General Mills continued adding mascots to the line of monster cereals, but none were as popular as Count — “I vant to suck your blood!” — Chocula. The kid-friendly box of carbs, whose mascot was loosely based on House of Dracula, a 1931 movie starring Bela Lugosi, was beloved by all, that is, until American Jews ruined all the children’s fun. 

Due for a makeover, in 1987 General Mills updated the Count Chocula box design with a superimposed image of Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula. He appeared to be wearing a six-pointed “medallion” around his neck which absolutely looks like a magen david. General Mills admitted they goofed and assured American Jewry they’re not antisemitic. “Our intent was merely to use Dracula’s likeness in a fresh and entertaining way,” said William Shaffer, manager of public relations for General Mills. 

Dear reader, when I say I rolled on the floor laughing my tuchus off from this Los Angeles Times headline, “Necklace Chokes Count Chocula: General Mills Pulls Box Design With 6-Pointed Star,” unlike the Jews who protested the new design, I’m being hyperbolic. To the rest of the world, the Count Chocolate controversy was a misplaced overreaction to a beloved monster cereal, but to the Jews, that six-pointed medallion sounded the alarms for invoking the deadliest antisemitic trope — the blood libel. 

Blood libel, or ritual murder libel, is a centuries old antisemitic canard which outrageously accuses Jews of murdering succulent Christian babies for a myriad of evil doings. Above all, non-Jews were, and arguably remain, convinced that a splash of baby-goy-blood is the secret ingredient to matzah, which is absolutely ridiculous — the secret ingredient is two splashes! Nevermind the fact that the Torah specifically forbids the chosen people from drinking blood and sacrificing infants, the myth of the Jew as a bloodlusting, disease carrying, foreigner bent on sinking their teeth into virgins persisted. Count Chocula is only a more recent depiction of this blood libel, but it was hardly the last and most certainly not the first. 

The history of blood libel as an effective means of solving the Jew problem is long and winding, so here’s a cheat sheet on how the creature of the night got his bar mitzvah. And remember, all antisemitic roads lead to blood libel. 

Predating Christianity, our story begins in 168 BCE in Jerusalem, when the Seleucid Greek empire was the ruling power. To justify the pillaging and plundering of the Second Temple, King Antiochus IV Epiphanes (the Hanukkah villain) pulled a crazy story out of his tuchus. With full confidence he declared that once a year,  the Jews, Jewish historian Flavius Josephus recorded, kidnapped a traveling Greek, stored him in the Temple and gorged him on fattening foods only to lure him in the woods and kill him. Horrified, the Jews were like “da fuq?” but the Hansel and Gretel-esque story was good enough for the King’s subjects. Fast forward to the invention of Christianity and the beginning of the Medieval Ages, the Greek’s blueprints were all too ripe for Jesus’ followers to take. Like a game of broken telephone, fifth century historian Socrated Scholasticus reported that some Jews, in a drunken frolic, bound a Christian child to a cross in mockery of the death of Christ and scourged him until he died.” 

Jumping ahead to 1144, the discovery of young William of Norwich’s lifeless body in the woods spurred the first legit accusation of ritual murder. Despite a single shred of evidence, Christians were all too quick to solve the case by scapegoating the Jews, subsequently spurring a global trend. Adding fuel to the burning fire, a converted Jew concocted an Incredibly Bad for the Jews tale in which a secret international council of Jews selected a different country each year on Passover to ritually murder a scrumptious Christian child, ensuring a return to the Promised Land. OY! 

Whenever a Christian child went missing, the Jews were blamed and the god-awful racist parents got off scott free, and the blood libel began taking multiple forms. Accusations against European Jews were incredibly creative, including using baby blood to remedy Jewish men who menstruated, and to aid other mysterious illnesses typical of the Jew (listen, if blood reversed lactose intolerance, we’d be all for it). Shit really started to hit the fan in 12th century Europe when Jews were blamed for spreading the Black Death in an effort to overthrow Christianity. 

Associated with rats and other vermin, Jews were slandered, demonized, and thought to be best friends with the devil himself, all of which justified mass pogroms. “However helpless individual Jews might seem, Jewry possessed limitless powers for evil,” historian Norman Cohn wrote. “And already then, there was talk of a secret Jewish government — a council of rabbis located in Moslem Spain, which was supposed to be directing an underground war against Christendom.” Cue Mel Brooks’ “The Inquisition” song. 

