HEY JEWS

dunno why the Holocaust is mentioned at all tbh

xp

Right! Like...the line she thinks she's drawing between Breaking Bad and the holocaust is really unclear, to the point of not even being existent.

And the things she's saying about the Holocaust in general, I just... I don't know why you'd try to express that without being a good enough writer to explain yourself afterwards.

And the Tablet explanation of it is like..."okay so that happened. Anyway.."

she does not seem to understand the difference between doing things to survive (ie, Holocaust survivors) and doing things that are wrong because you know you're going to die (breaking bad). these are not the same thing.

yeah. I think that's exactly it

like, Walt is not doing evil shit to survive (at least, not as far as I've watched in the show lol)

and that intro. This is really bad: I had the gut instinct that these were villains masquerading as victims who, solely by virtue of surviving (very likely by any means necessary), felt that they had earned the right to be heroes, their basic, animal self-interest dressed up with glorified phrases like “triumph of the human spirit

...

surely she meant to say "triumph of the will" there lol

this is an interesting documentary that, among other things, addresses the popular myth that there had to have been something remarkable about the people who survived (more cunning, smarter, more self-interested, more vicious, or w/e):

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1479963/

That's a demented article. Commenters, for once, OTM.

I mean that's kind of a secondary point as far as the doc, but it's addressed in an interesting way vis a vis the myth that there were significant numbers of jewish "comfort women" (i.e. the fantasy women who survived the holocaust must have offered themselves to the nazis)

i remember reading a great piece about that in the voice (i don't know if it came out with the movie - i think hoberman wrote it?) but never saw the documentary. i'm really interested in seeing it

any idea where it can be seen?

I saw it at film forum. It must be on DVD somewhere but I don't know how easy it is to find.

Guess what Anne Breslaw went as for halloween:

http://heebmagazine.com/i-was-anne-frank-for-halloween/20467

Ooh, sorry! Spoiler in the url!

ugh, heeb magazine

Even I have laughed at the occasional tasteless Anne Frank joke. But there's a big difference between whispering these things among close friends and reifying them in public. That goes for her article as well. Ok, so she had paranoid thoughts about her holocaust survivor grandfather. She's probably not the first Jewish person to have such thoughts. She could forget about them. Or talk to a therapist or someone close to her. But instead she decides that they make a great foundational premise for an article. I mean that kind of defines the difference between a person who is mentally healthy and one who isn't in my book.

A great foundational premise for an article... about BREAKING BAD.

It's classic holocaust survivor guilt, there's nothing really to see here. She can't deal with the notion that her family somehow survived, and those conflicted feelings get expressed as guilt and self-loathing.

what tablet editor let that get through!

Since I was 12 I’ve had an unappealing, didactic distrust of people with the extreme will to live.

for god's sake, what did she think she was doing with the word "didactic" here

http://mindymeyer4senate.com/

what

http://mindymeyer4senate.com/issues.html

"Diva of the District"

"We endorsed her," said Jerry Kassar, chairman of Brooklyn's Conservative party.

Pink elephants, huh.

I'm not even Jewish but I am fighting my knee-jerk response that she is Making Jews Look Bad so she should Knock It the Fuck Off.

^^^which response itself may be antisemetic, yes? I srsly struggle with that.

See also my feelings about David Brooks.

quincie, I am fighting my "girl, lay off the heavy makeup/self tanner" response because I don't really want the discussion about a female politician to be primarily about her looks. But on the other hand, oh honey, no.

It isn't her looks that are getting me defensive; it is the Web site as a whole! Her picture could be totally absent; it would have me cringing at the same level. You could even obliterate the pink and replace her with a dude and blue--I will still be all "please do not bring the Jews into this."

it has been my experience that kids who move away from frum (esp chassidic brooklyn) world to secular world tend to gravitate towards low culture stuff - popular radio, reality shows, kinda tacky clothing, etc. i'm sure there's some way to unpack this re performance of class + accessibility (gateway to classier stuff requires education, acculturation, etc that frum community doesn't provide). i'm making big generalizations obv, but i remember frum kids getting into hard drugs, serious drinking problems, etc while "bad" modern orthodox kids idk go to business school or show up to class stoned.

how do these kids reconcile "I are Orthodox" vs. their electoral Web sites?

http://www.kveller.com/blog/parenting/aly-raisman-our-golden-jewish-gymnast/

awww, nice.

idk if this interests anyone here but my review of Stromberg's new Jewish Images in Comics:
http://blogs.forward.com/the-arty-semite/160558/how-anti-semitic-comics-got-replaced/

nice article

have you ever been accused of arty-semitism

lol

this is getting posted by a bunch of my fb friends
http://www.yiddishcursesforrepublicanjews.com

^^^^ LOL, just came here to post that!

"May you be reunited in the world to come with your ancestors, who were all socialist garment workers."

is thread supposed to be sung to the tune of Hey Jude?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_response_to_The_Forty_Days_of_Musa_Dagh

unrelated: i made a shiva call tnite

Did not know of the book.

Sorry you had to make a shiva call

crazy book, right? i had never heard of it

we took a long car trip today and ended up playing a bunch of debbie friedman for the baby off of spotify. i decided to make a playlist of jewish music tonight (mostly friedman, carlebach, maybe brandwein, and some other stuff like yidcore, dylan, zorn) that would be good stuff + children friendly. then i discovered all of the super frum music that is now available on spotify from like avraham fried and mordechai ben david. so i made a playlist of a bunch of song that i remember from being in yeshiva. i wouldn't listen to the thing all the way through, but if you're curious about what some (mostly lakewood/litvak) super religious jewish ppl listen to: http://open.spotify.com/user/mordys/playlist/3ZpWfyOgKpYrjHElizIcOD

most (but not all) of this stuff has a primary life being played at religious weddings (and actually one heuristic for how good a new single is is how good it is to dance to it at a wedding -- eg Avraham Fried albums The Greatest Wedding Album Vols. 1 + 2). "Just One Shabbos," "Shabbos in Gilo," "The One" and "Not For Sale" are all in English. ("Not For Sale" is MBD's protest song about protecting Israel from iirc Mormon missionaries!) The "Shiru Lamelech" song is a copella bc Lev Tahor is one of a dozen bands that make music for religious Jews to listen to during the sefirah - a period of the year when they refrain from listening to instrumental music bc they are mourning the destruction of the temple.

only other notable song is Oif Simches "dor mitzuyan" ("an excellent generation") that is taken from lyrics by aviv geffen on the really gorgeous "Achshav Me'oonan" when he sings "anachnu dor mezzuyan" ("we're a fucked up generation"). even tho the new lyrics are positive, the song still had a stigma from the original lyrics and it was kinda "bad boy" music (by yeshiva standards). anyway, i included aviv geffen version at the end of the playlist even tho it does not fit theme for comparison.

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/139247/Rosh-Yeshiva-Pasuls-Witness-at-Chupah-Because-of-iPhone.html

google tells me about Israeli "kosher phones" and UK Orthodox Jewish ones(you can make calls but not text...because. Oy veh. read the link, not sure I agree, not that I expect logic)

http://www.theworld.org/2012/01/kosher-phones-orthodox-jews/

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/154153

x-post re
zorn) that would be good stuff + children friendly.

I thought John Zorn just made noisy free-jazz that I did not think of as child-friendly (although I know he embraces and emphasizes his Jewishness at times).