This morning, after watching the new Madonna video that features MIA, I decided to watch MIA’s new video for “Bad Girls.” Full disclosure: I am a pretty big MIA fan, and I like the way that she manages to meld pop music and political statements without going too far into cloying/preachy territory. But, that said, I did have a few eyebrow-raising moments during “Bad Girls,” which is set in the Middle East. (Continue reading at Faith Goes Pop)

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TLC’s Sister Wives is sort of a real-life version of the late HBO hit Big Love: a man named Kody Brown adds a fourth wife to his polygamous marriage and copes with legal challenges to his family. This year, the Browns moved from Utah to the promised land of Las Vegas and announced that fourth wife Robyn is pregnant. But I can’t stop thinking about how the four wives of Kody remind me of the four wives of the Biblical Jacob – particularly the version of the wives as presented in Anita Diamant’s classic feminist novel The Red Tent.

Read the rest of this article at Faith Goes Pop.

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As much as it’s been weird to have the country of Jewcy changing around me, there’s one reason that I kept doing this job: because I believe in it. More specifically, I believe in Jewish journalism and the power it has to help people struggling to find a place within their faith and culture, as well as to encourage debate, discussion, and dissent from those already within it. I can’t urge you enough to stay involved with Jewcy and keep reading, as it’s only going to grow. I’m not at liberty to reveal all of the secrets, but I can tell you there is a beautiful, easy-to-use redesign in the works that will leave all the other Jewish blogs crying (sorry, other Jewish blogs). I plan to come back and blog whenever possible, because I believe in the unique, diverse, and open-minded Jewish community that Jewcy fosters. Jewcy’s traffic has gone up 12% since it was adopted by JDub in October, and I hope that you guys continue to hang out here and contribute to the ongoing conversation. 

I spent most of my life growing up in a place where I thought I was beyond the reach of Jewish traditions and history, believing that someone from my background could never find a place within the Jewish establishment. But somebody gave this patrilineal-descent, non-Hebrew-speaking, non-bat-mitzvahed, still-figuring-it-out Jew from North Carolina a job editing a Jewish website, and for that I will always be grateful. I hope that I’ve been able to foster an environment where any person who identifies as Jewish can feel welcomed and encouraged. Whether I was writing about soap operas, The Kotel, Scientology, or my ex-boyfriends, I’ve always been proud of the fact that I was writing for Jewcy.

Though I’ve enjoyed the chance to get to know all of the writers and commenters here, there are a couple of people who deserve particular recognition. Craig Leinoff, who had been with Jewcy since the beginning and built almost all of this website with his own bare hands (it’s true, he welds with code), was always available to field my middle-of-the-night questions about wonky html and spam filters. Ashley Tedesco (who despite being a college undergraduate is already well on the way to being a fine journalist) stayed on as an unpaid intern after Jewcy’s doors were closed, somehow squeezing post-editing and Twitter-updating into her already crammed class schedule. Aaron Bisman and Jacob Harris of JDub believed in the Jewcy/JDub proposition from the very beginning, and their commitment to both the brand and to me has been boundless.

Like any adventure, this one too had to end. I’ve been offered a job as the editor of a new women’s lifestyle and entertainment site. It doesn’t actually have a name yet, but I swear it totally exists. I accepted the position knowing that Jewcy is in good hands and trusting that it will continue to grow and thrive without me.

Anyway, my login is about to expire, so I should start wrapping this up.

As a famous philosopher once said, it’s been real.

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• 71 percent report having a "positive" opinion about Jews, including 25 percent who have "very positive" opinions. (Does this remind anyone else of the bit on the final Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien where Steve Carell came out in character as Michael Scott to do Conan’s exit interview and only gave him the choices "positive," "very positive," and "extremely positive"? Just me then? Okay.)
• 15 percent admitted to having some negative feelings about Jews.
• 19 percent of respondents do not actually know any Jewish people.

Somehow, I don’t find these results terribly shocking. What I’d really love to know is whether those 19 percent of people who don’t know any of Teh Jooz had positive or negative opinions of us. My guess is actually going to be that the people who don’t know any Jews presumably live in rural areas in places like the Deep South and therefore love Jews in theory because they’re evangelical Christians and therefore think the Jews are the Chosen People. Obviously, my own experiences growing up in the South around evangelicals are influencing me on this one, but I’d love to see a more specific breakdown of the study with an emphasis on geographical regions.

Anyway, the next time Abe Foxman goes on yet another one of his "everyone’s an antisemite!!1!#@!" rages, someone should be ready in the wings to hand him a copy of these survey results.

