NON-CRIMINAL, SIMILAR THEME:

Meet Miss November, Playboy Playmate of the Month,
[Jewish] Forward, Novembe 1, 2001
"'I consider myself a nice Jewish girl,' said Lindsey Vuolo, Playboy magazine's 'Miss November.' 'For the most part, I suppose.' In between posing nude for pictures that feature such all-American props as apple pie, Ms. Vuolo, 20, chatted with the magazine's editors about her 1999 teen-tour to Israel. 'I traveled to Israel as part of an exchange program, and it was an amazing trip,' she said in the Playboy interview. 'Being in Jerusalem was so emotional for me — I broke down and cried.' 'I've always been comfortable with myself and my body,' Ms. Vuolo told the Forward, recalling that she 'was always the naked one in the locker room.' Still she added, 'I never anticipated in my entire life that my body or my beauty would get me anywhere ... Ms. Vuolo said she has no qualms about being both a practicing Jew and a sex object. 'Some people will look up to this as a positive thing," said Ms. Vuolo, who has become more religious since moving away from home. "With all the Chandra Levy and Monica Lewinsky talk, it's a bit weird. But I think what I'm doing is positive. I'm not doing anything religiously wrong. I'm not being exploited — it's my choice.'"

The Playmate and the Assemblyman,
[Jewish] Forward, December 28, 2001
"If so, you're also probably unaware of the controversy her appearance in the magazine kicked up. Apart from her Wednesday debate at the Makor cultural center in New York with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, author of 'Kosher Sex,' over the propriety of her posing for Playboy, there's been an active discussion on the topic at beliefnet.com, a Web site dedicated to the discussion of religious issues. Beliefnet's coverage of Ms. [Lindsey] Vuolo's uncovering features an interview with the vice president of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Rabbi Bradley Hirschfield. In the interview, Rabbi Hirschfield argued that Ms. Vuolo's posing for the magazine is about more than just her being Jewish. 'If Jews have a problem with [Ms. Vuolo posing nude], it ought to be a problem with Playboy, not with her as a Jewish girl,' Rabbi Hirschfield said. 'That is, their discomfort should be coming from the fact that a magazine is paying women to get naked for a camera. If it only bothers them when Jewish girls do it, then they would have to admit that they really believe there's some kind of moral superiority that Jews possess.'"

Porn Class at ASU Canceled After Protests,
azcentral.com (Arizona's Home Page; from Associated Press), November 9, 2001
"Arizona State University has pulled a class examining pornography from its spring calendar after the school was inundated with calls and letters from pornography opponents. The course, 'Sexuality in Media,' also explores media representations of male and female bodies, gay and lesbian sexuality and race and sexuality. The university began receiving complaints after the East Valley Tribune ran a story detailing the class. 'People started calling them like crazy from all over the state, and they just got whacked,' said Rep. Laura Knaperek, R-Tempe. ASU Provost Milt Glick said the complaints did not cause the cancelation and said the class will be offered again. Professor Peter Lehman, who was scheduled to teach the class, had volunteered to fill a spot teaching a large freshman-level humanities class and postponed 'Sexuality in the Media' as a trade-off, Glick said. He said the cancelation in the wake of controversy was a coincidence."

Over the Line at Wesleyan, New Criterion, June 1999
"[College students at Wesleyan] also get classes like COL 289, an 'interdisciplinary' course in the College of Letters called 'Pornography: Writing of Prostitutes.' Taught by Hope Weissman, a medievalist who helped establish Wesleyan’s women’s studies program and who has taught at the university for some two decades, the course is one of the new-breed sex classes that have recently infested American universities, especially in the politicized intellectual slums populated by women’s studies, gender studies, gay and lesbian studies, and kindred forms of academic grievance-mongering. The official description of Professor Weissman’s offering tells us the following:
  'This course investigates pornographic literature as a body of discursive
  practices whose 'materials,' according to the cultural critic Susan Sontag,   comprise 'one of the extreme forms of human consciousness.'  The pornography   we study is an art of transgression which impels human sexuality toward,   against, and beyond the limits which have traditionally defined civil discourses   and practices—defined, that is, by regimes of dominance and submission,   inclusion or exclusion, in the domains of organ and emotional pleasure. Our   examination  accordingly includes the implication of pornography in so-called   perverse practices such as voyeurism, bestiality, sadism, and masochism, and   considers the inflections of the dominant white-heterosexual tradition by   alternative sexualities and genders, as well as by race, class, age, mental
  and physical competence. We also attempt to identify the factors, intrinsic
  and extrinsic, which align the pornographic impulse with revolutionary or   conservative political practices. But our primary focus is on pornography   as   radical representations of sexuality whose themes are violation, degradation, and   exposure.'
Where should we begin? This passage is at once so repellent and so utterly  representative of the sort of thing being purveyed under the rubric of the  humanities in American colleges today that it might well make it into a  future Guide to What Went Wrong in American Higher Education, c.  1960–2000. The rhetoric alone is worthy of attention: the know-it-all  tone, the neo-Marxist clichés, the general air of menace. This is course  description as an exercise in ideological intimidation. We especially  savored the use of the phrase 'so-called': 'so-called perverse practices  such as voyeurism, bestiality, sadism, and masochism.' What, we  wondered, would Professor Weissman choose to call such practices?"

The Back Page, Clarion, February 1998
"What apparently must be called the highlight of the conference [at State University of New York at New Paltz] was the performance of Shelly Mars, a stripper from a bisexual bathhouse. During her performance, 'Whiplash: Tales of a Tomboy,' which featured her simulating sex and screaming obscenities, Mars collided with the crotch of audience member Peter Shipley, chairman of a private educational group called the National Catholic Forum. Shipley's pen went into her nostril, and Mars fell back shouting that she was bleeding. Then she removed her pants and blouse and exposed herself. Following the conference, Governor George E. Pataki ordered an inquiry into the conference, which he called an outrageous expenditure of taxpayers' dollars. Several trustees of the university have called for the resignation of university president Roger W. Bowen, who spoke at the event. Shipley is threatening to sue for sexual assault."

Nadine Strossen. The Pornography Industry's Wet Dream,
On the Issues. The Progressive Woman's Quarterly, Summer 1995
"Nadine Strossen's objective in [her book] Defending Pornography is to destroy the reputation and achievements of the feminist movement against pornography. To this end, she dishes up the same tired old caricature of us as anti-sex prudes, pro-censorship, and in collusion with the right wing. Not until the very last chapter does Strossen address the scientific evidence on the harmful effects of pornography, and her discussion of that evidence is a sham. Most of the key researchers on the relationship between pornography and violence against women (Neil Malamuth, James Check, Dolf Zillman, Bryant Jennings, myself) do not rate a single mention in her book ... Strossen's book was enthusiastically feted by the media not because it's so brilliant but because she's president of the American Civil Liberties Union (an organization that has increasingly become a watchdog for the interests of pornographers). The fact that Strossen professes to be a feminist gives her a lot more clout than a man would have doing the same dirty work for a dirty industry. Men can sit back and applaud the cat fight. Pornographers can breathe a sigh of relief and get on with their lucrative business of exploiting women to facilitate men's ejaculations. Strossen makes no distinction between erotica and pornography ... Here is another Strossen gem to delight pornographers: 'The more unconventional the sexual expression is, the more revolutionary its social and political implications become.' I suppose rape doesn't qualify as unconventional sexual expression anymore -- but would child porn qualify as revolutionary? Or images of sexual mutilation and woman-killing?"

Behind the Scenes: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969,
Book Review, amazon.com (from Publisher's Weekly)
"[Author William Mann] makes a cohesive and persuasive argument for how their varied sexualities transformed Hollywood and the movies. Mann also covers a wide range of ancillary topics e.g., the history and aesthetics of set design; the rise of Los Angeles's 'pansy clubs'; and the special role of Jews (who were more likely than gentiles to be open about their sexuality)."

Heal Thyself? Therapy and Cruelty in the Days Before Drive-Through Pharmacists, OC Weekly, March 29-25, 1999
"For whatever reason, the urban Jew remains America's most potent symbol of impotent urban anxiety. Whether it's Woody Allen's films, Phillip Roth's novels or Lenny Bruce's acidic tirades, the American Jew has long seemed to corner the cultural market on psychological ills. [Playwright Steven] Berkhoff's Kvetch, while lacking the intellectual edge and literary merit of Allen, Roth, Bruce and company, certainly does its part in regurgitating the cliché. It's not a good play, but it's hard to sit through Kvetch unaffected. Berkhoff, an eccentric English dramatist, once wrote that theater 'should deal with the profane and the unmentionable. . . . The confession of angst can heal, but it needs full, frontal attack, not subtlety.' In Kvetch, he has crafted one of the most vulgar, cruelly direct plays I can remember seeing on a local stage. His characters are wholly unlikable. They're bundles of contempt and guilt that can barely mask the loathing they feel for one another ... Kvetch begins with Frank (Morgan Christopher) inviting his friend Hal (Jack Thomas) to dinner. To his chagrin, Hal accepts. This simple change in the family dynamic dissolves Frank, his wife, Donna (Lorianne Hill), and his mother-in-law (Jo Black-Jacob) into neurotic engines of guilt and anxiety. The play's gimmick is one borrowed from Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude: the characters' innermost thoughts and secrets are delivered aloud; other characters can't hear them but the audience can. And a foul lot those thoughts are: whining and complaining about the sorry state of their lives, musings about killing one another, relentless insults. Donna fantasizes about being gang-raped by filthy garbage men as Frank gives it to her under the covers, while Frank secretly imagines Hal sliding his cock up his ass just so he can get it up to shtup his wife in the first place."

