,” a monosyllabic grunt easily combined with “WHOOOOOOOO!” by people who don’t deserve to drink it - and three beers is exactly enough excess liquid to burst the dams and allow the reservoir of bitchiness to spill forth and drown some peasants.

The part of the peasants tonight will be played by my perennial whipping boys, Anglo Jews in Jerusalem, a group who inspires such crippling self-hatred and revulsion that had Philip Roth been born 6000 miles to the East, he would have ended it all a solid decade before Portnoy had the chance to file his first complaint. You may object that I tar Anglos with too broad a brush, subdivided as they are into dozens of camps - American, British, Australian, South African, New Zealander, Canadian, modern Orthodox, classical Orthodox, neo-Chasidic, paleo-Chasidic, yeshiva student, seminary student, Hebrew U Student, Gush Etzion yeshiva student, Pardes student, Nachla’ot resident, German Colony Resident, Bak’a resident, Katamon resident, execrable Cafe Rimon patron, slime-covered Underground/Mike’s Place patron - but I assure you, I’ve considered it very carefully, and I hate them all with absolute equality.

Actually, that’s not strictly true - throw a potent enough combo meal my way, let’s say a Canadian neo-Chasidic Nachla’ot resident who loves knocking back Illy mochaccinos at Cafe Rimon, and I can almost guarantee that I’ve had a wet dream about their untimely death. Hell, it probably wasn’t even a dream, just a straight-out wet.

But I digress. While a complete list of the things that make Jerusalemite Anglos awful would be far too much material for Kosher Eucharist to cover - hello, blog spin-off idea - I can at least focus on a few choice transgressions. Chiefest among them in my mind of late is the tendency of Anglos - particularly Anglos who speak little-to-no Hebrew (i.e. most of them) - to pepper their English with random Hebrew words.

This is similar to the oft-glimpsed phenomenon of a newly-religious young Jew attempting to fit in with his new crowd by running his sentences through a Yiddish meat grinder until he sounds like an ethnic caricature too broad for the Borscht Belt to squeeze around, but trust me, it’s even more annoying. Several words pop up with alarming frequency, and often equally alarming inaccuracy, in the pidgin vocabularies of these kippa-clad amateur Hebraists: mamish (a corruption of mamash, “really”), davka (”ironically,” “of all [noun]…”), tachles (”totally,” “I’ll level wichu”) and a host of other verbal offenses which the Sol has snatched clean from my memory. Even worse is a certain tendency, common among, but in no way particular to, mainline East Coast yeshivish dosim (I’m sorry for throwing in a Hebrew word there, but there is no equivalent English word that can be spat out with the same lip-curling contempt): insisting on using the Hebrew name of cities with a long-established English name. You have not known suffering until you’ve heard yet another denim-beskirted child of Orthodox privilege curl her nasal East Coast inflection around “Yerushalayim,” which invariably comes out so far from the appropriate Hebrew pronunciation you wonder why she bothered in the first place.

Helpful hint: it won’t make you less Jewish if you say “Jerusalem” - it will, however, make you less annoying.

What I’m trying to say is, there’s no reason for a native speaker of English - in fact, someone who speaks ONLY English - to churn out an ear-piercing nugget of Creole like “Sometimes I don’t know why I chose to live davka in Yerushalayim; but tachles, it’s probably because there are mamish fly biddies hanging out at Katzefet on the midrachov every night.” It doesn’t need to be so complicated and so multi-lingual; there’s a much more elegant, and entirely monolingual, way to say exactly the same thing: “I am such a fucking tool.”

You may remember my mild confusion as to why the Hebrew University continues to send me little messages and reminder e-mails more than a year after I stopped attending their august institution. Here was the last one:

Dear Michael,

I hope that your spring semester is getting off to a great start! Although it may be hard to believe, it’s already been about a year since you left Israel.

