No more rules.  Rules suck.  Rules are for the weak. 

Tlkeajtughajer;eqwujgahhkgjadlsgfdasr;ra;. 

That's what a sentence looks like without rules.

The money experts have fucked up.  And now we're rescuing them.  And it's comical to think that the person applying for the loan is being blamed.  It's akin to a doctor taking out your pancreas instead of your appendix and then blaming the patient.  If your business is to loan money, then do your homework, don't be greedy and don't loan it to people who might not be able to pay it back.  A bank isn't a pizza place.  You don't need to say "yes" to everyone.  

A new home for bankersSo what can we do so this never happens again? 

Many child molesters have to wear electronic monitors so we know his/her whereabouts at all times.  I think all bailed out bankers need to wear shock collars around their necks and every time they try to loan out money they get 350 volts launched into their carotid arteries.  Maybe then they'd be careful.  And since we are going to bail out the banks - which with this spineless bunch of Congressional pussies was a foregone conclusion even before it was a foregone conclusion - we need to make sure that none of these people who were responsible for our economic meltdown are allowed to ever work in the banking industry again.  You get one chance to bilk people out of their life-savings and retirement dough.  For crying out loud, we don't even allow individuals to file for bankruptcy in this country anymore because that would inconvenience the predatory credit card companies (hello, Capital One!  Thanks for the 23.5% offer but I can get a better deal from my bookie) and the health care industry.

Accountability is the only cure for this catastrophe. However, just as in the Enron disaster, the fat cats will exit the building with fat pockets.  The hell with that.  Liquidate their assets and property until they're as poor as the poorest person they screwed over. 

Although there is another option. 

Let's give the $840 billion to the people and have the banks apply to us for money.  Something tells me we'll be a lot more careful with it than the assholes were.

Brian Frazer, author of Hyperchondriac, spent the last week guest blogging on Jewcy.  Want more?  Buy his book!

Before certain papers report a cardboard trend story of the following fact, allow me to state it first: Debate parties are the latest ticket du jour. The Box, the oft decadent lounge more apt to stage strippers, fire eaters, midgets, Madonna, and Jude Law, hosted one last night. I won't add a lot of stale quotes to support this trend. You can get that in Sunday's paper.

So moving on, as pundits on PBS call for more debate poetry rather than prose and prescribed politics, I call attention to one Canadian poet moving around Europe right now: Leonard Cohen. The man who wrote, "So Long Marianne, Suzanne, and Hallelujah" still looking sharp in a fedora and jacket, still brings us together in a deep husk via words and stories and feelings that tie humanity across the globe.

L- R: Charley and Hattie Webb: My pick for style "it girls"When Tom Ford threw a party for the launch of his fragrance two years ago, one of his PR reps asked me who would be an A list musical act to feature in a sophisticated salon. "Hands down, Leonard Cohen." I answered. Ford's original choice was Justin Timberlake. He went with Jennifer Hudson. Cohen didn't even strike a cord. I probably spent too many afternoons on a porch swing in Tours France hearing my foreign host, a hippie graphic designer named Daniel sing Suzanne too many times. Still, I hope that Cohen opens an American leg of his tour, especially since he's employed two gals called the Webb sisters to sing along with him. I submit that these twentysomething ladies-- both British musicians, a harpist and a pianist among myriad other instruments -- replace the Olsen twins as style icons.

Not only are they gorgeous, they sound like angels or Kate Bush, whichever comes to mind first. (Any of you boys remember the ethereal Ms. Bush? How many wet dreams happened under her guise? So many of you kept her posters over the bed in the late Eighties and early Nineties! Puts lip synching Britney Spears to shame!)

I know Vogue will rip me off on this one. I'll be winking when that March issue features these two lovely Webbs. But I'll also be smiling that talent reigns out, as will hopefully happen in this presidential election. Remember, you heard it here first! Talent, not image or mainstream might should prevail. The only Bush we should recall fondly is Kate.

[Cross-posted from It's That Time Again!, a blog by Susan Miriam Kirschbaum, the art and fashion world's Jewciest commentator.]

We are at an historic crossroads.  Any environmental expert will tell you that if we do not reverse the trend of our carbon emissions within 15 years, we risk doing irreparable damage to our planet.   Given that it will take 10 years for any substantive change to come to fruition, the man who occupies the oval office for the next two terms is in the unique position to leave behind an undeniable environmental legacy.  Fifty years from now this coming administration will be viewed either as environmental heroes, or catastrophic failures.  From a global environmental perspective, November 2nd 2008 may be remembered as the most important day in the history of the planet.

When I first conceived this article, it was my intention to put aside my liberal bias and write an objective analysis of the two presidential candidates’ environmental platforms.  That was until I had the unfortunate displeasure of reading McCain’s Lexington Project.

It is important to understand that there is no surefire solution to the energy crisis.  Like any stock portfolio, the key to success is diversification.  Both campaigns have a grasp on this concept, with neither betting the future on any one specific technology or policy and both proposing an immediate price onMe with Jason Grumet at the Cleantech Forum in Washington DC.: Mr. Grumet provided insight into how policies can aid in the transition to a green economy. carbon emissions.  Given the uncertainty of the industry, it is difficult to suggest that either candidate will provide the indisputable solution to the energy crisis.

That being said, the Obama team has gone the furthest in illustrating the inextricable connection between the environment and the economy.  The comprehensive 11 page proposal coming out of the Obama camp provides calculated actions the government can take to alleviate our dependence on foreign oil without pillaging our countries natural resources, all while creating five million new “green collar” jobs.  McCain, on the other hand, seems like he asked some kid in the halls of an elementary school for help with his proposal.  I suggest you read it next time you are in an elevator, stopped at a red light, or waiting for your Facebook page to refresh.  

Included in the flimsy two and a half page proposal is the implication that one solution to our transportation energy crisis is offering “A $300 million prize to improve battery technology for full commercial development of plug-in hybrid and fully electric automobiles.”  This type of suggestion comes from a man who either A) hasn’t thought critically about a viable solution to the energy crisis or B) wants to sound like he’s making an effort without jeopardizing his relationship with Big Oil.  This proposal is like telling a poor, inner city youth that if he goes to college and gets his degree he’ll be guaranteed a $30,000 a year job when he graduates, but neglecting to provide him with scholarships, loans, or any other financial support for his education.

