Here we are. The last Jewcy post (until the next one).

It’s been a rocking two+ years. And even though Jewcy is going into stasis for now, all our content will be waiting for you to read it (there’s no way you’ve read everything; the site is like 12 years old).

Some fun news, first! The Jews Who Rock “Wiki” has been updated (shout out to Alex Pucciarelli for doing the heavy lifting, researching to fill in a decade worth of gaps). So you can waste hours on that list alone, learning what members of your favorite bands are also members of the Tribe.

Plus, you should peruse the Editor’s Picks list, curated to highlight some of Jewcy’s best pieces.

Finally, as of this writing, it’s 2018, so obviously we have to gamify your Internet journalism experience. And so, as a final sendoff, we present to you a quiz. If you click the hyperlink in each question, it will take you to the article containing the answer, and see all the valuable things Jewcy has taught you over the years (yes it is valuable to know about Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s hot grandson). Good luck!

1. RBG’s grandson Paul Spera is a total babe. What does he do for a living? Is he:

A) An actor

B) A lawyer

C) A visual artist

D) An author

2. Bexandeb is Victorian slang relating to Jews. Is it:

A) A derogatory term for kosher food

B) A reference to the Jews killing Jesus

C) Essentially a British alternative to Jewish American Princess

D) A shibboleth that Jewish merchants used to greet one another

3. What the heck is a stuffed monkey?

A) The favorite stuffed animal of a Jewish refugee girl fleeing Nazi Germany in a children’s book?

B) An animal indigenous to Israel

C) The translated name of a contemporary queer Yiddish klezmer band

D) A Sephardic British Jewish almond pastry

4. Which of these is not a traditional wedding custom in any Jewish cultures?

A) Staying with the bride for a week before the wedding to avoid her getting possessed by demons

B) Adorning the bride with henna art at a separate party

C) Spitting before you enter a venue where the wedding is about to occur

D) Borrowing the bride’s jewelry while she’s getting married for good luck in finding a match of your own

5. How do you pronounce Jewish fashion icon Ralph Lauren? (No multiple choice!)

6. To what does Chag HaBanot, the Festival of Daughters refer?

A) The 7th night of Chanukah, a celebration of women in honor of Judith slaying Holofernes

B) An annual convention in Israel where all the attendees have played the daughter in Fiddler on the Roof

C) It’s an alternate name for Tu B’Av, the Jewish love festival

D) A tongue-in-cheek reference for the first time a Jewish mother approaches a shadchan (matchmaker) about finding a husband for her daughter

7. What Israeli folk song is hugely popular in Japan?

A) Am Israel Chai

B)Mayim Mayim

C) Hava Nagila

D) David Melech Yisrael

Thanks for playing! And, stay in touch with me! On Twitter, I’m @GabyGeselowitz, and in real life, I’m Gaby Geselowitz.

See ya soon.

Photo by Jennifer Longaway, via Flickr.

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If you’re looking for a mouthful, try the title—or the contents of—The Two-Plate Solution: A Novel of Culinary Mayhem in the Middle East, by Jeff Oliver (Bancroft Press). Think of it as a thriller/satire/culinary guide/behind-the-scenes of reality TV.

The story begins simply enough— Sara Sinek is a showrunner at an American cooking competition program called National Dish-aster. They’re filming in Israel, and someone at the network thinks it would be a great plot-twist to bring in fake terrorists to up the stakes. The only problem is, a group of Palestinians, accused by Israeli authorities of a deadly terrorist attack, quickly crash the set, and hold everyone hostage for real.

If you think you know how the story will shake out, or the agenda of its author, you definitely, absolutely do not. The book moves at a breakneck pace, with so many plot threads and characters it’s more comparable of Game of Thrones than Cutthroat Kitchen, and there are zigs and zags all along the way. Nobody is who they seem, and the stakes (steaks? The book inspires food puns) change constantly.