Apparently they’ve noticed that this tactic wasn’t eliciting the desired response, whatever exactly that may be, so they decided to ramp up their efforts in two crucial areas: treacly cutesiness and sheer incorrectness. Observe:

Dear Michael,

Believe it or not, it has now been nearly two months since you were soaking up the Jerusalem sun! While you curl up with a cup of cocoa (if you’re in New York, at least) we want to remind you to please tell us about your experience abroad by filling out our very short survey:

Oh, such exquisite torture! My hat goes off you, black-hearted Hebrew U. e-mail monkeys, unflinching tormentors of the human spirit! Soaking up the Jerusalem sun - the very deliciousness of the irony! One might almost think that not only was I not still in Jerusalem, but that this golden city on seven hills hasn’t bestowed upon me frigid temperatures, ceaseless days of rain, an ever-growing mold infestation, a persistent sniffle and a worsening cough!

Also, for you monkeys’ information, I have never curled up with a cup of hot cocoa. Our relationship is very mature and business-like, and we both know what we came to do: I came to slurp down that hot cocoa, and the hot cocoa came to leave me feeling thirsty, bloated and vaguely dissatisfied - much like most of my liaisons. We certainly don’t curl up afterwards. We try to keep it free of emotional entaglements.

Honestly I’m a little worried that this latest missive is a happy-face Band-Aid on a long-festering, gangrenous wound. Now that they’ve tried and failed with the sugar-coated approach, I fear their next e-mail may not be so friendly…

Dear Michael,

We know that it probably just seems like a few short days to you, because you’re having SO MUCH FUN WITHOUT US, but it’s been four months since you decided to leave us all alone here in the Middle East. All. Alone. No, we don’t mind. We’ve come to accept it. Our therapist says we have a tendency to form irrational attachments. Anyway, it may interest you to know, you BASTARD, that we’ve wired Ta’ami, your favorite hummus restaurant, with 100 kilos of C4. If you won’t love us, Michael, we’ll make sure you won’t love anything. We have our fingers on the button. Fill out of the survey, Michael. GOD HELP YOU, MICHAEL, FILL OUT THE SURVEY RIGHT - FUCKING -NOW!!! WE ARE NOT FUCKING AROUND WITH YOU, MICHAEL!

Thank you again for your participation!

You know they spam me with text messages too? Yeesh.

For some reason, every travel guide to Israel, every (rightfully) gushing online review of its culinary life by a returning tourist, must include in its required segment on falafel and shawarma the caveat “Israelis know how to eat falafel and shawarma without spilling a drop, but you’ll be dripping techina all over your shirt and wind up with half your sandwich on the street.” Or something like that.

This is untrue. The simple, fundamental truth is that if you can’t eat a techina-laden falafel without spilling it all over yourself and everyone around you, it’s not because you’re not a native-born Israeli, it’s because you lack the necessary social skills to function in public, you fucking baby. You’re probably one of those bastards who slurps from spoons, or gets that throat-clicking noise action going when you chew, and I hate you for it. When I had my first falafel in Israel, I didn’t spill it all over myself. Even the Goy managed to eat his first Israeli falafel with dignity, panache and a hummus-free T-shirt, and if you know us, you know that our activities rarely wind up with dignity and T-shirts intact. If you finish a falafel with hummus flecking your cheeks and techina on your shirt, this is the Lord’s way of telling you that you’re a bad person. Just give up now.

And don’t ever let me catch you at my fucking falafel stand ordering in English. I don’t even know how that’s possible given that most of the relevant words are the same in both languages, but somehow, you people manage. If you can get through the Amidah three times a day - dosim, I’m looking at you - you can handle ordering a sandwich in the language of your people.

There. I said it. And I feel a lot better now.

I was browsing through the sites that link to Jewlicious today, and I stumbled upon a most curious post on Israpundit. Now, I was fuzzily aware that Israpundit was one of those right-wing, chest-thumpingly pro-Israel sites written by Jews who, of course, don’t live in Israel and seem to spend most of their time eagerly humping the legs of their Evangelical masters - but I never really paid any attention, mostly because the only thing worse than simpering, bleeding-heart leftist Jews are impotent, bloodlust-filled rightist Jews. But this post wasn’t content with the normal right-wing verbal masturbation - this is full-on right-wing verbal whips ‘n’ chains leather crazy sex.