I could go on about the thousands of Jews murdered in Spain, France, Germany, England, and pretty much all of Europe, but, dear reader, I did promise a brief history report. Yalla, we’re moving on to the 19th century literary world. 

At this point, Jews were cemented as the go-to scapegoat for all evils in the world. Obsessed with money, the hooked-nose deviants’ sole purpose was to wreak havoc and infect Europe from the inside, all the while happily noshing on Christian baby blood-soaked matzah. Soon enough, Jew hatred advanced from anti-Judaism to antisemitism, and the urgency to solve the Jew problem advanced. How? Enter Bram Stoker, the author of the 1897 gothic novel, “Dracula.” 

Stoker’s protagonist, Count Dracula, wasn’t the first creature of the night in literary fiction, but is hailed as the prototypical and archetypal vampire. Like the Jew, Dracula was a parasite from a foreign country — Transylvania — who traveled to different villages, draining the life out of its hosts. Dressed in all black, the vampire was associated with rats and werewolves, and like the Eternal Wandering Jew, he remained virtually unchanged. Charming and elegant, the pale, undead creature was obsessed with money, and abhorred holy water and the Christian cross. Whether Stoker intended to create a monster based on the perception of Jews is up for debate, but he was a man of his time, and antisemitism was in vogue. Professor of English Ken Gelder wrote that, “the anti-Semitic mythology of the Eastern European Jew folded in to what became — through stoker’s novel about — the “Dracula myth.” 

If there was any doubt surrounding the Jewish vampire, the first cinematic portrayal of Dracula cleared it. Albeit being an unauthorized and unofficial adaptation of Stoker’s novel, the 1922 silent German film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror emphasized the “Dracula myth.” To avoid copyright infringements, director F. W. Murnau changed Count Dracula’s name to Count Orlok, brought to life by Max Shreck, whose last name coincidently means “monster” in Yiddish and German. While Stoker depicted Dracula as more of an elegant aristocrat, Nosferatu’s Orlok, “with this hooked nose, long claw-like fingernails, and large bald head” was more in line with stereotypical caricatures of Jewish people in 20th century Germany. Deviating from Stoker’s original plotline, Orlok’s trip to the German town of Wisborn absolutely capitalized on anxieties of the German public. Here, the movie’s depiction of an “invasion of the German homeland by an outside force… poses sidquieting parallels to the anti-Semitic atmosphere festering in Northern Europe in 1922,” Professor Tony Magistrale wrote in Abject Terrors: Surveying the Modern and Postmodern Horror Film.

You know who fucking loved Nosferatu? German Nazis, duh, especially Julius Streicher, the editor-in-chief of Der Sturmer, a Nazi propaganda newspaper dedicated to Jew hatred. Actually, the antisemitic paper was inspired by Nosferatu’s Orlok, who, for Streicher, symbolized “the ultimate ‘other’: the anti-German, the contamintaor of the pure blood, the carrier of plagues — in other words, the Jew,” writes Sahara Blau in “Kosher Vampires: Jews, Vampires, and Prejudice.”

Hitler ate this shit up like a child at a candy store and heavily referenced Jewish vampire imagery in Mein Kampf. As part of Germany’s “the Jew as World Parasite” campaign, in 1943 the Regional Education Office of the Nazi Party published Der jüdische Vampyr chaotisiert die Welt — The Jewish Vampire Brings Chaos to the World. Anyway, all this to say that by perpetuating the myth of the supernatural blood lusting Jew, Hitler laid the groundwork to exterminate the Jews with little backlash. After all, he was merely performing a service for the safety of the world, and most importantly, the Aryan race. 

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, sympathy grew for the nearly exterminate Jewish population, and accusations of blood libel quieted down. Vampires and other monsters rooted in antisemitic origins evolved from a threat to society to kitchy characters made for TV sitcoms and to sell sugary cereals. Today, vampires still drink blood for breakfast, but instead of perpetuating blood libel, the Edward Cullens and Buffy’s Angel are fashioned to arouse horny teens with forbidden love. By way of introducing the vampire with a soul, pop culture successfully converted Jewish leeches who, unlike their successors, were not redeemable. 

So you see, American Jewry had every right to be up in arms over a Jewish Count Chocula. Vampires no longer pose a threat to the Diaspora, and we can drink our chocolate cereal milk free of anxiety. The myth of the Jewish vampire has rested, but be it on the cover of a New York Times paper or a cereal box, like the Eternal Jew, blood libel never dies.

