Category — Heeb

Apparently, Chabad Midtown’s dinner honoree, Lapo Elkann, was a no-show at Chabad Midtown’s twelfth annual dinner at Cipriani’s.

Heeb gleefully notes that Elkann once had “a gnarly cocaine overdose after partying with Italian transsexuals.”

Note to self: Must party at Chabad Midtown.

So this new “Name Our Glatt Kosher Restaurant,” is replacing Chickpea on 3rd Ave in the East Village, as it was not kosher enough for some people including Jewdar from…Heeb? Does Jewdar think he is writing for the Jewish Observer? Where the hell does this guy get off acting like his readership would discount a kosher restaurant because of his fahfrumpte standards? The rabbi comes once a month, he blesses the food, end of story, Jewdar, okay? I mean, Jesus, Jewdar, why don’t you just keep your fundamentalist bullshit under wraps and stick to cracking Holocaust jokes? Look…the prince of England just went to Krakow to open a Jewish community center…go get ‘em, tiger!

Anyway, my issue isn’t Jewdar or how he should stop trashing perfectly fine, if slightly shady, kosher establishments.

My issue is that ““Name Our Glatt Kosher Restaurant,” which replaced the kosher enough for The Kvetcher, thank you very much, gave $3,000 to name their new mehadrin restaurant, and they chose…”Kosher Village.“ Get it? It’s KOSHER and it’s in the East VILLAGE.

Un. Fucking. Believable.

Still…some people were actually very excited about this Christening Heimeshing. You know who? I’ll tell you. The Kosher Village proprietors! So happy, in fact, that they sent out an email press release celebrating the fact to everyone who applied. They sent out this email press release celebrating the fact to everyone who applied…twelve times. They sent out this email press release celebrating the fact to everyone who applied twelve times…with everyone’s email address clearly visible.

NY Magazine, referencing the whole thing as “Felafelgate,” asks, “Was it all a scam?”

From the rock band The Clash! Heeb focuses Jewishly only on food, which is kind of annoying.

You were living with your Jewish grandmother at the time of London S.S. Did she or your mother know about the band?

They never knew about it, we were ashamed of it.

So when you were living with your grandma, did she cook for you?

Totally. She cooked Jewish food.

Do you still have a taste for Jewish food?

I do, but I don’t eat meat anymore.

See Heeb’s “Frum Brooklyn With Love.”

What a shot, huh?

BP’s research, first reported on The Kvetcher, into the Hammerman rabbi/nudnik has been publicized by Jewdar on Heebmagazine.com, along with other info about the Hammerman/Rosenblatt alliance. Hammerman really is a sick puppy. So of course, Stupid Federation Newspaper has crowned him an expert on the internet because….well, no idea, really.

What did BP uncover? Oh, nothing. Just this:

“There is no greater primal anger than that caused by seeing another male in carnal contact with your wife, and there is no greater primal envy than that caused by looking down at the person who was brought into the world specifically to be your survivor.”

Hammerman was angry at his son for breastfeeding, and felt circumcising him was an appropriate way to “channel his anger.” But it’s cool — now he and his kid play Anne Frank Trump Card together.

All’s well that ends well.

“It’s a profanation.” — The Kvetcher’s father’s assessment of the phenomenon of Jewish organizations and individuals who claim to speak on the political or cultural behalf of Holocaust victims.

A bizarre op-ed denouncing Heeb and the most important new writer of the decade was penned in Stupid Federation Paper. I am sorry I was late to this, but I only found out about it through Heeb, because I don’t usually read the Jewish Week because it is badly written, and filled with boring puff pieces about what wonderful things the United Jewish Communities did this week and will do next week WITH YOUR HELP!! They are such a joke.

I have accused Holocaustians of replacing Judaism with Holocaust identity, but clearly I am out of line. That never happens. They have it all in perspective. As Rabbi Joshua Hammerman, rabbi of Temple (Reform!) Beth El in Stamford, CT notes,

Just as the ancient rabbis believed in building a “fence around the Torah�? to safeguard the commandments, so must we build a “fence around Auschwitz�? to protect the memory of the slain.

Rabbi Hammerman’s issue is that Heeb’s David Deutsch and Shalom Auslander are more of a threat to the memory of the Holocaust than anti-semitic deniers. Leaving aside that the Holocaust is not, in fact, in ANY danger of being forgotten and that’s the least of our problems, Rabbi Hammerman adds,

“In a culture that revels in free expression to the point of unruliness, we need to establish some basic rules.

In my house, we have the Anne Frank Rule.

One night during a recent school vacation, my family was engaged in a stimulating round of “Apples to Apples�? — that popular game where a rotating judge picks a descriptive card (like “refreshing,�? or “feh!�?) and other contestants select cards that they hope the judge will consider the best possible match (like “Passover�? and “Alan Dershowitz�?). Naturally, we were playing the Jewish version.�?

Naturally.