Onto the post itself, in all of its twirly-eyed, theremin-music glory:

Can a good Muslin become a good American or Canadian?

I received this email:

I sent that question to a friend who worked in Saudi Arabia for 20 years. The following is his reply:

Theologically - no. Because his allegiance is to Allah, the moon god of Arabia.

Religiously - no. Because no other religion is accepted by his Allah except Islam (Quran, 2:256).

Scripturally - no. Because his allegiance is to the five pillars of Islam and the Quran (Koran).

Geographically - no. Because his allegiance is to Mecca, to which he turns in prayer five times a day.

Socially - no. Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make friends with Christians or Jews.

Politically - no. Because he must submit to the mullah (spiritual leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and Destruction of America, the great Satan.

Domestically - no. Because he is instructed to marry four women and beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran 4:34).

Intellectually - no. Because he cannot accept the American Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be corrupt.

Philosophically - no. Because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran do not allow freedom of religion and __expression. Democracy and Islam cannot co-exist.Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic.

Spiritually - no. Because when we declare “one nation under God,” the Christian’s God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in The Quran’s 99 excellent names.

Therefore after much study and deliberation….perhaps we should be very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. They obviously cannot be both “good” Muslims and good Americans or Canadians.

Oh God, oh God, oh God, it’s so stupid my nose is bleeding!

Let’s play my new favorite game, Substitution, again!

Can a good Jew become a good German?

I sent that question to a friend who worked in Poland for 20 years. The following is his reply:

Theologically - no. Because his allegiance is to Yahweh, the desert god of Palestine.

Religiously - no. Because no other religion is accepted by his God (Exodus 20:2).

Scripturally - no. Because his allegiance is to the five books of Moses and the Talmud.

Geographically - no. Because his allegiance is to Jerusalem, to which he turns in prayer three times a day.

Socially - no. Because his allegiance to Judaism forbids him to make friends with Christians.

Politically - no. Because he must submit to the rabbis, who teach annihilation of the pagan nations and the eventual servitude of non-Jews to Jews in the Messianic Era.

Domestically - no. Because he is instructed to cut off his wife’s hand for slights as minor as breaking up a fight between her husband and another man by grabbing the man’s genitals (Deuteronomy 25:11).

Intellectually - no. Because he cannot accept German Law since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the half of the Bible to be corrupt.

Philosophically - no. Because Judaism, Moses, and the Talmud do not allow freedom of religion and expression. Democracy and Judaism cannot co-exist. Every Jewish government has been either dictatorial or autocratic.

Spiritually - no. Because when we declare “one nation under God,” the Christian’s God is loving and kind, whereas the Jews’ God is the vengeful God of the Old Testament.

Therefore after much study and deliberation….perhaps we should be very suspicious of ALL JEWS in this country. They obviously cannot be both “good” Jews and good Germans.

Watch out, motherfuckers! That slope’s slippe–too late.

I mean, really, I hate to get all Godwin’s Law on you here, but we’ve heard this rhetoric before…somewhere…my knowledge of history is admittedly incomplete, but I seem to recall it ended somewhat badly.

Oh, but there’s more! I also discovered, in the midst of my Jewlicious link browsing, this asshole. You see, he’s decided to compile a list of his first actions upon being elected as Prime Minister of Israel (it’s fun to pretend!). Among his revolutionary ideas:

4. Arab Israelis and Palestinians would be allowed to continue participating in Israeli elections. However, since their numbers are on the rise while the Jewish population of Israel is receding, Palestinians would be given the equalent of “half a vote” in all elections, whether primaries of general elections for the Knesset.