Offering a $300 million dollar “prize” brazenly ignores the most difficult challenge to the renewable energy movement: capital investment.  There is little doubt that the transition to a green economy cannot happen without an open dialogue between policymakers, laborers, and the private sector.  The Cleantech Group recently brought together 500 of the most influential cleantech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists at the Cleantech Forum in Washington DC.  Jason Grumet, Obama’s lead energy and environmental advisor was on hand for a riveting panel discussion.  His presence was as much to provide industry trendsetters with an overview of Obama’s policy strategies as it was to gain feedback from the men and women who will be shaping the industry in the private sector.  

What was missing from this panel was any representation from the McCain camp (despite a personal invitation), an abscence as glaring as the one in the lower Manhattan skyline.  Somehow the only person from the republican camp who could find the time to attend the preeminent North American cleantech conference, which was in Washington DC, was Hank Habicht, energy representative to the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations.  Mr. Habicht likened his experience in that role to “a javelin team captain who had been elected to receive.”

The problem, or at least one of them, is infrastructural, and that road begins in Washington and ends in Detroit.  Many people forget that the success of the American automobile industry could not have been made possible without the infrastructural foundation built by the American government.  Without roads, nobody would buy cars.  Similarly, without direct government investment in a clean energy economy, supported by policy that alleviates some of the challenges stemming from the capitally intensive nature of the technology, we are stuck in a “chicken or the egg” scenario.

Me with every member of the McCain Energy Team: who decided to attend the preeminent North American Cleantech conference while it was in their backyard. They provided insight into the value McCain puts on the environment.John McCain points out that American automakers have committed to shift their product lines to 50% Flex Fuel vehicles by 2012. His plan “calls on automakers to make a more rapid and complete switch to FFVs.”  There is no mention of what policies he will enact to do this, what types of financial support the government will give to assist with the necessary capital investment, who will train these workers to manufacture these new technologies, or most importantly, where these new cars will be filling their tanks.  McCain does offer some back end incentives in the form of a $5,000 credit to automakers for each zero emission car sold, but without significant investment in R&D or definitive distribution channels for alternative fuel, I don’t see many of these credits being issued.  Furthermore, the jump from current emissions to zero emissions is quite optimistic, and one wonders if he is aware that FFV fuels, while they do drastically cut emissions, are not in fact carbon neutral.

Obama proposes a “strategic investment of $150 billion over 10 years to accelerate the commercialization of plug‐in hybrids, promote development of commercial scale renewable energy, encourage energy efficiency, invest in low emissions coal plants, advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure… [and invest in] America's highly‐skilled manufacturing workforce and manufacturing centers to ensure that American workers have the skills and tools they need to pioneer the green technologies that will be in high demand throughout the world.”  

Beyond financial and political investment in infrastructure, the next administration must focus on policy that drives demand.  American car manufacturers have made amazing leaps in technology over the past fifty years, but almost all of that innovation has been in the realm of maximizing engine power; had these breakthroughs been made in the realm of maximizing efficiency, chances are we’d all be driving 150 MPG vehicles.  

No one can blame Ford or GM for focusing on projects like the Mustang or the Corvette decades before the word green implied anything other than a color.  R&D budgetary expenditures and output objectives from the 50’s through the 80’s were based on consumer preferences.  People wanted big, powerful cars, and Detroit was happy to help.  In the last few years the skyrocketing price of oil has created a new, indisputable era of automobile demand, but there is still room for policy to help drive consumer preferences.  

Obama is offering a $7,000 tax credit to consumers for the purchase of advanced technology vehicles, as well as a credit to subsidize clean engine conversions.  His plan also establishes a guaranteed initial revenue stream to American automakers by enacting a one year plan to convert the entire White House fleet to plug in hybrids, and half of all government vehicles to plug-in hybrid or 100% electric by 2012.  I’ve sent McCain my Economics 101 notes on supply and demand.  I’ll let you know if I hear anything.  

While this article has focused on infrastructure and auto transportation solutions, the complexity of environmental policy is so vast that it cannot conceivably be summed up within the confines of this column.  We need decisive action across the board on energy efficiency, smart grids, sustainable communities, green building, utility energy mix incentives, wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, geosolar, cogeneration, waste management, waste energy, carbon pricing, clean coal, natural gas, maximizing efficiency from conventional energy, domestic drilling, foreign oil policy, biofuels, flex fuels, electric cars, green collar training, greenhouse gas emissions, cap and trade, water management, energy speculation, short term energy pricing relief, and more.  I encourage you to read both plans, and make an educated decision for yourselves.  

McCain – Palin: The Lexington Project

Obama – Biden: New Energy For America

Jason Grumet, lead energy and environmental advisor to Barack Obama, knows that the shift to a green economy cannot be done alone.  “The American people need to communicate the value of job creation.  Obama has said that he can create 5 million jobs, but 5 million is a crazy big number.  Write a letter to the editor, or to local policymakers, explaining how we can create 14 jobs.”  

For years a loud minority has been scraping and clawing to build out the cleantech education strategy at Babson College.  In the past three years that loud minority has grown to a deafening majority, and within the last year alone the school has added an Environmental Entrepreneurship class, a Green Consulting program, and created a Cleantech Entrepreneur in Residence position on the Board of Overseers.  These successes in cleantech management education need to partnered with commitments by trade schools, community colleges, and even private sector manufacturing organizations to develop the skilled green collar labor force that will be the foundation of our new economy.

Obama’s roots are in community organizing; with him and his 500 person energy staff working from the top down, and everyone else working up from the bottom, hopefully we can meet somewhere in the middle, at the crossroads of economy and ecology.

Happy Tuesday Jewcers.

