Category: Jews

Regular readers of this feature will remember the feature a few weeks ago on the Counting of the Omer. To recap, this is a ceremony which ensured that the Temple Priests would get edible pelf (in the form of barley) daily for seven weeks following Passover. And when we get to the end of the seven weeks… Shavuos, which translates to “sevens.” And like sevens in craps, it means a boatload more pelf for the priests, since it marks the wheat harvest, and the priests now start getting wheat and wheat products (bread, not the dreaded matzoh).

I can’t help but notice that the priests set up the holidays and make the rules for them. It is shocking that the holidays seem like they all benefit the people who made the rules. And it somehow seems familiar, at least for those of us who follow what Congress does. It is good to be a priest.

In any case, like many other holidays, Shavous has, in the manner of Velcro in a lint pile, picked up a boatload of unrelated accretions: besides the marking of the beginning of the wheat harvest season, it has somehow acquired the meaning of King David’s birthday and day of his death; how coincidental! It also is supposedly the day that Israel was handed the Torah, and transformed from a newly-freed tribe with vague monotheism to full-on Yahwist. And if that weren’t enough, it is also supposedly the Yorzeit day (anniversary of the death) for the Baal Shem Tov, a Polack who founded Hassidic Judaism, which teaches that one becomes closer to Yahweh by dressing and living like an 18th century Polish peasant.

Traditionally in Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Judaism, there are five customary things to do for the holiday:

1. Akdamut, an Aramaic poem written by a Kraut
2. Chalav, pigging out (wait, am I allowed to say “pig”?) on dairy products, especially cheeses
3. Ruth, the reading of, you guessed it, the Book of Ruth
4. Yerek, putting up ferns and potted plants everywhere around the house
5. Torah, doing an all-night Torah cram session

Three out of the five seem dreary to me (I’m not much on decorating). The all-night Torah thing could be fun if there were alcohol and weapons involved, but no such luck. The reading of the Book of Ruth actually is pretty cool, though. Ruth is really a wonderful story of love, family, and loyalty, peopled with delightful and noble characters, unlike the assholes who seem to dominate the rest of the Bible. But the real fun is the chalav, mostly because I love cheese and have the stomach to prove it. Interestingly, the chalav custom is turned on its head by Yemeni Jews, who actually avoid dairy products on Shavuos.

Putting aside the Yemenis, when Shavuos and cheese are mentioned, most Jews who lean more toward Ashkenazi (I’m half, with the other have being Mizrahi) think “blintzes.” As they should because blintzes are fucking awesome. Most blintzes that you goyim ever eat are remarkably shitty, either frozen food service items served at shitty chain restaurants, frozen low-bid blintzes bought from the freezer case at Walmart, or served at a deli run by beaners, and also likely to be low-bid frozen.

There’s no excuse for this- so much Jew food is just plain shitty that ruining one of the rare great dishes is a shonda. And as much as it embarrasses me to say this, a really good basic how-to to make great blintzes is provided by a wop, the great Chef John of Food Wishes. Well, let’s be honest, Italian cuisine is so much superior to Jew food that it’s not suprising that someone of Italian ancestry can make our food better than we can. And we’re Americans here, cultural and culinary appropriation is what we’re all about.

In any case, it’s a basic crepe batter (I use something similar, stolen directly from Julia Child) with a cheese filling:

Now, let me add some notes to this, some of which Good Chef John was too polite to mention.

First, some people use cottage cheese for the filling. Don’t be like those people. Cottage cheese is coagulated pus. John uses a mix of ricotta and mascarpone, which works well. But even better, and certainly more authentic, is farmer’s cheese, which is a dry-ish ricotta. A really excellent alternative is requeson, which is available at finer Mexican deli counters.

Second, this is a sweet version, but there’s no reason that blintzes can’t be savory. I’ve used ricotta and Parmesan (thus bringing them one step closer to manicotti), chevre for a tangy French touch, requeson and cotija to do them Mexican style… basically, you can get any palette of flavors you like, the key is the process of wrapping, sauteing, then baking. If you go savory, adjust the crepes as well! And they can be topped with sauces appropriate to the cuisine you’re appropriating.