I am pointing out this paragraph in part because quite frankly, I don’t know what this man is talking about, and hope you might be able to explain it. How do “Passover�? and “Alan Dershowitz�? make a match, exactly?

Why is this passive-aggressive liberal suburban Jew being given a platform to misappropriate Anne Frank as a cudgel for his nonsense? You don’t speak for Anne Frank, you putz!

It gets worse.

Ethan and Dan played “Crown Heights,�? “my bedroom,�? “J-Date�? and “Dennis Prager.�? I suppose any of those could have been the best match. But I held the trump card in my hand.

You see, I had just drawn “Anne Frank.�?

We have a little rule in my family, one suggested to us by a close friend. Whoever plays the “Anne Frank�? card automatically wins that hand. No questions asked. The idea is that it would be offensive to Anne’s memory, and by extension, all Holocaust victims, for Anne to lose to, say, “Joan Rivers�? or “potato kugel.�?

This is the asinine shit that the Jewish Week attacks Heeb with. This is the nonsense we are supposed to see value in handing down to the next generation. He wraps his bullshit with Anne Frank, and brazenly tells us that he is holding her as his personal trump card.

This is the stuff the Jewish Week publishes.

So now are you still angry at me for calling it Stupid Federation Paper?

Anyway, Heeb’s David Deutsch (Jewdar), the frummie who was fingered along with Auslander for rebuke by Hammerman and Stupid Federation Newspaper, has gone understandably apeshit.

Jewdar notes,

“As for Jewdar, we’ll play non-Holocaust themed games with our children, make sure they get a solid, non-Holocaust centered Jewish education, and grow up to celebrate Jewish life instead of obsessing over Jewish death.”

That’s probably much too old fashioned for Rabbi Hammerman.

To find out how to play Anne Frank Trump Card with the kids, or just hear Rabbi Hammerman and Gary Rosenblatt, the editor of the Stupid Federation Paper explain what is and isn’t okay with the internet, please join them at the JCP this Wednesday.

Shockingly, it’s a free event.

Heeb’s humor editor tackles the question, “Is Heeb secular?” In…where else? The Forward! If you want Deutsch’s perspective on one foot, it is,

And Heeb magazine? Well, it is certainly Jewish, insofar as it’s all about you-know-who, but secularist? That would imply that Heeb has some sort of overarching view of the role of religion in Jewish life and culture, and that definitely isn’t true.

Deutsch, by the way, is himself an Orthodox Jew.

A common criticism of Heeb is that Heeb isn’t really a part of either “engagement” or “continuity” in any meaningful way. Of course, many friends of ours, even on the center-right, appear to disagree, and have been quite supportive of us despite our “irreverence.” I personally don’t worry about such things. What I do know is that “Young Jewish Professional” events don’t work for everyone, and Heeb’s events apparently do work for some of those who do not want to pay $36 and pretend Jew-yuppy “fun” is natural, or has anything to do with them. For many Jews, it has nothing to do with them, and it is no mitzvah to be a yuppy.

Heeb’s publisher, Josh Neuman, is so excited over these Heeb couplings that he “can’t seem to stop making references to Russia,” and gives a recent breakdown of two marriages he knows came through Heeb, because they’re…well, staff. But there have been others, and at least one has made it into the print edition.

Is Heeb about “hooking up,” or is it about something more substantial? Well, maybe this is just the instant coffee talking (my machine broke), but I personally think the parties are indicative of what most Heebsters really want. People come early, crowd the space to the point where it’s hard to move, slam down drinks…but usually, by 1:30 am, it’s over. And that’s when they don’t have to work the next day. On weeknights (and most events are on weeknights), it’s often over by 12:15.

Why?

I think people are actually interested in meeting someone for real. They seek…relationships. And sometimes those lead to…marriage. That means getting and giving names and numbers, but not staying too late and giving away the goods too soon. You want to spend more time with her, you have to make the call another day. I don’t mean to say there is no chance of scoring something in one night, it definitely happens, and I can assure you that the fact that I can’t give you a personal example of such luck is hardly indicative of your chance of success. I am just describing what it looks like generally.

Anyway, this wasn’t supposed to be about my own lack of “hooking up,” which of course I condemn, and don’t want anyway, not at all, so…please see Heeb HQ (Heeb’s blog) for the most recent Orthodox wedding, and note that the shidduch was made at a Heeb happening.

So anyway, if you want to help Heeb, and you are single, please go to a Heeb event, get married, and send them a picture. No one is asking you for a donation, okay?

(Photo “borrowed” from Josh Neuman.)

Last minute shopping for…um…the general…Chanukah…season? Here’s some suggestions, courtesy of Heeb Magazine and Myspace.com.

Heeb is throwing five parties this year, and even our Zionist friends are raring to go, though ck has inappropriately announced that he intends to get drunk and pick a fight if possible, which is NOT OKAY. Anyway, the five cities are (besides NYC, of course):

Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, and Denver. So please spread the word. This is a great way to celebrate nittel nacht, and I know how important chassidic customs are to you people.