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Sundown: I Dip, You Dip, We Dip

Mikvehs for all, ‘TNR’ bashing, and the plight of the ‘half-Jew’

by
Hadara Graubart
November 19, 2009

• Mikvehs, ritual baths traditionally used for conversion or by observant women after their periods, are becoming more amenable to “alternative immersions” for occasions such as a birthday, a divorce, or an empty nest. Cheap spa day! [JC]
Nation columnist Eric Alterman lets loose a screed against editor of The New Republic, Marty Peretz, whose sins include the magazine’s “purposeful weakening of the bond between Israel and liberal American Jews—which is most of them—which derives from the constant stream of insults it spews at those who dare to disagree with Peretz’s hawkish prejudices.” [Nation]
• A blogger bemoans the treatment given to “half-Jews”: “[E]ither our interfaith parents must raise us as a ‘real Jews,’ in a very draconian manner—no Christmas trees or Rastafari posters! Every trace of our “non-Jewish” parent’s heritage to be banished from the house!—or … we were to be treated as ‘non-Jews’ who must convert.” [Jewcy]
• And the award for the most hackneyed list of Christmas gifts for Jews goes to Nashville Scene; suggestions include a Mel Gibson punching bag (the invention of which would “result in Jews stampeding into Walmart on Black Friday”) and a Chinese restaurant gift certificate (“You must’ve seen this one coming from miles away.” Yup). [NS]

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