If an observant woman were to tuck her lip balm or say, an extra snack or even her baby’s binkie in a boobie purse on a Saturday, does that violate the law of shomer Shabbos?
Would it be kosher if she stayed within the eruv, but the lace was showing?
If I were to make a yarmulke version of this with a bunch of little pockets on the outside and call it the “Kepa Karrier,” would you buy one?
Would any of the Yenta’s rabbinically-inclined readers (if there ever were any) care to weigh in?
When you’re at the beach, you’re supposed to relax, right? Unforch, my combination of obsessive-cleaning disorder and shpilkiss (restlessness in Yiddish, but my bubbie’s translation was always “ants in the pants”) would not let me rest this Shabbat.
What I wanted was to ride my Schwinn at low tide all the way down to the north end of the beach. Thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers’ renourishment project this spring, there’s a LOTTA beach these days, and it’s a beautiful thing to be speeding across the sand, wind at your back, slaloming in betweencolorful umbrellas and squealing children digging up mole crabs.
Sadly, this charming obstacle course was also peppered with a ton of garbage by 4pm. And because I saw the video below a few weeks back, I could not bear the idea of all of it being swept into the ocean when the tide came back up. So yeah, that was me, Ms. OCD in a dirty cowboy hat and mismatched bikini, picking up the trash between 12th and 8th streets on Saturday.
In four blocks I filled my bike basket with the following inventory: 5 styrofoam cups, 16 straws, 3 Caprisun juice boxes, 5 Caprisun straw wrappers, 6 plastic bags that contained plastic water toys, 2 deflated plastic water toys, 7 ziploc/plastic grocery bags, 4 aluminum cans, a bunch of candy bar wrappers and a flip flop with a bottle opener on the bottom.
And even though they’d become part of the swirling pool of garbage, too, I left the abandoned plastic shovels and buckets because a) I ran out of room and b) I didn’t want to be the crazy lady who stole your kids’ sand toys while you took them to the potty.
And while anger and self-righteousness are two very popular reactions in my psyche, I didn’t mind all that much that I was picking up other people’s trash. I’m a mom and I know that sometimes the wrapper flies away when the 5 year-old is whining that she’d dying of thirst and the wind is blowing and you’d just like to drink one beer before the ice melts and you just can’t keep track of every gawdamn piece of plastic that passes through your life. Except for being totally grossed out when part of a beer sloshed onto the shirt in my basket, mostly I was just thinking about how hard it is to get people to change their behaviors, and whether that’s going to be enough to save the ocean and our way of life.
And I think people have changed their behaviors: Since I began coming to Tybee Island 12 years ago and the “Leave Only Your Footprints” campaign, I have to say there’s been tremendously less trash on the beach. My first visit at low tide, I almost puked at the snaking line of dirty diapers, cigarette butts and beer cans on the shore - “Redneck Riviera” was clearly an appropriate nomer for this place. These days, though, there’s recycling bins at every walkway and my bike basket full of garbage wasn’t even enough to fill a bag. Closer to the Pier, of course it gets uglier, and the Tybee police could certainly do a better job of reinforcing the beach litter disposal laws rather than speeding past on their ATVs.
Getting back to my one-woman, one-afternoon, four-block garbage sweept, believe me: I know the futilty of it. But when you see this, you remember that every little bit counts - especially if we all do a little bit:
He may have rocked a Kabbalah bracelet in his 2005 trial, but honey, Michael Jackson was no friend of the Jews. Even celebrity rabbi Shmuley Boteach distanced himself from him towards the end.
Now that he’s gone, I must admit I’ll miss him. The Undisputed King of Pop and Perversion did leave behind a musical legacy that will likely outshine his penchant for anti-Semitic slurs and plying little boys with beer, plus his wackadoodle parenting skills always made me feel superior. Also, his plastic surgery debacles deterred me from ever wanting a nose job.
I prefer to remember him like he was in this photo - the Thriller-era of bobby socks and a sweet smile, before his freakishness overwhelmed everything.
He leaves behind three children, and I wonder if the religious drama of this story has just begun - Debbie Rowe, the mother of two of Jacko’s three children, is Jewish, and Jackson’s family, including his brother Jermaine, are way active in the Nation of Islam. What will happen if Rowe pursues her wish (reported in 2004) to raise the children as Jewish?
So, good-bye to a deeply talented, flawed, strange man. I hope his soul finds peace, and that those who can copy his amazing moonwalk will always impress people at parties.
BTW, Nextbook.org is now the cleverly-titled Tablet Magazine, a “newspaper-magazine-blog hybrid” linking up Jewsy news, literature and lots n’ lots of opinions. Dig it.
The Family Yenta had a lovely time kicking up dirt in our former California stomping grounds, where we reveled in things that aren’t available here in Savannah, like redwood trees, hippie drum circles and our very favorite grocery store chain, Trader Joe’s.
(For the underprivileged of ye, Trader’s Joe’s has exotic foodstuffs at ungourmet prices - lime wasabi cashews whaaat? - imported from all over our grand planet, including Middle Eastern goodies like falafel, couscous and hummus.)
Of course, there are plenty of things about living in California that we never enjoyed, like searingly painful real estate prices, cold cold summers and anti-Semitic assh*les masquerading as humanitarian activists. Really, there’s nothing like drinking your morning coffee next to some douche who never finished high school wearing a kaffiyeh and ranting about the “Israel genocide” - let’s just say I ruined more than a few children’s birthday parties wasting my breath trying to convince people otherwise via facts and logic.
Driving around San Geronimo Valley on Sunday we saw a bunch of these types waving signage - I wasn’t interested in yet another fruitless debate, but El Yenta Man rolled up slowly to this group of three, gave a big smile and said “Hi! See us, this family?” He waved his hand over the children’s heads. “PRO-ISRAEL. Always. Forever.” Then he waved. “Have a nice day!” So diplomatic, my man.
Anyway, even though this little gang has been standing out on Sir Francis Drake with the same signs for 15 years, apparently this day’s demonstration was coordinated to be part of a larger boycott of Israeli products, of which the sole action was planning to have people run into - you guessed it - Trader Joe’s stores and tear Israeli products off the shelves. Unforch for the organizers of “Don’t Buy Into Apartheid Day,” their plan had the opposite effect: The Jewish Journal reports that most of the demonstrations failed to take place and that sales and requests of Israeli couscous have increased.
Look, before you go all extremist on my tush, I have no problem criticizing Israel and want the Palestinian people to live dignified, peaceful lives. But sorry, comparing this situation with South Africa, or OMG GERMANY and the Nazis (as some of these self-righteous schmuckos are wont to do, yes, TO YOUR JEWISH FACE) is just ignorant. And as StandWithUs.com says, all you have to do is listen to glean who is rational and who is simply batsh*t meshuggah.
“While Israel certainly is not perfect, no amount of propaganda can convince well-informed people that Israel is arbitrarily attacking its neighbors for sport.”
So those of you blessed enough to have a Trader Joe’s in your town: Go there. Buy Israeli couscous and hummus and halvah (which is totally gross but buy it anyway.) And here’s a recipe tip from The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg: “I hear the Israeli couscous goes well with grilled scapegoat, by the way.”
A few questions: 
He may have rocked a Kabbalah bracelet in his 2005 trial, but honey, Michael Jackson was 
The Family Yenta had a lovely time kicking up dirt in our former California stomping grounds, where we reveled in things that aren’t available here in Savannah, like redwood trees, hippie drum circles and our very favorite grocery store chain, 
