This summer, the gold medal winning, Hava Nagila prancing Aly Raisman was the most famous Jewish Olympian at the London Games. After a few offhand comments about the 40th anniversary of the Munich massacre and support for a moment of silence during the Opening Ceremonies (mind you, Raisman wouldn’t have been in attendance at that event—the gymnastics competition begins the day after the Opening Ceremonies and the gymnasts never attend since it entails standing for hours on end), she was heralded as some sort of tumbling Jewish ambassador who would win over the Semitic masses on the strength of her acrobatics. Or something like that.

But it turns out that Raisman wasn’t the only gymnast on the team with a Jewish affiliation. Gabby Douglas, if not a Jew, seems to be a serious philo-Semite. In Grace, Gold, and Glory: My Leap of Faith, her just-released memoir (co-written by O founding editor Michelle Burford), the 16-year-old gold medalist spends four digital pages (I read it on a Kindle and have no idea how many “real” pages that amounts to) delving into her family’s semi-serious flirtation with Judaism.

That religion was a major theme throughout this short memoir (as it should be, given the age of the subject) is hardly surprising. It was published by Harper Collins’ Christian imprint, Zondervan. And it is certainly not at all shocking to read an exploration of faith from Douglas, who, upon winning the gold in the all-around, sweetly said this to an NBC reporter: “I give all the glory to God. It’s kind of a win-win situation. The glory goes up to Him and the blessings fall down on me.” Douglas and her mother have spoken of their faith in interviews and it’s one of the things that bonded the gymnast to her host family in Iowa.

But the appearance of Judaism comes seemingly out of left field. (Actually, left field is perhaps not far enough. That’s still part of the same stadium, right? I know so little about baseball or any sport involving projectiles.) After an earnest discussion of learning how to press from the floor up into a handstand, a move that becomes significantly more difficult once you develop hips, and with no attempt at transition, Douglas writes, “I used to be Jewish.” The connection between Judaism and handstands eludes even me.

Douglas, however, immediately backs down from that bold claim and states, “Well not exactly Jewish—but my family practiced some of the Jewish traditions.” One can imagine her giggling and flashing that trademark grin as she told this to her biographer. In fact, to suggest both Douglas’ mirth and youth, Burford punctuates several sentences throughout the book with “LOL,” an incongruous fit with the rest of the prose, which suggests a more mature writing style—i.e. the co-author’s.

But teenage-speak aside, what follows is a fully sincere account of Douglas’ family’s practice of Judaism, which began with her mother, Natalie Hawkins, and maternal grandmother, who were both drawn to the religion. Douglas’ grandmother occasionally prepared kosher meals for the family and Hawkins studied Hebrew.

Unlike a New York Times trend story about faux mitzvahs, Douglas’ participation in Judaism does not seem to have been rooted in materialism and consumption. Nor was it just about Jewish culture and matzoh ball soup, though that is certainly part of the appeal. Like a lot of Jewish kids, Douglas rhapsodizes about her mother’s version of Jewish penicillin, stating that it was doled out as a prize for good grades—and, in her case, good scores in competition. However, she also recounts the year she spent going to synagogue, at Temple Israel in Norfolk, VA, and observing the Sabbath, if not strictly because she had gymnastics practice on Saturdays. (Gyms tend to be closed on Sundays.)

The Jewish exploration, however earnest, ends as abruptly as it begins and never resurfaces again. But the discussion of faith ramps up thereafter, especially as the Olympics near and the young gymnast faces competitive pressure and homesickness while training far from her family. Hawkins, Douglas’ siblings, and her host mother dispense with New Testament quotes that inspire the athlete as she trains for the biggest contest in gymnastics.

