This is the voicemail to end all voicemails, you guys: concerned Bubbe reads about Putin’s draconian anti-gay policies in newspaper, calls gay grandson to warn him not to travel to Russia on impending vacation, tells him she loves him.

This is the best thing on the internet today, I promise. (But this is a close second.)

“Don’t go near Russia. Don’t go there at all. I know it’s the Olympics… but DON’T. GO.”

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Move over, Aly Raisman—the gold medalist turned Dancing with the Stars contestant is no longer the Jewish community’s Olympic Golden Girl. Who has dethroned the Hava Nagila-playing gymnast? None other than Ryan Lochte, the grill-wearing, nonsense-spouting swimmer.

Jeah.

At least that’s what Malina Saval, a mother and lifelong swimming enthusiast, argues in a Tablet essay:

And yet, I’m here to argue that it’s time we stop making fun of Lochte, at least long enough to focus on a career achievement that has thus far gone completely unnoticed in the Jewish community. Lochte, who isn’t Jewish but believes God has a “plain” for everyone, may not be a rabbinical scholar, but what he has done—and to a much larger degree than most swimmers in the history of the sport—is spread Talmudic wisdom to swim fans, Jewish and non-Jewish, all over the world.

According to Saval, “The Talmud (Kiddushin 29a) specifies three skills that parents must teach their children: Torah, how to make a living, and how to swim.” By her logic, since Lochte has made swimming cool—not just to watch on TV once every four years but to actually do—and has toured the country encouraged kids to get in the pool, he’s done a Talmudic-level service for Jewish parents.

Read the full essay here and let us know what you think in the comments.

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It’s. Really. Happening. Olympic Gold Medalist Aly Raisman is now Dancing with the Stars Contestant Aly Raisman, as evidenced by this video of her first rehearsal. As Dvora Meyers wrote last week, Raisman has a lot to prove on the dance floor:

The golden gymnast has even been partnered with Mark Ballas, who co-won the mirror ball trophy with Johnson. After coaching Johnson to the win, Ballas probably knows better than anyone how to break the many bad dancing habits—flicked wrists, anyone?—that gymnasts learn as part of their athletic training. (Gymnasts’ dance training is often laughable. Raisman’s gymnastics dance background will help her as much Baltimore Ravens’ Jacoby Jones’ end zone dances will help him.)

Looks like she’s taking the challenge to loosen up and show a different side of herself seriously:

Previous: The BallaBuster: Aly Raisman’s New ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Moves
Leave Aly Raisman Alone

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This past weekend, the American Cup, the only international gymnastics competition held in the United States, took place in Worcester, Massachusetts, near Aly Raisman’s suburban Boston hometown. It was at this very gymnasium in 2010 that a then-unknown Raisman burst onto the senior elite scene by placing second in the all-around competition,

This year, however, the Olympic champion did not compete. She was on hand to sign autographs for young fans and speak to the press about her latest venture—her upcoming stint as a contestant on Dancing With The Stars.

Raisman is following in the footsteps of 2008 Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson, who beat out Giles Marini to win her post-Games season on the show. Raisman even performed with Johnson and the rest of Fierce Five during the DWTS: All Stars finale back in November.

Giving interviews at the American Cup this weekend, the Jewish gymnast said that when she was in Los Angeles to film last season’s DWTS cameo, she made it clear that she wanted to be a contestant on the show. “I made sure that I let everyone know I wanted to do it when I went on the show,” she said. Sounds like she took some of Sheryl Sandberg’s “lean in” advice.

The golden gymnast has even been partnered with Mark Ballas, who co-won the mirror ball trophy with Johnson. After coaching Johnson to the win, Ballas probably knows better than anyone how to break the many bad dancing habits—flicked wrists, anyone?—that gymnasts learn as part of their athletic training. (Gymnasts’ dance training is often laughable. Raisman’s gymnastics dance background will help her as much Baltimore Ravens’ Jacoby Jones’ end zone dances will help him.)

Olympic athletes—from Kristi Yamaguchi to Apollo Anton Ohno and others—have fared very well on the ballroom dancing show, which bodes well for Raisman, who seemed excited to apply her famous work ethic to the dance floor. But this isn’t merely a competition of dance skill and physical prowess. The voting aspect of the show still makes this, at least in part, a popularity contest—not unlike the election for a high school class president.

Though Raisman left the Olympic Games as a bona fide star, she was still overshadowed by Olympic all-around champion Gabby Douglas and the ever meme-able McKayla Maroney, who herself turned down an offer to be on the show in order to get back to the gym and resume training.

Johnson, as gymnastics blogger (there are several of us!) Blythe Lawrence observed, did more than learn the dances; she created an appealing coming-of-age narrative arc during her time on the show. She grew up, literally and otherwise, while she was a contestant on the program. The youngest member of the 2008 U.S. Olympic team, she arrived as a fresh scrubbed, corn fed Iowan girl and morphed into a strutting woman who wore provocative costumes and makeup, not scrunchies and bows.

Raisman will begin her run without that kind of backstory. She will be older—almost 19—and does not have the same Midwestern appeal, hailing instead from a suburb just outside of Boston. Also, Raisman has a reputation for competitive verve and consistency, not adorableness.