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Miep, along with three other people, helped keep the Frank family hidden during World War II. In addition, she brought food, clothing, newspapers, and other supplies that kept the family alive and gave them ways to pass the time. Though Miep was a Christian and could thus go about her life as normally as any citizen in a war-torn country could, she risked her life to help keep the residents of the "secret annex" – the Franks, the Van Pelses, and Fritz Pfeffer – safe. She and her husband Jan were among many brave people throughout Holland and the rest of Europe who risked their own lives to help, hide, and rescue Jews. There are many of them lost to history, because they may not have sheltered someone who became famous. Miep stands for them, just as Anne came to represent millions of faceless Jews who lost their lives to Hitler’s regime.

As Jewish people, it is usually the stories of those who went through the Holocaust who we identify with – after all, many of them are our relatives. As a Jewish girl growing up in a predominantly non-Jewish area, I poured myself into Anne Frank’s diary. I identified not only with her adolescent struggles and revelations but with her very Jewishness. Though I read Anne’s descriptions of the family’s four helpers, I did not identify with Miep the same way. I admired her, and wished I had a friend like her, but I did not see my Jewish self in her Dutch one. But, ultimately, Miep is a heroine as much as Anne is. How many of us, if in a position like hers, would choose to do the easy thing and keep our heads down? The day after the secret annex residents were arrested, Miep went down to the local police station and tried to offer bribes in exchange for the lives of her friends. How many of us would so publicly attempt to save people, when the cost of doing so might be jail, or a sentence in a work camp, or death? She did so not because the Franks and company were from the same ethnic or religious group as her, but because they were not, and because no one else would speak up for them. Simply put, she did what she did because it was right. "I am afraid nobody would ever help other people, because who is a hero? I was not. I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary," she once wrote.

Yes, six million Jews perished in the Holocaust, but who knows how many more people might have lost their lives if not for the bravery and selflessness of people like Miep? Even though Miep recieved praise and many honors for her work during the war, she once said, "I stand at the end of the long, long line of good Dutch people who did what I did or more – much more – during those dark and terrible times years ago, but always like yesterday in the hearts of those of us who bear witness."

So, today, let’s not honor Miep Gies for giving Anne Frank’s diary to the world. Let’s honor for her for having been Miep Gies.

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In America, a democratic country where people can choose from 20 flavors of toothpaste and at least seven kinds of generic corn chips, voter turnout is usually low, especially in years when there’s not a presidential election. It seems silly that we’d rather cast a ballot for a national office than for a local one who actually makes desicions about what goes on in our neighborhoods. Perhaps it’s a problem of relative ease and affluence – in a country with relative peace and a somewhat steady economy (OK, not lately, but bear with me), we feel secure. Politics in the United States aren’t usually a matter of life and death, perhaps excepting specific referendums on hot-button social issues like California’s Proposition 8 regarding same-sex marriage. But when you see TV coverage of women in Iraq walking for miles and facing possible family discord in order to be able to get their vote counted, you realize that not everyone takes politics for granted.

Awhile ago, I told an Israeli friend that I really loved Etgar Keret’s writing, and my friend (we’ll call him Tal) said that he wouldn’t read Keret’s books because they stood on different ends of the political spectrum. "What do his politics have to do with whether he’s a good writer?" I asked. "His stories aren’t even about politics." But Tal wouldn’t budge. He went into a detailed rant about how Keret’s philosophies seep into his characters’ lives, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and how that bothered Tal so much he couldn’t read further. "I love Byron’s writing even though he was a sexist douche," I said, but Tal wasn’t interested in my literary protestations. "Everything in Israel is political," he said, "even things that aren’t political."

Is my disinterest in politics the result of being a relatively privileged American, a person who lives in a country that isn’t constantly on the brink of attack or war? Maybe. But there are issues I’m passionate about – a woman’s right to choose, stewardship of the environment, gay rights – and I donate time and money to organizations that I think do good work in those fields. But that doesn’t mean I want to talk about it all the freaking time.  When I go out for drinks with friends, I’d much rather discuss everybody’s sex lives or what projects we’re working on than whatever the political issue of the day is. However, many of my Jewish friends don’t feel the same way. For them, politics – specifically related to Israel – is incredibly important. For many, Israel is the number-one issue that influences who they vote for. "Israel will always be an issue as long as people want to bomb it off the map," one friend told me, "so you can’t just not care or pretend it doesn’t matter."

I think part of my reluctance to discuss politics in group settings is that I’m a moderate, and it seems (even though it’s not true) that the only people talking are extremists from one side or the other and that I’ve been burned by a few too many conversations that ended in yelling or insults. When a friend asked me if I supported a two-state solution recently, I said, "I haven’t really made up my mind. I don’t know." She was shocked. "What do you mean you don’t know? You can be for it or against it, but you have to be something."