The novel manages to be both cynical and naïve at the same time— on the one hand, it presents the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a violent quagmire (it is), but then emphasizes that the things that bring us together may be stronger than that which divides us… like a good meal. Also, for all its archetypal reality-show contestant characters, it does want us to care about what happens to the cast of National Dish-aster (season 5).

Oliver, a Bravo TV executive, has worked on his share of reality shows, and know how they tick— particularly, where real-life ends, and producing begins. He has imbued this knowledge into the book with humor, highlighting the absurdity of manufacturing, while also tightly controlling, drama.

As for the cuisine described in the book, it’s as much of a character as the hapless network executive who picked the wrong time to visit the set. In fact, you might not want to read on an empty stomach. Oliver used to work at Food Network, and from coffee-braised brisket to mouthwatering halvas to tahini-infused charoset, he serves up descriptions of all sorts of sorts of mouthwatering, cross-cultural treats.

Admittedly, the final twist at the end of the book is a bit difficult to follow. With all the cards finally on the table, it’s not clear how who double-crossed whom, and when. But like a good meal, it’s about the journey, far more than the sweetness of dessert. And The Two-Plate Solution is full of tasty bites all along the way.

Image courtesy Bancroft Press

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The World Cup starts tomorrow, and if you were planning on rooting for either the U.S. or Israeli team, you already had your hopes dashed when they failed to qualify.

And so, with 32 countries vying for the title, it’s hard to decide which team to support. Should you root for an underdog? Pick the team with the best looking players? Or, better yet, ask yourself the age-old question: Are they good for the Jews?

The ADL conducted a study about global anti-Semitism in 2014 (partially updated in 2015). The study’s general system: If you answer “probably true” to a majority of the anti-Semitic stereotypes polled for, you count as an anti-Semite, and a country’s overall score is the percentage of people questioned who fall into this category. So the lower the score, the less anti-Semitic the country. And the more likely we are to root for their soccer team.

The ADL even has a nifty “compare” feature—so if two countries with the same overall index play each other, you can easily look at them side by side, and think, “Hm. More South Koreans think Jews complain too much about the Holocaust, but in Senegal we’re more likely to get blamed for the world’s wars!” (Or, you can side with the country with the lower population, which therefore contains fewer total anti-Semites. You can insert your own judgment.)

According to the study, Middle Eastern countries are the most anti-Semitic, and Western European ones are the least, but there are anomalies throughout the list—you may be surprised by what you find.

And so, with no further ado, the order in which you should be rooting for countries in the World Cup:

1. Sweden: 4%
2. Denmark: 8%
3. England (polled for anti-Semitism as the UK): 12%
4. Australia: 14%
5. Brazil, Germany, Iceland, and Nigeria: 16%
6.  France: 17%
7. Portugal and Belgium: 21%
8. Japan and Russia: 23%
9. Argentina and Mexico: 24%
10. Switzerland: 26%
11. Spain: 29%
12. Costa Rica: 32%
13. Croatia and Uruguay: 33%
14. Poland: 37%
15. Peru: 38%
16. Colombia: 41%
17. Serbia: 42%
18. Panama: 52%
19. Senegal and South Korea: 53%
20. Iran: 60%
21. Saudi Arabia: 74%
22. Egypt: 75%
23. Morocco: 80%
24. Tunisia: 86%

So, in conclusion… go Sweden?

There are eight countries on this list that are majority anti-Semitic, so if any of the other 24 succeed, consider it a win for the Jewish people.

Sports, go sports!

Image via Max Pixel.

The post Who to Root for in the World Cup, from Least to Most Anti-Semitic appeared first on Jewcy.

There’s a new thriller coming in the fall, and it’s the true story of a team of Nazi-hunting Israelis.

