While there is this widely held misconception that Hanukkah is the Jewish holiday most similar to Christmas, that is entirely wrong.  Today is the day when we celebrate the closest thing to the Jewish lord and savior.

Jewcy would like to take a moment to recognize the most important non-religious holiday of the calendar year by taking a walk to Russ & Daughters for an plain bagel with cream cheese, sable, capers, onions and tomatoes.

Happy National Bagel and Lox Day!

The post How Will You Celebrate National Bagel And Lox Day? appeared first on Jewcy.

For Adam Kirsch’s latest Tablet post, Nathan Englander’s (above) latest collection of stories, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, as well as his forthcoming translation of the Passover Haggadah, gives Kirsch a perfect opportunity to assess the last century of the Jewish novel, and also look forward to the next generation.

I especially like the opening where Kirsch perfectly encapsulates the places of some of the most iconic scribes who are normally the first ones people think of when they hear the term “Jewish writer”:

Isaac Babel, who wrote about the impotence of the Jewish intellectual, is now a hero to Jewish intellectuals; Franz Kafka, who dramatized the blockage of Jewish tradition and the impasse of theology, is now read as a profound Jewish theologian. Even Philip Roth, the creator of Alexander Portnoy and Mickey Sabbath and Nathan Zuckerman, has turned in his late-late period into a moist elegist of his boyhood Newark; his recent books all read like palinodes. Born into this Jewish and American cultural climate

The post The State Of The Jewish Novel appeared first on Jewcy.

Politicians and the television pundits that talk about them, Republicans, Democrats, country stars, and even Jews have used Hitler, the Holocaust, and other assorted comparisons to try and get their point across in whatever debate they’re engaging in when it comes to current politics.  It’s dumb, pointless, and insulting.

So what about when a famous sports writer compares a sports award show to the Shoah?

According to Deadspin, that’s what Grantland honcho Bill Simmons did in 1999, when he titled a now missing piece, “The 1999 ESPY Awards: Greatest Night In Sports… Or TV Holocaust?”

It seems pretty obvious to me that Simmons wasn’t trying to make a joke that Dick Vitale was like Joseph Goebbels.  He wasn’t saying that somebody not winning an award was comparable to Kristallnacht, but he did knowingly use the term “Holocaust” in a piece, and compared a normally bad sports award show to it.

What do you think: is it worth getting upset about, or have we become too oversensitive?

The post Even Sports Writers Make Dumb Holocaust References appeared first on Jewcy.

We’re about three weeks away from the wedding.  One year of planning, freaking out, food tastings, thinking about what baseball team our kids will like, wondering what music we’re going to play, and the dozens of other wonderful things that come with planning our day under the chuppah, and now we’re rounding the final corner. But before we can have our day there’s two big things I’ve been thinking about.

The first being all the mazel tovs.  I’m seriously going to miss them.  You get used to people hearing you’re getting married and uttering a very low-key “mazel tov,” followed up sometimes by a jokey, “You’ve still got time.  I’m kidding!  My wife and I have been together 40 years and we couldn’t be happier.”  I’ll miss people carting out cakes that have mazel tov written on top in pink frosting, and I’ll miss people telling us how happy we’re going to be, how beautiful marriage is, and the wisdom people who have been married try to pass down.  I’ll also probably miss blogging about the wedding, but who knows?

Also, my upcoming wedding means that, for the first time since my ill-fated bar mitzvah haftorah reading of 1993 (more on that later), I will be called in front of a congregation, and I will have to speak Hebrew.  Granted it’s only about one minute of Hebrew, but since I slacked off in Hebrew school prior to my bar mitzvah, even the most rudimentary prayers are difficult for me.  Am I embarrassed of this?  Well, not especially.  I haven’t had to use that much Hebrew in the fifteen years since the day I became a man, but I’m worried that when it’s my turn to go up and say a few (literally, a few) words, I might have some repeat performance of my meltdown that I had in that Chicago shul back in the Clinton-era.

But I’m an adult now.  I think it’s going to be alright, but it proves one thing: you should probably pay attention to your Hebrew school classes.

The post My Big Ol’ Jewish Wedding: Mazel Tovs And Hebrew School Regrets appeared first on Jewcy.

We follow Spencer Ackerman on Twitter for a myriad of reasons:  national security news, he’s a Big Jewcy, and sometimes he tips us off to N.O.R.E. dropping a song (featuring Busta Rhymes, Game, and Waka Flocka) called “Mazel Tov.”  (Actually, he’s never done that till now, and we thank him for it.)

Listen: N.O.R.E. – “Mazel Tov”

The post They’re Gonna Be Shouting “Mazel Tov” All Up In The Club appeared first on Jewcy.

