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Talmudic Differences Between the Poor Financial Conditions of Baseball’s Dodgers and Mets

This article by Jon Heyman, “Selig had many reasons to act on McCourt but not Wilpons,” has a Talmud-like point-by-point comparison of the poor financial circumstances of two baseball teams, the Dodgers and the Mets. It starts off, “The reason baseball commissioner Bud Selig appointed Tom Schieffer as emissary to oversee the day-to-day operations of the Los Angeles Dodgers while leaving ...

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Talmud Film Footnote Wins Award at Cannes

The world did not end last Saturday as one religious leader predicted. But surely there are signs that we are living in the messianic end of days, e.g., a funny film about Talmud professors at Hebrew University has won an award at the Cannes Film Festival.Israel’s Cedar wins award at Cannes.By Viva Sarah PressIsraeli film director Joseph Cedar clinched the ...

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Talking to a Rabbi About Gay Marriage

The Governor of Hawaii is a Jewish woman, and pretty soon she is going to decide whether to veto a piece of legislation allowing civil unions for gay couples in her state. Presumably there are a lot of different factors involved in her decision making process, but among them, apparently, is asking two rabbis what they think. According to the ...

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Taking the “Rihanna” approach to Jewish Orthodox sexuality

I was a little surprised to see how much frank talk about sex was featured in The Sisterhood this week. As a teenager, I am used to people around me talking about sex a lot-in real life, in movies, in songs, in basically every medium except in Jewish blogs. But that is no longer!Read More: @ jwablog.jwa.orgTags: Jewish, Jewish orthodox, Jewish sexuality, RihannaYou might also like:Yeshivish ...

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Tachlis with benefits

I’m not gonna lie, I had a friend with benefits situation once, we would hang out, but everything ultimately led to the back seat of my 92 Camry on some dead end street somewhere where we would share words of torah and saliva. As I’ve gotten older and more mature, I’ve realized that casual relationships with no tachlis (purpose, typically ...

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Table manners are not a frum thing to have

I was dating a girl a while back who told me that I chewed with my mouth open, “so what everyone chews with their mouth open” was my response and then to prove my point I observed people closely at restaurants and on shabbos – sure enough 90% of them chewed with their mouths opened. I failed to realize that ...

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T-Shirt of the Week: In A Pickle

The Yenta household has been blessed with an amazing bounty of cucumbers this week – some almost two feet long!  A girl can only take so much Israeli salad, so I’ve tried my wannabe-homesteading hand at “putting up” these long green gifts from the garden. (I just love the cozy spin the phrase “putting up” takes on when it refers ...

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T-Shirt of the Week: Hebromance

Could there be better way to ring in Passover next month than rocking a shirt with the stuttering star of the story?Two tablet, ten commandments, four colors. This is what I call hipster sederwear, yo.The term “Hebro” was recently coined by Stuntrocker Dave Rosen, and I cannot stop singing “We could be Hebros” to the David Bowie tune. And now, ...

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T-Shirt of the Week: Cluck you, Chick-Fil-A

Look, Chick-fil-A’s feelings about gayfolk have never been a secret.The corporation has been giving gobs of money to anti-LGBT groups for years, and has been accused of asking nosy questions in their hiring practices.But Chick-Fil-A’s PR department blew up last week after CEO Dan Cathy gave his little “guilty as charged” shuck-and-jive when asked about his company’s views on gay ...

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T-Shirt of 5772: Make The Fast Go Faster

Tomorrow evening brings us to the culmination of the Days of Awe, a time when Jews eschew food, drink and, if they’re way hardcore, toothbrushing.Fasting on Yom Kippur helps us focus on atonement and lets God knew we’re serious about teshuvah (repentance.)Tomorrow is also my 40th birthday. El Yenta Man keeps lamenting how superlame it is that my milestone birthday should fall ...

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Synagogues in the News

The experimental Nashuva (“We will return”) Friday night service involves “a band, meditation, reinterpreted prayers on a handout sheet, and a PowerPoint presentation” all in under 45 minutes. (New Jersey Jewish News) A synagogue finds itself in a legal battle over its large sign “Lyndi and Rodney Adler Sephardi Centre.” (Australian Jewish News)   In Northeast Queens, Orthodox, Conservative and Reform ...

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Synagogues and New Technology

Yoram Samets, of Jvillage Network in Burlington, Vermont, wrote an interesting essay for the eJewishPhilanthropy blog titled “Purposeful and Passionate: Synagogues in the Age of Facebook.”Ultimately, I think he was being too delicate with synagogues by letting them know that it’s okay to move slowly in adapting to new technology. He writes that “synagogues lagging behind cultural change is nothing ...

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