A new heart-pounding trailer introduces us to Operation Finale, a film about the 1960 extradition (OK, illegal kidnapping) of Adolf Eichmann, the Third Reich official who was a key figure in implementing the Final Solution. Its director is Chris Weitz, whose previous credits include producing American Pie, directing a Twilight movie, and co-writing Rogue One— so a bit of a weird pedigree. But if you’re uneasy, know that the cast is top-notch:

First of all, Oscar Isaac both is both a producer of the film, and its star—as Peter Malkin, a Mossad agent on the group that captured Eichmann. Isaac recently backed out of plans to play the Mortara father in a Spielberg film about the kidnapping of an Italian Jewish child by the Catholic Church, so if you had your heart set on him playing a historical Jewish figure, you can still scratch that itch.

Nick Kroll (yep, that Nick Kroll) plays Rafi Eitan, who led the operation… OK. Listen, Kroll is a perfectly capable actor who can do both comedy and drama. But does anyone else feel they’ve been Pavlovian-ly conditioned to laugh any time they see him? Admit it—you snickered when he showed up in Loving.

Mélanie Laurent is also in the film, because can you really go Nazi-hunting without her? Israeli actors in the cast include Lior Raz of Fauda.

And the villain of the piece? Ben Kingsley is uncanny as Eichmann, not only because of the prosthetics to make him look younger in flashbacks (trigger warning: the trailer features Eichmann ordering the mass shooting of a group of Jews), but because of the evenness of his appearance as an old man laying low in Argentina years after the war.

The trailer emphasizes the pressure put on the team to bring Eichmann to justice, though—spoiler alert if you missed history—Eichmann stood trial in Jerusalem, was the only person on whom the Israeli government has carried out capital punishment.

The film is out on September 21st, and in the meantime, check out the trailer for Operation Finale yourself below:

Image via YouTube

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Good news and bad news, kinderlakh.

The bummer is—Jewcy is going on hiatus. Don’t worry—you’ll still be able to peruse the site and learn all about RBG’s hot grandson. There just won’t be new content for a while. But this has happened before; you haven’t heard the last of us!

In the meantime, the good news: We’re going to party before we go! Come hang out with us in Brooklyn after the parade, grab a drink, and toast the good times. And will there be surprises, giveaways, queerness, mishegas? Of course there will!

The party is Sunday, June 24, from 7 to 10 pm at Halyards in Gowanus, Brooklyn (406 3rd Ave.)

Plus: Interested in doing a short set of, well, anything? Email Gabriela@jewcy.com— queer performers encouraged, but all are welcome.

Like usual, no cover.

Facebook RSVP here!

See you soon<3

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Netflix taketh away, but surely Netflix giveth again.

While a number of films will leave the streaming service come June (bye, Men in Black!), there’s a whole new roster of movies set to take their place, from Star Wars: The Last Jedi to Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (get you some early Kat Dennings). Plus, a couple of the films, both foreign, are explicitly Jewish. Here’s what you should keep an eye out for:

Maktub debuts on June 15th. The 2017 film is a dark comedy out of Israel. It starts with parallels to Pulp Fiction—a couple of thugs survive violence (a terrorist bombing) when out to eat after a job. Shaken from their experiences, they decide to take another path. The pair steals notes from the Kotel, and decide to make the prayers of supplicants come true, using the skills from their old job (strong-arming). Shenanigans ensue, especially because when the criminals exited their old life, they took the boss’s cash with them.

Maktub stars Israeli TV superstar duo Guy Amir and Hanan Savyon. As of January, the film was even slated for an American remake. So now’s your chance to say that you watched the original before everyone was talking about the English-language version, and that you liked the Hebrew one better.

To Each, Her Own (originally Les Goûts et les couleurs) drops towards the end of the month, June 24th. There’s not much information about the recent French film online, but Netflix describes it thusly: “Just as Simone works up the courage to tell her conservative Jewish family she’s a lesbian, she finds herself attracted to a male Senegalese chef.”

So, not much there, but it’s definitely an LGBTQ flick. The film’s director is Myriam Aziza, who has also done documentary work that touches on her own conflicted Jewish identity.