Puritan Sex Stigmas Not Jewish, Says Rabbi-Teacher,
Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, November 23, 2001
"'Judaism is about giving pleasure to one another and having no qualms or inhibitions about it,' said [Rabbi Leslie] Alexander, the chaplain for the Jewish Federation of Greater San Jose. 'When a Jew goes before God, they are going to have to answer for every pleasure they didn't take' ...In the Iggeret HaKodesh, or Holy Letter, for example, Nachmanides (1194-1270) wrote an entire section on the ways to improve sexuality. 'It is all about God making our bodies for sexual pleasure,' she said, likening it to the Jewish Kama Sutra. 'The Jewish texts are very blunt and very direct,' she added. 'Teaching it is lots of fun. My students usually say, 'Whoa! They really said that?' We spend so much time as a society trying to free ourselves from sexual mores. If we had just learned from our own tradition, we wouldn't have to try.' These kinds of lessons are everywhere among the Jewish texts, including the Talmud, the Mishnah and the Torah, according to Alexander, whose course focused on this spectrum of classical texts to expose the reality of Jewish teachings on sexuality. As for later Jewish texts that contain messages about sexual inhibition, she said, 'They are really just seepages of later Western cultures.' In fact, Alexander remembered once reading a text in which a rabbi was telling a group of other rabbis about the various things he would consider sexual perversions. 'And then, at the end of his speech the rest of the rabbis told him he was wrong' ... In addition to loving the 'racy' nature of the subject, Alexander enjoyed teaching about Jewish sexuality because it's a way to pique people's interest in Judaism."

Ex-yeshiva Boy Isaac Mizrahi Now Sells Women $3,000 T-Shirts,
Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, January 2, 1998
"The young designer [Isaac Mizrahi] has a highly respected firm of his own, and his clothes are sold all over the United States and Europe ... Mizrahi grew up in Brooklyn's Midwood, in a family with Syrian roots. His father was a cutter in the garment industry. 'My family was upper middle-class Jewish, and we always went away every summer. I always had piano lessons and every kind of lesson I could want. I always had beautiful clothes. We had beautiful everything' ... Viewers saw little-known sides of Mizrahi in 'Unzipped,' the 1995 documentary about him. Filmmaker Douglas Keeve was, at the time, in a relationship with the designer. In one scene, Mizrahi put a sheer scrim behind the catwalk and had models change their outfits in full view of the audience. That kind of chutzpah gave viewers insight into his bold personality. And that, in turn, helps him charge large sums for his designs, something he even pokes fun at in his comic book ... To this day the designer remains active in Jewish charities. 'I do what I can," he says. "I'm a zealot, a real lover of the Jewish faith.'"

Helmut Newton's Internal Battlefield,
[Jewish] Forward, December 28, 2001
"Helmut Newton has never seemed particularly interested in self-portraiture. Yet one of the first photographs to greet the viewer in 'Helmut Newton: Work' — at the International Center for Photography ... could easily be interpreted as a proxy for the artist himself. It's a portrait of the famous late art collector Daniel Wildenstein, along with his two sons, Alec and Guy, each of them looking simultaneously paranoid and accusatory. Like Mr. Newton, they're German Jews associated with glamour, wealth and, yes, forbidden sex and violence: Alec Wildenstein's wife famously accused him of pulling a gun on her when she stumbled on him with his young Slavic mistress (a story recounted breathlessly in some of the same glossies that publish Mr. Newton's work). But there's a more complicated parallel at play, as well, in that the Wildensteins also represent an unproved collusion between Jew and Nazi, with art at the heart of the relationship. The Wildenstein family has long tried to shake accusations that it traded in and profited from art that the Nazis confiscated from Jews. Mr. Newton himself fled Berlin in 1938, but his work, taken as a whole, reflects his own uneasy relationship with Nazi-inspired idealizations of Aryan beauty, a guilty reluctance — or perhaps rebellious refusal — to turn his back on its allure. As late as 1996, he was photographing the repentant neo-Nazi Ingo Hasselbach for a portrait in The New Yorker. And his own images of tall, mathematically proportioned young women, some with Heidi-perfect blond braids, reflect the influence of propaganda shots of Hitler youth he witnessed during his early teenage years when, needless to say, he was sexually coming of age. That Mr. Newton seems to find himself guilty of an unnamed crime is attested to by the punishment he seems to crave at the hands of the black-leather-clad women who so often dominate his work."

Israeli-Russian Journalist Calls for Castration as Anti-Terror Step,
Haaretz, January 19, 2002
"An article calling for the castration of Israeli Arabs as a means of fighting terrorism was published last week in the leading Israeli-Russian daily Novosti. The article, called 'How To Force Them To Leave] and written by Marian Belenki, one of the paper's prominent journalists, said that the threat of castration may be strong enough to encourage the Arabs to leave the country. The author also proposed that the Chinese method for lowering birth rates be implemented in Israel for the Arab population in order to lower their birth rates. According to this method, people who have more than one child are deprived of various benefits, lose their jobs, and are under threat of exile. Cash prizes for young men who voluntarily agree to the castration will also be provided, according to the proposed method ... [W]hat is even more surprising than the fact that the piece got published, is that the paper did not receive any responses from readers or public representatives of the Russian community. It should be noted that the paper is one of two leading dailies of the Russian community in Israel."

Marks and Katz, LLC. Attorneys at Law (Law firm web site),
"ADULT ENTERTAINMENT. MARKS & KATZ, LLC provides comprehensive legal services to the adult entertainment industry. We also work closely with the nation's adult entertainment industry's trade association, the Free Speech Coalition, serving as its Washington, DC, representative. At the regional level, [Jay] Marks & [Jon] Katz, LLC, is a charter member and founding Board member of the Free Speech Coalition of the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia, with partner Jon Katz as President."

Erotica Runs Rampant, Christian Science Monitor, February 1, 2002
"Ever-stronger sexual content is showing up across the landscape of mainstream media: in network TV, in movies, even in catalogs ... Pornographic images, erotic paraphernalia, and raunchy sexual talk are reaching a near-saturation point in the daily lives of Americans, through television, movies, magazines, and the Internet, say a growing chorus of expert voices. And the target market is an increasingly younger audience ... .One network, NBC, has been frank and unapologetic about its need to compete with the more explicit world of cable TV. It recently decided to be the only big broadcast network to air ads for hard liquor. As for the choice to put Playmates in prime time, Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Entertainment, responds, 'It's been a difficult year; we're just having fun' ... One voice saying it's possible to resist this slide toward a sexualized environment comes from Robert Halmi, one of television's most prolific producers of family-oriented entertainment ('The Odyssey,' 'Merlin,' 'Gulliver's Travels'). This trend towards explicit sexuality exists because there's a creative void,' says the entertainment magnate, whose shows - nearly 200 and counting - air on all the major networks as well as on the new Hallmark Channel on cable. 'It reflects the taste of the executives,' Mr. Halmi says, 'but it's also pressure from the corporate heads who want networks to perform like stock portfolios, with a 26 percent growth rate.'"

Looking Back with the Director of 'Stunt Man,'
Los Angeles Times, February 12, 2002 [This item appears half way down the page]
"[Jewish] porn star Nina Hartley will be the guest of honor at a Santa Clarita synagogue this month as part of Temple Beth Ami's adult education series. On Feb. 19, Hartley, who appeared in the film 'Boogie Nights' and has starred in more than 570 adult films, offers 'Love & Sex in the 21st Century,' a free lecture on the porn industry that also features sex tips for monogamous couples. Rabbi Mark Blazer said he invited Hartley to participate in the lecture series after meeting her through a mutual friend. Her appearance will broaden his congregation intellectually, he said. 'My goal as a rabbi is to push the envelope,' Blazer said. While Temple Beth Ami is located in a conservative community, the members of the reform Jewish congregation are very open-minded, Blazer said, and no one has expressed any concern that Hartley's presence will be offensive. 'Part of Judaism is to engage and learn about as much of the world as we can--not to be closed to the world,' he said. 'This is really an opportunity that most people would never have.'"