I, for one, completely agree. The Negro has not been gifted by the good Lord with the same native faculties as the white man, and it is the Christian’s burden to civilize him and wean him away from his jungle habits and to show him the light of democracy, and even to let him participate to the fullest extent of his potential, which is of course 3/5 that of the white man’s. Also, a woman’s right to vote is redundant, because they only double the vote of their husband, and they could be spending that time struggling to wrap their feeble minds around the issues of the day making kugel.

I have my own promise. If this guy gets elected Prime Minister, I’m going to commit hara-kiri. On his doorstep. While he’s away, so I’ll have started to turn a little by the time he gets back. There’s nothing that can’t be made better by spite.

Okay, but for once, in all seriousness: the fact that even a few people on the right have come to deem this manner of rhetoric acceptable to freely discuss in public, instead of hiding it deep in their black little hearts in hopes nobody commits them, is a little alarming. Perhaps instead of building yet another flagellating Holocaust memorial in a city that doesn’t even have Jews (coming soon: Ulaan Bataar’s Holocaust Memorial Center!), we should honor the memory of those who perished by guarding ourselves from the kind of rhetoric that led to their deaths in the first place.

Or we could just do the hara-kiri thing. I mean, if you’re cool with it.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Meeting on the grounds of the Ophel, former site of the Jebusite city of Jerusalem, the Israeli Knesset voted unanimously Saturday to express “profound regret” for the Israelite people’s invasion and occupation of the land of Canaan and the expulsion and forcible conversion of many of its non-Israelite inhabitants.

Sponsors of the resolution say they know of no other country that has apologized for distant historical events, although Mongolian lawmakers are considering such a measure. The resolution does not carry the weight of law but sends an important symbolic message, supporters said.

“This session will be remembered for a lot of things, but 20 years hence I suspect one of those things will be the fact that we came together and passed this resolution. I only wish we could have succeeded in bringing a representative of the Canaanite people to the ceremony, but we failed to find a suitable candidate - or any candidate, for that matter,” said Uri Avneri, a politician and founder of the Gush Shalom movement who sponsored the resolution.

The measure also expressed regret for “the exploitation of Moabites.”

The resolution was introduced as Israel begins its celebration of the 3000th anniversary of the occupation of Jerusalem, where the first Israelites arrived in at the head of warrior-king David’s armies around the year 1000 BCE. Jerusalem, home to a popular assortment of sites of religious significance to the Israelite faith, later became a focal point for offshoot religions Christianity and Islam.

Oh, put down that Google News, I made it up. Well, sort of. I actually derived it from this - the Virginia General Assembly just voted to pass a resolution apologizing for slavery, thereby freeing America’s white citizens from their overpowering urge to clasp their black friends’ shoulders and wail “I’m sooorrryyyyyy!” God, I love it when the political system works for the people.

But seriously, although I appreciate an empty symbolic gesture as much as the next guy, slavery kind of…ended…something like…oh, 142 years ago, give or take? The best way to say “sorry” would probably have been to give ol’ Prissy a spot of monetary compensation, or at least 40 acres and a mule, back in 1865 - but I’m sure she’ll rest easy knowing that her great-great-great grandchildren have been officially apologized to for her suffering by the august State of Virginia.

Now, one might say that the American black community is suffering from the effects of slavery to this very day. I’ll buy that - I might roll my eyes ever so slightly, but I’ll buy it. Normally I’d suggest that the best way for American whites to assuage their apparently lingering guilt would be to stop moving out of their neighborhoods the minute somebody who owns the soundtrack to Superfly moves in, or maybe cutting a check for the UNCF, or at least gathering the children for a didactic family viewing of Ali, but fortunately for crackers none of that is necessary anymore. Virginia apologized - your responsibility is over, white America! Put your precious offspring in a private school where skin colors don’t get more threatening than yellow, spend the ticket price for the next Spike Lee joint on weed instead, throw out those Talib Kweli CDs you bought for indie cred and replace them with your Starland Vocal Band collection, let those inner cities decay, decay, decay - whatever you want, proud sons of Europe! Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last!

