While I was busy pillaging the Labor Day sale racks and chowing down on meat fresh off the holiday grill, it seems that every other Jew across the country was attending a wedding, if not getting married themselves. While I typically expect 1-4 Jewish unions in the weekly New York Times Weddings Section, I was shocked this week to find not 4, but 6 Jewish nuptials in the papers. Considering that not one deserved to be mazal-d more than the next, I thought that this called for a revival of my favorite Monday Tuesday Mazal simulated game show – The Big, Jewcy Hollywood Relationship Name Game!! Is it Brangelina? Bennifer? No! It’s Ben-Guirion-owitz!

When Alisa Mall and Ariel Rosenberg wed in Napa this weekend at the Silverado Resort they became…Aliel!

When Tommy Hilfiger’s advertising strategy media manager, Robin Stein, wed law associate Aaron Page this past Sunday, they signed all their thank you cards as…Pagestein!

When Colgate alumni Allison Frumin and Benjamin Reschovsky wed this past weekend, they registered as…Fruminjamin!

Jared Hecht, the founder and chief executive of GroupMe, a company that allows users to send simultaneous text messages on mobile devices to groups, married Carrie Weprin who manages creative development and video programming at an Internet television production company this past weekend. I now pronounce you…Jarrie.

Emily Fenkel and Russell Shattan were married this past Sunday at the Westin Philadelphia Hotel. Officiant Rabbi Aaron Landes proudly pronounced them Russkell!

And finally, when social worker Matthew Zablocki wed Rachel Levy, the president of Storyboard TV, a website where screenwriters and producers can upload scripts and solicit feedback and member of Brooklyn-based band Menage a Twang they became… Rachhew!

A hearty mazal and a happy belated Labor Day to all our Jewy Brangelinas!

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While Hurricane Irene was certainly the bitchy, soap opera-esque diva we all imagined she’d be, we at the Jewcy HQ like to look beyond common day devastation and find the simcha. I thought I’d start with the New York Times Wedding Section, reporting to you by candlelight in my power-less abode having pre-loaded all my browser windows standing outside my closed local Starbucks.

Upon searching for the cream filling in all the moping Irene has incited, it seemed as though the Rabbis in our fair tri-state area were off duty this weekend, leaving those who officiate interfaith unions to do all the work. Apparently all the Jews within range of the Times’ radar were sitting out the weekend wedding circuit as well, too afraid Irene would wreak havoc on their chuppahs. And so, let us toast the two (yes- two!) Jewish men who were more concerned with true love than Irene the she-devil’s winds and warnings.

Eric Rosenbaum and Brian Sprague wed this past weekend at the Gramercy Park Hotel; two interfaith ministers officiated their ceremony. Rosenbaum, “47, is the chief of the DNA Prosecutions Unit in the Queens County District Attorney’s Office Special Victims Bureau in Kew Gardens. He also is on the legislative committee of the New York State District Attorneys Association; he specializes in policy and legislative development in the areas of forensic DNA, sexual assault and family violence.” Sprague, 39, is the director of financial reporting and analysis at the law firm Sullivan & Crowell in Manhattan. Our hopes for this couple, besides that they live a life full of health and happiness together, is that their impressive resumes and elegance in their venue make Irene feel as insignificant as an April shower.

In other interfaith nuptial news, Dr. Nina Mukhopadhyay and Matthew Gadiel Meyersohn were married Saturday evening at the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel in Boston. “Rabbi Lev Ba’esh officiated, with Dilip Chakravarty, a friend of the bride’s family, conducting the part of the ceremony that included Hindu traditions.” Cool job alert! – Mr. Meyersohn, also 30, is the director of player development and community relations for the Boston Celtics. Dr. Mukhopadhyay’s smarts seem to be as sky high as her new hubby’s cool factor – she is a resident in radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital after graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University. The Meyersohn’s thanked their seven foot tall, Ivy League educated wedding party by announcing – “Celtics tickets and straight A’s for everybody!” halfway through their reception.

A final mazal (and hearty thanks!) to all of you who have power post-Irene’s wicked PMS and are choosing to use it reading this here Monday Mazal!

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This week’s Simcha section was jam-packed with people who do so much good that it only serves to make each and every one of us feel bad about ourselves. From one Jewish announcement to the next, a bride or groom listed their employment as “good deed doing,” “world saving” and / or “peace making.” In short, I ended my reading of the Sunday Styles feeling sick to my stomach at the thought that I would return to my work on Monday as a fashion stylist, writer and publicist – doing quite little for the good of mankind and instead focusing all my energies on the well-being of their closets. Oh how materialistic I feel as I celebrate the meaningful mazals of the tri-state area’s goodie two shoes’ – may you feel equally as inadequate as you wish them a hearty mazal while realizing that your work as a magazine editor, investment banker and barista pales in comparison to the brides and grooms below.