In the short section about Judaism there is far less discussion of belief, which is due, at least in part, to the fact that she remains Christian and never expresses any desire to convert. And perhaps it’s because Jews don’t speak about God and beliefs in the same way that some Christians do. (Jews often don’t know what other Jews believe. During college, a frum friend of mine told me that you didn’t have to believe in God to be Orthodox, though it certainly helps make all of the rules seem less onerous if you do.) Though Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of Faith appear in most Jewish siddurim at the end of shacharit, they are often treated as an afterthought, not the main event, after the long slog of davening. Unlike her spiritual expression of her Christianity, Douglas’ exploration of Judaism is mostly ritual and action-based.

It’s notably different from our Jewish gymnastics ambassador, Raisman (still sad that this title doesn’t apply to me), whose religion is expressed in political, cultural and ethnic terms, but not ritual ones. (Though maybe it’s because she’s never been asked. I have no way of knowing about the particular Jewish practices of the Raisman family.)

In fact, when interviewed during Hanukkah in 2010 by International Gymnast Magazine, Raisman admitted that she couldn’t embrace all Jewish traditions and rituals as a result of her gymnastics practice:

Raisman said her training schedule means she is unable to share in the traditional family dinner together each night to celebrate Hanukkah…Raisman said she has been sticking to her own healthy meal after evening practice, forgoing any traditional holiday food like potato latkes.

I sincerely hope that she is able to partake this year since she is not currently training for any competitions and because latkes are delicious.

As for Douglas—I wish her many more bowls of her beloved matzo ball soup and hope that she dabbles in Judaism again with the same sincerity she expressed in the book. And as her celebrity increases, perhaps she will. After all, that’s what all the famous folks do.

Previously: Leave Aly Raisman Alone
Olympic Gold Medalist Gabby Douglas’ Favorite Meal is Matzoh Ball Soup
Gold Medalist Aly Raisman Commemorates 1972 Munich Games

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Fresh off their meme-tastic visit to the White House, the fierce five are back with a Gangnam parody video of their own: Gymnam Style

Jewish golden girl Aly Raisman joins fellow U.S. gymnasts Gabby Douglas and Jordyn Wieber in the video, which takes place at the Levine Cancer Institute in North Carolina as well as inside the N.C. State gymnasium, where the cheerleaders got in on the Gangnam action too.

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If Krusty the Klown had grown up in in Kent, England and studied Classics at Oxford, he might have become Andy Zaltzman. A politically conscious Jewish comedian whose most distinctive features are his wild fringe of orange hair and an obsession with puns, Zaltzman is one half of The Bugle, a comedy podcast that he created with fellow Brit John Oliver in 2007. Bearing the tagline “Audio Newspaper for a Visual World,” The Bugle is not only hilarious, it’s also a perfect antidote to the dull pablum of corporate television news. With weekly episodes running as long as 45 minutes, The Bugle is lively, weird, and fantastically droll. Often it feels like a more freewheeling, smarter version of The Daily Show, for which John Oliver is a writer and a featured correspondent.

Oliver’s profile in the United States has surged over the last couple years; besides his Daily Show work, he’s hosted standup specials for Comedy Central and appeared regularly on Community and in The Smurfs movie. Oliver’s busy schedule—and his home being in New York—makes it all the more impressive that he has stuck with Zaltzman, who continues to grind out a living doing standup, earning occasional TV credits, and writing a blog for ESPNcricinfo, a cricket website owned by ESPN.

But besides showing loyalty to an old friend, perhaps Oliver simply understands that Zaltzman is a brilliant comedian, one who distinguishes himself by his ability to mix low-brow, groaning humor with scabrous political satire. It also doesn’t hurt that despite the transatlantic divide between the hosts, the show remains incredibly popular, with listeners in 145-odd countries and, in 2011, an average of two million downloads per month.