Other past contestants have made their improved physical fitness and weight loss a central part of their experience on the program. Obviously, this would be ridiculous for an Olympic athlete who just completed a nationwide gymnastics tour. So the question is—what will Raisman’s storyline be for DWTS?

It may, at least in part, be Jewish. Her bio, after listing her gymnastics accomplishments, reads:

The eldest of four kids in her family, Raisman comes from a Jewish background and famously performed her gold medal-winning floor exercise to the traditional Jewish wedding song, “Hava Nagila,” for which she earned worldwide recognition in the Jewish community.

I have no idea who wrote this—Raisman, her mother, or some ABC intern—but I was taken aback to see one really long sentence (or short paragraph) devoted to her Jewishness. Is this a call to the Jewish community to support her bid to win the mirror ball trophy? And if we Jews are expected to vote for her, we need to know—where does she stand on Israel? AIPAC is asking.

Will the producers milk the Jewish angle and find some jazzed up version of “Hava Nagila” for Raisman to do the quickstep to? It wouldn’t be entirely out of line, given both DWTS and the song’s own reputation for cheesiness. I’m both hoping for and dreading this sort of pandering. (But it would work. It would so work.)

For Raisman’s sake, I hope that this is just an anecdote in her bio and nothing more, a nod to this summer’s frenzied response to her Jewishness, music selection, and gold medals. I wouldn’t want to see her try to incorporate “Hatikvah” or the score from Schindler’s List in her performances.

Her bigger concern, after all, is not the approval of the Jewish community, but of the “gymternet,” which has long maligned (and that’s putting it euphemistically) her for her artistic abilities, something she is aware of. “People would always complain that I wasn’t expressive enough in my floor routine and I want to show people that I can do that,” she told reporters this weekend.

Now’s your chance.

(Art by Margarita Korol)

Previous columns: Time Machines Don’t Work for Women
A Jewish Childhood After Divorce

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• Concert technical issues be damned, Liza Minnelli’s still got it.

• Matthew Shaer breaks down (get it!) the history of book recycling—a fate that Jonah Lehrer’s quote-fabricating book, Imagine, will likely soon meet.

• It looks like that new H&H bagels will not actually be opening in downtown Manhattan. Quit playing games with our heart, bagel lords.

• Anthony Wiener and Huma Abedin moved into fancy new Park Avenue digs.

• Richard Roeper gives his approval of Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg’s performances in their new movie, Celeste and Jesse Forever.

• NBC’s Olympic commentators mistook Jesse Eisenberg, sitting in the stands, for Mark Zuckerberg. Now that’s what we call committing to the character.

The post Daily Jewce: Jesse Eisenberg is Not Mark Zuckerberg, Liza’s Technical Issues appeared first on Jewcy.

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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Another one- for a special friend instagr.am/p/NwAEGjMUZx/

— Bar Refaeli (@BarRefaeli) July 31, 2012

Israeli supermodel and Twitter enthusiast posted a picture of herself modeling a lace bodysuit, with the cryptic—and somewhat counter-intuitive—message, “for a special friend.” In the image, our girl Bar is standing on a grass tennis court, possibly a reference to the London Olympic Games, which she attended with snowboarder Shaun White.

Just who is this special friend? And why does Bar think she needs to tweet sexy photos to get someone’s attention? And couldn’t she just have sent a text? Jewcy’s Bar Refaeli Investigative Squad (BRIS) is on the case.

The post Bar Refaeli Models Black Lace Bodysuit on Twitter for Mystery “Special Friend” appeared first on Jewcy.

• The Jews who invented Häagen-Dazs.

• There is a Seinfeld food truck serving muffin tops and soup, run by, naturally, the guy who played the Soup Nazi.

• Turns out we are not the only ones obsessed with Rashida Jones.

• Jesse Eisenberg seems to like TCBY a lot. Or at least enough to write a fake review of it as a nine-year-old.

• The French Olympic swimmer with the Hebrew tattoo.

• Check out a pre-Superbad Martin Starr’s Freaks and Geeks audition, where he describes the “Hitler Punch”

The post Daily Jewce: The Soup Nazi’s Food Truck, These Jews Invented Häagen-Dazs appeared first on Jewcy.

• The Times reveals New York City’s best bialys, pastrami, and rye.

• In what sounds like a worse version of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher are vacationing in Bali.

• The Big Bang Theory’s Mayim Bialik discusses walking the red carpet on Tisha B’Av.

• Spotted: Bar Refaeli and Shaun White in the stands watching swimmer Michael Phelps compete.

• According to Fran Lebowitz, “a toll-taker has a more exciting life than a pornographer.”

• While on Andy Cohen’s late-night Bravo talk show, Joan Rivers says “even as a Jew” she wouldn’t wear Princess Diana’s wedding ring:

The post Daily Jewce: NYC’s Best Pastrami and Rye, Mila and Ashton Vacation in Bali appeared first on Jewcy.

Jewish gymnast Aly Raisman, who notably performs her floor routine to “Hava Nagila,” gave an unexpectedly entertaining uneven bar performance last night. Well, her parents did.

Watch as Lynn and Rick Raisman express the gnawing physical discomfort that we can only imagine accompanies seeing your little girl up on those bars, at the Olympics, in front of ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE. Fortunately for all of us, the routine went well—and they were caught on camera mid-cringe.

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