I have not tried this with paneer and coconut chutney, but hey, it could work.

Now, I’m off to go read Ruth.

One of the nice perks about being a staffer here at the Glibs is the travel perks. As the senior guy here and the most knowledgeable staffer regarding Judaism, I was selected to be our press representative accompanying the Trump clan and various hangers-on during their trip to Israel. It was pretty cool having the run of Air Force One and being able to lord it over those stupid goyim from places like the New York Times and CNN.

Because I’m someone who would end up being tackled, duct-taped, water-boarded, and tossed into a cell in Gitmo if I ever actually asked questions or spoke my mind, I decided that my coverage of this trip would be in the manner of a travelogue. And indeed, this has been an interesting tour, with barely a twinge to my ghost foreskin.

First, we’ve all been inundated with the Hand-slap Seen Round The Twitterverse.  The usual suspects have been analyzing that one to death and as usual, every last one of them got it wrong and missed the real story. Yes, you’ll hear it here first- Trump and Netanyahu have discovered The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name. And the hand-slap was not because Melania hates Trump or any of the other pseudo-psych explanations. No, it’s because Melania had other plans for her hands while the boys were busy on הר ברוקבק.  

Insert Burning Bush reference here.

But things weren’t all sexytimes. For one thing, the King of Real Estate decided to check out the Wailing Wall to see how it might look along the Rio Grande.

Trump had to be dissuaded about adding a parking lot behind. But this at least gave me a chance to meet and greet with the leaders.

Yes, that’s me on the left.

And because Yahweh loves us all and has upgraded us from Chelsea to Ivanka, I thought I’d share this tender moment with you.

Anyway, it was a fun trip and I’m back now, sitting in my office and preparing posts. Until next week, Khazak Khazak V’Nitkhazek. Or Mene Mene Tekel Upharshin, I can never remember which.

And bonus link- a delightful essay from 15 years ago, on this very topic, written by the great comedian Larry Miller.

History is a funny thing- things which are truly world-changing rarely hinge on a single man and a single moment. Had Gavrilo Princip, for example, not pulled the fateful trigger that hot summer day in Sarajevo, World War I would have still happened, just triggered by something else. Bismarck had presciently observed, “One day the great European war will come out of some damn foolish thing in the Balkans,” and indeed the flow of events there was inexorable.

But here, I will tell of one of those moments that truly was sui generis, a huge change in the course of the world’s history, determined by one man and one moment. And it was one of the more outre incidents in the history of Jews, who represent a vanishingly small proportion of humanity.

Tisha B’Av is a day of mourning in Judaism, the traditional anniversary of the destruction of the first Temple in Jerusalem. As so often happens, its significance metastasized, and before too long, much in the manner of our national portmanteau of Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays, it became the anniversary of the destruction of the second Temple, the anniversary of the quashing of the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Romans, the anniversary of the Moses-era Israelites being barred from Canaan until their generation had died out, the anniversary of… well, you get the idea. Something bad happens to the Jews, it’s Tisha B’Av. Wanna bet that if Keith Ellison gets promoted to DNC Chairman, it will be on Tisha B’Av?

In any case, Tisha B’Av has an aura of portent. In the year 1626, on Tisha B’Av, a child was born to a former chicken salesman turned British agent in Smyrna (then Greece, later Turkey, then Roman, then Greece, then… anyway, now it’s Turkey) named Mordecai Zevi and his wife Clara. The child was named Sabbatai. As was the custom in the day, L’il Sab Zevi was sent to yeshiva for training in the Talmud (which to the Torah is analogous to case law to the constitution). L’il Sab was about as receptive to this training as I was when I was sent to yeshiva (i.e., not very), but unlike the young me, L’il Sab had a great affinity for the Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism.

As he grew into his teen years, he was married to an arranged bride. There’s no record of what she looked like, but one can only imagine, since they were granted a divorce because of non-consummation. I remind you that this was a teenage boy. So his parents tried again- same result. At this point, he likely came to the conclusion that his parents had no eye for a pretty Jewess and no further attempts in this direction were made.

