Yori's News Clips

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk demanded a more "explicit reaction" to Obama's "Polish death camp" comment. Poland fears being sued for billions of dollars worth of property appropriated from Jews.

Residents of Du-Pia Street in Rehovot, Israel, recently petitioned City Hall to change the name of their street, which they believe is not respectable.

The Festival in Tehran awarded first prize to three Jews praying in front of a Western Wall that's been transformed into a Wall Street bank.

A member of the military wing of Gaza's ruling terrorist movement Hamas died when a bomb he was securing accidentally exploded, the Hamas Ezzedine al Qassam said on Friday. He and another Hamas terrorist this month joined several other Palestinian terrorists who have been the recipients of the much coveted Darwin Award, which recognizes individuals who contribute to human evolution by self-selecting themselves out of the gene pool.

After moving the Rebbe's home at 770 Eastern Parkway to Israel, Lubavitch now moves the Kotel to America. My advice to you is, fasten the bolts and beams in your house, or one morning you'll wake up to discover Lubavitch has moved you to a new continent…

Who on those panels has any connection whatsoever to me, to my shul, to our children? What does any of those folks know about the explosion of Torah learning in Israel, about our packed houses of worship, about our proliferation of loan societies, about our irrepressible demographics?

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger., who's turning 89 this month (may we suggest holiday in Vietnam?), was spotted last Friday at LaGuardia airport in New York, getting routed to the pat-down line while going through security.

Here's the text that accompanies this image on the Pentagon-run website DefenseImagery.mil: "During the Holocaust Days of Remembrance U.S. Air Force Capt. Jennifer McGee, with the 12th Contracting Squadron, helps Madison Angelito and Alex Barner make coconut pyramids, a traditional Jewish dessert, at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas." There are Days of Remembrance? More than one? Needs checking. Also: traditional Jewish coconut pyramids? Whose tradition? Help...

This is too delicious for words. On Friday, Bruce Bartlett of the Fiscal Times published a column under this very headline. It should obviously be filed under the "Dewey Beats Truman" category.

Man, that really unpleasant looking man had the force of life in him. Remember how many times he almost died?

In the solidarity business, life can be unpredictable. Take, for instance, the story of the LGBT commission representing the gay community in Seattle, which this month canceled a Friday reception at City Hall for a visiting delegation of Israeli gay leaders. They argued that Israel was "pinkwashing" its treatment of the Palestinians by showing the world how fabulous they are on gay rights.

It's the stuff of early education: "my deep disappointment" and "contrary." The deep sense of betrayal oozing from every well chosen word...

In Woody Allen's 1973 comic Sci Fi masterpiece "Sleeper," an underground band in the far future is trying to revive Allen's memory by acting out scenes from his childhood in Jewish Brooklyn. One of the men, in the roll of Allen's father, urges him, "Stop whining and eat your shiksa…" That was the feeling that overcame me when I read the article in Monday's Daily Mail of New Baltimore, NY, under the headline "Church brings Jewish traditions to life."

Punning might be the most annoying form of art save for mime (a punning mime, now that would be hateful). Check out the Monday NY Post (a paper known for outrageous punning, not enough mime) for verification. They claim that an outfit named Urban Nosh, which got its start making Matzel Toff, a chocolate-covered matzah, is adding a new, year-round version of the same dubious treat, called Matzel Bits, and are also conspiring to launch yet another new product, called Holy Macaroons. Help…?

Calcutta News this morning reports on Pushkar, 130 km from the state capital of Jaipur, where many signboards and menus are in Hebrew.

The trick with this nasty but very well drawn cartoon, in which the Jews are depicted as a creature reminiscent of Sigourney Weaver's Alien, speaking to a wise, old Muslim sage, was to remove both religious symbols. Once those were out of the way, it became a cute setup for some sort of vaudeville-style sketch ("Who's on first" comes to mind).