Sexuality Class Suspended at UC Berkeley After Lurid Allegations,
San Diego Union-Tribune, February 18, 2002
"A male sexuality class at University of California, Berkeley has been suspended after reports of lurid extracurricular activities surfaced late last week in the student newspaper. The suspension of the class, run by students and sponsored by the university, was announced Friday. Students who had taken part in the two-unit course told the Daily Californian that several of their classmates were involved in an orgy at a class party and that another group of students chose to go to a strip club for their final project. At the club, the students looked on as one of their student instructors had sex on stage, Jessica McMahon told the campus newspaper ... Caren Kaplan, chair of the Woman's Studies Department and sponsor of the sexuality classes, reviewed the male sexuality course description but had not seen a detailed course syllabus, said David Dowall, chairman of UC Berkeley's Academic Senate."

University of Minnesota Book Challenges Anxiety about Pedophilia,
Minnesota Star Tribune, March 26, 2002
"Sex between adults and children has been a societal taboo so strong that it's considered one of our few unquestioned moral principles. But arguments have emerged in academic journals, books and online that at least some such sex should be acceptable, especially when children consent to it ... A soon-to-be-released book, "Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex," is being advertised by its publisher, University of Minnesota Press, as challenging widespread anxieties about pedophilia. In an interview, the book's author, journalist Judith Levine, praised the Rind study as evidence that 'doesn't line up with the ideology that it's always harmful for kids to have sexual relationships with adults.' She said the pedophilia among Roman Catholic priests is complicated to analyze, because it's almost always secret, considered forbidden and involves an authority figure. She added, however, that, 'yes, conceivably, absolutely' a boy's sexual experience with a priest could be positive. 'When I was a minor, I had sex with an adult,' she said. 'He was one of my first lovers. My heart was broken, but my heart was broken by a lot of boys, too. I'd say on balance that it was a perfectly good experience.'"

Endorsement of Adult-child Sex on Rise,
overthrow.com (from Washington Times), April 19, 2002
"A new book that says child molesters are not a major peril to children is part of a larger movement within academia to promote "free sexual expression of children." The movement to legitimize sex between adults and children is "gathering steam," warns Stephanie Dallam, researcher for the Leadership Council for Mental Health, Justice and the Media in Philadelphia, an organization that deals with prevention and treatment of child abuse. "Some people view children as the next sexual frontier," Ms. Dallam says. Feminist writer Judith Levine's book 'Not Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Kids from Sex' has been condemned by those who say she excuses sexual abuse of children — a charge she strongly denies ... Harris Mirkin, a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, published a 1999 article in the Journal of Homosexuality complaining that boys who have sex with men 'are never considered willing participants, even if they are hustlers.' He has also written that 'children are the last bastion of the old sexual morality ... One co-author of the 1998 study was Robert Bauserman, now employed by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. As early as 1989, Mr. Bauserman had written about 'man-boy sexual relationships' in Paidika."

Pornographer says he hacked al Qaeda 'I wanted to do something ... I know the Internet',
CNN, August 9, 2002
"A self-proclaimed Web warrior says he enlisted in the United States' war on terror by mounting an incursion into an Internet site said to be run by al Qaeda. From his beachfront home, Jon Messner uses his keyboard as a weapon against the enemy's site -- first reported by CNN four months ago -- that posts statements from high-ranking al Qaeda members. When Al Neda site visitors, who he says he believes are al Qaeda members, discovered the covert operation, they cried 'Infidel!' Messner 's real job? He runs an Internet porn site. 'I created the amateur housewife-next-door genre,' he explained. 'I bought a digital camera and convinced my wife to get naked for the Internet.' He decided to turn his expertise against al Qaeda ... His Porsche and its 'WIVES' vanity plates memorializing his success in adult entertainment are, he believes, a testament that he and his family are living the American dream. And, in his own way, Messner said, he is fighting an American war."

[Jewish influence in circumcision; doctor's speculation],
yarchive.net, (Newsgroup: sci.med), 1995/1999
"However, all that being said (and perhaps it needed to be) I do not believe that the fact of nearly universal male circumcision in the United States did not come about in this century, and nowhere else on Earth but Israel, as a matter of chance. Or because some strange glowing meteorite fell in this country and caused people to get out the scalpels and turn on their children. I've given you my best explanation for the reason why it did happen: a strong Jewish influence on prevailing American medical attitudes about proper pediatric care, from Benjamin Spock [Note: Spock isn't Jewish] on down, which in turn basically influenced the entire society. If you have a better explanation for the oddly American universality of male circumcision, unique in the world save for the one place I mentioned, I'm listening. Spin me a better story, and I'll buy it. We have more hip and knee replacement here because they cure pain in adults, restore function, and adults want them, and can afford them. Ditto for hysterectomies, like it or not. But this doesn't wash for circumcision of babies. -- Steve Harris, M.D. ... Okay, if you want names, you would probably start with Abraham Wolbarst, a prominent urologist of the 1930's who decidedly confirmed in the pages of JAMA that not only did circumcision cure masturbation but also many other childhood illness. And prevented cancer, too. And there were other guys like Ravich and Wynder doing much the same. There's a review of Jewish medical doctors' role in the acceptance of routine circumcision in the US on the web at: http://www.fathermag.com/health/circ/jews-circ
It's not scientifically up to par, but it has the names and the cites. Nor is it particularly an antisemitic article, and points out quite rightly that the circumcision hysteria in the US was a rather Victorian thing launched circa 1870 mostly by hung-up Christians as a way to cure masturbation, to which Jews were said to be immune, and therefore morally superior. Jews naturally got caught up in this argument. The role of Jewish physicians in defending routine circumcision has not been sole, or even (in the beginning) important. It has been mainly in the last 70 years, corresponding with Jewish influence on American Medical politics. However, the opinion has become professionally untenable at least since the American Academy of Pediatrics came out against routine circumcision in the 1971 (following which Benjamin Spock changed his mind and his book, regarding the subject). A view reaffirmed by the American Academy just as strongly in their house mag _Pediatrics_, as late as last month. But don't take my word for it. Go to medline and see who's still arguing what among the professionals who lead the opinions to which doctors adhere, and recommend to their patients. You'll find stuff like Aaron J. Fink's "In defense of circumcision" (Pediatrics 1986 Feb;77(2):265-7) and little editorials like E.J. Schoen's 'Ode to the circumcised male' (Am J Dis Child 1987 Feb;141(2): 128). Indeed, my own initial search on the history of circumcision in the US turned up just four reviews-- I didn't weed them out of other stuff, but reproduce all four of them in full below. Note the opinions expressed: "The medical benefits of circumcision appear to exceed the risks of the procedure," and in another: "It is our conclusion that, as the safest and most commonly performed surgical procedure in this country, the benefits of posthetomy, which include a reduction in some kinds of cancer and sexually transmitted diseases, well outweigh the risks cited by those who oppose it." And: "The authors of this article wrote a review article on circumcision in 1981 and Dr. Grossman has recently published a book designed to teach proper circumcision technique, and to familiarize the operator with the common congenital anomalies as well as the prevention and treatment of the complications of circumcision." These are articles written for scientific publications by doctors who supposedly are scientists. Alas, if you look at the names, one can guess that they aren't exactly Japanese or Eskimo or native American scientists. But these ARE the physicians now leading the minority argument. If you want the other side-- the view now accepted by most of the world's medical profession, you can see articles by guys whose names are Gordon A (Br J Obstet Gynaecol 1995 Dec;102(12):939-40) "Why do we still circumcise male babies?" or McHugh M (Ir Med J 1981 Feb;74(2): 55-6) "Circumcision -- is it ever necessary?" or even Fitzgerald WD (Northwest Med 1971 Oct;70(10):681-2) "Circumcision is barbarous." There's a difference between doctors arguing a point that their religion teaches, and those arguing against a procedure on which their religion is at least neutral or even favorable. Anyway, you're welcome to read this stuff. Study it and then tell me I'm out to lunch. Steve Harris, M.D."

Sex and Science,
Christianity Today, Nov/Dec 2001
"[Andrea] Tone [in her book Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America] provides several memorable vignettes of contraceptive entrepreneurs, but none more memorable than Julius Schmid. A poor Jewish immigrant in New York City in the late 1800s, Schmid found work at a sausage factory, cleaning animal intestines to be used as casings. To make some money on the side, he brought the extra intestines home and fashioned them into condoms—'skins,' as they were called in the days before 'rubbers.' When his basement operation was raided, Schmid paid his fines and returned to his lucrative business. Schmid eventually expanded into rubber and latex; today, his 'Ramses' and 'Sheiks' brands are sold on drugstore and supermarket shelves worldwide."