Two more bits of superstition converged: the British concept of millenarianism fixing the date of the Second Coming at 1666 and the tortuous computations of Kabbalistic scholars that 1648 was the magic year (since you had to have a First Coming to qualify for a Second one, amiright?). Zevi, who no-one could accuse of lack of ambition, announced that he, in fact, was the long awaited Messiah. And he did so in a beautiful troll, the pronouncement of the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew, something only allowed to the High Priest in the (at that point non-existent) Temple. This caused him to be driven out of Smyrna, though some noted that he hadn’t been struck by holy lightning from above.

From Smyrna, Zevi next settled in Constantinople (not Istanbul) and apparently convinced the Kabbalah scholar Abraham ha-Yakini of his divinity. Ol’ Abe, once convinced, did two things to advance the narrative: first, he encouraged Zevi to really publicize his Messiahship. And second, in order to shore up Zevi’s claims, Abe forged some ancient documents which “predicted” that a guy named Sabbatai born in Smyrna would be the Messiah. Abe well understood viral marketing.

As part of the marketing, Abe convinced Zevi to decamp to Salonika, at that time a center for mystical Judaism. Zevi made a big splash there, setting up publicity stunts like marrying the Torah in a public ceremony. The local rabbis were not amused and Zevi found himself on the run. Exactly what his path was is unknown to us, but he ended up in Cairo, where he brought a rich fellow named Raphael Yusef Ḥalabi under his sway. Halabi is a familiar type to us, someone with more money than brains (his money was mulcted from the Turkish treasury, perhaps through the Halabi Foundation?) more than a bit of nuttiness. Halabi was the proverbial pigeon just waiting for the right guy to pluck him, and Zevi was definitely the right guy.

Well funded and with much publicity and buzz, Zevi thought that Cairo wasn’t the place to be for a Messiah, and moved himself to Jerusalem, a more fitting location. Mindful of the two towns who rode him out on a rail, Zevi was more low-profile this time around, but used the quietus to set up the dominos. He groomed himself as a personality, a celebrity, known for singing, religious performance (people were more easily entertained in those days), ostentatious worship, and yes, giving candy to the kids.

It did not escape Zevi’s notice that 1666 was rapidly approaching, so it was time to make his move. As usual in Progressive communities, a financial crisis reared its head in Jerusalem. Zevi said, “No worries, I got this,” and went back to Cairo to hit up his old sugar daddy, Halabi, for fundage. Halabi coughed up. I mean really, the Messiah asks you for money, you’re gonna say no? While he was back in Cairo, he spotted some jailbait named Sarah, who apparently was a hottie and a slut. Zevi sensed another marketing opportunity, as well as a way to drain the decades of back-up, and he married her. In fact, he married the hell out of her, and with high-profile trim at his side, his fame increased yet again. Every Jim Bakker needs a Jessica Hahn.

Zevi brought the riches and his 16 year old hottie back to Jerusalem and on the way, stopped in Gaza and met the man who would be the John the baptist to his Jesus. This fellow, by the name of Nathan of Gaza, styled himself as the reincarnation of Elijah and started proclaiming Zevi’s messiah-hood.

On Zevi’s arrival in J-town with the loot, he instantly became a celebrity, a savior of Jerusalem as it were. Having the trophy bride with him didn’t hurt. Not unexpectedly, Nathan’s proclamations and Zevi’s assent royally pissed off the Jerusalem rabbis and, you guessed it, Zevi found that discretion is the better part of valor and got out of Jerusalem more or less intact to head back to Smyrna.

His fame and his supporters preceded him. Traveling through Gaza, Aleppo (“What’s an aleppo?”), and finally Smyrna, Zevi picked up thousands of followers, and in Smyrna, modestly declared himself Messiah in a most public way. And just in time, it was 1665, only a year to go. Zevi was a sharp operator and very quickly became the boss of Smyrna, usurping the incumbent rabbinate and replacing them with his cronies. His following increased rapidly, with people getting rid of their possessions, and making the trek to Smyrna from all over Europe and Asia Minor. Even luminaries like Spinoza heard of this phenom and touted the return of the Jews to their restored kingdom.