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“Werewolves are kind of like good Jewish boys, only more so,” says a character in Wen Spencer’s young adult novel, The Black Wolves of Boston. And it’s true. When 30 Rock debuted the novelty song “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” (think “Monster Mash,” but with a nice cut of brisket), the joke seemed random, even unsustainable. But you might be surprised to learn that the idea of Jewish werewolves is a long-winded mesorah. They may not all have bar mitzvahs, but if you count off the usual tenets of a werewolf story—following a lunar calendar, dashing off when the sun goes down, making excuses for weird disappearances, accusations, hunts, being driven off by suspicious townspeople—it’s easy to guess why Jewish creators throughout the years have chosen the werewolf as a central horror figure. After all, who could know better how it feels to be both a part of a nation and a nation apart?

The wolfish-Jewish association goes as far back as the Biblical Benjamin, who a Medieval commentator, Rabbi Efraim ben Shimshon, described as not just like a “ravenous wolf,” but capable of turning into a wolf itself. Notably, the rabbi’s fear was not that Benjamin would kill others, but that he would change among strangers and be killed by them.

This theme follows through most Yiddish lore. Germany fairy tales warned children not to go into the woods, lest they be snatched; Yiddish folk tales warned readers not to go into the wood lest they be accused of snatching children and baking them into matzo.

H. Leivick, a Yiddish folklorist of the last century, picks up this thread. Leivick, fugitive from Mother Russia, was no stranger to tackling creature features; his play, The Golem, turns a scary story about a clay man into a Miltonian epic with messianic ruminations and introspective soliloquies where every man, even the clay one, verges on tragedy.

Leivick’s poem “The Wolf,” from around 1920, stalks in the same vein, when a rabbi, last survivor of anti-Semitic violence, finds himself transformed into the titular beast. Taken to the woods, the rabbi-wolf haunts a new generation of Jews who have moved in to rebuild the town and eventually attacks them in the synagogue on Yom Kippur, where he is beaten to death by the congregation. It is interesting to gauge Leivick’s reaction to the pogroms of his homeland; the wolf, rather than turning his rage upon those who wronged him, instead terrorizes his kin. Leivick, it seems, is using the wolf to warn that blood for blood is pointless, for it makes the Jewish victim no different from his non-Jewish oppressors. It is not a revenge fantasy, but rather a revenge nightmare.

The Jewish werewolf once more emerges from the shadows in The Wolfman (1941) and An American Werewolf in London (1981), two films in conversation about the possibility of Jewish existence in Europe during and after the dehumanizing effect of the Holocaust. If Leivick’s desire was to remain the Other, these films express the terror of becoming the Other in a hostile world. You fit in, until you can’t. You’re one of us, until you’re not.

Consider screenwriter Curt Siodmak, who like many of his generation and, like the subject of his trend-setting The Wolfman, was forced to flee from home across the wastes of Europe, marked for pursuit, marked for Otherness, by a star.

“Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf,” the poem in the film goes—it can happen anywhere, through no fault of your own. Kafka saw himself as a cockroach; Siodmak saw himself as a wolf.

Along lurks An American Werewolf in London, intent on flipping The Wolfman on its head but, in the end, only fulfilling the pre-war prophecy, as two spry American Jews (implied but never explicitly outed) return to Europe and swiftly find themselves attacked and facing certain doom. The Holocaust clings like a sickly pall, polluting pop culture, because the Holocaust was the monster under the bed, and if you hid enough, you might silence it forever.

Movies like An American Werewolf in London invented a way around the societal gag order, and they did it by embracing the truth of the Holocaust as a horror show without a happy ending. When pig-faced Nazis storm werewolf-bitten David Kessler’s house in the film, it’s post-Holocaust shlock as shock therapy. When David is goaded by his old friend into suicide, it’s a punchline of Jewish guilt. When wolf-David is gunned down on a busy street in London, it’s a reversion to the open dehumanization of The Wolfman, inescapably Othered.

Flashforward and suddenly you have Jewish werewolves overrunning genre television—between Oz on Buffy (they may never have said it, but he’s played by Seth Green, okay?) and George of Being Human UK and Josh of its North American remake, werewolves are young and cool and holding down nine-to-five jobs, assimilated into the greater world. Or are they?