The Sovereign of Smut A Tribute to the Life and Work of Gershon Legman, Scholar of the Dirty Joke,
Spectator,
"The fat old man was Gershon Legman, the world’s greatest scholar/collector of the dirty joke. Legman's death last year attracted little attention beyond a brief obituary in the New York Times. His books never became especially popular, and his writing was rarely taken seriously by academic folklorists, mainly because he attacked scholarship with skill, wit, and a perverse glee. Academics, for their own part, were scornful of Legman's tendency to lapse into vulgar asides, his virulent homophobia, and his constant groundless swipes against anyone or anything he happened to dislike. He had very few real friends, numerous enemies, and died, just as he lived, on the poverty line. But for those, like me, who found themselves fascinated and compelled by his unorthodox ideas and violent polemic, Gershon Legman will remain the Sovereign of Smut. I first came across Legman's work in the summer of 1995 in a second-hand bookstore in Madison, Wisconsin. There I stumbled upon a huge book bound in a dark brown cover with the intriguing title No Laughing Matter. This book, I soon discovered, was a mammoth collection of outrageously filthy and obscene jokes, divided into various categories including 'Urinating on Others,' 'Bend Over,' 'Self Castration,' and 'Fecal Meals.' In fact, even Legman himself admits in the introduction -- and not without a touch of pride -- that 'this book is full of material so disgusting that it will make any decent, clean, healthy person want to throw up.' It was also the most unfunny book of jokes I'd encountered since reading Freud's Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, which Legman claims to be his primary model. Legman, however, takes Freud's already depressing hypothesis even further, suggesting that the tendency to tell jokes is not only a manifestation of sexual neurosis but actually a symptom of psychopathology."

Mo' Better Exhibitions at MoSex,
Wired, October 3, 2002
"The director of the newest museum in this culture-packed city is surveying the prizes of his permanent collection: leather straps, condom boxes, video porn playing on large screens. He stops and points at a 1940s Wonder Woman comic book cover. 'Just look at her,' Daniel Gluck says. 'The cinched waist, the high heels, the rope ... She's always tying people up.' Wonder Woman is among the tamer attractions at the Museum of Sex, which opens this weekend in Manhattan and aims to catalog American sexuality, from 19th-century brothels to turn-of-the-millennium sex parties. In a city that has affectionately shortened the names of its culture hubs --MoMA, the Met -- the new museum has already been dubbed MoSex. And it has stirred opposition from those who say it is merely a celebration of smut. The state rejected an early attempt by Gluck to create a tax-sheltered foundation to support the museum."

Who's your daddy!,
News 24, October 11, 2002
"Tel Aviv - An Israeli man suffered a heart attack when he summoned a call-girl to his hotel and opened the door to his daughter, a newspaper reported Thursday. The 48-year-old businessman was treated in hospital in the Red Sea port of Eilat before returning home to northern Israel, where he confessed the traumatic experience to his wife, the Maariv daily said. His wife burst into tears and vowed to put their daughter back on the righteous path. Then she demanded a divorce from her errant husband. There was no word on the fate of the young woman."

Playboy gets bang-up response to last wish,
Independent OnLine, November 01 2002
"Ageing [sic] Berlin playboy Rolf Eden wants to go out with a bang. Eden, a wealthy 72-year-old disco magnate, received a huge worldwide response to a morally questionable offer to leave part of his fortune to the last woman he has sex with, provided he dies in her arms after a 'final, glorious orgasm'. An ever-smiling man with blond hair and a dark tan, Eden said that he stays fit thanks to a rotating array of seven or eight young women between 18 and 35 who take turns in his bed each night ... 'This is my office, so to speak,' he said, proudly showing off his spacious bedroom complete with wall and ceiling mirrors. 'I've had a lot of luck in life.' But now that his life is winding toward its inexorable conclusion, Eden wants to make sure a slice of the wealth he accumulated operating four popular west Berlin discos over the last 45 years goes to the last woman to have sex with him. 'I asked myself, 'How would a playboy want to die?'' he said. "It seemed clear that there could be no better way than to go out with a heart attack after a grand finale. It will be the most beautiful way to die. Simply divine.' Eden announced in August that he had signed a will with a notary guaranteeing his final sex partner a jackpot of 250 000 euros (about R2,4-million) - with the only condition that he passes away during or just after the act. 'Sure, it was a gimmick to make myself interesting,' said Eden, who worked as a jazz pianist and waiter in Paris for several years in the 1950s." [Apparently, Eden is Jewish too]

25 Years of Sexual Art Celebrating Michael Rosen’s Uncompromising Photography, Spectator, April 19, 2002
"In 1982, Michael Rosen entered a collection of nudes in the First Berkeley Erotic Art Festival — and ended up invited to photograph a sex session among the festival’s organizers, a first for him. Since then, he’s published four exhibit format books and won wide recognition for his work. They are: Lust & Romance: Rated X Fine Art Photographs (1998); Sexual Art: Photographs that Test the Limits (1994 and 1998, published both in the U.S. and in a French edition); Sexual Portraits: Photographs of Radical Sexuality (1990); and Sexual Magic: The S/M Photographs (1986). See Michael’s work at www.shaynew.com. Michael is shaven-headed and muscular, gentle, and thoughtful. Each room of his home is a gallery of photographs, many explicitly sexual, representing a variety of artists. His basement studio is complete with a track system that lets him glide along the ceiling with his camera."

Evolution of a Post-Porn Modernist Annie Sprinkle's New Book Reveals Her as Mature Artist, Sex Educator, Spectator, January 14, 2002
"That Annie Sprinkle [born Ellen Steinberg] is one of the most well-known and best-loved figures in pornography is no accident — for over 25 years she’s broken new ground and pushed the edges of erotic representation. Her latest book, Hardcore from the Heart, provides a fresh perspective on the Annie we know and love. Hardcore differs from Annie’s earlier work, including her autobiographical Post-Porn Modernist (originally released in 1991 and reissued by Cleis Press in 1998), which remains the definitive document of Sprinkle’s life as porn star and sexual pioneer. For while porn-hounds and sex activists alike are surely familiar with Annie’s extensive hardcore ouvre, many are not aware of her work as a cutting-edge artist. But this is changing. Today, Annie’s fans are as likely to be 20-year-old feminists studying her performance art in their women’s studies/drama classes as they are members of the trench-coat brigade. ... ... [S]he moved to New York and began learning the craft of porn production. But soon she decided she’d rather be in front of the camera. Within a couple years Annie had starred in some 150 hardcore films ... As a performance artist, Annie is unique in the way she speaks directly to her audiences and involves them personally in her shows. In her infamous 'Public Cervix Announcement' piece, she inserted a speculum and invited viewers to take a close-up look at her most private parts. 'Everyone wanted to see pussy, pussy, pussy,' Sprinkle remembers, 'so I thought I would go further and show them more than they wanted.'"

Embalmed Tramp Found in Artist's Studio,
Reuters, October 14, 2002
"A British artist kept the preserved body of a tramp at his studio for nearly 20 years, The Times newspaper said Saturday. The embalmed body of Edwin McKenzie was discovered in the workshop of his former close friend Plymouth artist Robert Lenkiewicz who [was Jewish and] himself died this summer. McKenzie had been preserved and hidden in 1984 ... Lenkiewicz often used vagrants as models for his paintings, which often carried an anti-establishment message." [ALSO, at robertlenkiewcz.com: "In 1983 Lenkiewicz exhibited Project 16. This project attempted to survey as wide a range as possible of human activities relating to sexual behaviour. He attempted to do this seriously without attention to the law ... Heterosexual behaviour, homosexual behaviour, auto-erotic behaviour, bestiality, even necrophilia are commonplace in our society and most societies, and characterise more than 50% of all human entertainments. It is interesting that when the authorities visited the Exhibition to consider closure, the paedophilia section went entirely unnoticed ... The project attempted to demonstrate that there was no end to human creativity, that loneliness combined with human passion could animate a hoover to far more gratifying potentials than one's wife. The project seemed to indicate that all sexual behaviour was auto-erotic; from marriage partners to strangers' underwear."]