All the doom and gloom has me Drudged-out, and a bit down, and so it's with pleasant anticipation that I welcome Mike Edison who joins us for book club this week to talk of of I Have Fun Everywhere I Go: Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Apes, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and the Most Notorious Magazines in the World.

Mike Edison’s résumé is a twenty years counter-cultural voyage through a slew of notorious magazines, including Screw, High Times, Penthouse, and Hustler. An Ivy League dropout, an accomplished musician, and a one-of-a-kind voice, please welcome Mr. Edison for the week.  -- TR

------------

It's not like my mother and I are ever going to see eye to eye on anything. For instance, she read about one paragraph of my book and it nearly put her in the hospital.

There are a lot of drugs in my book, although it is not dark at all. It is very celebratory, actually. It is called I Have Fun Everywhere I Go, and it is a memoir, in part about how much fun you can have with  pot and psychedelics and cocaine and bathtub gin and whatnot, but Mom is about as square as you get — I am sure she can't even spell "LSD,"  and this does not tickle her funnybone. (I Have Fun is also rife with tales of pornography and punk rock and professional wrestling, topics which rate about as high on her  favorability index as Ozzy Osborne and Evel Knievel, both old pals of mine who make dysfunctional star-turns in I Have Fun.)

And my mother is also still very bitter about her divorce, even though it happened almost 25 years ago, so it is a very good thing she didn't read Chapter Three, wherein at age fourteen I discover the joys of Double-Barrel Sunshine and describe with candor what assholes my parents were — a no-show dad and the Jewish Joan Crawford. That would have put her in the grave.

But I never thought my mother was a complete moron, at least not until a couple of weeks ago. 

I should make it very clear now, before ya'll start turning on me - I love my mom. She has a heart of gold, and really always truly wanted what was best for her children. She was hard-wired for an anodyne suburban life of birthday parties and bar mitzvahs. I was supposed to graduate from an Ivy League school (I did eventually go to one, but got the hell out after realizing that higher education, along with the fine art market, was the last great rip-off in America), and grow up to give her brilliant, blue-eyed grandchildren to whom she could kvetch with impunity. I guess it was around the time I got caught smoking dope in the schoolyard, right after my father split, that her world went twirling off of its access and began hurtling towards the sun. 

It was tough going there for a while, but these days we get along great, and she is generally very supportive, no matter that she still insists that "writing is not a job" (even though that's how I have been paying my rent pretty much for the last twenty years), and asks me about my band,  presumbably to be polite, but always groaning, and not-so sotto-voce, "I hope it isn't still punk rock." I guess no parent is virtuoso when it comes to hiding their disgust. Did I mention I love her?

Anyway, it was my birthday a couple of weeks ago and Mom wanted to buy me a shirt, which is how we ended up in a Target department store in suburban New Jersey.

On the way out with my new shirt, (a not-too-sporty button-down affair, dark blue with thin gold stripes, the only one we could agree on), we were walking by the rack where they have the tabloids and gossip rags, and there was the National Enquirer, God bless their soul, with the screamer headline, SARAH PALIN'S DARK SECRETS!

The National Enquirer: These Colors Don't Run

Really, who doesn't love the Enquirer?

And then Mom started in with the tongue clicking — the Jewish mother's socio-linguistic equivalent of spitting on the floor.

"They'll say just anything," she bleat contemptuously, which she does very well. 

"Well," I offered, "you have to admit they have an uncanny knack of being right. They were right about Jon Edwards. They were right about Bill Clinton and all of the women he was with."

The Enquirer's Palin story outlined her pregnant teenage daughter's pot-smoking and promiscuity; her (the daughter's) hockey-thug boyfriend, err, fiancé's, selfless dedication to ultra-violence and jailbait; her (Palin's) oldest son's love affair with recreational Vicodin (apparently he had a choice — go to Iraq, or go to jail); and it began to uncoil the smelly, moist details of her (again, Palin's) own dalliance with her husband's business partner. All in all, a very good story.

My mother glowered. "Do not talk to me about politics," she growled, and then clamped her lips tight.

But she couldn't help herself. 

"You aren't going to vote for Obama,"  she finally spewed. "He's a Muslim."

I pondered for a moment how someone so fucking stupid could have spawned me. It is genuinely heartbreaking.

"You can't possibly believe that."

"And I HATE her," she added, indicative of absolutely nothing.

"Who??"

"Michelle Obama."

"Why?? What has she ever done to you??"

A beat, punctuated by more tongue-clicking. 

"I really hope he doesn't win."

My turn: "It's because he is black, isn't it? Just say it — it's because he is black."

My mother is an old Jewish lady who generally doesn't know how to shut the fuck up, and now she has nothing to say. Go figure.

"Just admit it...." Now I am pushing her. I am not a bad child, but she knows that I have a zero-tolerance policy towards intolerance of any kind, and she should know by now that I won't ever listen to this kind of shit without some seriously smarty-pants rebuke. "Say it," I demand of her, "You won't vote for him because he is black."

And I know in my heart of hearts that this is true (it also doesn't help that she is now married to a right-wing nincompoop), and I really want to vomit, which is my version of tongue-clicking.

"You can't vote for McCain," I tried to reason. "You are a WOMAN, a JEW, and a SCHOOLTEACHER, three groups that should NEVER vote for a REPUBLICAN...  Let alone this DODDERING OLD FUCK and MOOSEBURGER BARBIE. I mean, seriously, ON WHAT PLANET IS SHE QUALIFIED TO BE PRESIDENT??"

Mom started turning purple, so I gave her a pass and didn't launch into my more erudite arguments about her granddaughter's future reproductive rights, and my desire to have a president who didn't hate my pot-smoking, punk-rocking, book-reading, cock-sucking friends.

She looked at me like she was going to cry. Her face was all screwed up. Something was going on in her brain. Maybe, just maybe, she knew that somehow I was right?

I let it lie for a while, because now we were in the car and she was driving me to the train station so I could shuttle back to my elitist hamlet in New York City, and I didn't want her to have an aneurism and drive into oncoming traffic. She was starting to get that look.