(Of course, this is only the new stuff. Netflix already has lots of Israeli and/or Jewish movies and TV.)

But if you’ve gotten through everything and need to wait for these movies, in the meantime, you can check out the trailer for Maktub below:

Still from Maktub via YouTube

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Hummus & Pita Co., the small New York chain of Mediterranean food, introduced hummus-based milkshakes earlier this month. If you thought the humble chick pea hasn’t suffered enough indignities recently, with the hummus craze already spawning “dessert” hummuses (brownie batter? WTF?). But now, sweet hummus isn’t enough—you can drink it through a straw, and it’s vegan and gluten-free.

Is this cultural appropriation? Playing God? Straight-up gross?

Well, it seems that it’s not the latter.

It would be easy to dismiss the shake as disgusting and write it off in righteous indignation, but they’re not bad. Original, chocolate, butter pecan, strawberry— they’re all reasonably tasty (I didn’t sample the fifth flavor, pistachio). That said, none of them taste like hummus. In addition to chickpeas, the shake’s base contains tahini, frozen bananas, dates, almond milk, and a little bit of vanilla and cinnamon. In the “original” shake, the dates and bananas overpower the chickpeas. But between those three substantial ingredients, the shake is pretty thick, and you really need to go at the thing with a straw.

The drinks also very, very sweet— especially the flavored ones. The strawberry shake tastes like pink Nesquik, and the chocolate has little clumps of cocoa powder floating around. The butter pecan is like drinking a cookie—you get the idea. If you don’t have a sweet tooth, you might find these shakes an abomination after all.

But if you’re looking for a vegan milkshake, you could do worse, and pricier; the shake is a reasonable $5 for New York City. (If you keep strictly kosher, sorry— Hummus & Pita Co. doesn’t have a hechsher.)

In conclusion, the bad news is that nothing is sacred, but the good news is that nothing is sacred! If you love hummus, the good stuff lives on, and this isn’t likely to be a chick pea revolution, but a quirk of a city with a lot of hummus products to go around. (Pro-tip, do not order the “choomoos” shake. Just pretend you can’t pronounce it properly like everybody else, including store employees.)

I’ll still never accept the rainbow bagel or funfetti cream cheese, though. That’s a hill to die on.

Image via Twitter

The post Calm Down… Hummus ‘Milkshakes’ Are Fine appeared first on Jewcy.

Seriously, it’s been nearly a month, and how has Jewish media missed this? Megan Amram has her own (web) series, and dang it, she’s going to win an Emmy for it… at all costs.

Amram is best known these days for writing on The Good Place, but she’s been killing it at the comedy game for years, (see: Twitter, Parks and Rec, her book). And now, she will be an Emmy-winning performer, in a work entitled, simply, An Emmy for Megan.

The premise of the series is simple: Amram decides that she wants an Emmy, specifically for Outstanding Actress in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series (she’s also putting up the series for an Outstanding Series award). And so she sets out to fulfill the minimum requirements. 6 episodes? Post online before April 27th? She has this in the bag! Of course, by the end of the first episode she’s in a spiral of pain, in the second episode she loses 40 pounds to fit the Hollywood mold, in the third episode she decides to identify as Korean… You get the idea, but you never know quite what she’ll do next.

And, yes, of course Amram talks about being Jewish. For example, it takes less than three minutes into the series for her to accuse an unsupportive friend of being anti-Semitic.

Plus, despite the show’s short run, there are a ton of celebrity cameos (mostly crammed together), ranging from RuPaul to Seth Rogen. Also, keep an eye out for a more substantial appearance from Jewish Good Place actor D’Arcy Carden.

If you’re in the LA area, you can even watch the new series in a theater, followed by a Q&A with the cast and crew on June 10.

Or, you can just watch An Emmy For Megan in your pajamas, like God intended. The whole thing is just under half an hour:

Image via Vimeo

The post Why Haven’t You Watched ‘An Emmy for Megan’ Yet? appeared first on Jewcy.