One of the biggest sources of unease in a werewolf story is the inability to pick one out of a crowd. They look like you, they sound like you, they could be any of you. Josh and George are nice Jewish boys growing up to be nice Jewish doctors and upstanding members of society before they are cursed, cast out of society and forced to live mouth-to-mouth, way station to way station, unable to settle down or find peace. Though they look just as normal as the next person, the vampires are able to sniff them out. An existence that had seemed integrated is once more Othered, and these characters are forced to wrestle with their identity as wolf or human.

“This is me, all the time,” Josh eventually confesses—not one or the other, but both: a werewolf. This is ironically confirmed by the show’s extension of vampire mythology to include Stars of David as religious symbols that harm the undead. Only his foes react to Josh’s necklace with fear; it is harmless to those he counts as friend.

From Bible verses to novelty songs, Jewish werewolves have always been lurking on the fringes, waiting to be brought into the light. Like the moon itself, I expect there will always be more to see.

Esther Saks thinks Bob Dylan deserved the Nobel Prize. Her writing is featured in Heroes: A Raconteur House Anthology.

Image via Wikimedia

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Marji, my one year-old rescue cat, was less enthusiastic about the idea. She tolerates most of my obsessive cat parenting—the baby sling, the harness and leash, the automatic feeder—but made clear during this project that she has certain limits.

Menswear Dog she is not. I discovered that Marji hates sleeves even more than loud noises (which is a lot) and prefers sleeping on clothes to wearing them. Dressing her up required plenty of wrestling and a bag and a half of treats.

Still, with a few modifications to the outfits, both Marji and I survived the photo shoot. We also succeeded in paying tribute to some of my favorite Jewish women on TV, which made every minute of cat wrangling worth it.

Abbi Jacobson, Broad City, Season 1: Episode 10

This sexy dress is actually a beanie from the dollar store. Somehow I know the crafty Abbi Abrams would approve!

Rachel Bloom, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, “JAP Rap”

Much to my relief, few stores sell plunging necklines in toddler sizes. This floral number originally had a keyhole at the top.

Amy Schumer, Inside Amy Schumer, “Sexting”

I would never, ever sexualize my cat, unless it involves an adorable onesie. Thank God she can’t read.

Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show

Okay, I realize that she identifies as Catholic. But she has a Jewish grandfather… and how cute is my cat in a blazer?!

Images by Emma Davis.

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You may have stopped watching Arthur (about the shenanigans of an anthropomorphized aardvark and his friends,) on PBS ten or fifteen years ago, but the show is still chugging along, with new episodes. Earlier this week, this year’s Halloween special, “Arthur and the Haunted Treehouse” debuted.

Any fan of Arthur, old or new, will tell you that Arthur’s friend Francine Frensky (some kind of a monkey, in theory, but she looks more like a hippo, TBH) is Jewish, so she brings us a very Jewish spooky story this episode. Of course, that story is the Golem. The dybbuk might be a bit much for kids.

Francine is trick-or-treating in her apartment building, when she knocks on the door of an elderly woman with a vague European accent who invites her inside.

Two things to spot:

1. This woman has a Menorah prominently on display. How else will we know she’s Jewish?
2. This Jewish woman appears to be a goat-person, which means that she has horns. Didn’t really think that one through, did you, animation team?

Anyway, the woman shows Francine a photo of a golem she says she took herself, and begins to tell her the story of how she came upon it, back in her childhood home of Mindelplotz (near Prague, apparently).

The story that follows, is sadly divorced from Jewishness, more a Frankenstein’s monster sort of scenario. In the tale, a violinist who is bitter after breaking his hands studies “magic,” which apparently includes looking at a book with pictures of ankhs and a kabbalistic Tree of Life. He constructs a golem (that has adorable bunny ears!!), and then activates it by sticking in a shard of his violin. The golem goes on a rampage and terrorizes the town! It turns out that the old lady telling Francine the story is the ghost of the long-lost sister of the actual apartment resident (Mr. Saperstein, also a goat-person), and a victim of the Golem!

OoooOOOohhh!!!

Anyway, it’s not the most faithful telling of a golem narrative, and nowhere does anyone even say the word “Jewish,” but points for Halloween diversity!

And, yes, you can watch this on YouTube. The whole segment is less than ten minutes:

https://youtu.be/xxPyqE-NF6Y?t=9m43s

Image via YouTube.