To be honest, I feel like there are a lot of people out there who are way more knowledgeable and passionate about political issues than I am, and I’d rather listen to experts than spout off about something. If you want to talk about Etgar Keret’s writing, though, I’m totally game.

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A new film, Berlin ’36, stars actress Karoline Herfurth as Gretel and will open the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival (AJFF) on January 13th." I was asked to interview Gretel for a piece that appeared in the accompanying booklet for the film. I was able to meet Gretel, who is now ninety-five years old, and have tea with her at her home in Queens. She is, quite simply, the coolest ninety-five year old woman I have ever met, and I hope if I live to be her age I can be even a third of the woman she is.

The AJFF piece appears below:

In 2009, nineteen years after a front page New York Times article brought Jewish high jumper Margaret "Gretel" Bergmann-Lambert’s story to worldwide attention, German filmmaker Kaspar Heidelbach directed Berlin ’36, a compelling film based on Gretel’s experience being forced off the 1936 German Olympic team. During the shooting, the now 95-year-old Gretel, touched by the attention her story has garnered, invited cast and crew members to her home in Queens, New York. Gretel and actress Karoline Herfurth, who plays her, became close friends and regularly email. They were even photographed together by Bruce Weber in a spread for German Vogue. Gretel was particularly impressed that Herfurth did all her own "stunts" in the film, spending three months learning to high jump. "I think the movie was well done," she says. "They had to change some things, for Hollywood, for drama. But I liked it." While many directors simply scoop up film rights to projects and don’t ask for input from the subjects, many of Gretel’s suggestions for the film were included. Most notably, she requested that names of certain characters in the story be changed, specifically "Marie," the young man in women’s clothing who joined the team with Gretel and roomed with her at training camp. Gretel surmises they were paired for one critical reason: if she suspected Marie’s secret, she would never reveal it for fear of reprisal. "I would have been too scared to say anything," Gretel says. "If a Jew said something bad about a non-Jew, you’d be in big trouble." As the film depicts, the two became unlikely friends. However, once Gretel left Germany for the States, they did not stay in touch. Though she sent Marie a letter in the 1990s, Gretel got no response. "Other people tried to reach him… her… Marie. I think he just wanted it to be over and not talk about it." Gretel wants to clarify one significant fact: although many people believe that Marie took Gretel’s spot on the German Olympic team, that isn’t the case. There were three slots for female high jumpers, she explains. They went to Gretel, Marie, and a third woman named Elfriede. When Gretel was removed from the team, officials said publicly that she was injured and they would hold her spot in case she recovered in time to compete. Only Marie and Elfriede went to Berlin. An American citizen since 1942, Gretel harbors no ill will toward her native country, where her story has touched many young German students and athletes. After many years saying she’d never return to Germany – she purposely forgot how to read and speak the language – Gretel finally visited in 1999 to attend the opening of a stadium named for her in her hometown of Laupheim. She still holds on dearly to mementos from her former life; in a small, unassuming glass case, she keeps all the medals she accumulated during her career. Among the silver and gold, there’s one small black medal that Gretel calls her favorite — the one she won at the 1936 Olympic team qualifier. A swastika is carved into the middle, and Gretel grins as she shows it off. "It’s my prized possession." And she means it.

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For his part, Seinfeld says that’s not the case. He told Page Six:

While it was great that we were the ‘First Couple’ of porn, the fact is Tera hates the industry. She’s not a sexual person. We barely had sex in our own marriage. She’s desperate to break into the mainstream, and just wants to generate press. I didn’t choose porn over her. Our marriage had a lot of holes in it, despite what she claims.

For those of you itching to hook up with Seinfeld, here’s a little background: he grew up in Canarsie, Brooklyn and went to Camp Lokanda in Glen Spey, New York. He is the former lead singer of the group Biohazard and played Jaz on HBO’s prison series Oz. No word on whether he’s related to Jerry Seinfeld, though. Can you imagine how entertaining their family seders would be? 

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Polish police are currently investigating the crime. In the meantime, though, let’s look at some of the likely suspects and take a gander at who might be responsible for the theft.