* * TO BE CONTINUED * *

Mike Edison's book is I Have Fun Everywhere I Go: Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Apes, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and the Most Notorious Magazines in the World.

He will be performing with his band, featuring Jon Spencer, in a very special evening of "Literary Mayhem and Rock'n'Roll," with special guests Jonathan Ames, Rachel Shukert, and Amanda Stern, Thursday, October 16^th, at the incredible Spiegelworld tent at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan. 

For info, free MP3s and videos (including the infamous Bong Guitar video) and much more, please visit www.rockettrain.com.

Literary Mayhem! 

Mike Edison, author of I Have Fun Everywhere I Go, is guest blogging on Jewcy, and he'll be here all week.  Stay tuned.

It wouldn't have been intentional, but I almost ruined my brother's wedding last week.  I had no idea when he asked me to be his best man that I would have any responsibilities other than making a speech before dinner.  Had I known that I'd have to stand with him at the Chuppa, I would've had to decline the best-manship. 

As I stood in front of all the wedding guests alongside my brother, I became very light-headed. The room started to spin and my heart began to palpitate so I gripped the wooden Chuppa poles with my hands for support.  Seconds later, I fainted.  As my wife, Nancy, my sister and several others rushed to my aid with water, juices and handkerchiefs to wipe my brow, everyone assumed it had to do with low-blood sugar or the heat.  Only Nancy knew it had nothing to do with either.  It was my aversion to religion that had caused yet another meltdown. 

It all started shortly after my Bar Mitzvah, in 1977.  Two months after I had officially become a man, my Long Island rabbi ditched Judaism to become an Episcopalian minister in Rhode Island.  Ever since then I have freaked out when being exposed to organized religion.  It's not limited to Judaism, either.  When I go to a Catholic wedding I need to sit in the back row, so I can periodically take breaks from the sermon.  When I was in Bangkok, I was unable to last more than three minutes in a Buddhist Temple, despite not understanding one word of Thai.  Even weeks before my own wedding, when Nancy and I first met the rabbi in his office, I needed to leave the room to get into the fetal position on the cold bathroom floor. Thankfully, at our actual wedding I was able to stay upright, but only because I'd instructed Nancy to keep pinching my finger as we held hands, so I could concentrate on physical pain rather than emotional pain while simultaneously counting the pinches.  

A surefire way to stay awake at servicesI don’t want to be like this.  For years I met with a religion therapist to try to conquer my problems. I even went on Zoloft to combat the anxiety attacks that plagued me in houses of worship.  Both have helped improve my religious stamina, but obviously not enough.

The religion therapist thinks it has something to do with my mother having M.S. for the past thirty plus years and, combined with my rabbi's exodus, I had lost my faith in God.  I'm not sure that's the case.  I think between the aforementioned events and the sad fact that most of my relatives were killed during the Holocaust, the entire concept of God has me confused.  The problem is that it's hard to find the answer when the questions make you pass out.  So for the time being, if you see me at a wedding, I'll be outside pacing during the ceremony, which beats turning white and having a rabbi pat down my sweaty head with his yarmulke and then lying that I have low blood sugar to mask my issues.  But I will be at the reception where I will help myself to some of those tiny zucchini things.

Brian Frazer, author of Hyper-Chondriac, is guest blogging on Jewcy, and he's here all week.  Stay tuned.

Bad Karma on the Kippur was created for Film Racing (www.filmracing.com), a 24-hour film contest where movies have to be written, cast, directed, edited and scored in less than a day!  The assigned theme of the contest was karma, and someone had to water a plant within the body of the short.  While most of the other films in the contest really hit the karma theme nail on the head, Alex Grossman, the writer and director, decided to go for a looser interpretation.  The film was a finalist in the competition, but really took on a life of it's own when someone posted it on YouTube, where it's garnered over 30,000 hits in just a few days.

CONVERSATION: Do you have similar tales of holiday scalping? Does Grossman's depiction ring true? Are synagogues just trying to survive? Is there something culturally perverted in the dynamic between American Jews and their houses of worship?

Since this is my last guest-blogging effort, I would like to begin by thanking Jewcy for the opportunity to post some thoughts all week long.  I have enjoyed it a great deal – you have a heckuva site going here! 

Now if you don’t mind, I would prefer to spend my last few paragraphs not thinking about the current evaporation of our economy and collapse of the United States.  Apparently, if my television can be believed, we are all going to die soon somehow.  And I believe my television.

Instead I would like to talk about something far more important, and much, much happier:  Southern Cal lost last night.  This year’s Pac-10 game that they decided not to show up for was against Oregon State.  Let’s hope it will be the first of many.

I am taking great pleasure in this defeat, and not just because it allows me to think about something else while the bank is probably preparing to take away my home.  Sparky Anderson once said that “losing hurts twice as bad as winning feels good,” which I think is true for love, war…and college football.  So we can all be quite assured that today, Pete Carroll and the entire Southern Cal community is wallowing in abject misery, their national title hopes dashed by another stunning upset.  This one is going to sting for a long time, maybe even until the coming great depression is over.

Southern Cal has assembled the most impressive collection of talent I have ever seen (they were great in high school, at least).  At every position, they have 3 or 4 guys who would start for any other team in the country.  Their fourth string tailback transferred last year...and now he starts for Florida.  They just crushed an Ohio State team that returned 20 starters from a national championship runner-up.  Made them look like a high school team (I revel in the misery in Columbus, too).  On paper, Oregon State had no business being on the same field as Southern Cal…but they were up 21-0 at halftime.

As it turns out, no one believed the hype more than the Trojans themselves.  And their coach, for all the talk about his winning personality and being a “player’s coach,” is evidently no master motivator.

I recommend spending your day reading their fan boards.  It will be a melt-down that we all can enjoy.  The greatest depression.

So as it turns out, not only does losing hurt twice as bad as winning feels good, but also the failure of others can make you feel twice as good as your own successes.  That is, as long as they are evil, like Southern Cal…and you are an asshole, like me.

Thanks again, Jewcy. 