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Ruth Baby Ginsberg wins Halloween, so stop trying. (h/t @NaamaHaviv) pic.twitter.com/T9ETbhL025

— Taffy BrodesserAkner (@taffyakner) October 31, 2014

When he’s not masquerading as Supreme Court judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg (A.K.A. Notorious R.B.G.), ‘lil Sycamore (yep, that’s his name) is just a regular civilian baby. Today, however, he’s a clip-on-earring-wearing infant feminist badass. His mother, Kate Livingston, submitted this snap to Huffington Post when they put out the call for photos of babies dressed up for Halloween. Kate, we humbly prostrate ourselves before your internet genius.

This situation could only get better if Ruth Baby Ginsburg ended up on a t-shirt worn by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Given her penchant for the Notorious R.B.G. meme, we’d say the possibility of this happening is high.

Internet, work your magic!

Related: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Has “Quite a Large Supply” of Those Notorious R.B.G. T-Shirts
Justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Share Personal Trainer, Mutual Admiration

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Right about now, you’re probably getting excited for your All Hallows’ Eve fun, but we figured we’d dampen the mood a little because, you know, the news cycle. LivingSocial, a website offering discount deals at local and national businesses, threw a Halloween party in Washington D.C. themed the “7 Deadly Sins.” A helluva night it should’ve been, each room was decorated with one of the sins— lust, gluttony, envy, pride, wrath, sloth and greed. The greed room had a special decor— dreidels and gold coins, JTA reports. Apologies ensued:

“We have looked into it and determined that the inclusion of dreidels with the other games in the gaming room was not a smart choice, and we are very sorry to have upset anyone,” said Kevin Nolan of LivingSocial’s publicity department. “Certainly this behavior does not reflect who we are as a company.”

Nolan said the customer who complained was “offered a full refund and explained that any offense was unintended” and was given an apology.

Man, let’s go one year without any offensive Halloween ornamentations. No blackface get-ups, no abused wife costumes. It’ll be extra hard considering that when Halloween lands on a weeknight, it’s celebrated for the weekend prior and following, there are so many chances to mess up—but we can do it!

Happy Halloween, you guys.

(Photo by Rockvilepikephotographs/Shutterstock)

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You’ve spent months, no, weeks, OK fine, a couple of minutes thinking of the perfect Halloween costume for this year. But it’s too bad your efforts are for naught because Woody Allen went to a Halloween party as Woody Allen. If you were planning on going to a party as Woody Allen this year, you’re screwed because you can’t beat Allen’s firsthand portrayal. If you were planning on going to a party this year as an elephant (like me), you’re screwed as well. Why? Because Woody Allen went to a Halloween party as Woody Allen, and that’s a better costume than whatever you’ve come up with. Come to think of it, the best reason to become rich and famous and noticeable is so that you never have to dress up for Halloween again.

It seems Allen wasn’t the only celeb without a costume, Page Six reports.

Said a spy, “Woody was the only person at the party not in costume besides Valentino, who was in a sharp suit. When people saw Woody was there, they started all taking pictures with him.” But when too much attention was on the director, he decided to make a break for it.

Trick or treat, super famous people.

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As a child growing up in suburban Connecticut, I was never a fan of any particular holiday. A notoriously picky eater, I was horrified by Thanksgiving, with its table full of mushy delicacies comprised of indistinguishable ingredients. Halloween always incited an existential struggle—I remember one year I wanted to be a geisha, but when I saw my fat face slathered in garish white paint, I realized with an unnerving clarity that I could never escape myself.

Easter and 4th of July were benign days spent at the country club nibbling on cold salmon or watching fireworks, respectively, and while it was always great to approach one’s bounty on Christmas morning, the rest of the day felt sad and empty after the presents were unwrapped. One year in particular, my brothers and I voraciously tore through our gifts like rabid baby animals, only to find that we had managed to complete Christmas in 20 minutes. The aftermath was the child’s version of a hangover: exhaustion, confusion, and shame at the human lust you revealed.

But there was always one holy day I lived for, one glorious evening in February when the most special people in the universe came out to shine their light on the rest of us: Oscar Night. Even before I was old enough to see the movies nominated for Best Picture, I anxiously settled in front of the television and watched with glee as the stars sauntered down the red carpet outside the Kodak Theater.

