After Passover Planning: Bagel on a shtick

Don't mind me. I'm just counting down the minutes and planning for after Passover, when we go back to bagel time...

CD's are soooo last century, anyway, right?

Shabbat Shalom, Moadim l'simcha, Happy Easter, and have a great weekend.

'Kike Like Me'

Are you a Jew? Don’t ask Jamie Kastner. The question annoys the
Canadian documentary-maker. He gets asked it a lot.

So Kastner shot “Kike Like Me,” a road movie bowing at Toronto’s Hot
Docs documentary festival on April 24. In the film, Kastner answers a hypothetical “yes” when asked whether he’s Jewish, followed by an equally terse “Why do you want to know?” to gauge how friend and
foe reacts.

Read the rest in the (go figure...) New Scotsman.

(H-T: Jewschool)

Pelosi's Syria junket: For an' agin' (updated with video)

Wow. When even The Washington Post sharply backhand's US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit with Syria's Assad, you can be sure there's a whole lotta' non-love goin' on there:

HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered an excellent demonstration yesterday of why members of Congress should not attempt to supplant the secretary of state when traveling abroad. After a meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Ms. Pelosi announced that she had delivered a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that "Israel was ready to engage in peace talks" with Syria.

What's more, she added, Mr. Assad was ready to "resume the peace process" as well. Having announced this seeming diplomatic breakthrough, Ms. Pelosi suggested that her Kissingerian shuttle diplomacy was just getting started. "We expressed our interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria," she said.

Only one problem: The Israeli prime minister entrusted Ms. Pelosi with no such message.

Whoops. That's gotta' hurt. But not as much as this:

After Passover: Counting the Homer

An oldie but a goodie with deeper
meaning behind the D'oh!...

Printable Homer Calendar 5767 / 2007

Lisa: [tired] Here you go, Bart. It's a longshot, but that's all I can do without learning ancient Hebrew.
Bart: [stares at her]
Lisa: Bart! I am not going to learn ancient Hebrew!
Bart: But you already know pig Latin, how much different can it be?

(Note how Jews worldwide, en masse, went on a murderous rampage after cartoon slurs against their religion...)
---
In December 2003, Fox broadcast a new Simpsons episode with a mostly Jewish theme, titled "Today, I Am A Clown." Besides seeing Krusty's Bar Mitzvah (with Mr. T helping: "I pity the shul that won't let Krusty in now"), we learned that Springfield has a Jewish Walk of Fame, that Krusty's full name is Herschel Pinkus Yerucham Krustofski, and that Lisa has a Jewish imaginary friend ("Her name is Rachel Cohen. And she just got into Brandeis.").

Read a review here. You can hear some soundclips from the episode here and see some images here and here.

AIPAC trial: 'First They Came for the Jews'

From the Wall Street Journal lead editorial:

A prosecution under the Espionage Act threatens the First Amendment.

Early in June 2004, an employee of the American Israel Pubic Affairs Committee, AIPAC--better known by its media tag, "the powerful Israeli lobby"--received an urgent phone call. Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin, a specialist on Iran, informed AIPAC lobbyist Keith Weissman that they had better meet because he had news of the most important kind to disclose. Mr. Weissman not surprisingly agreed to the rendezvous, held in Pentagon City, Va., where he was told about an imminent, Iran-directed assault on American troops and Israeli agents in Iraq. First, though, Mr. Franklin delivered a warning whose purpose would be clear only later. What he was about to tell him was highly classified, "Agency stuff," and having it could get him into trouble, he informed Mr. Weissman.

Mr. Weissman didn't know for some time that his trusted Pentagon informant--a man he and his AIPAC colleague had met with several times before--had, at this particular meeting, been wearing a wire for the FBI. Or that his warning that he was sharing highly classified stuff had been spelled out for the purpose of evidence gathering. Neither of the AIPAC lobbyists knew, then, that they had been entrapped in a sting, to lead ultimately to a remarkable legal show.

Read the rest.

AIPAC

Pelosi promises to aid release of IDF captives

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday evening that she would not rest until the kidnapped Israeli soldiers return home.

During a speech she gave at the Knesset in the presence of the families of soldiers Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev, Gilad Shalit, Guy Hever and Zachary Baumel, Pelosi presented the soldiers' ID tags, which were given to her by their families.