It’s an inspiration to me that all it takes to solve - or at least sweep aside - long-seated racial issues is a ridiculous apology so overdue it no longer needed to be made.

But where do we, the Jews, fit in? I’ll leave it to that clarion voice of mainstream, centrist American Jewish thought, JVoices, who will be debuting a post crowing how this shining triumph for American blacks is a victory as well for American blacks’ BFFs, i.e. the Jews, probably within the next five minutes. As we all know, since the vast majority of American Jews’ ancestors began to arrive 20 years after the end of slavery in the country, the American Jewish community must shoulder the heavy burden of its complicity in the plight of the American black community. And anything that will help to make that burden lighter is welcome.

I recently spent a day in Modi’in (It’s the City of the Future!), ostensibly to help Harry and Ziva with a few things around the house, but really so I could get acquainted with the new star of The View from Household: Tzofia! Also, sleep in a real bed in a room with trisim, chill with the dogs, watch TV, and eat of Harry and Ziva’s delicious foodstuffs. I really like my Modi’in time. The fact that I got the best night’s sleep I’ve had in months in a house with an infant should indicate how truly miserable living in Machaneh Yehuda is.

But I digress! It’s all about Tzofia - you can read her feelings on my visit on Jewlicious, where she telepathically blogs a la Hana Gitelman. And here you can enjoy a picture of me captured in a rare approximation of a smile with one seriously conked-out baby.

Tzofia is so rock and roll that her birth weight wasn’t in ounces, it was in decibels. Tzofia goes to 11!

And just to show how much luv I get at Harry’s, here’s me and the incomparable Noonie, my favorite dog in the entire Middle East, who’s always thrilled to see me because it means hours of tummy-rubbing.

Nothin’ like Modi’in time.

And now, your random musical selection of the day…

Truth Fact & Correct - Babylon Deh Pon Fire

The vagaries of my employment forced me today to spend a couple hours watching videos posted on YouTube by alumni of Birthright Israel (or, ahem, “Taglit-birthright israel,” because if you don’t suspend your understanding of written English syntax and make like e e cummingstein when you refer to his blessed program Michael Steinhardt will punish you by gyrating against your young body like Lynn Schusterman at a Mega-Event). Don’t ask me why.

I was already unhappy with this diversion, because I was listening to Gilberto Gil and Jorge Ben’s Gil e Jorge, which is a fantastic album, and it kept getting interrupted by the soundtracks the children had chosen to immortalize their precious tAgLiT-bIrThRiGhT iSrAeL memories - usually U2, or techno, or some similar ostentatious Jewish pride music.

Gilberto Gil & Jorge Ben - Taj Mahal

But, as always, the worst was yet to come. You see, in its admittedly admirable quest to introduce every Jew to their heritage, 7@91337-81r7hr19h7 1sr@31 inevitably winds up scraping the vomit-soaked bottom of the Unaffiliated American Jew barrel. Sometimes these unfortunate souls can surprise you by being valuable contributors to the trip, but the general experience is more like so: acting on hardwired instinct, they seek out others like them (usually beginning in the airport), and by the time the group arrives in Israel, their cellular structures have broken down and they have fused together, forming a collective organism composed mostly of khaki and reeking of Calvin Klein Obsession, which oozes towards the back of the bus and spends most of the trip yelling “WHOOOOOOO!” until somebody placates it with grain alcohol. And sometimes, it even makes videos.

Almost every back of the bus on almost every trip is the same. I was thankfully spared an invasion of these types on the trip I led last summer, but then again, some of the girls on the trip, the future mothers of the next generation of the Children of Israel, put up a sign in front of the last few rows of the bus reading “Reserved - Rosa Parks Club 466.” I vaguely considered carefully explaining to them that not only was this offensive in roughly six different ways, but also that Rosa Parks’ entire significance stemmed from her decision to sit in the front of the bus - but then I realized that there were better uses of the rapidly-passing seconds of my life, such as crying and cutting myself.

