Steven I. Weiss Launches Jewish Campus News

I was emailed this:

CampusJ is the new project that will bring compelling content to Jewish university students, with comprehensive coverage of the [news] in their communities on campus.
Starting with four Manhattan campuses [including Yeshiva University], the project will train a young generation of Jewish journalists in the reporting styles and methods of new media...

A Twisted Mind

Bat Dina writes:

Reasons and excuses my abuser gave:
You're not married and men are allowed to have more than one wife according to the Torah (Bible), so technically it's not wrong for me to do this. My wife never needs to know.

You're very pretty and I'm attracted to you. Your attraction is compounded by the fact that you're so modest and so religious, so I saw you as hard-to-get and that was enticing.

I would masturbate anyhow, so you're not really causing me to "spill my seed".

You never need to tell anyone about it, it should stay just between us. Even if you do tell one or two people, no one will find out since people don't talk Lashon Hara (deragotory speech, even if true).

You can still get married and have a perfectly fine relationship with your husband. We can keep doing this right up until you get married, even after you get engaged. There is no reason to tell your husband.

You really want this, it feels good. This is a safe place to explore your sexuality.

I love you, that's why I'm doing this. I want to give you pleasure. I'm helping you become a better person by "working out" your sexual issues before you get married.

Kids, don't try these lines at home without adult supervision.

Poor Luke

Anon writes: Poor Luke. For whatever reason, his blogging went to complete s--- when he moved to blogger and decided to focus on jewish journalism and rabbinical abuse. The old site didn't just look better, it was funny and worth a regular read. I like iPods, and I know for a fact that many girls who love them also like to f---. And its price point is reasonable given its features, design, and popularity. But that's not important. Luke, go back to writing charming, naughty posts about being a single orthodox fish-out-of-water in Hollywood, leavened with testaments to your love for Air Supply. This blog is a cloying piece of s--- and it may have already closed your window of marriage opportunity.

Loyalty Oath For Jewish Writers

Inspired by Wendy Shalit's essay in Sunday's Times, I am composing a mandatory loyalty oath for all Jewish writers. Something along the lines of adherence to the 13 Essential Principles of the Jewish Faith according to the Rambam and observance of Jewish Law as codified by the Shulchan Aruch. Anyone who falls short of this will have their "Jewish Writer" credential taken away, by force if necessary, and brought up before the rabbinic court for UnJewish Activity. Those found guilty of writing under false pretenses will receive 39 lashes (no more than 39 because the Torah is so merciful).

Is An Orthodox Jew Immune From Sexual Sin?

Jonathan Rosenblum (of Cross-currents.com) writes in The Jerusalem Post September 18, 1998:

Lieberman is neither the only senator who is faithful to his wife nor the only one with deep-seated religious beliefs. But because his religion demands from him daily sacrifices - or at least what appear as such to outsiders - and not just protestations of faith, there is no suspicion that he might be an Elmer Gantry or Jimmy Swaggart.

In the aftermath of his speech, the national media was filled with admiring stories about his daily Torah study and prayer, of how he walks seven kilometers from Capitol Hill to his Georgetown home on Shabbat when he must be present in the Senate on Friday night, and of how, when they served together in the Senate, Vice President Al Gore offered him his nearby apartment on Friday night and served as his Shabbes goy.

ONCE Jews exemplified dedication to God, and won the grudging admiration even of their most rabid enemies. Of late, however, American Jews have come to perceive themselves, and to be perceived by others, as a largely godless people. Sen. Lieberman - like the Yale Five and last year's Siyum HaShas - has once again reminded Americans that Judaism is a religion, not an adjunct of Americans for Democratic Action or Greenpeace.

From The Jerusalem Post October 6, 1998. Aliza Marcus writes:

Sir, - Jonathan Rosenblum's columns rarely fail to offend my sensibilities as a Jew, but I generally find his arguments well-reasoned and intelligent. However, his September 18 piece on Orthodox Jewish US Senator Joseph Lieberman showed the ugly side of Rosenblum, that side of him that refuses to see the reality of the world because he is so sure he is right.

Rosenblum writes that Lieberman is a moral man because "his religion demands from him daily sacrifices... and not just protestations of faith." Rosenblum also writes that it is the very fact Lieberman is Orthodox which makes him "immune" to accusations that he might have committed some indiscretion.

Being Orthodox, or even ultra-Orthodox, is not proof positive that someone is an upright person. Unless Rosenblum does not deign to read the paper that publishes him, I would assume he knows this.

A few months ago an Israeli court found guilty an ultra-Orthodox man (son of a famous rabbi) who sexually molested his niece for a period of years starting when she was a young teen. That upright community that Rosenblum lauds threw the girl out because she went to the police - despite her previous failed attempts to get help from rabbis in the community.