I envied them their long, flowing gowns, public acclaim, and the easy camaraderie with which they interacted with other chosen folk. I began taking theater classes at eight years old, and started spending Oscar night commercial breaks practicing my Best Actress acceptance speech while staring at myself in the bathroom mirror. (I’d deal with the distaste for costumes later.) When Anna Paquin, just a year my elder, won Best Supporting Actress in 1994, I was filled with hot envy as she panted nervously through her acceptance speech.

Though I’ve long abandoned the dream of ever receiving an Oscar nod, I’ve maintained my yearly ritual of watching the ceremony. Every year, I hole up at a girlfriend’s house, and we drink red wine and eat pizza and declare outfits horrible or amazing, rarely in between. We place bets on who will win what, and decry the Academy’s gross oversights when our favorites don’t nab the gold statue. To miss even a moment—including less exciting categories like “sound mixing” or “visual effects”—would be unthinkable.

So imagine my chagrin when I realized that this year, the Oscars will air on the 24th of February, also known the 14th day of the month of Adar, when Jews celebrate Purim. As the holiday approached, I received invitations to three events: the first a Megillah reading on Saturday night, the second a full-scale circus on Sunday afternoon (plus Megillah, round two), and the final one, a concert-cum-schmooze-fest starting at 8:30 p.m. on Sunday evening, which cuts seriously into Oscar-viewing time.

You might wonder, based on my references to the Christian celebrations of my youth, why that would be an issue at all, or why I wouldn’t just say “no” to one event and be satisfied with a single Megillah reading and a hamantaschen or two. Couldn’t I easily fit in at least the red carpet? But fact is that I have been steeped in Jewish learning for more than a year now, and I find myself feeling like this is a larger choice than it seems on the surface—one not of scheduling but of spiritual allegiance. Which is more important to me: old traditions or new?

My process started quietly—first it was a fascination with the Hasidim who walk the city streets alongside me, then an interest in the rich and varied literature, and finally a desire to kiss the mezuzah and say the Shema. I began writing about Jewish issues and events in New York City basically as an excuse to insert myself into Jewish environments, and every bit of learning I did, from Hebrew classes to memorizing prayers, I passed off as educational endeavors that would help advance my career.

It was a while before I could admit to myself, let alone anyone else, that all this study was about something deep in my heart, not a general exercise in cultural anthropology, and that what I wanted wasn’t just to observe and comment on Jewish life, but to live it. I wanted to convert to Judaism. Even today, I fear the reaction when I admit this pursuit of mine. Will people make assumptions about me, and why I’m choosing to make this change? Will they scoff in disbelief that I can do the difficult work that conversion entails?

But we know that on Purim, we commemorate that Esther—whose name is derived from the Hebrew satar, which means hidden—revealed her Jewish identity to her husband, the king, and saved the Jewish people from certain slaughter. If she can be brave in the face of death, then certainly I can be too in far less dire circumstances.

This Sunday, I emerge from the want-to-convert closet and declare proudly that my priorities are Jewish ones and my soul a neshama. It’s a small exchange I’m making—a secular costume party for a religious one, a feast of glamour for a feast of tradition, but for me, it feels defining. Instead of critiquing diamond accessories and filling out ballots, I will throw my lot in with the people I love.

Now if I could only decide what to wear…

(Image via Featureflash / Shutterstock.com)

***

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The post Trading in My Academy Awards Tradition For a New One: Purim appeared first on Jewcy.

2.  Starting a Holiday at Sundown – What can I say?  This was our idea. We do that EVERY TIME.

3. Even though we don’t think anybody has taken up the challenge of being “Slutty Maimonides,” we think once this catches on, it will be bigger than dressing up like a sexy cat.

4. Bram Stoker’s Dracula – Although based on a figure out of Romanian mythology who was known for being a violent defender of Christianity, Dracula himself is anti-Semitic-stereotype incarnate. You’ve got the failure to integrate into society, the hoarded wealth, the literal blood-sucking (only Christians, of course), the metaphorical blood-sucking (only Christian society, of course), and the demented sexuality. Add to that the accent, the nose, and the eccentricity, and you’ve got Jew-stereotypes wrapped up in a pretty Eastern-European immigrant fear-frenzy package!

5. Frankenstein – An enormous, hulking humanoid, brought to life from non-natural means and toward selfish ends, goes on to have a live and exploits far beyond the expectations and control of its creator. Nah man, that’s the Golem! Jews of Prague did it first.