Street-Level Smut. The book shops of Times Square,
by Jay Gertzman, The Position, October 21, 2002
"By the end of World War II, Times Square was a general entertainment area in which tourists, young people on dates, gamblers, con men, street preachers, taxi dancers, frequenters of bars, prostitutes, panhandlers, readers of smut and fans of movie sex and violence all mingled ... In the late 40s, Allan Wilson and his partner, Aaron Moses ("Mo") Shapiro, founded the Jack Woodford Press, as an imprint of the Citadel Press, which featured socialist analysis of American politics. A prolific writer of soft-core erotica with a deft sense of plot construction and scene setting, Woodford wrote of free-spirited and well travelled young men, with jobs and ambitions similar to the heros of popular films, who bedded adventurous and spirited women. Both parties were raring to go on page one. Shapiro and Wilson's books, many by Woodford himself and others by Clement Wood, his wife Gloria Goddard, the glamorous Fan Nichols or 'Gorilla' Joe Weiss, sold especially well in drug stores and near army bases, as well as in general shops in Times Square and other cities .... The largest orders in New York for Jack Woodford Press titles came from [Louis] Finkelstein [at Time Square Book Bazaar], whom other booksellers regarded as a pioneer exploiter of the smut-hungry reader when he opened in 1940 as the first Times Square location which focused on erotica, mostly the varied girlie and nudist magazines of the era ... During the 1950s and early 60s, the most notorious pornographer on the Deuce was Eddie Mishkin. He owned several stores: Harmony, Midget, the Little Book Exchange, Kingsley Book Shop, Esther, and Main Stem ... . Sadomasochistic and fetish books, photos and magazines were a facet of erotica which Times Square democratized. Before World War II, the material was available in booksellers' back rooms, and of course to the wealthy, trusted customers of Manhattan's high hat dealers. The Mishkins, the Browns, the Shapiros and the Finkelsteins made it available to the hoi polloi ... The Kefauver subcommittee investigating the effects of obscenity on juvenile delinquency subpoenaed Mishkin in 1955, as they did Irving Klaw, whose fetish photos included many of those of the era's supermodel, Bettie Page. Both men's photo sets and booklet- sized illustrated stories, with their themes of flagellation, bondage, transvestism, and passive men forced into women's clothing, were thought to 'get into the hands of small limited minds, and they . . . [get] worked up to a fever pitch, and some poor soul is the victim ...Al Goldstein readily admitted that the mob distributed Screw Magazine; he could get no one else to dare do so nationally, or even in New York City itself .... A final example of organized crime involvement in Times Square by the late 60s is the smuggling conviction of Lenny Burtman, an important publisher of sadomasochistic books and magazines with offices on W. 46th Street. Times Square bookstores carried his fetish booklets and magazines extensively, and his distribution system was more far- reaching than those of Mishkin, Klaw, or Brown."

Love It or Hate It, Heeb Debutes -- And Rocks Downtown Manhattan,
Kosherfinder, February 7, [2002?]
"It's too early to tell how sucessful Heeb, the newest and most irreverent Jewish publication on the newsstand, will be -- but the magazine sure knows how to party ... Contents include an article on 'Jewfros,' a Jewish afro, an interview with Peaches, a Jewish porn punk singer grabbing her crotch in a shocking close-up photo; the memoir of a man's reported tryst with Jewish beatnik poet Allen Ginsberg; and, last but not least, a centerfold of Neil Diamond in red leather. It doesn't spare on language as tawdry as its subjects, either. They reprint the explicit lyrics of Peaches, whom it describes as 1970s rock star 'Gary Glitter as a horny chick on cocaine.'"

LAPD Police Chief Contender 'Comes Out' In Interview Kalish Wants To Judged On Work Experience,
NBC4, August 27, 2002
"Deputy Chief David Kalish, a top contender for the Los Angeles Police Department, said he was gay in an interview Monday, but that he should be judged on his experience, not his sexual preference. 'Being gay is part of who I am,' Kalish said in a televised interview. 'Being Jewish is part of who I am. There's lots of parts to me. The important thing is that I have dedicated 27 years of my life to the Los Angeles Police Department. 'Chief Kalish heads the West Bureau of the department and is among six high-ranking Los Angeles police officers and 15 outsiders vying for the job. The Police Commission will select three finalists and forward their recommendations to the mayor, who will pick the chief ... Kalish has a 3-year-old son, Jackson, who is being raised by a lesbian couple to whom he donated sperm. Pictures of the boy line his office."

Stanley Fleishman, Famed L.A. Civil Rights Attorney, Dies,
Adult Video News, December 1999
"The First Amendment attorney who fought and won perhaps the most groundbreaking obscenity case of the 1950s, Stanley Fleishman, died Oct. 23 of complications from surgery to remove a benign tumor ... 'He was a wonderful, gracious man,' says Ron Braverman, owner of the Doc Johnson adult novelty business, who was shocked to learn of Fleishman's death ... But he made his reputation irrevocably and most profoundly in the Roth obscenity case. That 1957 case led to a Supreme Court ruling in which three criteria for defining obscenity were outlined and began to close the door by which authorities could simply say they knew obscenity when they saw it - as many communities, in effect, did. Fleishman defended publisher Harold Roth, whose literature had been ruled obscene and was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court in 1957 ... Fleishman ultimately received numerous honors from the adult entertainment and publishing industry, including the Playboy Foundation's Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award for lifetime achievement."

American Jews and the Efforts to Reform Motion Pictures, 1933-35,
by Felicia Herman, American Jewish Archives Journal,
http://huc.edu/aja/Article-FeliciaHerman.pdf
"This concern for the public image of American Jews has always been an essential component of the American Jewish releationship to the film industry. Throughout the twentieth century, various elements of the American Jewish community sought to influence the content and message of American motion pictures ... The Jewish relationship to the film industry is a particularly valuable area in which to understand the Jewish quest for status and concern for appearances, for here Jews were forced to articulate quite concretely -- indeed, even visually -- the way they wanted to be perceived by the outside world ... Between 1930 and 1934, American debates over film content reached a fevered pitch, and would-be film reformers -- primarily Protestant and Catholic clergy and lay leaders -- accused the motion picture industry of intentionally corrupting the morals of the film audiences by foisting a seemingly endless stream of salacious motion pictures on the American people. Because 'Hollywood' had long been synonymous in many film reformers minds with 'Jews,' attacks on the industry in this period often revealed disturbing, antsemitic undertones. Drawing on a rhetoric that stretched back for at least two decades -- and on a much older antisemitic theme associating Jews with sexual immorality -- many reformers argued that immoral films were the result of the inherent immorality of the Jews who made them."

Archiv für Sexualwissenschaft,
"The Berlin physician Albert Moll was, next to Iwan Bloch and Magnus Hirschfeld, the third great promoter of sexology. Like Hirschfeld, he was of Jewish descent (baptized as a Protestant), had been examined by Rudolf Virchow for his medical doctorate, and also remained unmarried, but there the similarity ends. Moll was politically conservative and, in spite of his organizational energy, seems to have been a quarrelsome loner. He despised both Freud and Magnus Hirschfeld as scientific charlatans and tried to counter them at every turn. Thus, in 1913, he organized the International Society for Sex Research as a rival organization to Bloch’s and Hirschfeld’s Medical Society for Sexology. In rivalry to Bloch, he also edited his own 'Handbook of the Sexologies', deliberately introducing the plural and thereby demonstrating his rejection of Bloch’s unified concept of the new science. He did, however, get along rather well with Havelock Ellis, who contributed to the Handbook, and with Max Marcuse, whom he supported as a journal editor. In 1926, Moll succeeded in organizing an International Congress for Sex Research in Berlin, with the opening ceremony being held at the Reichstag. A second conference 1930 took place in London. Moll wrote a number of important sexological books, such as 'Contrary Sexual Feeling' (1891), 'Investigations concerning the Libido Sexualis' (1897), to which Freud owed an unacknowledged debt, and 'The Sexual life of the Child' (1909)."

Naked Brunch. Berlin's Sexology Archive,
Libido. The Journal of Sex and Sensibility,
"In large part due to Professor Doctor Doctor Erwin Haeberle and a receptive German federal government, Berlin -- the 20th-century birthplace of sexology -- is once again home to an extraordinary sexual archive. Under Haeberle, Archiv für Sexualwissenshaft, located in the tree-shaded campus of the Robert Koch Institute in the former East Berlin, has launched an impressive and important effort to both collect the Nazi-scattered remains of the work of the field’s pioneers and to make accurate university-level sexual information available to the world via the internet ... As a field, sexology was conceived by Berlin dermatologist Iwan Bloch in 1907. The idea soon was expanded by a number of biologists and social scientists, especially Magnus Hirschfeld who opened the first Institute for Sexology in Berlin in 1919. Two years later he organized the first international sexological conference there. Many of sexology’s pioneers, including Albert Moll, Ludwig Levy-Lenz, Max Marcuse, were Jewish and when Hitler came to power, nearly all of them went into exile in different parts of the world. In 1933, Hirshfeld’s Institute for Sexology was destroyed by the Nazis, and the contents of its library publicly burned -- along with other “un-German” authors like Sigmund Freud and Bertolt Brecht."