And has Rosenblum heard of domestic violence? It also occurs among the ultra-Orthodox - just ask any women's organization dealing with the issue. Prostitution? Hang around some of the seedier parks late at night and one can see ultra-Orthodox men who are not there for prayer.

If Rosenblum still has some doubts, he should stop by the magazine store/cafe off Jaffa Road near Zion Square and look at the ultra-Orthodox men leafing through the pornographic magazines. Don't tell me they are just reading the articles.

Fact-Checking New York Times Book Essays

I just sent this to the ombudsman (Daniel Okrent) of The New York Times:

Dear Mr. Okrent,

I am an author and blogger...and avid reader of fiction and non-fiction about Orthodox Judaism.

Many of the facts alleged by Wendy Shalit in her Sunday essay are shaky at best. For instance, author Tova Mirvis has spent her entire life in Orthodox Judaism, yeshiva education here and in Israel. Etc.

I'm wondering if any fact-checking was done on her piece or other pieces like it in the Books section.

I've spoken to people in Shalit's piece. No fact-checker, nor Wendy, ever contacted them to verify facts.

It seems like book essays are not subject to fact checking. Do you think that is a problem?

Your sincerely,

Luke Ford

The Wages Of Sin Is Death

Sleaze Sex Paperback Authors: How They Died

Lynn Munroe writes:

Bill Knoles, who loved parties and people, was alone. Bill Knoles, who hated the cold, was alone on Cape Cod, freezing in December. Sometime on December 20, William Henley Knoles put his pocket money and Social Security card on a table. He took a warm bath. In the bathtub he slashed his throat open with a razor blade. He bled to death.

Miriam Linna writes:

Ron [Haydock] was last seen alive on August 12, 1977. He met that day with [Ray Dennis] Steckler, who had relocated his film operations to Las Vegas. Ray recalls Ron being obnoxious and out-of-control. When he drove him to the airport, he assumed Ron would fly back to Hollywood. Instead, disoriented and wobbling, he began hitchhiking home. He was struck in the wee hours by a semi truck, and was killed instantly.

Brittany A. Daley writes:

Gene Bilbrew [African-American]...[was] reputed to have had an an insatiable appetite for drugs and alcohol, and a penchant for white women... By 1974, Bilbew was so destitute that he was living in the back room of one of Eddy Mishkin's porn stores. He was still doing artwork... Bilbrew died of a drug overdose...at the age of 51.

Calling All Asiatics

More and more what I hear is that I need a Chinese wife.

Marc Ballon Equals Suck-up Dullard

Whenever I read the name "Marc Ballon" next to an article in the Jewish Journal, I know that the combination of the particular writer and paper is going to result in the opposite of the qualities he ascribes to socialist comic Lewis Black in the 1/28/05 issue: "...[R]azor-sharp tongue and ever sharper social and political observations."

I read through his entire Q&A with Black because I am a masochist. A few months ago, I read Ballon's cover story on Black with the vague hope that Ballon would relay one funny joke or anecdote, or, at the least, a well-turned paragraph. I hoped in vain.

In Black's latest interview with Ballon, he displays his "even sharper social and political observations" with pithy insights such as this one on the last presidential election: "You had a guy who went to war running against a guy who voted for war. You had no choice."

I assume Black meant Kerry as the guy who went to war and Bush as the guy who allegedly voted for war, but who knows? It could just as easily be the other way round.

Only the lame-brains at the Journal regard these as sharp political observations.

The paper has never encountered a celebrity or leftist activist it hasn't salivated over (though, to be fair, it has never encountered a rabbo who didn't sexually molest people that it didn't salivate over either).

Out of the Journal's many boring cover stories, I believe that this one by Ballon wins first prize: "Federation Faces Underfunded Pension."

A few months ago, Journal editor Rob Eshman told me: "I think Marc Ballon, our senior writer, who was 10 years at Forbes and The LA Times, is terrific."

One reason I thanked God that the Los Angeles Dodgers traded first baseman Shawn Green to the Arizona Razorbacks a few weeks is my anticipation that I would no longer have to read any more adulatory articles about Green in the Journal. Unfortunately, since the trade, I've suffered through one long Journal article on Shawn and a repetitive letter to the editor.

Saying goodbye can be hard, which is why I am compelled to pick up the Journal every Friday after 12 years of steady, though frequently unhappy, reading.

Book Sales For December

XXX-Communicated: 4
Yesterday's News Tomorrow: 6
The Producers: 1

To deal with his son’s death, father writes Orthodox westerns

Penny Schwartz writes for JTA:

BOSTON, Jan. 26 (JTA) — Can you image an Orthodox Bar Mitzvah celebrated in the Arizona desert soon after the Civil War, with a guest list that includes Apache warriors, gun-slinging outlaws and a minyan imported from Tombstone?
Robert Avrech did.
Avrech, 57, a Hollywood screenwriter, wrote his latest novel, “The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden,” in memory of his son Ariel, a 22-year-old rabbinical student who died of cancer a few years ago.