This was serious shit and Zevi’s popularity was exploding. And when that happens, you know there will be a reaction from those already in power who could possibly feel threatened. Zevi had displaced important rabbis, declared that, with his coming, the rituals and obligations of rabbinic Judaism were ending, and that the rule of political authorities over Israel would soon be replaced by his spiritual authority. Zevi’s publicist released the following statement:

The first-begotten Son of God, Sabbatai Zevi, Messiah and Redeemer of the people of Israel, to all the sons of Israel, Peace! Since you have been deemed worthy to behold the great day and the fulfilment of God’s word by the Prophets, your lament and sorrow must be changed into joy, and your fasting into merriment; for you shall weep no more. Rejoice with song and melody, and change the day formerly spent in sadness and sorrow into a day of jubilee, because I have appeared.

This did not go unnoticed by the Sultan, who “suggested” that Zevi come to Constantinople (not Istanbul) to discuss the matter. This was aw-reet with Zevi, since he had prophesied that the Sultan would crown him by placing the Sultan’s own crown on his head, so off to Constantinople (not Istanbul) he went.

Now, you don’t get to be Sultan without having a streak of deviousness and ruthlessness, and this Sultan was no exception. Zevi landed in Constantinople (not Istanbul) and was almost instantly arrested. You don’t get to be a Messiah without similar deviousness, and through use of bribes, Zevi managed to get the country club treatment, and during that time, his publicists spread tales of miracles performed. Sort of the Streisand Effect- trying to suppress him only made him bigger. Zevi milked the publicity by continuing to troll in a high profile way (for example, a very public violation of the Paschal sacrifice).

At this point, the Sultan thought, “Enough.” He had been tipped off about Zevi’s viral marketing and decided to do a bit of a high profile troll himself. Zevi was brought to him in a very public manner, and when he arrived at the Court, it was filled with what passed for VIPs and the media in those days.

“Zevi,” said the Sultan, “I’m giving you a choice here. You can put a turban (not mine!) on your head symbolizing your conversion to Islam. Or we could bypass all that and just take off your head. Which is it?”

Now here is that moment. If Zevi had decided to sacrifice himself, he would be, in the words of John Lennon, bigger than Jesus. He would be martyred, sacrifice himself for the world, spawn resurrection stories, and be the founder of what could be the world’s biggest religion, supplanting much of Christianity and Islam. One man, one moment.

And the fact that we’re not surrounded by Zevi-ists and that he’s not exactly a household name in the 21st century kinda gives away what he chose. Zevi, always looking out for Zevi, decided that maybe the turban would be a good look for him. He kept his head on his shoulders, and was “retired.” He of course spread the rumor that this was all part of the plan, but his career was over, his followers were disgraced, and the sultan was barely talked out of killing all the Jews just to prevent any more of this nonsense. Zevi was eventually banished to Albania, where he died shortly after from causes that are lost in the same obscurity where Zevi ended.

One man. One moment. If the choice had been martyrdom, every football player who scored a touchdown would be making beheading gestures instead of the sign of the cross.

Short one today because I’m doing a real Jewsday for next week (preview: The Man Who Would Be Messiah). But I want to publicize what might be my favorite Jew videos on YouTube. Bubala Please has a simple premise, which is shown in the intro: two gang bangers, Jaquaan and Luis, are about to engage in an exchange of the usual Mex-on-Negro violence when they each discover that the other is Jewish (this is what prevented Heroic Mulatto and me from shooting at each other when we first met in a rather dark alley; the glint of his mezuzah reflected onto my tefillin). Of course that changes everything and, as did HM and I, they become mishpocha. I think you can see where some of my Bible story inspiration comes from.

Here’s the first episode, wherein the One True Way to make latkes is shown. When I first saw this, I immediately sent it to my mom, who didn’t find it even a little bit funny. And she is totally nonreligious. Go figure.

And they continue, putos, with an explanation of the Hanukkah bush.

My favorite is still the Make Your Own Haggadah episode, which I regret not linking in my earlier Passover exegesis. A puta helps greatly. I’m guessing Luis is Sephardic.

Anyway, you can explore, there were only nine of them made and they were all gems. And they explain the holidays better than I ever could.

