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Google Palestine Hacked; Hamptons Eruv Fight

Plus Russian Jews for Jesus in Brighton Beach, and more in the news

by
Stephanie Butnick
August 29, 2013
A Palestinian man points at the word 'Palestine' on the Palestinian homepage of Google's search engine in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 3, 2013.(SAID KHATIB/AFP/Getty Images)
A Palestinian man points at the word 'Palestine' on the Palestinian homepage of Google's search engine in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 3, 2013.(SAID KHATIB/AFP/Getty Images)

• Pro-Palestinian hackers took over Google’s regional search page, which changed its local designation from ‘Palestinian Territories’ to ‘Palestine’ in May, in a campaign to get Google Maps to refer to Israel as Palestine. [Times of Israel]

• In Brighton Beach, NY, the local Jews for Jesus ranks now include Russian Jews. [Jewish Week]

• A Hamptons Jewish group is taking their fight to court after the Southampton zoning board ruled against the construction of an eruv in the area, saying it would “alter the essential character of the neighborhood.” [JTA]

• “Gangnam Style” is dangerously catchy: the uniformed Israeli soldiers who were filmed dancing, guns in hand, to at a nightclub in Hebron have been suspended, and the IDF has opened an investigation. [Jerusalem Post]

• Jeremy Dauber’s forthcoming Nextbook Press biography of Sholem Aleichem, out on October 8, has been deemed one of falls best biographies. [Huffington Post]

Friends may be long off the air, but the East Village verdict is in: Ross Geller is NOT cool. [Gawker]

Stephanie Butnick is chief strategy officer of Tablet Magazine, co-founder of Tablet Studios, and a host of the Unorthodox podcast.