I read John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt’s The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy because I wanted to see what the hubbub was all about, and I was also reading all the responses in the wake of the book’s release. This week, several years after the book came out, Adam Kirsch in his Tablet column doesn’t try to break down the book or decry it like many critics and other intellectuals did upon the book’s release; instead, he tries to understand the book’s legacy.  And it made me think back to that special moment when the librarian handed it over to me and remarked, “It’s a lot of Jewish guys checking this one out.  You’re the youngest one by at least 30 years.”  It also made me revisit the thing I thought after reading it.  Mainly:

1. This book is bad news for American Jews.  It’s going to perpetuate stereotypes, and possibly make people distrust and dislike Jews even more.

2.  Lobbies suck. There are lobbies for about a hundred things from fatty foods to tobacco.  Reading the book made me realize that I hate those things, and as much as I disagree with a lot of the policies and actions of Israel, I still care about its well being.  And getting non-Jewish support for anything Jewish isn’t the easiest sell. [ I found myself in the awkward position of defending what I saw as the good of a pro-Israel lobby.  This abandonment of many of my own ideals caused me to drink more wine.  In all, I read the book over 2 evenings, and drank four bottles.]

Here’s the thing:  I didn’t read The Israel Lobby to learn anything I didn’t already know, and I wasn’t sold on any crazy ideas.  I read the book because my spot came up at the library, and because I wanted to hear two highly respected academics explain why I knew the things I knew.  I also got too drunk to really form any new opinions on the matter, so I guess my entire experience shouldn’t count much.  At least Kirsch’s revisiting the book’s lasting impression is interesting, poignant, and (obviously) smartly written.

The post Adam Kirsch CliffsNotes: Red Wine And The Israel Lobby appeared first on Jewcy.

I’ve taken issue with Tim Tebow in the past, and frankly, I still don’t think he’s a very good quarterback regardless of how far his team goes in the NFL playoffs.  The saddest part being that 2011 was one of the greatest years in the history of his position, and all we can talk about his Tebow, his faith, and how it makes us feel.  I personally can’t escape it, as I find myself looking at his week to week performance, caring enough to offer commentary.  Also, I’m frightened he’s close to converting some of my friends.

Regardless of all that, I’m still fascinated when somebody has a smart or interesting thing to say about “Tebow Time,” “Tebow Magic,” etc., and Marcus Cederstrom at Salon is the latest to take Tebow’s popularity, and asks a good question: “What if Tebow were Muslim?”

I guess this could lead to more discussions asking what ifs about Tebow’s faith.  What if Tim Tebow stopped believing?  What if Tebow was into snake handling?  What if Tim Tebow was seen going to come out that he’s converting to Judaism on an episode of Shalom Sesame while Moshe Oofnik looks on in disgust?  There’s a million what ifs what we could dive into, but maybe we should stop for the time being?

The post Shit Jews Say About Tim Tebow appeared first on Jewcy.

Billy Joel is worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, can crash expensive car after expensive car into various parts of Long Island, and rock Soviet Russia harder than anybody.  But here’s the rub: Billy Joel is the pop music equivalent of Rodney Dangerfield in that he really doesn’t get the respect he deserves as one of the greatest American songwriters of them all.

Some people get it, some people don’t.  But one person who is of the latter category wants to at least give Joel a chance; that’s where A Year Of Billy Joel comes in.  The Tumblr’s first stated goal is “To understand why Billy Joel has been so popular for so long,” but it also hopes to “Maybe, just maybe learn to love Billy Joel’s  music or at least grow to tolerate a few songs.”

The post Spending A Year Trying To Like Billy Joel appeared first on Jewcy.

Remember that time I said that Boardwalk Empire was the most Jewish show on television?  Downton Abbey, the hugely popular British costume drama that takes place in the decade preceding the Roaring 20s, is the exact opposite of HBO’s popular series by having no Jewish story lines, no Jewish characters, and taking a look at the show’s Wikipedia, no Jewish directors, and no Jews composing the opening theme.

Maybe the reason that best explains this phenomenon (it’s 2012!  You can’t watch anything on TV without some Jewish influence) is that Jews have been discouraged to settle in the county the show takes place in (North Yorkshire) for centuries thanks in no small part to a 12th century massacre where the entire population was lost.  While Jews have since returned to the area, the population of York has never fully recovered, and that might explain why Lord Grantham doesn’t have any friends name Moishe trying to marry his daughters.

The post Why Downton Abbey Is The Least Jewish Show On Television appeared first on Jewcy.

The post Nathan Englander and Nora Ephron appeared first on Jewcy.