Christopher Fettweis, author of Losing Hurts Twice As Bad, spent the last week guest blogging on Jewcy.  This is his parting post.  Want more?  Check out his book. 

Well folks, my summer of traveling just ended with a brief visit to my ancestral home of Omaha, Nebraska.  Despite the fact that I was there for ostensibly professional reasons (I was honored to participate in the fantastic annual Omaha Lit Fest, which is turning into quite a major event) the trip was fraught as usual with the ghosts of the past; despite the disconcerting presence of a new American Apparel, it’s still my hometown, and being there, I couldn’t help but reflect on my childhood and adolescence, and for probably the millionth time, what it was like growing up Jewish in a place where being Jewish is still at least semi-weird.

I’ve written extensively about this (it’s so comfortable to revisit postions we’ve already taken, isn’t it?) and I’m not going to go into my personal experience here; if you’re interested, you can read my book.  But being home reminded me of a strange little news item I caught sight of a couple of weeks ago, and have since meant to call to your attention.

Blumberg Family Jewish Community Services is offering Jewish families as much as $50,000 to relocate to Dothan, Alabama—a town of 58,000 known as the Peanut Capital of the World (although I think a few towns in Georgia might dare to differ).  It's a kind of yiddische Homestead Act set smack in the cradle of Dixie, and the terms are simple: the families stay at least five years, become active in the local synagogue, Temple Emanu-El, and the money never has to be repaid.  

Jews in the South are nothing new, and historically, were in some ways more visible and prominent than their co-religionists in the North.  The oldest continual Jewish community in the United States is in Charleston, South Carolina, where a group Portuguese Jews first settled 300 years ago.  Judah Benjamin, Secretary of State of the short-lived Confederate States of America was a Jew (a fact conveniently forgotten by so many of today’s good ol’ boys who proudly emblazon the Stars and Bars on the sides of their pick-up trucks and semi-automatic weapons); and during my stopover in the Memphis airport on my way back to New York, I counted as many yarmulkes as one might see in, if not New York, than certainly Chicago. 

Today, more Jews than ever—almost 400,000—are making their homes in the South, but they tend to be Northern transplants clustered in urban areas like Atlanta and Birmingham (rather than in the kinds of towns we Yankees are used to viewing in sepia toned movies, accompanied by haunting shots of live oaks draped in Spanish moss and the sound of somebody throatily humming the word “Jesus” over and over again off screen—a sure sign in the language of film that something bad, sinister, and racially tinged is about to happen.)  As a result, small-town synagogues are closing, and once close-knit communities have dissolved.  In the article I read, a woman named Thelma Nomberg, who grew up in nearby Ozark and was the only Jewish student in the region’s public schools in the 1940’s put it simply: “We are dying.”

This is undoubtedly true and painful to the men and women watching their communities wither and disappear, and the Blumberg organization is to be commended for their attempt to recognize and revitalize the history and heritage of the Jewish South.

That said, I can’t help but feel that the city elders of Dothan, who have expressed enthusiasm about the plan, have slightly different motives here.  

As someone who grew up in a rural state (admittedly not Southern, but a population of 58,000 is practically a megalopolis for some parts of Nebraska), I feel I can safely say that the death of small town America is hardly an exclusively Jewish problem.  Jews may have disappeared from small towns, but so have people.  As big-box retailers curtail and eventually murder local businesses, as factories shut down, as opportunities grow ever scarcer, talented and ambitious young people take flight, seeking their fortunes elsewhere, and never come back. 

They call it the brain drain.  Left behind are the elderly and those with few other options. To survive, such towns (and I’m not speaking of Dothan in particular, but depressed areas in general), require new residents with the skills and energy to attract business rather than drive it away, and in some cases, radically remake the fabric of the community. In the Midwest, a new influx of Latino immigrants has helped to correct some of the imbalance, bringing new vitality to stagnant areas, but in the conservative South where xenophobic fervor tends to run high, this option is perhaps seen as less tenable.  

You need a middle class?  Bring in the Jews.  Any student of Jewish history might feel a faint quiver of recognition.

In the twelfth century, when Jews were massacred and eventually expelled from England and France, the Polish prince Boleslaus III had an idea: why not invite them to Poland?  He was struggling to transform his country into a mercantile culture, Jews were educated and good with money and needed a place to live.  At the time, Lithuania, which comprised much of Poland was still officially a pagan state (it would remain so until 1386, when Poland offered its crown to the Lithuanian Grand Duke, and was the last country in Europe to Christianize); there would be no significant religious obstacle from its people.  Rich in resources and underdeveloped, Poland was ready and waiting for the beleaguered and brainy Hebrews.  

Casimir the Great: good for the jewsAs they say in Fiddler on the Roof, it was a perfect match.  Over the next two hundred years, Jews flooded into Poland, almost exclusively forming the middle class—a liaison between the agrarian peasants and the cultured aristocracy.  The odd flare-up of anti-Semitic violence certainly occurred, but compared to the horrors Jews had endured in Crusades-mad Western Europe, these hardly seemed reason for pause.  In 1264, Boleslaus the Pious issued the Statute of Kalisz, which officially granted all Jews the freedom of worship, travel, and most importantly, trade.  Poland became the center of Jewish life in Europe, culminating under the beloved proto-liberal Casimir the Great (1303-1370) who expanded Jewish rights and protection to such an extent that he was known as “Casimir, King of the Serfs and Jews.”  

Unfortunately, if you’ll remember, it went downhill, or we’d all be speaking Polish right now.  

Thus far, Dothan has not proved nearly as attractive to urban Jews as medieval Poland, and unless the approximately seventeen gentiles in Great Neck lose their minds and start a riot against the Silvermans next door, this seems unlikely.  But the Jews who have settled in Dothan seem to find an extremely hospitable place.  As Rabbi Lynne Goldsmith of Temple Emanu-El points out: “The Northeast has a very warped perception of what the South is all about….the South is a wonderful place to be.  The people are warm and friendly.  There’s very little traffic, and best of all, there’s no snow.”

Let’s just hope she’s singing the same tune 500 years from now.