More here.

Well, at least she's saying more than Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. In the words of colleague Margot Dudkevitch:

"...in the ten days since the British sailors were taken into captivity, letters, film footage and declarations on camera by some of them, have been viewed for the entire world to see, daily.

Interest in our soldiers' welfare appears to have diminished. Not once in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's speech, that he granted to all the local networks and newspapers on the eve of Pessah, not once did he mention the soldiers."

Read the rest here.
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Whoever's talking, it's more important that you talk to the boss about this intolerable situation:

A prayer for the rescue of the captive and missing soldiers.

May it be your will, our God and God of our ancestors, that these Psalms that we have read, will find favor before You, as if King David, your servant, had recited them himself.

For the sake of Your Holy Name, may our prayer and request be accepted with mercy and favor, and may our supplication come before You, to show mercy and loving kindness for our captives and missing soldiers:

Ehud ben Malka Goldwasser
Eldad ben Tova Regev
Gilad ben Aviva Schalit
Guy ben Rina Hever
Zecharia Shlomo ben Miriam Baumel
Yekutiel Yehudah Nachman ban Sarah Katz
Zvi ben Pnina Feldman
Ron ben Batya Arad

Mercifully save them, together with all the captives and prisoners of your people Israel.

He who redeems prisoners shall save them from captivity and take them out of slavery to freedom, and fro oppression to redemption, and from darkness to light, and He shall heal them fully in soul and body, and grant them strength, happiness and joy, so they shall be strong, healthy and content.

May the merit and cries of prayer of the many, who beseech You on their behalf, from all corners of the earth, serve as a mighty shield and annul any evil decree, and may their merits and deeds for the sake of our people and homeland, be presented before You.

May the following verse be realized for them:

And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Kosher-for-Passover Pizza, Cakes & Other Goodies

Wow. Talk about deja-vu. Here I was Googling for something on "kosher-for-Passover pizza," and I stumble upon my own video report from exactly one year ago, when I was working with Infolive.tv... just goes to show how the memory is the first thing to go. But mine is still perfect, knock on wood.

...did you hear that? Is that someone at the door?

Er', anyway, how times have changed. Well, maybe not so much, but neither the young guy appearing in the first clip, Adam Ross, myself or almost anyone else who was employed there at the time remains. We've all moved on to other endeavors, mostly in the media, some even remain on the same continent...

With Passover nearing, Infolive TV brings you a look into the process of Matzoh-making in the Hassidic community of Kfar Chabad, and shows you how an ullikely dish - pizza - is transformed into a kosher for Passover delicacy.

Watch the fun here.

...And this just in: Matzah ice cream in Israel (updated to an, umm, fuller meal)

Seders will never be the same (and I'm not real sure that's a good thing...)

Ben & Jerry’s is marketing a matzah-flavored ice cream in Israel.

"Matzah Crunch" was developed exclusively for the Jewish state, Avi Singer, the general manager of Ben & Jerry's in Israel, was quoted as saying in Israel's Maariv newspaper on Sunday.

The French vanilla-flavored ice cream contains chips of chocolate-covered matzah. It must be bought directly from the Ben & Jerry's factory in Yavne and costs about $4.50 a pound.

Maariv said the new flavor could be sold in Israeli supermarkets next year.

You know, a kosher-for-Passover Coke and kosher-for-Passover Pizza would go well with this...

A few questions for tomorrow night at the Seder - (NOT the "Famous Four," and not to be confused with the Fantastic Four...):

• Do Ben & Jerry - well-known for supporting left-of-center causes, know about PizzaIDF, and would they do a co-branding deal?
• Does this go as dessert (aka - "afikomen") after the matzah-based pizza at Reform Seders?
• Can the "Days of the Redeemer of Israel" be far behind?
  

JerusalemOnline daily news update (Video - Channel 2 TV)

• Merkel to Palestinians: Free Shalit
• Olmert urges peace talks with Arab leaders
• Katsav to be indicted on second rape count
• Winograd protocols decision postponed
• Special: click to watch US House Speaker Pelosi addresses Knesset

Passover: Oriental Jew-Jitsu

And a kosher and happy Passover to the entire House of Israel.