Let’s start with Janet Weinberg, 56, and Rosalyn Richter, 55 – the chief operating officer of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Manhattan’s AIDS service organization, and the associate justice of the appellate division of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan. A justice of the New York State Supreme Court officiated the nuptials of these two dedicated servicewomen. God I feel ugly inside.

I then met Idit Klein, the Executive Director of Keshet, a nonprofit organization in Boston that works for LGBT equality within Jewish communities. Loving Idit already, I was even more pleased when I met her wife, Jordan Namerow through the pages of the New York Times. “Ms. Namerow, is the senior communications associate of American Jewish World Service, an international relief organization in New York.” As I was googling charities to donate chai ($18.00) to in order to make myself feel better for how little I have done for mankind as of late, I wondered – could Jordan Namerow have had anything to do with the genius Judd Apetow PSA Jewcy premiered earlier this year? International relief and comedic relief? Is there anything these women can’t and don’t do? UGH.

My frustration continues…Meet Heather Stoltz, an administrative assistant at the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance in Manhattan. Heather married Geoffrey Mitelman, “the associate rabbi at Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester in Chappaqua, N.Y.” and I am sure, an all around goodie two shoes. Together the two plan to rebuild desolate communities, donate much of their hard earned wages to charity and sign me up for the Peace Corps. In her past time, Heather works as a textile artist who creates fabric sculptures. “Her work was on display earlier this year in group shows at the Barnard University Kraft Center for Jewish Life in Manhattan and in the Callahan Center of St. Francis College in Brooklyn.” Facilitating major girl power while being featured in two museum exhibitions? I can’t even get my two blogs in order…

Wishing all these amazing world savers all the best in their newly-nuptials and wishing me, you and everyone we know all the luck in the world trying to do as much for man and womankind as these couples have done in this year alone. MAZAL!

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After gushing over the large amount of same sex nuptials in the Simchas Section this past weekend, I scoured the New York Times for what seemed like the smallest amount of Jewish weddings listed in ages. After a good amount of minister this and chapel that I found some lovely Jewouples and as usual, some familiar faces.

Geri and Cynthia Armine-Klein made their hyphenation official on Sunday when they were married at my childhood friend’s shul, the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue. What touched me on a deeper level about Geri and Cynthia’s union was the memory of my friends and I drunkenly discussing our disappointment that this lovely couple could not legally tie the knot when we noticed their adorable and spiritual bond during a classic Brooklyn Simchat Torah street-dancing session. What a pleasure it was to read about their wedding in the paper and recall the day when one of them enthusiastically handed an intoxicated JAP (read: me) a Torah to dance with seven years ago…

Turning the page after a trip down Childhood-Stupidity-Memory Lane, I came across a classic case: someone I’ve exchanged emails with, heard many good things about, but have never met. Jaclyn Karas and Brandon Staub wed this past weekend at the Cranwell Resort in Lenox, Massachusetts. Karas, the publicist for vintage fashion brand What Goes Around Comes Around tied the knot with Staub, who recently left his post as an investment banker to pursue an M.B.A. at Stanford.

Last but not least, my final Jewish discovery of the week came in the form of Marcy Magid and Eric Pofsky. The two met, naturally, at the Jewish breeding ground that is Emory University and lived happily ever after.

Now that you’ve been previewed to the bleak world of Jews in Weddings Media this past weekend, allow me to share with you the bevy of seemingly Jewish names that much to my surprise, were married by apostles, commissioners for civil marriages and priests over their local rabbis: Bernstein, Freidman, Gross and Winkelman – there was even a bride by the name of Samantha Jones! Sadly, she was neither Jewish nor was she the real life version of her Sex and the City namesake.

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While the state of New York undoubtedly deserves the ultimate Monday Mazal for legalizing same sex simchas across the five boroughs, we at Jewcy thought we’d do what The New York Times did not do to celebrate this fine occasion and, for just one weekend, pretend that all other couples who wed this past weekend in our native New York do not exist. That’s right Jewcy readers, it’s a Monday Mazal – same-sex simchas edition!

It seemed the only Jewish same-sex couples publicizing their nuptials via my fine source for this here column (ahem, ahem, the New York Times) were that of the middle aged and senior set. It’s a good thing I find gay Jewish seniors the most endearing specimens on Earth, because the Simchas section was jam packed with their love, hand holding and newly legalized exchanging of rings. Let’s get down to business.

