Navigate to News section

Sundown: Birthright Spreads More than Jew-Love

Plus, a beer becomes a man and crankiness becomes a disease

by
Hadara Graubart
June 16, 2009

• Ten students on a Birthright trip to Israel came down with swine flu and then passed it on to 18 IDF soldiers. The organization, which not-so-subtly promotes hooking up within the faith, should be relieved it wasn’t something worse. [Forward]
• A British couple is suing their neighbors for installing motion-sensor lights that keep the them from leaving their vacation home without activating the lights, a violation of the Sabbath rules. The neighbors refuse to replace light system, possibly because they enjoy the 24-hour-long break from the uptight couple. [Daily Mail]
• Staying true to its name, the Shmaltz Brewing Company—purveyors of He’Brew beer—is holding a contest for the best (worst?) bar or bat mitzvah photos in honor of its 13th anniversary. [NY Blueprint]
• A Chabad rabbi in Australia fabricated evidence of providing Hebrew lessons in order to qualify for government funding; oddly, even the phantom students hated going to class. [JTA]
• Orthodox website Vos iz Neias posted an article positing that “bitterness” (or, in the site’s words, “farbissen”) might soon be classified a legitimate mental disorder. Symptoms include kvetching, the use of colorful insults, and a sense that everyone’s out to get you. [Psychology Today via VIN]

Hadara Graubart was formerly a writer and editor for Tablet Magazine.