'Textual Activists' Unravel Seamy Side of Esther Scroll. Forget Hamantashen. Purim May Never Be the Same As New Interpreters Unveil a Tale of Sex and Violence,
by Aliza Phillips, [Jewish] Forward, February 22, 2002
"For Purim this year, you can go ahead and don a costume, knock back some schnapps and gorge yourself on hamantashen. Or, suggests Bonna Devora Haberman, you can take time to remember the millions of women in the world caught up in white slavery. After all, said this resident scholar in women's studies at Brandeis University, the Purim story as recounted in the Scroll of Esther is in many ways a story of sex and violence, a tale of how men of power use the currency of the female body to achieve their goals. Sex, violence, money, power and gender oppression? ... Say hello to the seamy underbelly of Purim, the holiday that this year falls on Monday night and Tuesday, and on which Jews celebrate how an orphan named Esther — under the tutelage of her uncle Mordechai — wins a place in the heart of the Persian monarch Ahasuerus and outwits Haman, the king's evil right-hand man, to save the Jewish people from certain annihilation. Or so goes the sanitized version of the holiday that has traditionally been taught in schools and synagogues. Now, however, more and more scholars and activists are dipping into the holiday's darker side — filled with deception, murder and subjugation — as a way of connecting the festival to campaigns of social justice and of attracting unaffiliated Jews who may not be interested in synagogue, but are certainly interested in sex. Adult — if not adults-only — celebrations this year include a cross-dressing staging of the story in a New York night club, a one-woman feminist performance in San Francisco and Ms. Haberman's multi-part, politically conscious project ... Details of the holiday that historically have been often glossed over include the denouement of the Scroll of Esther, when the Jews, whose very lives had been at stake, turn the tables, murdering 75,000 Persians ... After six years of staging edgy Purim pageants mostly in synagogues in the New York area, Mr. Lau-Lavi this year brings the holiday to a New York City nightclub. The event, 'TransgrESTHER 2002,' includes a Purim play that casts Mordechai and Haman as dueling mobsters and Ahasuerus as the king of downtown Manhattan. Nearly all the actors will be in drag. Mr. Lau-Lavie, a nephew of Israel's chief Ashkenazi rabbi, will appear as his drag alter ego, Rebbetzin Hadassah Gross, sex counselor to the stars."

* Much, much more information about Jewish influence in pornography and American sexual mores (from When Victims Rule. A Critique of Jewish Pre-eminence in America -- with bibliographic citations)

Of Human Interest: the Lighter Side of The News,
A Million Stories in the Naked City,
inyouremail.com (from United Press International), Apr 23, 2001
"This year's Naked Mile Run at the University of Michigan's Ann Arbor campus was a bust .. This year marked the first time the run was covered live by the Atlanta-based Cyber Management Inc., which hired a professional camera crew and satellite truck to beam footage to Webcam subscribers watching the event (at www.naked-mile.com). The company is offering the footage free-of-charge to those UM students arrested for running on Tuesday. 'It's the least we can do,' CMI spokesman Brian Cohn said. 'Maybe their attorneys will be able to use the footage we captured.'"

Dow Jones: We Paid for Strippers,
New York Post, November 23, 2002
"Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, has acknowledged it footed the bill for strippers to entertain its employees and clients. The surprise admission arrived in response to a suit filed by a former top ad official at Barron's who claims Dow Jones sanctioned liquid lunches and paid for strip clubs and lap dances for clients and co-workers when he worked there in the late 1990s ... In its response, Dow Jones, which is headed by [Jewish] chairman and CEO Peter Kann, conceded that it did pay for some of the strip clubs and lunches on the company expense card over a period of years. But the company still insists it will prevail in its lawsuit. 'We believe that Mr. Allocco's case is frivolous and without merit,' said a company spokeswoman. 'We'll contest the case vigorously, and we're confident that the matter will be resolved in our favor'"

Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights,
Chicago Sun-Times, November 27, 2002
"Heaven help the unsuspecting families who wander into 'Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights' expecting a jolly animated holiday funfest. The holidays aren't very cheerful in Sandlerville, which is why the PG-13 rating mentions 'frequent and crude sexual humor.' The MPAA doesn't mention it, but there's also a lot of scatological humor in the film, in keeping with Sandler's inexplicable fascination with defecation, flatulence and bodily fluids. If this is not a family film, what is it? Well, the audiences for 'Jackass' may enjoy a scene where Davey, the hero, slams a sweet little old man into a Port-a-Potty and shoves it down a hill. When the geezer emerges at the bottom, he is still alive, but covered from head to toe with excrement. Then Davey sprays him with a garden hose, and he freezes solid. Ho, ho. Davey (who looks like and is voiced by Sandler) is 'a 33-year-old crazy Jewish guy,' the film informs us, who is up before the judge on the latest in a long series of brushes with the law, this time for drunkenness ... I can understand why Sandler might want to venture into 'South Park' territory with a raunchy animated cartoon, but not why he links it to Christmas and Hanukkah. The advertising will inevitably use holiday images, and in the minds of most people those images will not suggest a film this angry and vulgar. There is also an odd disconnect between Sandler's pride in his Jewishness, which is admirable, and his willingness to display the obnoxious behavior of this particular Jewish character to an audience that may not get the point."

Everything Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender and Jewish,
Twice Blessed. The Jewish GLBT Archives Online
[Long lists of prominent Jews who fit these categories, with links to online information about them]

Snyder and Seek.
Outline: the Voice of Chicago's Gay and Lesbian Community, December 8, 1999
This web page, towards the bottom, lists the Gay Financial Network's [gfn.com] "Power 25: The Most Influential Gay and Lesbian Corporate Executives." Among the first five, Jews were represented as the first, third, fourth and (tied) for fifth most important individuals in this ranking. 1) Kathy Levinson, president & COO of E*Trade; 3) David Geffen, president David Geffen Foundation/CEO DreamWorks SKG; 4) Barry Diller, CEO of USA Networks; and 5) Hilary Rosen, president and CEO of Recording Industry Assoc. of America.

Israeli Arab Porn Video Inflames Community Passions,
Channels (from Reuters), December 31, 2002
"[T]he bilingual film billed as 'the first Israeli-Arab porno' has inflamed the Jewish state's Muslim minority, drawing charges of sacrilege and a vigilante death sentence on 'Fatima' issued by her own hometown and family. Amal Kashua, a 38-year-old mother of eight, was set upon by a mob last week in Tira, a prosperous Arab community in central Israel. 'Yussuf,' a Palestinian known only as Amir, was beaten too. They went to hospital under police guard, then into hiding. Shamed by association, Kashua's relatives disowned her. Tira residents were divided over whether Kashua and Amir were married or merely lovers, and rumors put the money they had made in November for their hour-long on-camera coupling at anything from 700 shekels ($148) to 30 times as much. But none disputed that the stars of 'Yussuf and Fatima' had brought the near-lynching in Tira square upon themselves ... The litany of complaints began with the video's cover, which showed Kashua [a drug addict] and Amir in a pre-coital pose against a minaret. 'This is a blow to the sensitivity of Muslims everywhere,' said Tira attorney Ihab Galgoly, who was representing two men arrested on suspicion of leading the assault on the couple. 'We are considering suing the producers for breach of the law guaranteeing human dignity and freedom.' The studio which made 'Yussuf and Fatima' remained unfazed. 'We are not liable since we did everything by the book,' [Jewish] SexStyle director-general Amos Lahat told Reuters by telephone ... Lahat allowed that market considerations were behind its cover design. 'There is considerable demand from the Arab sector for porn which 'speaks to them', as it were. So we wanted to emphasize that this was a precedent-setting ethnic film,' he said. But as of mid-December -- several days before Kashua and Amir were attacked -- the cover of 'Yussuf and Fatima' had been stripped down: no minaret, no title, just the photograph. 'An Arab client who bought the film called in to lodge a polite request that we change its look to avoid causing offence, so we did,' Lahat explained. Some Muslims took further umbrage at the name Fatima, which was also that of the Prophet Mohammed's daughter. On this account, Lahat was unapologetic. 'In these parts you can find a scriptural connection to just about any name,' he said. 'Take a look at Hebrew, for example. Some of my Jewish actors have biblical namesakes too. So what?' ... What's tragic is that, as Amal tells it, she got into pornography because of her financial straits. It is the same with many Israeli Arab single mothers who become prostitutes to support their children. And it may well get worse,' [Jewish feminist Yael] Dayan said. Israel's labor market and welfare system have been gutted by an economic slump linked to the world recession and a more than two-year-old Palestinian uprising for independence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. But the blues are good for blue movies, according to Lahat. 'Since this whole story over 'Yussuf and Fatima' broke out, we have sold hundreds of copies, most of them in the Arab sector,' he said. "We may make another Arabic film. It pays.'"