Although The Bugle takes on world news—Oliver and Zaltzman take particular delight in going after the bloated pageantry of dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un—it’s often at its best when skewering Anglo-American pieties. During the Olympics, Zaltzman filed near daily “micro-Bugles,” which formed a kind of alternative history to the host country’s displays of Queen-and-country empire-lite pride (“A grand effort all round by London. Just 346 years after it burned to the ground, this city has truly bounced back”)

But the pair are as well versed in American politics as those of their native England, and their episode on the LIBOR banking scandal is essential listening for its explanatory value alone. Zaltzman published a book of satire early in the 2008 financial crisis, called Does Anything Eat Bankers? which fielded financial questions from dogs and used a parable of Jesus feeding the hungry with fish fingers to explain the concept of credit. The comedian’s politics are of the left but he’s contemptuous towards any sort of party politics. He’s said that officials have been engaged in “elongated game of economic pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey” and called the US presidential election a “multi-billion-dollar squawking contest.”

But Zaltzman is a far more entertaining figure on radio (he also appears on the BBC Radio show “Tonight With Rory Bremmer”), where he’s better served by his relentless streams of cheap puns (five solid minutes is his record) and his swift back-and-forth with Oliver. The two bring out the best in one another—when together, Oliver moderates his Daily Show persona’s short temper, which has always mistaken loudness for cleverness; and Zaltzman can lean on a partner who gets his policy references and shares his gleefully self-hating attitude towards all things British.

The Bugle recently marked its two hundredth episode—“one of the greatest moments in the history of human civilization,” Zaltzman called it—and it seems unlikely to slow down. The show has survived being dropped by its former sponsor, the Times of London, and may start a membership program to recoup costs. For now it remains a highlight in what is an increasingly crowded world of comedy podcasts, radio sketch shows, and interview programs like Marc Maron’s WTF. A whole constellation of audio comedy has emerged in recent years, drawing as much on the tradition of old stage shows as on the latest sitcoms. Few of them, however, can make jokes about tax policy funny; Andy Zaltzman somehow manages.

(Art by Margarita Korol)

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Almost no one is happier than I am that Alexandra Raisman won the Olympic gold medal on the floor exercise at the just-finished London Olympics. I’ve been a fan of the teenage American gymnast since 2010, when she first appeared on television at the American Cup. Virtually unknown as a junior athlete, she burst onto the senior scene and placed second in the all-around and has made very few missteps since then.

But only now is the Jewish world catching onto Raisman’s tumbling prowess and general awesomeness. Not only are they expressing tribal/ethnic pride, which is totally natural, they’re trying to figure out how to leverage her Jewishness, athleticism, and popularity in service of that favorite watchword, “engagement.”

In an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post, Abe Novick sketches out his hopes for Raisman’s upcoming trip to the Holy Land as a tool for connecting young Jews to their religious identity and the state of Israel. He writes:

While meeting and touring Israel and while fielding offers from marketers willing to shower millions upon her, Israel and Jewish organizations should also consider the larger implications of having someone like Aly as an inspiration to help bridge a divide that American youth have toward their Jewish identities as well as their feelings about Israel. Moreover, Aly could be a symbol and an embodiment of Jewish values to youth of all races and backgrounds.

That’s a lot of pressure to foist on the shoulders of a teenager. I have no doubt that Raisman believes what she said in support of a moment of silence for the murdered Munich athletes. Still, it’s a bit of leap to now turn Raisman into some sort of Jewish role model charged with being successful where millions of dollars and thousands of programs have only had uneven results at best: engaging unaffiliated Jewish youth.

Yes, the answer is to use everything and everyone popular and labeled as “Jewish” to get the young kids engaged. I imagine the same idea went through everyone’s heads back in 1996 when Jewish gymnast Kerri Strug left the Olympic Games as arguably an even bigger celebrity than Raisman. In one of the most dramatic moments in Olympic history, she vaulted on a sprained ankle to ensure the gold for the American women, the first ever team title for the U.S.

Did the Jewish community conspire to turn Strug into a tool for Jewish engagement? I don’t know. I was 13 at the time and all I cared about was watching my tapes of the competition until they warped. (I even went to a stop on the post-Olympic tour in 1996 and bought a t-shirt with a picture of the team on it that I still have never worn out of fear of staining it.)