A legalized gay marriage seems all the more legal when it takes place between the commissioner of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs and the chief adviser on policy and strategic planning for the mayor’s office – at Gracie Mansion, officiated by Mayor Bloomberg. John Feinblatt, 60, and Jonathan Mintz, 47, were married this past weekend with their two daughters present to celebrate and bear witness. The couple’s wedding announcement may have read quite politically, listing their accomplishments and top-tier university accolades, but it seemed clear that the union of these darling politics industry gentlemen meant that much more to the city of New York by emphasizing that even they waited for this exciting day with bated breath. If that’s not making it legal, I don’t know what is.

The most endearing Jewish couple of the week by far was Phyllis Siegel, 76, and Connie Kopelov, 84, who were married in the city clerk’s office of Manhattan after being together for 23 years. Upon the clerk’s announcement of their being pronounced married, Siegel enthusiastically grabbed her wife’s face and kissed her on the left cheek. Mrs. Kopelov donned a grey walker for the occasion.

Mazal Tov to all the same-sex couples who were able to (finally!) wed in the city of New York this past weekend. Our only regret is that we weren’t able to make it to each and every one of your ceremonies to join you in a celebratory hora.

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This week’s Simcha Section (a.k.a. The New York Times Wedding Section) kept things simple in Jewy Jewland, sticking to what we know best: doctors, lawyers and financiers. There were, however, the occasional curveballs we assume were thrown into the mix to keep things interesting and to avoid Times’ readers thinking we are walking right into common Jewish stereotypes.

Let’s start with what we know and love, the doctors and the lawyers. Two physical therapists from my alma mater, Rebecca Talmud and Rory Spiegel, wed this past weekend in Westhampton, NY after meeting during their doctoral study. As usual, it’s these doctors parents that punctuated the announcement of their nuptials with elements of quirky and classic interest. The bride’s mother “is the director of the religious school (Really?! So is mine!) at Temple Beth Israel in Port Washington, N.Y.” and the groom’s father, “a sound editor, is an owner of 701 Sound in New York and was a winner of an Emmy in 2008 for his work on an episode of “The War,” by Ken Burns.

Like a true-blue JAP, I can never get a fair enough share of my Jewish medical and legal minds, so I was especially pleased when I came across some Ivy-league ones. I was, however, slightly giggly when it came to what I am sure was a lovely venue in person, “Beth Ilyssa Schwartz and Ramin Afshar Mohajer were married Saturday evening at the Please Touch Museum at Memorial Hall in Philadelphia.” If you didn’t at least smile while reading the words “Please Touch Museum,” I am questioning your judgment.

While I loved me some Jew(c)y professionals, I was even more excited to meet the less typically employed couples who celebrated their Jeweddings this past weekend. For example, when I read that Chelsea Mendelsohn of Roslyn, NY married Marc Miller, “a photographer and the style director at the Greenwich, Conn., franchise of Venture Photography, a British portrait specialist,” it felt like the first night of Hannukah.  Reading that the groom’s mother works as a senior buyer for Restaurant Depot only had me thinking about whether she could score us at the Jewcy HQ a discount on an industrial sized box of strawberries or Chilean sea bass – must be the Jewess in me.

Finally, the couple who most tickled my fancy popped up in the news that’s fit to print – theater geeks! A fan of all things Broadway, Harry Potter and entertainment myself (keep your judgments at the door), I fell in love with Dina Kirschenbaum and her WASPy sounding beau, Mark Thomas. While I spent the first few minutes of getting to know them thinking about how lucky Mark was to be walking around with a name as secular as Matt Lauer’s, I was immediately drawn back into the couple’s darling proposal story. When the couple starred in a graduate school production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Mark used their curtain call as an opportunity to ask for her hand in front of a live audience – and in full Shakespearean costume.

Wishing all of our Jewcy couples a hearty Mazal!

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Always nice to see those who you know you’re distantly related to, or that girl who lived in your freshman dorm at NYU, or that TV writer you wish you knew in The New York Times wedding announcements. Let’s go through them, shall we….

We’ll start with the non-Jews. I was pleasantly surprised to come across the nuptials of Jessica Lubin (sounds Jewish…) to James Hall (sounds not-so Jewish…) in this week’s announcements. Jessica may not remember this, but I believe we share some mutual (Facebook) friends after living in the same freshman dorm at New York University. She also may be the only person I know not related to me that follows my blog, so I’m a fan of hers already. Considering her past interest in my ramblings, I figured I’d throw her and her groom a shout out and wish them a hearty Mazel Tov.