But I digress. I’ve watched a dozen videos of Birthright idiocy on Youtube (the car-wreck effect and all). I’ve been on a taglit-BIRTHRIGHT ISRAEL trip. I’ve staffed a תגלית-זכות מלידה ישראל trip. And I have to know: where do these identical borderline-mentally-handicapped, alcoholic, chubby, hirsute and most of all deafening Jewish frat rats come from?

So I did a little research. I discovered, unsurprisingly, that the source of this blight is the same that has caused so much other suffering for the peoples of Israel and America: Al-Qaeda.

This innocuous-looking Jersey City warehouse holds a dark secret, an integral cog in radical Islam’s plan to bring the Western World and specifically the Jews to their knees. Long tables are lined with thousands of petri dishes, all containing the cloned genetic material of an AEPi brother kidnapped by radical elements during a trip to Israel in 1997. Seizing upon the new technology of cloning and genetic engineering, Al-Qaeda’s scientists used their captive frat boy’s DNA to create a veritable army of genetically-identical, Dave-Matthews-and-college-football-lovin’ Jewish frat boys, artificially aged in tanks and continuously released upon the American Jewish population, whereupon they follow their programmed instincts and travel on Birthright in order to inflict boundless torment and misery on the hated population of the Jewish State. Through a combination of sheer force of “WHOOOOO!” and the steady genetic weakening of the non-cloned Jewish population (the clones’ second-biggest instinct after pursuing their alcoholic fuel is mating), Al-Qaeda hopes Israel will crumble, allowing a massive popular Arab surge to finally sweep the remnants of the Jews into the sea.

Don’t let them. Neuter a frat clone today. Save Birthright. In doing so, you will have saved the Jewish People.

Swiped from Haaretz - a photo of Palestinian PM Haniyeh upon his recent return to Gaza from Mecca (did he bring a suitcase stuffed with cash this time?):

Show me on the mural of the triumphant martyr where the prime minister touched you…

One of the most thoroughly enjoyable (yes, I said it, enjoyable) facets of moving to a foreign country is learning its language, stumbling along the irregular, heavily-inflected path, tripping over roots every step of the way, from your first tentative restaurant orders and conversations about the weather all the way up to the ultimate goal: always having the right blood-curdling curseword for any situation.

So I’ve decided to devote a little attention to amusing or interesting progressions in my steady conquering of the Hebrew language and its triple consonant clusters, which is bound to become a semi-regular feature. Because I love Hebrew. I love how it sounds, I love its inherent flexibility and creativity, I love its historical weight, I love that speaking it is almost an inescapable declaration of identity - and most of all, I love that you have to lower your voice an octave to enunciate it correctly, which means that those gifted with stentorian voices feel at home in it, and that women get that sexy low, throaty growl going on when they speak it.

Anyway, I have a close Israeli friend, and she’s one of those necessary platonic friends who’s always up for it when you need to gossip, gush, complain, or be reminded that you are, in fact, pretty, which is with alarmingly regularity in my case. So recently I was discussing with her the case of a certain young lady whose keen eye, discerning taste and high threshold for suffering had caused her to take an interest in your humble narrator. I was in the midst of detailing to my friend the amusing tale of our courtship when she laughed and blurted out:

“Wow, hi cholah l’kha al ha-tachat!”

This was a new one on me. A thoughtful, poetic rendering of that would probably be something along the lines of “She’s crazy for yo’ ass,” but the rigidly literal, much more amusing translation is “She’s sick for you on the ass.”

The oldest language still spoken as a native tongue, the language of the Bible, the language of poetry from the Song of Songs to Yehuda Halevi to Yehuda Amichai, the language of “cholah l’kha al ha-tachat.” I love it.

So the next time you’re with your lady, clasp her hand in between yours, look deep into her loving eyes, and whisper, “Baby, ani choleh lakh al ha-tachat.” Unless your lady speaks Hebrew, in which case I recommend “Hinakh yafah, ra’yati / einayikh yonim mi-ba’ad l’tzamatekh“ or something else safe and traditional that will hold up to scrutiny.