Without Wearing Neckties, Israeli Jewish adults attending synagogue 'happy and healthier'

Even though the ordinary Israeli who attends synagogue does not even own a necktie, a social scientist has "proven" that "Israeli Jewish adults attending synagogue 'happy and healthier'"In fact the researcher involved already knew the answers before he even conducted his "studies." Professor Jeff Levin has spent his career "proving" the health benefits of religion for the world. There is zero chance at this stage of the game that he would come up...

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JStandard: Was the Supreme Court ruling on gene patenting good for the Jews?

Yes, the Supreme Court ruling on gene patenting is good for the Jews.As the Jewish Standard science correspondent (and our sister) Dr. Miryam Wahrmann observes, "That case could have a dramatic impact on the development, cost, and availability of [life-saving] genetic tests."See her in-depth cover story "Supreme Court ruling on gene patenting changes the landscape for BRCA testing" here.And her related stories:New website educates the Jewish...

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Jewish Times: Are Hebrew National Hot Dogs Really Kosher?

Yes. Hebrew National Hot Dogs have been kosher since 1905.We eat them. But we know lots of more-kosher-than-thou types who don't partake. Those are the Jewish folk who answer to an even "higher authority" than Hebrew National.Kenneth Lasson, writing in a Baltimore Jewish Times cover story in 2009, weaves together reportage about the hot dog industry, the kashrut supervision industry and baseball parks to come up with a fascinating fabric of a story,...

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Was Marc Rich Jewish?

Yes, Jewish-American billionaire Marc Rich was a Jew. He will be buried in Israel. JPost reports on Rich's controversial life:LUCERNE, Switzerland - Jewish-American billionaire Marc Rich, who invented oil trading and was pardoned by then US president Bill Clinton over what had once been the biggest tax evasion case in US history and busting sanctions with Iran, died on Wednesday from a stroke in Switzerland at 78.Rich fled the Holocaust with his...

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Is Nik Wallenda Jewish?

No Nik Wallenda is not a Jew. He is a Christian. And he leaves no doubt about his religion in the soundtrack to his high-wire daredevil crossing of the Little Colorado River Gorge, near the Grand Canyon, as this humorously edited video dramatizes.New York Magazine sums it up:One thing was clear by the time Nik Wallenda reached the other side of that canyon last night: He is not a Muslim. Throughout the 22-minute tightrope walk, Wallenda, who was...

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Non-Congratulations to the New Non-Rabbis

Thirty years ago, in 1983 we were happy to start sending our women Jewish Studies major graduates at the University of Minnesota to train to become rabbis in the Reform movement. We told them to go out and become full head rabbis of synagogues, not assistants or educational directors. Some did. We were proud.This week we read of the non-ordination of three females by an Orthodox institute. We sadly shake our heads and dejectedly shrug our shoulders....

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Was James Gandolfini Jewish?

He was such a powerful acting persona, sure we'd like to claim him as a member of the tribe. But no James Gandolfini was not a Jew. Shockingly, he passed away at age 51. He was a superlative actor who made his biggest hit in the Sopranos on HBO, considered by many critics to be the greatest series of its kind of all time.The Times tells about him:James Joseph Gandolfini Jr. was born in Westwood, N.J., on Sept. 18, 1961. His father was an Italian...

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Am I dead yet? NYTimes Warns of Dire Consequences of "Cheating Ourselves of Sleep"

From The New York Times, a poorly argued article, "Cheating Ourselves of Sleep," concludes that, "Failing to get enough sleep night after night can compromise your health and may even shorten your life."I shared the article with a friend who knows that often I do not get enough sleep and the response was that based on this article I ought to be dead by now, several times over.Here are some phrases and then snippets from the awful alarmist article,...

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Forbes: Waze Will be the Wikipedia of All Maps and the Search Bar for the Real World

Forbes has a background article on Waze in the aftermath of the news that Google will buy the company. What Waze Adds To Google: A View From Waze's CEOIt turns out that Waze is not just a GPS app for your car on your smartphone. Waze is a community of users who will contribute to the indexing of the physical world. It aspires to be to the actual earth, what Google is to the Internet. Or something like that.After reading the interview with the CEO...

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Is John Oliver Jewish?

John Oliver is filling in for Jon Stewart this summer, 2013. He is one funny dude.The Daily Show with Jon StewartGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on FacebookOn 2/6/2011 we wrote:We laughed out loud at the latest video clip that the Jewish Humor Central Blog posted (hat tip) from the Daily Show's John Oliver.And then we thought, he is so funny, yes, John Oliver is Jewish. (But he isn't.)We base our conclusion in particular on his ability to invent a new Jewish holiday for the purposes of celebrating a...

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Is Edward Snowden Jewish?

Okay, fine. New Yorker bloggers debate whether Edward Snowden is a hero or a villain:Jeffrey Toobin: Edward Snowden Is No HeroJohn Cassidy: Why Edward Snowden Is a HeroBut what we want to know: is Edward Snowden Jewish?We will go out on a limb here and, even lacking firm evidence, based on his bio, we will say, no, Edward Snowden is not a Jew. US News on NBC news reports: "Born June 21, 1983, he grew up in Wilmington, N.C., but later moved to...

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Google Will Buy Israeli Waze App for > $1 Billion

Google is buying Waze - an excellent GPS and traffic app that I have used on my Samsung Galaxy S3. I use it as a second source of traffic information as I make my way across America's worst road - the Cross Bronx Distressway. It's fairly accurate and offers creative alternative routes when needed.Join 648,000 others. Get Waze from Google Play.This is great news for the Israeli high tech sector.This is bad news for United Jewish Appeal and Federation...