Fans of The Bachelorette and hunky Jews may remember Grant Hubsher from last season, the (now) 30 year old ER doctor— Florida bred, New York-based. Day School. Hillel. The whole package. Since he didn’t win on the TV show last year, he’s still single, and now he’s using his eligibility for a good cause.

One woman (sorry, guys) is going to win a date with Hubsher, in a contest designed to draw attention to a Jewish health organization.

“Nice Jewish doctor?,” says Hubsher, in the video announcing the contest, “Mom’s gonna love this!”

The non-profit he’s promoting is JScreen— an initiative based out of Emory University that provides genetic testing services, particularly for Jewish couples looking to one day conceive. (As a doctor, Hubsher says he’s all too familiar with the damage genetic diseases can cause.)

JScreen’s test can be completed at home (no needles needed!), and a professional will inform couples in a follow-up video chat if they are carriers for any detrimental genetic diseases, and the odds of their future children having said conditions. Once couples know the potential risks of reproducing, they can be better equipped to family-plan.

(Isn’t that the most Jewish alternative to the Bachelor franchise? Win a date with a handsome guy, make sure neither of you carry Tay-Sachs?)

Entering the contest is simple— all you need to do is provide basic information, and answer the question “Why should you be selected to date Grant?” (And please, tweet @jewcymag and let us know what you said; we really, really want to know.) You have until June 1st to enter. (Once again, you can enter here.)

It’s going to be a really nice date—dinner the kosher Wolf & Lamb Steakhouse in Manhattan. Hubsher is only committing to one date for now, but if things go well, he’s open to more.

“Who knows,” said Hubsher in a statement, “Maybe this contest will help me finally find the woman to share my life with.”

Now that’s a meet-cute.

Photo by Cher Gopman

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Only 50 days until July 4th, when Fiddler on the Roof premieres (in Yiddish) off-Broadway. And now, we know who will be in it.

If you’ve heard of anyone in the cast, it’s Jackie Hoffman, the Emmy-nominated comedian (for Feud) whose Broadway credits have included scene-stealing in everything from Hairspray to Xanadu to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She is also extremely, very, super Jewish. She has performed musical parodies of pretty much every Jewish holiday you can think of— including Shavuot. Hoffman will be playing Yenta the matchmaker, because of course she will.

Your Tevya is Steven Skybell, who has been on Broadway several times, including in the last revival of Fiddler (he was a replacement Lazar Wolf). He grew up Jewish in Lubbock Texas, which would make shtetl-dwellers’ heads spin.

Jill Abramovitz will play Golda, and, yes, her Broadway credits too include the last run of Fiddler (she replaced Grandma Tzeitel, and understudied both Golda and Yenta). She’s also a songwriter, including contributing lyrics for Broadway intermarriage musical It Shoulda Been You.

Neither of the leads are big names, so it’s exciting to see what could be the big breaks of actors who have been in the business for some time.

The supporting cast is:

Kirk Geritano as Avram, Samantha Hahn as Bielke, Cameron Johnson as Fyedka, Daniel Kahn as Perchik, Ben Liebert as Motel, Stephanie Lynne Mason as Hodel, Rosie Jo Neddy as Chava, Raquel Nobile as Shprintze, Bruce Sabath as Lazar Wolf, Jodi Snyder as Fruma-Sarah, Lauren Jeanne Thomas as The Fiddler, Bobby Underwood as the Constable, Michael Yashinsky as Mordcha, Rachel Zatcoff as Tzeitel.

Also in the production is: Jennifer Babiak, Joanne Borts, Josh Dunn, Michael Einav, Evan Mayer, Nick Raynor, Kayleen Seidl, Adam Shapiro, and James Monroe Stevko.

Of course, the director is the legendary Joel Grey. Some of the cast members have experiences performing in Yiddish, but for some, it’ll be like a mamaloshen boot camp.

See you in July!

Photo by Joan Marcus

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