The rantings of the Brooklyn Coffee shop owner who calls Jews ‘greedy infiltrators’ and himself a ‘nudge’

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Dear Jews: Have a happy and healthy New Year by inter-marrying!

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Oy! Can you believe it’s 5775 already? It feels like 5765! Am I right? Anyway, Happy New Year! L’Shana Tovah. As we celebrate the new year, let us commit to a health and happiness. And to do that, we really may want to consider diluting the gene pool.

I know how much we Jews like to keep it in the family. But sometimes it’s a little too close for comfort, as we know from certain unfortunate certain outcomes and diseases, like Tay Sachs. A new study tracking Jewish genes, or “Jenes,” has determined that every single Ashkenazi Jew alive today can be traced back to a group of 330 people from the Middle Ages. The Ashenazi are the Jews who came out of Eastern Europe, France and Germany, while Sephardic Jews descend from Spain, Portugal, North Africa and the Middle East. 80% of Jews today are Ashkenazi.

99% of the time that we use Jewish as an adjective to describe a behavior or look, we really mean Ashkenazi. Like, “Woody Allen is so Ashkenazi!” Or, “male comedians love talking about their guilt-inducing, passive-agressive Ashkenazi mothers!” Or, “if you haven’t been to Zabars, you’re not a real ashkenazi.” So, maybe Jews should embrace inter-marriage or inter-breeding or  diluting our gene pool as a mitzvah (good deed) instead of condemning it as a shandeh (a shame).

On this week’s Morning Jew (see video above), Katie Halper (little old me) and Heather Gold talk with the brilliant illustrator and author Lisa Brown about Jewish genes, dating, Pope fashion and the now defunct Upper West Side Manhattan match-making cafe with the unfortunate name of  Drip.

Originally posted on RawStory

As a Jew, I’m grateful that Joe Biden used the word ‘Shylocks’

US Vice President Joe Biden shakes hand with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the state memorial service for former prime minister Ariel Sharon at the Knesset in Jerusalem on Jan. 13, 2014 [AFP]
US Vice President Joe Biden shakes hand with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the state memorial service for former prime minister Ariel Sharon at the Knesset in Jerusalem on Jan. 13, 2014 [AFP]
Joe Biden, once again, pulled a Joe Biden, (made a gaffe) when he referred to predatory bankers as shylocks. During a Tuesday speech at the Legal Services Corporation’s 40th anniversary conference, Biden said that his son, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, heard stories about banks preying on fellow servicemen and women when he served in Iraq:

People would come up to him and talk about what was happening to them at home in terms of foreclosures in terms of bad loans that were being – I mean, these Shylocks who took advantage of these women and men while overseas.

Of course, Shylock is a fairly charged reference, as it refers to the Jewish, interest-charging, money-lender in Shakespeare masterpiece The Merchant of Venice. There is much debate over whether the character is an anti-semitic stereotype, or a sympathetic character through whom Shakespeare critiques anti-semitism. But, to be sure, when people use the word, they mean it pejoratively. They are describing someone who takes advantage of others and not someone who highlights the inhumanity of anti-Semitism. You will not, for instance, hear anyone ever describe Anne Frank as a Shylock, though she certainly humanized Jews and indicted anti-semitism.

Predictably, Abraham Foxman, who is still the president of the Anti-Defamation League despite announcing his retirement last year, had something to say about this:

When someone as friendly to the Jewish community and open and tolerant an individual as is Vice President Joe Biden, uses the term ‘Shylocked’ to describe unscrupulous moneylenders dealing with service men and women, we see once again how deeply embedded this stereotype about Jews is in society.

Biden issued an apology and a “Jews love me” #HumbleBrag: Continue reading “As a Jew, I’m grateful that Joe Biden used the word ‘Shylocks’”

Morning Jew Ep. 50: Joan Rivers, Jack the Jewish Ripper & Gwyneth Paltrow


Comics Heather Gold (@heathr) and Katie Halper (@kthalps) look at the headlines and ask: Is it good for the Jews? This week we look at the Air Force’s intolerance of atheism; get kind of excited about Jack the Ripper being a Jew; get offended by Gwyneth Paltrow; and discuss what Joan Rivers’ funeral would look like if she had been a Muslim comedian whose statements were about Jews.
Subscribe to get the shows in your inbox plus a nosh at http://morningJewz.com

90-year-old Holocaust survivor arrested at Ferguson protest

Image by Steven Hsieh via The Nation
Image by Steven Hsieh via The Nation

Ninety-year-old Hedy Epstein, who was one of several protestors arrested outside Missouri Governor Jay Nixon’s office, is no stranger to state-sanction discrimination and violence. Epstein fled the Holocaust as a child. A true intersectionalist, she insists on applying the lessons of the past to the present, refusing to remain idle in the face of persecution, whether she’s protesting the demolition of Palestinians’ homes or police brutality and racism in Ferguson.

Epstein was born in 1924 in Freiburg, Germany, but was sent to England at 14 via the Kindertransport, which brought nearly 10,000 children from countries invaded by Nazis right before the start of World War II. Epstein’s parents died during the Holocaust in Auschwitz. Following the war, Hedy returned to Germany, where she worked on the Nuremberg medical trial, against doctors accused of performing medical experiments on concentration camp inmates. In 1948, she joined her only living relatives, an aunt and uncle, in the United States.

While the Holocaust is often invoked to justify Israeli policies, Epstein’s experience as a survivor makes her speak out against the government of Israel: “In 1982, I heard about the massacres in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon — I wanted to know who was responsible for this, what had happened between 1948 and 1982. As I learned more, I became increasingly disturbed by the policies of Israel and its military.”

As she explains, “The Israeli government’s actions happen far too often in the name of protecting Judaism, thereby conflating Zionism with Judaism. As Jews, we must not let the Israeli government use our heritage to excuse its morally unexcusable actions. Our Jewish values will not let us.” So, Epstein started to visit Palestine, where she’s been several times, and taken part in protest against the Occupation, the wall, and the demolition of Palestinian homes and olive orchards. Epstein published an autobiography, Remembering Is Not Enough, and speaks around the world.

So, it makes sense that Epstein would join the approximately 125 people at a St Louis (where she lives) protest organized by the Organization for Black Struggle against the decision to call the National Guard into Ferguson. They marched to the Governor’s office, demanded a special prosecutor to investigate the murder of Michael Brown, a larger Department of Justice investigation and a withdrawal of the National Guard. They sang, “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me ’round,” and chanted “Hey hey! Ho ho! National Guard has got to go!” and “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” Epstein was among nine protestors arrested for failing to disperse. They were handcuffed, taken to a police station, given a court date and then released. Continue reading “90-year-old Holocaust survivor arrested at Ferguson protest”