The JDub-Jewcy Union
By Gabrielle Birkner
JDub, a non-profit Jewish music label and event company that signed such musical acts as Matisyahu and Balkan Beat Box, has acquired Jewcy.com, a three-year-old site that hosts blogs and articles targeted at Jewish young adults. The Jewish Federation of Los Angeles is committed to funding Jewcy, and Repair the World — a new Jewish non-profit promoting service — will be a “strategic content partner” for Jewcy, according to a press release about the JDub acquisition.
In that release JDub’s Chief Operating Officer Jacob Harris said, “Jewcy’s content is similar to our music catalogue in that it proudly presents very diverse Jewish thoughts, ideas, challenges and struggles in a quality and relevant fashion.”
A redesign of Jewcy.com is to be completed next year.
August 20, 2009, 5:00pm
Our Comics Don't Eat Brains
By Dan Friedman
When we at the Forward run articles the world listens carefully. When we choose not to run pieces, apparently, the world jumps to attention and blogs it.
Forward columnist Eli Valley’s biting cartoons about Evangelical Zionists, Jewish Social Entrepreneurs, Abe Foxworthy (the accidental scientific melding of Abe Foxman and Jeff Foxworthy) and the moral communal context of Bernie Madoff got some media play. But when “Dawn of the Chimpanzee! (Don’t Worry Folks, It’s Only a Metaphor)” (his satire on how American Zionist education projects fantasies of Israel) failed to run, the blogosphere went crazy.
First of all Gawker ran it in their Unspiked series provoking a range of comments underneath it.
Then Tablet caught the Eli bug and blogged the Gawker publication. Former Forward staffer Marissa Brostoff, after calling for comment to no avail as we rollercoasted towards deadline, caught the mood nicely with her “So, for now, the answer to why a Jewish newspaper refused to run a comic in which Israelis are depicted as non-brain-eating primates must remain a mystery.”
Soon Jewlicious were up on the game, proudly printing the comment despite, probably judging from the comments there, largely disagreeing with everything in the cartoon. “He Mocks Us — But We Love Him”: their magnanimous title (and who wouldn’t love him?!).
And, where Jewlicious leads, Jewschool follows. Well, not necessarily, but sandwiched in between a piece on Quaker meetings and healthcare reform, comes their “Fuel For Chimpanzee Truth.”
Finally, at least for today, the diaspora satire on diasporic educational projections of Israel have wended their way over to the land of chimpanzees itself (just kidding — not even a metaphor). Haaretz posted the cartoon in their Hot Topic section as an example of cucumber season hubbub. Cucumbers and chimpanzees seems like a mixed metaphor to me, but perhaps it’s just a new reality show.
Anyway, thanks for the attention guys. I’m thinking of spiking a 5,000 word piece on the interaction between Jewish accountants in nineteenth century Latvia — can’t wait for the blogs to get hold of that!
Boris Jackson, Kaput
By Daniel Treiman
One of the great treats of the final months of 5767 was being able to enjoy the madcap contests dreamed up for Jewcy.com by the mysterious, fictitious “Boris Jackson.” The weekly “Boris Jackson Challenge” has asked Jewcy readers to probe the deepest, darkest recesses of their yiddisher kops to come up with creative responses to prompts like:
Best First Sentence for a Novel about a Nymphomaniac who Collects Dreidels
Best Haiku About Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz
Best Pick-up Line That Uses the Words “Shabbos Goy.”
Best Title for a Movie About a Cantor Named Solomon Jonesenstein Who Faints During a Particularly Enthusiastic Rendition of Adon Olam, Only to Wake Up Convinced That He’s The New Host of The Price Is Right
Best Ending to This Sentence: “I would like to pickle……”
Alas, we won’t be able to enjoy the “Boris Jackson Challenge” in 5768. Jewcy recently posted the following announcement from Boris’s “wife”:
This Maria. Boris dead. I say no pee on electric fence. Boris pee on electric fence.
Last contest to honor memory:
Best Epitaph for Boris Jackson (If you cannot think of an epitaph, you may also come up with the best erotic fantasy involving Boris Jackson and a plate of warm noodle kugel.)
My personal favorite response so far:
Here Lies Boris Maybe in next life he listen to wife.
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