Hag Sameach, bitches!

Among the odder Jew things is a ritual called “The counting of the omer.” It’s a very important ritual because something something something. OK, it’s not, but it’s commanded in the Torah (Leviticus 23:15 and 16 for you beforeskinned types) so when Yahweh says, “Do it,” you do it. Otherwise, there will be a plague, which seems to be Yahweh’s favorite hobby.

First obvious question: what’s an omer? I’m glad you asked, because I was prepared with an answer. It’s a unit of volume, analogous to a bushel, but much more Hebraic. In days of yore before the Temple got wasted, the priests there were recipients of all sorts of pelf, given to propitiate Yahweh- if you think televangelists begging for contributions claiming that the money is for God is something new, you’re a few millennia late to the party. One of the perks was omers of barley or wheat, which were required to be delivered daily between the second day of Pesach (which we talked about last week) and the first day of Shavuot (which we’ll talk about in 6 more weeks). Since pelf needed to be accounted for (Jews are punctilious about their graft), the priests developed a ritual, rituals being job security for them. Each day of that period, the supplicants would deliver the grain, then recite a prayer which ended in best Sesame Street fashion, “Today is x days, which is y week(s) and z day(s) of the omer,” with x, y, and z being sequential. The priests would then accept the grain as a gift to Yahweh, and go do some baking. Or maybe the Levantine equivalent of risotto, if they were smart. Being a priest was equivalent to being a GS-14 these days, short hours, easy work, lots of bribery opportunities, great pension.

Now, once the Temple was destroyed, what to do? This becomes a complicated story, involving certain schisms within Judaism (Pharisees vs. Sadducees, which ended up being Patriots vs Browns), deserving of a stand-alone story, and it is a story I shall surely tell when I’m not on assignment and have to keep things brief (“assignment” being “setting up cameras in the elementary school bathrooms, purely for security reasons”). But the result was the recitation ritual remained, the priests (who trended Sadducee) were cut out.

Now, this is indeed brief and boring, but even as pressed for time as I am, I can’t leave you without a small dose of death and destruction. This involves the legendary Rabbi Akiva, an uber-Pharisee who in retrospect reads like Ayatollah Khomeini. Despite the counting of the omer looking like an accounting function, the tradition is that these are days of mourning. Why? Because Akiva lost 24,000 students in either a plague or war deaths fighting Italians- it’s unclear which. If it was Italians, self-explanatory- Akiva was deeply involved in the Bar Kochba revolt against the wops, which went about as well as you’d expect. If it was a plague, it was Yahweh getting his divine panties in a holy wad about some rule or other that everyone wasn’t slavishly following. Yahweh was often a dick about stuff like that.

So because of the 24,000 ambiguous deaths, the omer-counting period is (with the exception of one day, more about which, later) treated as a period of mourning, which means no music, no sex, no shaving, mirrors covered, no TV. Being a Jew ain’t easy. It seems like every week, we’re losing 24,000 of us.

Next week, with more time on my hands, I’ll tell you gentiles about the Sadducees, the Pharisees, how they relate to constitutionalism, and how fighting over graft can really fuck up a religion. In the meantime, say your prayers and note that this is 8 days, which is 1 week and 1 day of the omer. And yes, you can actually buy an app to remind you of the daily count. Jews, smdh.

Also, since it’s fashionable, here’s a gratuitous non-Jew link.

Despite my interest in and open-mindedness about other countries and cultures, I’m not one who could be described as a “cultural relativist.” There are some cultures which are just superior to others. And here, let me look toward the Middle East.

Jews vs. Muslims. Sorry, it’s not even close. Gather a bunch of hot women in the army and Jews will put them in bikinis and set up an Instagram account.

https://www.instagram.com/p/4yNqFZn6AJ/?taken-by=hotisraeliarmygirls&hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/p/4PEtfNH6Az/?taken-by=hotisraeliarmygirls&hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/p/21QASWH6AC/?taken-by=hotisraeliarmygirls&hl=en

Muslims will cut some eyeholes in black blankets and throw them over the women.

Conclusion: Jewish culture superior.