At the Metro Club in New Orleans, I was dancing with a law school student named Hendrik, who kept palming his way down the backside of my thighs.  Without hesitation, he told me he had been waiting all night to dance with a Jewish girl, especially one as "full-bred" as myself.  Oh God. Was it really that obvious? I wondered, reminding myself that if I would just stand 45 degrees to the left of guys, when speaking to them, that my nose would not seem nearly as obtrusive.  "You know, its so funny," Hendrik said, "My grandfather was a nazi officer but my dad and I, we absolutely love the Jewish people.  Especially the women.  Huge fans."

I Got Blitzed: by a nazi boyIt was weird and not very smart of Hendrik to natter on about his Nazi-infested genes before even scoring my digits.  I liked his honesty though. I also liked how his shoulder muscles packed so nicely into his ski sweater and how his strong, steroidal voice would crunch all the way down to a creak whenever he tried to be romantic.  "Did anyone ever tell you that your hair is the exact same color as your eyes?" Creak.  Creak.  Creak.  He made me want to dig into his esophagus and slowly and tenderly caress his vocal chords.  But I--fortunately--held myself back. 

My first date with Hendrik was a stroll through the New Orleans French Quarter. Hendrik spoke with terrific emotion about ex-lovers, probably to make me jealous, but I didn't really like him enough to mind.  There was Michelle Rosenthal with her nasal South Jersey whine; Mimi Moskowski who sported an unshaven hippie bush which Hendrik found endearing (though he did not find Mimi herself endearing); and Avivah Katz who used to bob her tongue into Hendrik's earlobe in the back row of Temple Emanu El's Friday night services. "It was just her way of saying ‘Shabbat Shalom," Hendrik insisted.  The list continued on with clunky Jewish last name after clunky Jewish last name, lots of bergs and ovitskys, very few vowels.  I could just picture the kid masturbating to a map of Israel every night.

Hendrik's flaming Jewish fetish made me a bit more self conscious or at least more aware of my voluptuously Jewish facial features.  One night, when Hendrik and I were enjoying our privacy outside an empty Café du Monde, Hendrik traced his finger along the curve of my nose as if it were as arousing as a breast.  I wanted to reroute his fingers to someplace-anyplace-sexier.  Look! Down below! There's these fat, flowering 32D melons just above my ribcage, here, have a stroke!  Hendrik couldn't hear my thoughts of course, and began to molest the bridge between my nostrils. I could practically hear him humming, "Ahhhh Juuudaism."

Trying to be heard over street music jazz, Hendrik said to me, "Um Rachel...sweetheart...would you mind singing a little Hebrew prayer for me? Please? Like the ‘Barak ata' one? It gets me off.  I'm being serious." He laughed at this, appreciating his own sexual weirdness.  I sighed and whispered "baruch atah adonei eloheinu meleh ha'olam" into his ear in my slinkiest phone sex operator voice.  He fondled my nose again and I giggled.

I imagined Hendrik dreaming up various Jew-girl-on-Nazi-descendant storylines before he went to bed at night. 

Fantasy #1: The Jew girl, with her inky black eyes and teeth slanted shyly inwards (think Anne Frank) kisses goose-stepping boy atop Noah's ark.  The only two humans left after the flood, the fate of humanity rests upon them to procreate (cue the urgent music).  Their limbs tangle about, arms becoming legs and legs becoming arms, they tangle about some more, the rhythm of the Mediterranean Sea eggs them on and then, suddenly-voila! The bible's first-ever half Christian/half Jewish baby is conceived! 

While my feelings toward Hendrik never did approach love, I, in utter anti-feminist fashion, wanted him to love me.  But I wondered: could a guy nursing a fetish ever truly fall in love with his fetish girl? 

I doubt it. It seemed I could never be the object of Hendrik's cosmic, chemicals gone haywire, rocket-fire love because I was the object of Hendrik's typecasting.  Hendrik was casting for his real-life Noah's Ark Jewess and I was the one who best fit the bill.

Who in Their Right Mind: would turn this down?A few weeks after I began dating Hendrik, I went through a serious Dolly Parton phase, perhaps in rebellion to all the pretentious snot clogging up my college campus. I wrote country songs and performed them before my full-length mirror and my roommate, who promised not to judge.  I wore cowboy boots and peroxided my hair so blonde it washed all the Jewish character out of my face.

I e-mailed Hendrik a digital picture of the new me labeled "Just as Hitler ordered" and I expected at least some kind of half-pleasure to come out from under him; maybe he would call me his "sexy little Barbara Streisand" or he would tell me gently that I looked very hot but that he wanted his Jew back. I just assumed that all guys, even the most Jew-chasing among them, were turned on by blonde.  I thought it an evolutionary thing.

For a good few hours, I stared, autistic-like, at my computer until an instant message from bodyofgod937 popped up on the screen: "Call me when you have better judgement" is all it said.  My better judgement told me that I should take Hendrik's number out of my cell phone and that I should have listened to my mother in the first place and only date nice Jewish boys.  Jewish boys, after all, would never pass up on a good shiksa.