• Neo-Nazis. They seem like even money, since they love denying the Holocaust, glorifying Hitler, and stealing from or defacing Jewish monuments.
• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The dude thinks the Holocaust never happened. Maybe stealing the sign is the first step in an nefarious secret plot to steal all of Auschwitz one piece at a time and then claim the place never existed to begin with. 
• Literalists. Perhaps, if work makes you free, someone thought that the sign needed to be freed?
• Drunk Polish teenagers. Somebody makes a dare, somebody feels like they have to do something "big" to fit in with the cool kids at school, and the next thing you know you wake up with Jedidiah Springfield’s head in your bed.
• Abe Foxman. Has it been a slow week in antisemitism? Maybe this was a gambit to give him media time to remind everybody that some people hate Jews.
• Movie buffs. Perhaps someone saw Inglorious Basterds (or one of the endless commercials for its DVD release) and figured that if they couldn’t bring home a Nazi’s scalp, stealing this sign was the next best thing?
• Zombie Hitler. He’s undead, and he wants his stuff back. Quick, someone get me a Hollywood screenwriter on retainer.
• People who hate Nazis: While some might interpret stealing something from Auschwitz to be offensive to all the people who died there, others might depict it as giving a hearty "screw you" to the ones who built the place and killed people there.

Update (12/20): It looks like the correct answer was "D."

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Hey everybody, it’s Hanukkah! It’s Chanuka! No matter how you spell it, it’s time for the Jewish festival of lights — eight crazy nights of dreidels gone wild, a time when latkes are as abundant as old yentas around a mahjongg table. But you don’t need to be Jewish to partake in Hanukkah traditions, particularly the gastronomic treat of latkes (or lattkes). No matter how you spell it, "latkes" is Yiddish for fried pancakes, typically of the potato variety — making it oddly similar to McDonald’s hash browns. However, Bubbe Wendy has guilted us into using her Fancy Fast Food recipe ("If you just want to use McDonald’s hash browns, then I guess that’s fine by me…"), so here goes. Oy…

Ingredients (from Wendy’s):

• 8 orders of hash browns (for the eight nights of Hannukah)
• 2 baked potatoes (with packets of sour cream and "Buttery-Best Spread")
• 2 orders of mandarin oranges
• 1 small soft drink
• 1 bottle of water
• packets of Sweet & Sour Sauce
• packets of sugar
• packets of salt and pepper
• a pinch of Jewish guilt (may be substituted with Catholic guilt)
• organic chives (for garnish and a touch of irony)

Latkes are traditionally served with apple sauce or sour cream. We already have the latter, so we’re going to have to make the apple sauce. Unfortunately, Wendy’s sells no apple products whatsoever, so we’ll have to get creative. What are apples? They are a kind of fruit that are sometimes sweet, sometimes sour, and so naturally we will start with Sweet & Sour Sauce. To add a fruity pulp to it, we’ll add the mandarin oranges — but that’s fine; Bubbe Wendy moved down to Boca. Put the manadrin oranges in a food processor and purée them, then strain out the extraneous juice. Mix this pulp in a bowl with the Sweet & Sour Sauce. The color is a bit intense to look like real apple sauce, so scoop out some baked potato (minus any chives) and mix it in — the French call potatoes "pommes de terre" (apples of earth) so we’ll go with it. Mush and whisk it all until it sort of looks like apple sauce; add sugar until it’s as sweet. Next, the latkes themselves. Take all the mini hash brown nuggets and mush them with your hands. Touching them, you’ll realize they are all too greasy for things to stick together, so we’ll need to make a batter to work as a binding agent. Put one baked potato, minus the skin, into a food processor and add about a quarter cup of water. Hit purée and voilà: batter! Add this potato batter to your pile of hash browns and mix thoroughly in a bowl. Add salt and pepper as desired. In a large non-stick skillet, melt a few packets of Wendy’s "Buttery-Best Spread;" there’s enough oil in it for a fry-up. Slice the top of your beverage’s paper cup and use it as a guide when forming the batter into pancakes in the skillet. Fry each evenly on both sides until it becomes crispy and golden brown. Argue with Bubbe Wendy that they do in fact, resemble McDonald’s hash browns now — but let her win the argument; she’ll try and make you feel guilty for never calling her anyway. You are ready to serve the Hannukah latkes, but wait! You can use your fancy kitchen tools in continued preparation for the holiday: use a fondue fork to clean out the old waxy build-up in your menorah; use a kitchen torch to light the new candles. Garnish the latkes with organic chives (for that extra touch of irony), and then have a Happy Hannukah, courtesy of Bubbe Wendy and Fancy Fast Food! Now spin those dreidels until we figure out what we’re going to do for Christmas…

READ MORE: FFF Creator Erik R. Trinidad’s travel blog on Israel and the Middle East

If you are viewing this recipe in an aggregator (like tumblr’s Dashboard), or as a reblogged post, please check out the real website at FancyFastFood.com.

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