Education and debate. The making of a disease: female sexual dysfunction,
by Ray Moynihan, BMJ (British Medical Journal - from Australian Financial Review), January 4, 2002
"Is a new disorder being identified to meet unmet needs or to build markets for new medications? The corporate sponsored creation of a disease is not a new phenomenon, but the making of female sexual dysfunction is the freshest, clearest example we have. A cohort of researchers with close ties to drug companies are working with colleagues in the pharmaceutical industry to develop and define a new category of human illness at meetings heavily sponsored by companies racing to develop new drugs. The most recent gathering, featured Pfizer as chief sponsor and Pfizer-friendly researchers as chief speakers. The venue? The Pfizer Foundation Hall for Humanism in Medicine at New York University Medical School. Since the launch of sildenafil (Viagra) in 1998, more than 17 million men have had prescriptions written for it as a treatment for erectile dysfunction, with Pfizer reporting sales in 2001 of $1.5bn ... To build similar markets for drugs among women, companies first require a clearly defined medical diagnosis with measurable characteristics to facilitate credible clinical trails. Over the past six years the pharmaceutical industry has funded, and its representatives have in some cases attended, a series of meetings to come up with just such a definition (table) ....In response to an email inquiry about the Cape Cod meeting, co-chair Raymond Rosen wrote: 'The meeting is completely supported by pharmaceutical companies, and approximately half of the audience will be pharmaceutical representatives. The goal is to foster active and positive collaboration between the two groups. Only investigators who have experience with, or special interest in working collaboratively with the drug industry have been invited.' The subsequent publication of the meeting's presentations and discussions acknowledged sponsorship from nine drug companies ... All three Boston meetings (1999-2001) were chaired by Dr Irwin Goldstein, professor of urology and gynaecology at Boston University School of Medicine, who is also a key figure at the international gatherings. Originally trained as an engineer, Goldstein has widened his focus in recent years from male to female sexual dysfunction. A regular speaker at meetings funded by industry and a consultant and lecturer for virtually every pharmaceutical company, he is a passionate advocate for building a new discipline of sexual medicine, because, as he told the recent New York gathering, in this emerging field 'there is such joy in treating these people successfully' ... Studies by Berman, Goldstein, and others have used those physiological measurements to test the effects of sildenafil on women with 'female sexual arousal disorder' ... On the basis of studies of the genitalia of female New Zealand White rabbits, Goldstein and colleagues have developed animal models of 'vaginal engorgement insufficiency and clitoral erectile insufficiency.' Using data from studies comparing the testosterone levels of 'normal' women with the levels of his patients, he told the December meeting in New York that women with 'female sexual dysfunction' might have a 'specific defect in steroid synthesis' ... Asked during a break in the New York gathering about criticisms that medicine may not be best equipped to deal with sexual problems, Goldstein's replied: 'Who's best equipped to deal with it? The horticulturists? It's a form of medicine. I think physicians are most appropriate' ... The pharmaceutical industry's role in helping build the science of this new disorder has been 'paramount,' according to Goldstein, and he rejects suggestions that closeness between drug companies and academic researchers may be inappropriate. Asked whether marketing campaigns worth hundreds of millions of dollars may ultimately tend to amplify particular views of sexual difficulties and promote certain therapeutic options over others, he said: 'I'm an academic clinical doctor. That's a question for some philosopher.'"

Jewish Princess Lyrics,
davemcnally.com
[Lyrics to a song by Frank Zappa of the "Mothers of Invention."]
I want a nasty little
With long phony nails
and a hairdo that rinses
A horny little
With a garlic aroma
that could level Tacoma
Lonely inside
Well, she can swallow my pride
I want a hairy little
With a brand new nose,
who knows where it goes
I want a steamy little
With over-worked gums,
who squeaks when she cums
I don't want no troll
I just want a Yemenite hole ...
[Etc.]

Hurley Blows Off Bing Payoff,
E Online, December 17, 2002
"Liz Hurley's baby may have just gotten a little bling-bling from daddy Stephen Bing, but if his model mom gets her way, he'll never see a dime of it. The playboy movie producer and real-estate mogul has agreed to pay $158,000 per year to support little Damian Charles Hurley until his 18th birthday, according to a written release from Bing's camp. 'Mr. Bing is delighted that the matter has been concluded and that he is able to honor his pledge to make generous provisions for his son,' said the statement. The deal, which adds up to a $2.8 million pay out, was hammered out on Tuesday in London's High Court. In spite of the court ruling, however, Hurley wants no part of the payoff, calling the money 'not wanted or welcome' ... Hurley's refusal is not all that surprising, considering the very public paternity battle she has waged with Bing over the last year. Though he may be 'delighted' about fatherly duties now, this era of good feeling is rather new. Bing has been decidedly more hostile about the tyke, who was born April 4, since his supermodel mommy announced her pregnancy last year. First, the 37-year-old purported ladies man (and supposed heir to a $400 million real-estate fortune) suggested the baby wasn't his. 'Miss Hurley and I were not in an exclusive relationship when she became pregnant,' he sniped in a statement released shortly after Hurley confirmed she had a baby on board. (Hurley, incidentally, was shocked by this news, claiming 'I was completely loyal and faithful to Stephen throughout this time as, indeed, he assured me he was to me' in her own statement.) Then, he went to court to challenge his daddyhood, forcing the tyke to be subjected to a DNA test. But in the end, it turned out that Bing was indeed Damian's real-life sperm donor, er, father. When it comes to this baby business, Bing has some experience working the legal circuit. In July, he settled an invasion-of-privacy and trespassing suit stemming from yet another paternity drama. He had slapped Kirk Kerkorian with $1 billion lawsuit after the billionaire MGM owner's lackeys dug through his trash looking for DNA evidence of another Bing baby. Kerkorian's ex, onetime tennis pro Lisa Bonder, had asked Kerkorian to pay $320,000 a month in child support for her four-year-old daughter. But Kerkorian refused, claiming Bing fathered the child."

[The head of CBS, Leslie Moonves, is also Jewish.]
Should CBS have aired 'shocking' tapes of rapist? The jury's out,
Sacramento Bee, February 22, 2003
"California's latest celebrity criminal trial was barely over, the defendant still on the run, when up popped a media controversy with its own high-stakes drama. Was this a case of powerful journalism -- or was it sleaze? Did it help the victims? Or did it hurt them more? The principal player is CBS News, which aired a lengthy report this week on convicted rapist Andrew Luster, the rich great-grandson of cosmetics magnate Max Factor. Luster, who jumped bail last month and disappeared, was ordered Tuesday to serve 124 years in state prison for drugging three women and sexually assaulting them at his Ventura County home. Even by California standards, it was a sensational case that attracted widespread media interest. But it was producers for CBS's '48 Hours Investigates' that had a secret weapon in their travel vests, something 'exclusive' for viewers during the networks' sweeps period. In its Wednesday night telecast, the show aired a piece titled 'Lust, Lies and Videotape' -- a recap of the case with excerpts from the nauseating videotapes Luster took of his sex acts with the drugged victims. In one snippet, Luster brags to the camera while an unidentifiable woman lies passed out on the bed. 'I dream about this,' says the dark-haired man, convicted of 86 criminal counts. 'A strawberry blond, beautiful girl, passed out on my bed. "And basically there for me to do with whatever I please.' What he is about to do is not shown on TV -- the tapes contain what prosecutor Maeve Fox calls 'the most shocking things I've ever seen.'"