Title: The Book of Jewish Food Author: Claudia Roden Description: Ten years ago I was a judge on the Jewish Quarterly Prize. We had two awards to give away, one for a novel, the other for a work of non-fiction. At our very first meeting the non-fiction prize was decided - a landmark work which will still be read in a century and which had taken the author a decade to research. To say that every Jewish home should have a copy of Claudia Roden's Book of Jewish Food is to do an injustice to the scale of the achievement. The history of the Jews and the Jewish Diaspora told through eating. How much more central to Jewish identity can you get? Roden traces the wanderings of the Jewish people from country to country, bringing with them dishes from the past, which then become incorporated into the new national cuisine. As English as fish and chips? No. The frying of fish and potatoes was brought to London by Portuguese Jews at the end of the nineteenth century. We see how Jews adapted the dietary laws to the locally available ingredients. Quiche Lorraine, made with bacon and cream, was forbidden to French Jews, so they made an onion tart which is now considered to be the traditional dish of Alsace-Lorraine. Locally, it's known as a Jewish dish. So this is a history book with recipes, beautifully written and illustrated. You can pick it up and read a description of a Jewish community on every page, and learn what they ate, when they ate it and how they prepared it. It sits alongside the Torah and Talmud for me. Recommended By: Linda Grant was born in Liverpool on 15 February 1951, the child of Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants. From 1995 to 2000 she was a feature writer for the Guardian. She is the award-winning author of several books, including Sexing the Millennium: A Political History of the Sexual Revolution (1993), The Cast Iron Shore (1996), Remind Me Who I am Again (1998). Her second novel, When I Lived in Modern Times, set in Tel Aviv in the last years of the British Mandate, published in March 2000, won the Orange Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Jewish Quarterly Prize and the Encore Prize. Her novel, Still Here, published in 2002, was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Her non-fiction work, The People On The Street: A Writer's View of Israel, published in 2006, won the Lettre Ulysses Prize for Literary Reportage. Most recently, her novel The Clothes On Their Backs (published February 2008) was shortlisted for the Man-Booker prize. She has also contributed to various collections of essays. She lives in North London.

The New Jew Canon is a long-term project that seeks to canonize essential Jewish (and some Non-Jewish) reads as recommended by extraordinary rabbis, experts, and cultural leaders. Suggestions are welcome via comments or tips. For more New Jew Canon recommendations, visit Jewcy's New Jew Canon Listmania.

More from Jewcy's New Jew Canon

Honey, Darling?: agave, honey.The various ethical, environmental, and cultural issues surrounding honey have been considered and discussed on Hazon's blog The Jew and the Carrot, both in posts and comments.  Leah has explored whether honey is “kosher” for vegans, and wondered if there’s “any ethics-based diet that *doesn’t* have a little bit of hypocrisy clouding up its ideals.”  Michael Croland from HeebnVegan explained that the issue does little to promote veganism, and pointed us in the direction of this Satya Mag article on the subject.  Meanwhile, Rabbi Shmuel has suggested that we should critically re-examine the Rosh HaShanah custom of dipping apples in honey, and explore alternatives such as maple syrup, while Rabbi Debbie Prinz joined the conversation with a lip smacking guest post on how we can integrate chocolate into our Rosh HaShanah celebrations.

Rather than continue the debate on whether honey is vegan, eco-kashrut, or even just kosher (Leah notes that she has always “puzzled over how eating a food created by a decidedly non-kosher creature could be considered okay for the Tribe”), I’m offering a number of delicious, vegan, kosher, and organic ideas and recipes for a sweet new year.

Agave Nectar: Derived from the succulent plant of the same name, agave is like honey’s sophisticated big sister. Satisfyingly sweet and sticky, it makes for a perfect apple dip, plus it has a low glycemic index, a long shelf-life, and it won’t crystallize.  Madhava Agave Nectar is available in different grades, is certified organic, and is kosher.  It’s available online and at many markets across the US.

Maple Syrup: As Rabbi Shmuel noted, maple syrup is an ideal choice for Rosh HaShanah thanks to its rich symbolism and earthy sweetness.  “Maples,” he explains, “represent the ultimate in chesed (lovingkindness) giving freely of not only their wood and shelter but their sap - their very essence.” Shady Maple Farm offers certified organic, kosher, pure maple syrup, as do Coombs Family Farms, Highland Sugarworks, and a host of others.

Brown Rice Syrup: Rich in rice protein concentrates, brown rice syrup has been said to have a healthy effect on cholesterol levels, and may help to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Because it’s produced from a whole food source and is composed of simple sugars, brown rice syrup is considered to be one of the healthiest sweeteners in the natural food industry.  With a light, sweet flavor and the consistency of honey, this is another great option to experiment with on Rosh HaShanah.  Lundberg Family Farms offers brown rice syrup that’s organic, eco-farmed, vegan, kosher, and gluten free!

Date Honey: It’s interesting to note that references to honey in the Torah are said to have referred to honey made from dates. This is quite possibly the ultimate symbolic Rosh HaShanah food, and also the hardest to find.  Our own Leah offered a recipe on the Lilith blog last year, but you may still have time to track some down at a local Middle Eastern market, or order it online in time for the holiday.  Try here and here.

Chocolate: It’s incredibly easy to find vegan chocolate these days, and what’s more, you can often find vegan chocolate that’s also organic and fair-trade.  Simply melt some semisweet, vegan chocolate chips with a drop of soy milk or oil in a saucepan over medium heat.  Allow it to cool a bit before dipping your apples, bread, and fingers!

Vegan Caramel Sauce: Little goes better with apples than sweet, sticky, mouth watering caramel.  Unfortunately for vegans, caramel often contains milk and butter.  Not to worry, though!  Try one of these recipes for vegan caramel sauce, which create a thick, sweet, pourable alternative.

[Cross-posted from the Jew and the Carrot]

Dr. Leonard FelderTo thine own self be true. But can you do that while still being a valued part of the wider community? Or must you always sacrifice your own inclinations and desires to fit in? For anyone who has ever felt like an outsider at work, in groups, in school, or even in your own extended family, help is on the way. Bestselling author Leonard Felder, PhD, has written the first book with advice on how to be successful personally and professionally when you think differently, live differently, create differently, or solve problems differently than those around you. 

This wise and perceptive guide is neither about withdrawing into isolation and passivity, nor about spending every waking hour battling with others. Rather, it’s about choosing wisely when to speak your truth and saying it in a way that gets positive results. Dr. Felder shows exactly how creative, thoughtful, unique individuals can survive and thrive in situations that used to make them shut down or retreat into a shell. He provides actual examples from his own practice and precise techniques that will assure your good ideas, outsider perspective, and innovative solutions are respected and taken seriously, even by rigid people. 

Both inspiring and practical, it offers soothing balm and useful answers for everyone who heard too often during adolescence or young adulthood that “you just don’t fit in”—and for the ones who love and counsel them, too. Even more important, it reveals how the very qualities that made you different can become your greatest strengths and most important gifts to the world.