On to the Jewy McJews and those I may or may not find on a distant branch of my family tree. I noticed he who may be the brother-in-law of my second cousin (yes, that counts), Michael Caras and his Jewish media Exec. callah in this week’s simchas as well. Leah Larson, said callah, age 20 (translation: bride) and the Chief Executive of Yaldah Media. Yaldah, meaning girl b’Ivrit, is “a magazine and book publishing business in Sharon. The bride started the magazine, which is for Jewish girls, when she was 13.” The groom, “21, is a rabbi who was ordained at Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim in Kfar Chabad, Israel. In August he will continue his rabbinical studies at Kollel Menachem in Brooklyn.” Likely story. I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome Leah onto the distant, by-marriage branch of my mishpacha while I wonder if our mutual involvement in the Jewish media circuit is genetic…

The final challah nugget worth discussing in this week’s Weddings came in the form of “Jews-You-Wish-You-Knew”… but cannot seem to find a familial or social connection to via the iota of information you were given about them via The New York Times. Caren Mintz and Joseph Grossman made it official this past weekend and seem pretty cool based on said iota. “The bride, 32, is keeping her name. She works in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, for Ralph Lauren as a manager overseeing environmental efforts that involve waste reduction, energy use, transportation and packaging.  The bridegroom, 35, is a writer for the “Late Show with David Letterman.”  Dear Caren and Joseph, you two sound cool – be our friends?

Thanks and Mazel, Jewcy Staff.

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Nothing gets you in the mood to write the Monday Mazal like chowing down on Chateaubriand at an ultra-Orthodox (read: Amish) wedding this past Thursday (yes, Thursday) night. As I ate my starchy side dish, I hit my smart phone for the Jewiest of Jews from last week’s Simcha section and came across not one, but two familiar faces.

One of my camp counselors (what kind of Jewess would I be had I not attended the requisite Jewy summer camp?!) from the summer of 2003, Susie Levithan, wed a fellow camp madrich (translation: male counselor), Harrison Rubenfeld, last weekend after meeting him on staff the summer prior. While I had known about the couple’s engagement and their plans to tie the knot at our beloved Camp Ramah in the Berkshires with a fellow Ramah-nik officiating, I had no clue that the pair merited my first summer at Camp Ramah, the summer of 2002, as when they met. Such an exciting detail in their small announcement last week made me feel a part of their simcha, when in fact, as we all know, I had absolutely nothing to do with it. With both the bride and the grooms’ mothers working in Jewish education, hers a Rabbi at the JCC and his a nursery school teacher at Huntington Jewish Center, it’s no shock these two found love at Jewy Jewy Jew Camp. Mazal Tov Susie and Harrison! After Shabbat walks, making out behind bunks and being tormented for your love by immature campers of all ages, you are now officially adorable.

While the epic findings of the week prior left me with high expectations for this week’s simchas, I was pleased to find an ample amount of Jewish unions with equally ample Jewish surnames in this week’s wedding announcements. However, despite their quantity, the announcements seemed to lack in Jewcy quality. With no intermarriage, no typos and no uber Jewness to report, the couples involved came from your typical Jewish communities and work in the classic professions befitting those in said communities (finance, medicine, education, law, you know them well). I figured I’d play a fun game with their marital good fortune instead of simply reporting on them and grant their unions Hollywood style nicknames! Here we go…

When Lauren Rabinowitz wed Daniel Singer at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue after meeting at her grandmother’s house (yes, her grandmother’s house) they became… Singowitz!

When the daughter of Forward editor Jane Eisner, Rachel Berger and Ari Jankelowitz made it official they morphed into… Rachkelwitz!

When Linda Schechter and George Feldman tied the knot this past weekend, we adorably dubbed them… Feldechter!

While these nicknames certainly do not come close to the epic Bennifer and Brangelina – please note that two out of three of them end in –owitz. Those Hollywood gentiles may have lovely secular names that string together with perfect precision, but we have rockin’ Jewy last names! Can’t touch this.

In other Mazal news, our tribe welcomed the much-awaited arrival of Baby Natalie Portman and Benjamin Millipied! The name, we’re sure, won’t be announced until the bouncing baby’s brit.

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Well this one shouldn’t come as a shocker. We, you, your Jewish mothers, your Bubby and your boyfriend all know we love Meredith Fineman and her phenomenal vodka soda infused tales of dating, JAPdom, sushi and jeggings on her site, Fifty First JDates. You know it well, after all, Meredith’s only been sharing dating sagas and advice on this site for the past year or so. Admitted nepotism aside, we thought we’d induct our dear Meredith into this year’s Big Jewcy and turn the tables on one of our favorite writers with an interview. I caught up with Meredith to chat about how it all started and to exchange childhood tales of like JAPpyhood.