But even if they had so planned, it clearly didn’t take. Strug, while a beloved past Olympian, went on to live a largely private life. She certainly didn’t become a Jewish figurehead, doing flips to convince the kids that Judaism is cool. (Also, since when is gymnastics even cool? I know for a fact that it isn’t. My entire life has been an exercise in trying to convince my friends and family to care about the sport. I’ve mostly failed at this.)

A lot of significance has been attached to Raisman’s choice of “Hava Nagila” as a floor exercise soundtrack. She started competing with this particular floor exercise over a year ago, at a domestic qualifying meet. Shortly thereafter, I interviewed her about the song selection and though she expressed religious pride in performing to it, there was no mention of the 40th anniversary of the Munich massacre.

In fact, it was Martha Karolyi, the Romanian born national team coordinator, who reportedly suggested using Jewish wedding music, according to Raisman’s mother, Lynn. It was Lynn who found the version with whistling that her daughter used to win the Olympic gold medal. While Karolyi might’ve thought it would be nice to have something connected to Raisman’s own heritage, her top priority was probably finding a piece of music that would get Raisman and the crowd engaged. Folk music is ideal for this purpose. (There have been at least four other elite gymnasts who have used Hava Nagila in elite competition prior to Raisman. As far as I know, none of the others are Jewish.)

As an ardent gymnastics fan and blogger, I’d support turning Raisman into some kind of Jewish figurehead if, in turn, the Jewish world had to start caring about my beloved sport year round, instead of once every four years. It’s a two way street, folks. This means that her next competition (should she decide to compete after this year) would have to be covered by all the Jewish media outlets even if she changes her floor music—which she undoubtedly will since she’s been using “Hava” for two competitive seasons now. If we want her time and unwavering support, it’s time we gave her ours. (I’d like to nominate myself as official Jewish media correspondent to all gymnastics meets so we don’t miss an angle and opportunity for “engagement.”)

I’m not saying that Raisman wouldn’t make an excellent Jewish ambassador, but let’s pause for a second before we make her Queen of the Heebs. We shouldn’t be reading too deeply into song selection and a few comments. She is only eighteen, after all. Like anyone that age, she is still finding her voice and opinion on a whole range of issues, Judaism included. I don’t think we’d want her endorsing Judaism and Israel as she would a product line.

But if she does agree to a Jewish-themed advertisement, please let it be like the one 2008 Olympic champion Shawn Johnson made for Ortega. Raisman can be to latkes what Johnson was to tacos.

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Olympic gold medalist Gabby Douglas is featured in Us Weekly’s “25 Things You Don’t Know About Me” feature, where she reveals that her favorite meal is none other than matzoh ball soup—or as we like to call it, Jewish penicillin. The 16-year-old gymnast also roots for the Los Angeles Lakers, likes music by Drake and Katy Perry, and says her prayers everyday. Gabby Douglas, we love you.

Previously: Gold Medalist Aly Raisman Commemorates 1972 Munich Games
Jewish Gymnast Aly Raisman’s Parents Nervously Watch Her Olympic Routine
Finding Out My Favorite Gymnasts Won Olympic Gold Medals—on Tisha B’Av

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• Bob Dylan is celebrating the 50th anniversary of his first album with a new album, out in September.

• Billionaires, they’re just like us (with lower interest rates): Mark Zuckerberg refinanced his California home’s $6 million mortgage.

• Introducing Dossim, a website for young Haredim by young Haredim.

• Donald Sobel, the brilliant Encyclopedia Brown creator, has died at 87.

The post Daily Jewce: Olympic-Sized Outrage, Bob Dylan’s Album-versary, and more appeared first on Jewcy.

“Put your best foot forward,” the Kafkarate poster invites (though presumably not into the rotating fountain of two men peeing outside Prague’s Kafka Museum). Other activities include swan riding and the ever-popular fencing with oars, which we don’t recommend trying at home.

College admissions offices, take note: Kafkarate is basically the new squash.

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