Dr. Leonard Felder, author of Fitting in is Overrated, spent the last week blogging for Jewcy.  In that time, he suggested that Jews should take a second look at McCain and Palin before getting deeper into bed with them, congratulated those of us who have strayed from the Jewish path in search of deeper enlightenment, offered his insights on how to stay healthy, positive, and persistent when your good ideas are being opposed or dismissed, reminded us how important our roots are, and told us all to stop being such damn people-pleasers.  Want more?  Check out his excellent book.

During Selichot services this Saturday night and at the High Holy Days in a few weeks, each of us will be seeking forgiveness for all sorts of ways that we diminish ourselves and others.

As a therapist, I've found that one of the most subtle and frequent ways we "miss the mark" is by approval-seeking. 

Just for a moment, ask yourself:  During the past year did I exaggerate my own merits or goodness at any moments to convince someone I was more than I am and to win their approval?  Did I hold back from speaking up for something important because I didn't want to lose the approval of certain individuals?  Did I pretend to be fine with something that was in need of repair because I didn't want to sound "high maintenance?"  Did I stay stuck in an unhealthy relationship, a deadening job, a gossipy group, an abusive or toxic situation, or an unresolved conflict because I was afraid to make waves and risk someone thinking badly of me?

As infants, we desperately needed the approval and nurturance of our early caregivers.  Approval-seeking is one of the most important survival skills that keep us alive and well-fed early in life.  Not only do fragile infants and young children need to win the approval of their individual caregivers, but they also need to win the approval and support of their tribe, their clan, their posse in order to survive. 

Yet at a certain age, we start to learn new ways of standing up for ourselves and speaking truth to power.  We learn how to be different from the expectations of others and to find a creative, positive way to express our unique gifts and talents.  We learn how to say "No" or "Let me have some time to think it over," rather than jumping each time someone says jump in order that they will approve of us as a "good boy" or "good girl." 

It's not easy to learn how to speak up for yourself or to say "No" or "Let me have some time to think it over."  Some do it with angry, clumsy outbursts, whininess, or self-righteous haughtiness.  Others rarely speak up and prefer to hold their feelings locked inside until these stored-up feelings slip out in sarcasm or nasty remarks.

At Selichot and during the weeks of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we don't just seek forgiveness for diminishing ourselves and others because of our approval-seeking and other old habits--we also seek to change in a more holy direction, to improve, to stop doing what doesn't work and to start trying out new ways that are more healthy and have greater integrity.

In my new book FITTING IN IS OVERRATED: The Survival Guide for Anyone Who Has Ever Felt Like an Outsider, I describe several creative and effective ways to speak up for what truly matters and to do so without going to the extremes of self-righteousness or excessive niceness.  In between the two extremes of angry outbursts or smiling phoniness, there is a beautiful middle way described in many Jewish teachings.  It requires treating yourself as a holy vessel of Divine light and also treating the person you are confronting as a holy vessel of Divine light.  If you fully respect your own diverse insights and the other person's right to hold diverse insights, something wonderful often happens.  The two of you not only can hear each other better, but your mutually compassionate relationship and your respect for your profound differences becomes a holy experience in itself.

Several years ago during the week before the High Holy Days, I arranged to have lunch with someone with whom I had been having silent disagreements even though this person and I were still trying very hard to win each other's approval.  I was nervous about this lunch, concerned that if it went badly this person would forever judge me in a negative light.  But I knew we had to stop walking on egg shells with each other and that we needed to have a more authentic way of dealing with our differences.

We began our lunch by telling each other three things that are wonderful and decent about the other person.  Then we began to brainstorm about how to stop getting on each other's nerves about a particular clash that had been going on for several years. 

By the end of the lunch, the theme of our relationship was no longer about winning each other's approval or fearing each other's disapproval.  For the first time in years, we saw each other as equally opinionated and decent human beings, both of us caring deeply about a particular controversial question and having very different ways to answer that question.  For the first time in years, our hearts were open and we were no longer so tense and guarded toward each other.

Twisting yourself into a pretzel to win someone's approval is not good for your body or your soul.  If you notice your stomach tightening, your teeth and jaw clenched,  your adrenalin rushing, or your thoughts racing when you are face-to-face with someone whose approval seems extremely important to you, maybe it's time to ask yourself, "What if I stop giving so much power to this person and his or her judgment of me?  What if I envision both of us as holy vessels of Divine light?  We are different vessels and we might have different purposes and different tasks in this lifetime--but neither one of us is meant to spend any more time cringing in fear or going overboard to seek the other's approval."

The month of Elul and the High Holy Days are a terrific opportunity to ask yourself if it's time to stop diminishing yourself by putting someone else on a pedestal.  It's an excellent time to explore with a therapist, a coach, a rabbi, friend, or loved one how to let go of the excessive need for approval-seeking and all the ways it is costing you emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  I hope you have some success in this worthy endeavor and I wish you a good and healthy L'shanah tovah!

(For more information on how to honor your own uniqueness and to overcome the habit of excessive approval-seeking, please see www.fittinginisoverrated.com).

Dr. Leonard Felder spent the last week guest blogging for Jewcy.  This is his farewell post.  Want more?  Check out his book, Fitting in Is Overrated.

The Jew & the Carrot is holding a contest to see who can create the greenest Rosh Hashanah dinner menu.  Prizes for the winner include some great Jewish cook books.  Think you've got the green chops?  Prove it:

Pomegranate Heart

The Assignment: Get creative as you green your Rosh Hashanah dinner table!

The Requirements: A description of your sustainable  ideas, tips and techniques, accompanying photo(s), and any/all recipes you make.  Don’t forget to include information about who you are!

The Details: Email your submissions by October 3, 2008 to editor [@] jcarrot.org

First prize winner will receive a copy of Aromas of Aleppo - a stunning, hardcover cookbook of Syrian Jewish cuisine by Poopa Dweck.
Second prize winner will receive a copy of The Weekend Baker - a collection of delicious, stress-free baked good recipes.
The top three submissions will be featured (with much fanfare) on The Jew & The Carrot.

More details at The Jew & The Carrot.