Let’s talk about life before the blog. While Meredith may not have been dating a bunch o’ Jews back then, she preferred to get in touch with her Judaism through clothes, getting her nails done and other token acts of JAPpyhood I too engaged in as a young Jewess In Training. “I was the token JAPpy girl in school; but in a very P.C., hyper-intellectual high school. I didn’t even know what a true JAP was until I went to Penn… because until then, I had never seen a boy in Seven jeans.” Post-college, after working for a year in Buenos Aires, Meredith returned to Washington DC, where she not only regained her token JAP status, but also developed a need to expand her social and professional base. “I moved back to D.C. after a year and felt like I’d never really been a young professional there. I wanted to meet new people, and I had always gotten along with guys better than I did with girls. I love meeting new people – I can talk to a wall and I thought, ‘well, if I end up liking a guy, great.”  While she had dated a bit in college, her lack of long term relationships past sealed the deal. “I joined the site and within a week I thought ‘this is epically hilarious and it would be tragic if I didn’t write about it.’” And write about it she did – hilariously, snarkily and self-deprecatingly (in the best of ways.)

You’d think that a collection of hilariously written dating tales would be enough of a reason for us to adore Ms. Fineman unconditionally. But, even better than her killer social commentary is that this young writer has a rare little something most don’t – a conscience. Not only did Meredith get consent from each and every man she wrote about on her site, but she made sure to only date in earnest, never dating men solely for the sale of content and never invading their private moments with commentary if ever the dates became more serious than light. “The site is always lighthearted, not deeply personal. I never write about sex, I am not interested in writing about the third date. I think I only made it to nineteen first dates before I met someone off the site, who was number five on FFJD. It was such a 21^st century dilemma – I want to be a writer of social commentary, should I keep going out with these people? I was very conflicted for a while, but I decided to get into a relationship with him and have people submit their stories to me for my site. Now my stories are nowhere near as funny as the ones I had people submit to me.”

Her formula seems to have worked, not only because I dream of the day she’ll print my many tales of first dates over sushi with I-bankers who like to talk about themselves, but because Jewesses across the nation are now giving her the respect she deserves. With a father renowned for his excellence in political journalism, it was as yummy as a Jewish deli rainbow cookie when a FFJD reader, not having a clue who he was, approached him at a party to exclaim “Ahhh! Your daughter writes Fifty First JDates?!” – delicious.

Despite the fact that her own father unfollowed her on Twitter due to her dirty humor, we’re tuning in online and on Jewcy to figure out what of the few results stems from the age old equation JAP + Jew Financier + sushi + vodka = ?  – the fact that Meredith has all the answers certainly merited her a spot on this year’s Big Jewcy.

A serious lover of fashion, I put on my big girl, Fashion Editor panties to ask Meredith one last question. To close out our chat, I figured I’d give her a non-FDA approved dosage of her own medicine.

CG of Jewcy: Jeggings… go!

MF of FFJD: They really confuse boys…where is the zipper?! It’s hard when the shirt is not long enough in the back, and there are no pockets. But, if they give an illusion that you’re wearing jeans when you’re not, that’s great. I mean, I ate late night for four years and so I did not wear constricted-waisted pants for four years. With jeggings, if you want to have a big snack – you can! Jeans are not comfortable, you can’t really eat in them. That part right above the button? It digs into you, its not ok. When I was younger, I was heavier and I used to sew elastic into my pants. I fucking invented jeggings and did not patent them – I could be a bagillianaire right now!”

Meredith Fineman – social commentator, funny woman, professional dater, inventor of jeggings, Big Jewcy member.

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Normally, we at the Jewcy HQ require our Big Jewcy members to be at least one year old, but when fashion herself, [Jewish] celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe, had a bouncing baby boy with her husband Rodger Berman, we decided to make an exception. He who would have been named Scarlet Begonia Berman (after the infamous Grateful Dead hit) had he been born a little lady, Skyler Morrison Berman rolled into the world on a red carpet on March 23rd, bearing an Armani tie in place of an umbilical cord. Already strutting the streets in a Missoni Bugaboo stroller with his proud mom and pop, Skyler, in his first year on this planet, has certainly earned his place on the 2011 Big Jewcy. After all, anyone whose birth manages to win their uber chic mother a whopping ten carat Neil Lane diamond ring for her first Mother’s Day can’t avoid being on our radar.

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