6. While we’re at it, you can thank us for some of the most classic spooky films ever made: Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy all came out of Universal Studios.  Who owned Universal Studios?  The Laemmle family.  They were Jews.

7. Jerry Seinfeld’s comedy – Any observational comedian can crack wise about airplane food.  It takes a pro to turn the childhood traumas of Halloween into comedy gold.

8.  Dentists.  A lot of Jews are dentists.  We asked our friend, Dr. Neil Fedderman, DDS if the time after Halloween is a good time for business. His answer: “I put three kids through college thanks to Nov. 1 through Dec. 1st.”

9.  Without Jews, gentiles would have one less stupid costume idea.

10.  Can we just come out and say that Halloween as we know it got at least half of its good ideas from Jews? Purim? Anybody? Anybody?

The post Top Ten Jewish Contributions to Halloween appeared first on Jewcy.

Halloween is my favorite holiday, and not because you get to dress like a floozy. But rather, because you get to eat a ton of candy. Not that you can’t eat a lot of candy the other 364 days of the year, but there’s something about candy pumpkins that aren’t really candy or pumpkin, but rather little orbs of sugary amazingness, that make me love this holiday.

More important, is finding the perfect costume. It’s like Cheri Oteri and Will Ferrell doing the “perfect cheer” for the chess tournament. But instead, you need the perfect ensemble to outshine every other skank and get that boy of your dreams, even if he’s your cousin (ew Gretchen Weiners. But snaps on the Hanukkah plug.)

Here is some FFJD advice for finding the perfect combination of latex, spandex, and hotness.

1. Don’t skimp on showing the Perfect Amount of Skin.

Yes, on Halloween you can dress like a ho and get away with it. I’m not sure why chicks have run with this, especially because it’s always freezing on October 31. But, on Halloween you get to dress like you belong at Scores or as a Coyote Ugly extra and it’s completely socially accepted. (I’m glad I just looked up the Scores website. I am digging the muzak.)

However, you need to draw the line somewhere. You want your outfit to say “come hither” and not “put dollar bills in my g-string.” Slutty priest: yes, and points for irony, slutty devil: no. Devils, angels, angely devils, and devils angels are off limits, because that is the easiest and dumbest thing to be. This also goes for cats, mice, leopards, or cheetahs. And maybe zebras.

2. Attempt To Be Somewhat Clever.

Sometimes it’s fun, in addition to wearing the teeny weeny slutty sailor shorts and little hat (unless you’re like me, and your head is too big for standard Halloween costumes, sigh), to be clever with your costume. And yes, I’ve seen the whole “Freudian Slip” idea before. Points for timeliness, relevance, and originality.

3. Don’t Choose Something Too Obscure Or Meta.

I’m not so happy that my unabashed idol Sloane Crosley is going as “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.” Sometimes, if you go too obscure, it’s bad. Or in this case, you’ve given yourself the burden of trying to figure out how to fashion a dog out of lint.

Also – boys won’t really get obscure costumes, they just want to see your belly button. So, just depends on your priorities. I was tossing around the idea of Taylor Momsen (and I’d need to find heels that allow me to put tips in them) but mostly I asked a few guy friends and they had no idea what I was talking about.

You’re walking the line between hilarious meme and total confusion. I.E., no weird stuff that nobody gets, because you don’t want to have to explain over the din of Deadmau5 at whatever club you’re at or in between handfuls of mini kit-kats that you’re actually Steve Colbert’s one slightly-curved ear. (Did you know it rendered him deaf in one ear?) Anyway, it’s just too inside.

4. Something You Can Pee In.  (Or Out Of…)

This is crucial for both boys and girls. If you’re wearing a latex body suit that you could only wrench on in the horizontal position, with the help of two friends and the pizza guy down the street, it’s gonna suck when you’re three vodka sodas in. If you’re a guy and wearing some giant bear costume, it’s also hard.

So, just consider that.

5. Something that can be easily removed.

In the same vein, let’s say you, Katy Perry on a cloud on the cover of Teenage Dream really hits it off with that paralegal from University of Chicago dressed as Elmo. Which would be totally fitting.

Just keep in mind Elmo doesn’t have opposable thumbs.

What are you going to be this Halloween? Put your ideas in the comments!

Follow FFJD on Twitter and submit your Halloween or other shameful/awesome date story to fiftyfirstjdates@gmail.com.

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