According to the State, Rabbi Meshulam Rothschild, 26, was moving about 3,600 cartons a week of illegal cigarettes with no tax stamps out of his warehouse on Spencer Street in Williamsburg. At $50 a carton in taxes, that's a very nice income, although not so steady, it turns out…

"Most people have probably never heard of Y-Love," writes Jerry Portwood in Out Magazine this week, explaining that "for a dedicated fan base, however, Y-Love, aka Yitz Jordan, is a popular Hassidic hip-hop artist who raps in a mix of English, Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic and Latin. That’s right: Jordan is an African-American rapping Jew. And now he wants the world to know he’s gay."

The German soccer federation condemned an anti-Semitic act involving Kaiserslautern's Israel striker Itay Shechter, 24, and says such abuse has to be "nipped in the bud" and "we must act decisively." Sunday's taunts came the day after his team's 4-0 defeat by Mainz – their fourth straight loss – in which Shechter did not play.

The first indication of an Obama bump following the DNC convention.

My friend and colleague Lori Lowenthal Marcus writes today in Arutz 7 about her entanglements with the Jewish Federations of North America, and how, instead of confirming or denying a simple question she posed to them, they chose instead to start a campaign of personal attacks against her.

Between conversations and nibbling, one of my neighbors bent over and whispered, smiling, “At least in this shul we know no one is going to recited Tehillim for his speedy recovery.” My immediate, totally uncalculated reaction was to open a siddur (prayer book) and begin to recite Tehillim. I couldn’t behave otherwise. That‘s my nature – if someone will tell me NOT to jump off a bridge, I’m already up on the railing, hat in hand.

The world is not a safe place, is the bottom line of what our State Dept. wants you to know. But if you insist—heaven knows why—on leaving your safe bedroom and risk setting foot in one of those awful places you hear about in the news, there's a lot you need to know. Travelers can become victims of crime and violence, or experience unexpected difficulties, says the special page titled "A Safe Trip Abroad" on the DOS website.

On the menu this morning: A Yiddishe Robbery … The Birds, The Bees, And The Jews … Latter Day This … Albert Brooks? Try Albert Speer! … and Human Rights Watch Guy Gets Watched Back. We're weird, we're borderline freaky, we're Jewish – get used to it. Or don't, we get paid either way.

Instead of stressing his friendship and loyalty to a country which, despite its own economic woes is generously helping to feed his 80 million plus citizens, Morsi is actually lecturing the United States, saying it needs to "fundamentally change its approach to the Arab world, showing greater respect for its values and helping build a Palestinian state, if it hoped to overcome decades of pent-up anger." For the record, since 1979, an annual contribution which totals, give or take, $30 billion has yielded the United States "decades of pent-up anger."

The Fountainheads are a group of young Israeli singers, dancers, and artists, all graduates and students of the Ein Prat Academy for Leadership, who "have joined forces to create new Jewish artistic content for today's Jewish world." So far, this could be an intro to some really boring stuff, but in this case it ain't so. In my search for great, new Passover content, I landed on their YidVid Breakin' Free, and will definitely be using it while running on my treadmill.

Is there such a thing as too many metaphors for the triumph of the human spirit packed into one sidewalk, especially such a crowded sidewalk near Wall Street (add that, too, to the mix, wrap in an American flag and call it a day?). But I'm probably being too cynical. It's actually a heart warming story.

Today's cartoon is from Al-Watan (Qatar), from way back in May 13, 2003. The U.S. and Israel are shown eating from two sides of an apple that represents “the Arab states.” According to the middle-east-info.org, where we found it, this cartoon is noteworthy because it was published in Qatar, home to the Al Jazeera TV network. Qatar is considered by many in the U.S. State Department to be a U.S. ally and a relatively moderate state.

My good friend Jonathan Mark posted this video clip on his website on the same day some mad mega-Haredim sprayed Yad Va'Shem with graffiti accusing Zionism of causing the Holocaust. It occurred to me that blues man Leadbelly, who recorded his Hitler tune in 1942, could teach those crazy folks a thing or two about history.

Believe it or not, the birther effort to de-legitimize the Barack Obama presidency may be officially over. The Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to Obama's U.S. citizenship and, consequently, to his eligibility to be the country's commander in chief.