Way to Go

We're deep in the pit of the flu season--at least in my head we are--so I've been thinking about obituaries. It's a Jewish thing, I suppose, to worry about death on a crisp November morning as the birds make their joyful noise outside my window. Shut up, birds.

Despite the traffic jam in my nose, I don't fear that death is imminent--I haven't felt that way since a cement-faced Palestinian security prisoner told me in broken Hebrew that he would really enjoy, if it is no bother, to stick a shwarma knife in my eyes.
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Happy Jewfest

Are the holidays over yet? I'm ner vous about asking--any minute, I fear, one of my more educated friends is going to tell me that Simhat Shwarma, the annual celebration of meat and meat by-products, begins at sundown tonight, or that I'm missing a service commemorating Hag HaNudnikim, in which we gather to remember all the people we've dropped as friends over the years.
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The Story Never Told

After much anticipation, the world will be happy to know that I have finally completed translating the three previously untranslated sections of the Dead Sea Scrolls assigned to me by the Israeli Antiquities Authority: "The Book of the Herring," "Judaism: For Lovers Only," and "Jesus of Nazareth: What's With This Guy, Anyway?" I have also finished translating several fragments of letters found in the Kumran caves that were sent to the Essenes and the Sadducees by their enemies, the Jets and the Sharks, along with several recipes written by Essene gourmands, including excerpts from their famous 1001 Ways To Cook Sand.
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Miami Beach Memoirs

It's 10:30 a.m. on Ocean Drive, the uber-trendy heart of the hip-hop new Miami Beach, and only the ghosts are out under the scalding morning sun. Things shut down for the night just a few hours ago, at a time when most people are getting up for the day. The glittery fashion designers, actors, models and more models who jam the South Beach district by night are sleeping off their liquor in the pastel-colored hotels that, newly renovated, glisten in the Florida sun.
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The Veal Option

As I write this, Rosh Hashana and the accompanying Days of Awe are fast approaching, so my thoughts naturally turn to cows.

The first cow I ever knew in a serious way was a little milker named Shulamit. I was a teenager when I met her at my Socialist-Zionist, Vegetarian-Anarcho-Syndicalist Nuclear Free Zone summer camp, just down the road from Grossinger's in the Catskills. Shulamit was our experimental cow--we were all prepping, we believed at the time, for life as pioneers on kibbutzim, so, clearly, we needed to know all there was to know about the mechanics of cows. Shulamit (I first thought her name was Hebrew for "cow"--I know now, of course, that Shulamit means "horse") wasn't very intimidating, even by cow standards. She wasn't too much taller than I was, and she wasn't in the habit of moving around too much--and before she did, she would let out a a big sour burp to announce her intentions, like a tugboat coming to a drawbridge.
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Tampering with a delicacy

A true story: Marshall Honaker was the sheriff of Bristol, Virginia, a mountain town near the Tennessee border, until the day earlier this year, January 22 to be exact, when he walked into his office and shot himself dead. Apparently, a grand jury was investigating charges that Honaker, formerly the head of the National Sheriffs Association, embezzled more than $350,000 from the local government till Robert O'Harrow Jr., a staff writer of The Washington Post, reported that Honaker was considered a political boss in Bristol, which is located nearly 300 miles southwest of Richmond in the Appalachian hill country.
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Going for the Gold

What a thrill it was to see Yael Arad win a silver medal! I still think she should do something with her hair, but nevertheless, it was a proud moment and all 12 tribes should cherish it. But we also have a responsibility to ensure that our victories in Barcelona were not mere flukes. This is why I have begun to train in judo myself, and I believe with some degree of certainty that I will bring home the gold medal for Israel come 1996. I hope to win it in actual competition, but I am also willing to take it when no one is looking.
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Ask Mr. Love Doctor

Dear Mr. Love Doctor,

My husband and I have a wonderful marriage, great kids and a nice house. You would think he would be happy, yes? Unfortunately, he must be going through some sort of mid-life crisis, because he came home from work the other day and said that he wanted to practise origami. I mean, really, who does he think he is, a Mormon? An Arab prince? I'm sorry, but I'm not going to share him with three or four other wives. One wife, one husband, that's what I always say. No origami for me. Mr. Love Doctor, how do I convince him to stop this silliness? How do I win my husband back?

- Baffled in Bat Yam
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Take a Memo

July 13, 1992

To: Y. Rabin

From: J. Goldberg

Re: Prime ministership

As an experienced politician myself, I think I'm in a position to help you out during your first, difficult days in power. I've decided to compile a list of tips and pointers to ensure that your new administration is successful, or at least more successful than your previous administration, which, as everyone knows, was as flat as a pancake in a pressure chamber. Whatever that means.
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Dating Tips for Girls

Men are bad. Women are good. Men, bad. Women, good. This is, more or less, my philosophy. There are some permutations to the rule, as well as some exceptions. For instance, I am a man, but I am not bad, because I am engaged. But that's another story. Let's talk instead about Israel.
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