Wendy Shalit Says Authors Tova Mirvis, Nathan Englander, Jonathan Rosen Don't Get Orthodox Judaism

Wendy Shalit (author of A RETURN TO MODESTY: Discovering the Lost Virtue) writes in The New York Times:

Authors who have renounced Orthodox Judaism -- or those who were never really exposed to it to begin with -- have often portrayed deeply observant Jews in an unflattering or ridiculous light. Admittedly, some of this has produced first-rate literature or, at the least, great entertainment, but it has left many people thinking traditional Jews actually live like Tevye in the musical ''Fiddler on the Roof'' or, at the opposite extreme, like the violent, vicious rabbi in Henry Roth's novel ''Call It Sleep.'' Not long ago, I did too.

Wendy implicitly says she understands Orthodox Judaism better than such authors as Tova Mirvis, Nathan Englander and Jonathan Rosen and that she sees Orthodox Judaism as something wonderful.
This is an interesting claim, one common with converts to a cause (I felt similarly during my early years in Judaism). I suspect that Englander and Mirvis have spent more years in Orthodox Judaism and have deeper learning in Jewish text than Wendy as they were raised in Orthodox Judaism and given a day-school education in that faith (and consequently must be literate in Hebrew). Mirvis still belongs to an Orthodox Judaism. I think she has been Orthodox all her life. Who is Wendy to say, on the basis of six years of observance and study of Orthodox Judaism, that she knows better than someone who has spent a lifetime in the faith?
Three generations ago, most Jews in the world were Orthodox. Now they are not. As soon as Jews had a choice to leave Orthodox Judaism, most of them did. They did so for rational reasons. They may have been wrong. They may have betrayed their God and their heritage. But they acted, in part, out of the reasons Shalit ridicules in her essay.
The Forward will publish a response to Shalit's essay in its next issue.
Forward literary editor Alana Newhouse replies to my email:

Ruchama King and Risa Miller are good writers, but, based on artistic merit alone, they are not in the same league as Englander, Rosen, Mirvis and Reich. So what Shalit is essentially asking us to do is to lower our artistic standards in order to
accomodate a better message, which feels rather Soviet to me; as someone who values art, I simply can't countenance that. Moreover, Shalit criticizes those writers for not giving Orthodoxy its due but it is she who underestimates it, by presenting it as so fragile that it cannot withstand criticism. Those of us who truly know Orthodoxy -- yes, even those of us who may have at one time or another strayed from it -- understand that it is held up by a much stronger foundation than she allows, one based on intellectual, emotional and social legitimacy. What I think may be at work here is a bit of misplaced jeaolusy: Shalit, who came to Orthodoxy later in life and probably had to undergo a good deal of personal change and intellectual
work to join it, is envious of those of us who had it all along. She cannot fathom how anyone could take for granted what she labored so hard to acquire; then, on top of "abandoning" it, these writers went and criticized it, which must feel like just too much ingratitude for her to tolerate. But, like your friend with the fabulous family that you would have given anything to trade for your own, these authors have the right to their experiences as well. That they could make from them art that
is, by the highest standards, both good and important, is a blessing to readers and, dare I say, a gift from God.

Miriam comments.

Running Out Of Steam

amalek: I love the way Dick Cheney dressed for the occasion.
amalek: I guess they just don't love the Jews as much as the Jews want to be loved.
amalek: Didn't you already run that stuff before? Years ago?
Luke: sorta
amalek: I understand. Running out of steam. It happens in your late thirties.
amalek: You need to try something else.
amalek: I don't think accusing rabbis of incest has legs.
amalek: Unless you got hard evidence.
amalek: I GOT IT!
amalek: You should go undercover in a yeshiva as a yeshiva bachur.
amalek: Let us know what really goes on there.
amalek: Any Jewish hotties knocking to get into your van?

Incest In Shul

From the Jewish Journal:

When you go to the synagogue, you just might be sitting next to someone who sexually abused his daughter. You might be shaking his hand, admiring his charming demeanor, thinking how lucky his family is to have him. I should know. People sit next to my father all the time. Not only that, they make sure to tell me about it.

Another Reason Why I Read Amy Klein And The Jewish Journal

For their startling insights:

But the truth is, no matter where you send your child to school, they are not immune to the problems of the outside world: Drugs, drinking, sex and worse.
...
Pretending something isn't a problem doesn't make it go away.
...
Drugs? They are in our backyard. But they don't have to be.

Keep telling it like it is, Amy.
On cold rainy days like today, I like to curl up in the fetal position on my floor, and feel safe that Amy knows what ails our little world and how to fix it.