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Is Sigourney Weaver Jewish?

Now it is far-fetched that anybody would think that actress Sigourney Weaver is Jewish. No, Sigourney Weaver is not a Jew.The tall actress who we know and love from Alien, to Working Girl to Avatar, and who we once met and told her how much we liked her work, is a Christian of Scottish-English extraction.But it is noteworthy that IMDB reports that when she was young after graduating from high school in 1967, she spent several months on a kibbutz...

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Are dirty tricks in negotiations kosher?

Day after day we see ill will and bad faith in the negotiations in our marketplace and workplace.No, dirty tricks are not kosher.But you ask, exactly what are dirty tricks and how can you deal with them?Several years ago we took one course in Negotiations in the MBA program at Rutgers. Each year the brilliant professor who taught the course, Daniel Levin sends emails to his former students to remind them about how to respond in a negotiation to the...

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Is Economist Nouriel Roubini Jewish?

Yes, famous economist Nouriel Roubini is a Jew.He was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1959 to Iranian Jewish parents. He moved to Tehran, Iran, when he was two.  He is currently a U.S. citizen and speaks English, Farsi, Italian, and Hebrew. Roubini spent one year in college at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before moving to Italy and receiving his B.A., summa cum laude in Economics from the Bocconi University  in Milan in 1982.He received...

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The Daily Beast: Dear Rabbi: Should I Shoot Women?

It happens. When you practice irrational thuggery in the name of religion it does not take long for an impressionable young person to get a really wrong idea. On the Daily Beast we read, "Dear Rabbi: Should I Shoot Women of the Wall?" by Sigal Samuel on Jun 6, 2013.Fortunately (did we reach rock bottom yet?) there was no violence today as women prayed at the wall under a heavy police guard. It's getting clearer every day that Orthodox Judaism has...

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JStandard Letters Continue Dear Rabbi Debates

JStandard letters continue the debates on issues raised by Rabbi Dr. Tzvee Zahavy in his column, Dear Rabbi.Jeff Bernstein • LettersMany thanks for Rabbi Zahavy’s and Mr. Sutton’s thoughtful responses to my May 24 letter on the issue of the efficacy of prayer, particularly the Kaddish (“More on angels,” June 2). I would be grateful if any reader would care to respond to my question concerning the Kedusha: Why, in the Kedusha, does the Creator of...

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Times: Israel Trying to Fix the Broken Haredi Community

Haredim in Israel are held captive from their birth by communal leaders who keep them from general and advanced education and bar them from socialization into the streams of Israeli cultural and commercial life.The Times' Jodi Rudroren writes "Israel Prods Ultra-Orthodox to 'Share Burden'": "...Because of Orthodox men's commitment to full-time Torah study and a fear of assimilation, only a little more than 4 in 10 of them work, less than half the rate of other Jewish men in Israel, and their average salaries are 57 percent of other Jewish...

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JStandard: Dear Rabbi on Standing for the Sh'ma and Wearing a Tie in Synagogue

Your Talmudic Advice Column by Rabbi Dr. Tzvee ZahavyDear Rabbi,I don’t understand why we Jews in most synagogues sit when we recite one of our most important prayers – the Sh’ma. I have heard that it is permitted to recite this core affirmation of our faith either sitting or standing. Why then do we most commonly choose to sit when reciting it?Wants to take a standBergenfieldDear Wants:Other rabbis offer social and historical reasons to explain...

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Is it kosher to bring a gun to the swim club?

Unless we are talking about a super-soaker toy, no, not in my backyard. It is not kosher to bring a gun into my swim club. I don't really care what the gold old boy yahoos in West Virginia do - see the story below. Just don't bring any gun to the Teaneck Swim Club or the JCC where my friends and relatives go to swim in safety.And by the way even the toys are getting downright dangerous. Consider you can "ice" your friends with the NERF SUPER SOAKER...

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Is the New Dunkin’ Doughnut, Egg and Bacon Breakfast Sandwich Kosher?

CBS reports that there is a New Dunkin’ Doughnut, Egg and Bacon Breakfast Sandwich.It's made from a glazed donut, fried egg and bacon. And it has only 360 calories.No, it is not kosher? It has bacon.It's also a violation of improperly mixing up the distinct categories of the universe. Desserts, must not be mixed with real foods.I mean what next? Cupcake burgers? Fries with whipped cream?And lastly, yu...

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Discover Mindful Jewish Meditation

The benefits of Jewish meditation are accessible to every type of Jew through acts of Jewish piety.People tend to think that the Orthodox and Hasidic Jews are really pious, the Conservative Jews less so, and the Reform and Reconstructionist even less.Not so. Piety is individual. You decide how pious you wish to be. Some may argue that the Liberal Jew who makes a decision to engage in piety every day is more pious than the Orthodox Jew who rarely...

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Indian-American 13 year old wins Spelling Bee with the Yiddish word knaidel - but is that spelling kosher?

An Indian-American boy won the National Spelling Bee by correctly spelling a Yiddish word,The original story said that a knaidel is a word for a food made of leavened dough. The corrected story below says that it is a "German-derived Yiddish word for a matzo ball."Update: The Times says what we thought when we read the story. "Some Say the Spelling of a Winning Word Just Wasn’t Kosher" - namely that it should be spelled "kneydl, according to transliterated...

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