Striking Out With Holocaust Chic

Heartened by the onrushing of Shabbos, I worked up the courage Friday afternoon to ask out a Jewish woman to a screening of Hotel Rwanda. I felt that as Jews it was particularly incumbent upon us to say never again to genocide.
She didn't want to go to the film. She didn't want to see any genocide movies with me.
I asked her how she observed Thursday, the 60th anniversary of the freeing of Auschwitz. She said nothing. So I told her this amusing story about a guy named Fred who felt like he couldn't cheat on his fiance Judy because her parents were Auschwitz survivors.
She didn't laugh.
I asked her if she wanted to see Sideways. She said it was lame.
I would've asked her to Million Dollar Baby, but Michael Medved says that movie promotes mercy killing, and that's bad.
So I wished her gut Shabbos.

Dennis Prager To Discourse On Deep Throat

WHAT: A special evening of "INSIDE Deep Throat," starting with a screening of the new hit documentary that was the talk of Sundance from Academy Award(R)-winning producer Brian Grazer and acclaimed writers/producers/directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato ("The Eyes of Tammy Faye," "Monica in Black and White"), followed by a panel discussion, moderated by Peter Bart with panelists Arianna Huffington, Lawrence O'Donnell, Dennis Prager and Richard Schickel.

Inside Deep Throat opens in select theaters around the country on Friday, February 11, 2005.

Kellie Everts - Stripper For Christ

Josh Alan Friedman writes in When Sex Was Dirty:

Having self-published eight books on mystical theology ($10 a pop, mail order), Kellie has been waiting to engage Father Michael's opinion on them.

Kellie attends Mass twice a day and is sometimes the only worshipper present for the second one. She often donates part of her hefty burlesque salary to local church funds, "for Masses for the Souls in Purgatory." (One of her books, The Deliverance of Errol Flynn From Purgatory, is a "true story" describing Kellie's five-month rescue operation and conversations with the dead movie star, culminating in his deliverance.)

The Stripper for God believes other starlets degrade themselves in porn or lesbianism. Kellie has never yet involved herself in hardcore ----, other than splaying ----, --- and ---- as the Lord created it. She was the first female body builder in the United States, her six-page spread in Esquire introducing the concept. After the layout appeared, Honeysuckle Divine, then Screw's own outrageous stringer, latched onto Kellie. In the early '70s, Honeysuckle was billed on Times Square burlesque marquees as "The Dirtiest Girl On Earth." No one had a clue that she was really a Jekyll/Hyde case. A nun who left the convent like a werewolf when the moon was full. Finally ousted from the church, she pined to return to the convent. Honeysuckle's desire to return to God, juxtaposed with her arresting ---- career, had sent her careening into a loony bin. Kellie Everts, a kindred spirit, performed exorcisms on Honeysuckle, ridding ----ography demons from her soul. Honeysuckle returned to holy communion, studying the sacraments and living incognito in the straight world.

The Auschwitz Effect

On January 27, 1945, Russian troops liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp.

In honor of that date, here's an excerpt from Josh Alan Friedman's new book When Sex Was Dirty:

Fred had recently turned 30 and was set to marry a brunette anthropologist whose parents had survived Auschwitz. "I see a long, parched desert before me," Fred would moan, envisioning the rest of his sex life. "Judy and I are so familiar after living together five years. I love her, but sex with her is like having sex with a family member. I'm a starving man."

Indeed, Fred's most indignant complaint about the folly of mankind was his inability to resist temptation. His-swaggering harlotry, a cleavage thrust in his direction, even the slight overt female wiggle - these sights sent him careening off to relieve himself into a Kleenex in Times Square... But when particularly aroused by some sexy temp in the office, wantonly gyrating her hips while listening to a Sony Walkman, he would sneak off to the streetwalkers that night, cursing under his breath about the power women hold over men's libidos. "It's not fair," he said, pounding a fist on the table, unable to relax until he boffed a whore. And God forbid Judy should find out; it would crush her beyond repair. "Not that she'd react violently, but those doe-like eyes would swell with tears, she'd stare at me with disbelief... It's the camps," said Fred, referring to her parents incarceration, which loomed over their relationship like a poltergeist. "You can't cheat on the daughter of concentration camp victims."

"Surely," I ventured, "you could explain your cravings for a meaningless one-nighter." I suggested she may become bored too, and someday, after gentle prodding, might allow a girlfriend to slip under the covers with both of them.

"Are you crazy?" screamed Fred, whose maddest desire was for several of Judy's associate anthropologists.

"Why not try?" I asked.

"The camps, the camps."

January 27, 1945

Exactly sixty years ago today, Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by the fighting men of the Red Army. Contemporary culture has nothing to say to this.