[Another Jewish sex-porno pig-out, this time after overthrowing whatever Yale once was.]
Sex Week at Yale. In which academics ponder "webcam girls," hermaphrodites, demonic-male chimps, the history of the vibrator, and "sex with four professors",
by Ron Rosenbaum, The Atlantic Monthly, January/February 2003
"There's nothing like the prospect of a week of academic theorizing about sex and love to make you want to give it all up. And that's exactly what I was hoping for when I heard about Sex Week at Yale—lots of theory, lots of abstraction, lots of intellectual distance ... The week involves a faculty lecture series with topics such as transgender issues: where does one gender end and the other begin, the history of romance, and the history of the vibrator. Student talks on the secrets of great sex, hooking up, and how to be a better lover and a student panel on abstainance. A Valentine's Dinner at the Jewish Center with an afro/cuban band and a debate after the dinner between Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (author of Kosher Sex) and Dr. Judy Kuriansky (radio show host of [Love Phones] and author of [The Complete Idiot's Guide to Tantric Sex]). A faculty panel on sex in college with four professors. a movie film festival (sex fest 2002) and a concert with local bands and yale bands. and lastly, a celebrity panel with Al Goldstein (screw magazine), Dr. Gilda Carle (sex therapist), Nancy Slotnick (Harvard graduate and owner/operator of the Drip Cafe in NYC), and lastly Dr. Susan Block [also a sex-therapist radio host, and a Yale graduate]. The event is going to be huge and all of campus is going to be involved ... Thus the disciples of the Parisian postmodern post-Freudian theorist Jacques Lacan are always going on about 'desire' and 'the body,' but one never feels the remotest presence of desire or the body in their thinking. Listening to academics going on about desire is a profound anti-aphrodisiac treasure for those of us seeking surcease from worldly temptations ... The Valentine's Night debate—tantric versus kosher sex—took place at the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale. Dr. Judy entered wearing an electric-blue blazer and turquoise jewelry, and she radiated media-celeb empowerment. (She had to interrupt her talk to do a live feed to CNN, she told us.) Instead of giving a conventional debate presentation, she put on a tape of Bette Midler singing 'The Rose,' and a selection of Lilith Fair favorites, and led the fifty or so attendees through a series of touchy-feely 'intimacy exercises,' lining up strangers to hold their hands on one another's hearts and stare into one another's eyes and perform other California hot-tub maneuvers. This seemed to drive Rabbi Boteach out of the room, although he later explained that he'd had a pressing need to phone his family. What was curious about Dr. Judy's talk, interspersed with the intimacy exercises, was her insistence that tantric sex isn't really about sex, or anything, you know, dirty like that—as if it would be somehow shameful if it were about sex, or certainly something lesser than the religious experience that tantric practices turn sex into, thus sanctifying it ... He even invoked 'webcam girls,' from reality-porn sites, in the context of what he said would be his next book: Kosher Adultery. The concept here seemed to be to make marriage and monogamy 'dirty' (in a good way) as a means of addressing a problem he had evidently heard about from those seeking his counsel: that some husbands can be more lustfully aroused by 'webcam girls' than by their wives. 'Kosher adultery,' I suspected, involves what has often been called 'role playing' (or as Rabbi Boteach put it, 'bringing the erotic energy of unfaithfulness into marriage'), getting the wives to act like 'other women.' But when Kosher Adultery came out, later in the year, I was surprised to see it emphasize the notion that husbands should fantasize that their wives were with other men. So the wives are playing other women, the husbands are playing other men ... Nancy Slotnick, a Harvard graduate who invented a café and dating service on Manhattan's Upper West Side, called Drip, spoke up for love, albeit in a curious way: 'Love is women's favorite fetish,' she said. 'A fetish is something you don't need to get sex but you feel you need to enjoy it.' But it was Al Goldstein who provided a fitting climax to Sex Week. Goldstein at first seemed to take pleasure in bringing his obscenity-riddled view of sex to Yale's august precincts, making indecent proposals to the women panelists while boasting that his son was 'a Harvard man, who's graduating from Harvard Law School this weekend at the top of his class' ... An embittered romantic, but a romantic. Goldstein disclosed an astonishing autobiographical fact: the publisher of Screw, the self-proclaimed shameless pornographer, has been married four times!"

The Chosen Peephole. Jewish pornography questions the limits of assimilation,
by Joshua Cohen, New York Press, March 5, 2003,Volume 16, Issue 10
"A man gets drunk and lays down with his two virgin daughters. A man secures permission from his two wives to lay down with his two slave girls. A woman disguises herself as a whore and lays down with her father-in-law. This is the original Jewish pornography, as found in the book of Genesis. But is it really Jewish Pornography? In typical Jewish fashion, the answer is yet another question: Would you masturbate to it? Probably not. Why? The Tanakh—the Old Testament and the Jewish Scriptures—is full of incest and the taking of virgins. In a literature where the idea of 'barely legal' has absolutely no meaning, scripture and pornography overlap more than you’d think. But the Bible isn’t Jewish Porn. Philip Roth isn’t Jewish Porn, either. Al Goldstein isn’t Jewish Porn. Even Ron Jeremy—known to his proud mother as Ron Hyatt—isn’t Jewish Porn. Traci Lords—who would have been Nora Louise Kuzma at her bat mitzvah—is just another shaven screen starlet. She has nothing to do with Jewish Porn. What of Playboy playmate Lindsey Vuolo? In the November 2001 issue, the 20-year-old Philadelphia-area co-ed identified herself as a Jew and included a photograph from her bat mitzvah. The media maydel became a joke for synagogue lobbies across America by inadvertently questioning the limits of assimilation in Jewish life. Playboy is not selling her religion, and neither is her religion selling magazines. Her tits are. Her ass is. Nobody’s jerking off to little Lindsey from the suburbs because she’s a Jewess, but because she’s hot. Jewish Porn (JP) fetishizes Jewish women. In the Jew-run Vivid Video’s The Burning Bush ... Hot, Jewish Babe Vivid, Sex Action, one can enjoy '4 Hrs. of Fiddling on the Roof!' Jeanna Fine, Sindee Cox, Melissa Monet, Nina Hartley (nee Hartman) and Alexandra Silk suck and fuck as in any film—the only difference is these girls are said to be Jewish. But even this is a thin broth. For the real JP, head to the Web, where the pop-up windows accumulate thick like locusts. There you’ll find pornography about Jews made for Jews and their admirers to masturbate to, to enact the age-old sin of Onan, of the thirty-eighth chapter of Genesis. In JP, as in other porn, large-breasted and well-tanned women pose and perform sexual acts. Except here, the women are Hebrews, recipients of the Law at Sinai, the women who sang with Miriam at the parting of the Red Sea, the women—brides and queens in religious imagery—who are metaphors for the Shechinah, or Godhead, for the soul. At least that’s what they’re supposed to be. The photos and movies emphasize the stereotype of heavy-breasted women with large noses, dark curly hair and unshaven genitals. They’re heavily made up and wear ostentatious jewelry—dangling amber necklaces and loud diamond rings. Their faces often twist into superior, snobbish sneers. In some cases, these daughters of Sarah are screwed by uncircumcised men, and in bright-pink dialogue bubbles, they make much of how this religio-surgical fact would enrage their mothers. Their faux biographies profess a predilection for money ... Fresh from a summer on the Kabutz these pretty little Jewish Coeds are ready for a little action and it shows! If their Rabbi’s find out about this there would be more than a little Jewish guilt to dish out! At the Jewish Twin Sister Incest website, twin Jewish sisters can be seen 'Washing, Posing, Spanking, Undressing, Bondage, Master Bating.' All, it seems, without a trace of satire. The identical twins in question may be known to some New Yorkers—they’re Victoria and Marissa of the Sisters Grimm, the trash-rock band that appeared regularly at Coney Island High. Others may know them as Rocket and Leather from More Dirty Debutantes '88' and other adult videos. In private, these nice Jewish girls—originally from Brooklyn—may smirk and giggle about their foray into porn, but there’s nary a wink on the site. They’re working the Jew angle hard, and make it clear that in order to see the goods, you must first sign up for Adult Check, the online porn industry’s standard pay system. Does this contribute to anti-Semitism? Or is it just a convenient site for multi-fetishism? ... I interviewed 11 rabbis, none of whom had any idea that Jewish Pornography even exists. When I explained JP to them, they requested that their names not be included in this article. My own rabbi was one of them. His only comment: 'You worry about Jewish pornography when your people die in Israel?' My own mother was shocked: 'Don’t people hate us enough?' Among my friends, the reactions were predictable. The ones who had heard of Jewish Porn shared their favorite sites with me, while those who hadn’t were surprised. ... On some websites, the women wear the single-female uniform of modern orthodoxy: ankle-length, dark-colored skirts and long-sleeved shirts, and sometimes wigs, or shaidels. This modesty is intended to render them more erotic than if they were naked. The Jewish idea of modesty, peeking through the mechitza of taboo, is related to another interesting subculture—Jewish submissives in the world of bondage and sadomasochism (BDSM ... Another recurring motif in JP is the idea of the Mikvah, the ritual bath, as it relates to a woman’s menstruation and the sacred purification process. One site suggests that a Mikvah is an excellent place to pick up Jew-girls. These aspects of Judaism are more than mere set pieces for masturbating. There is a deeper significance. If all male Jews died out, there would still be Jews, in a Talmudic sense. Jewish women are the hosts of the bloodline, the givers of the ethnicity. There are only more Jews because of Jewish women, so it’s not unnatural that they may be venerated and sexualized, admired as Jews first, women second. In consuming JP, are Jewish men driven by a fear of extinction? From Upper West Side penthouses with views of the park to suburban living rooms, from hairy and bespectacled Jewish men to tanned, pre-rhinoplasty JAPs, Jewish Porn is a virtual homeland of neuroses, an Israel of the fetishized ... Jewish Porn is not religious pornography. Despite the occasional use of ritual objects in the acts of sodomy, this is an ethnic pornography ... In the larger scheme, full split shots of 'hairy Hebraic vaginas' are hardly small steps to the railcars. Or are they? At the extreme end of Jewish Porn, the terror of the concentration camps is re-enacted for sexual gratification. In Holocaust Porn, Jewish women are shown squatting and defecating in packed trains. They are shown having their heads shaved. They are emaciated, with their ribs poking out. They are incinerated in open ovens. They are gassed. They are sodomized with severed limbs, sometimes their own limbs. One can find staged photographs of a naked and shivering woman under a showerhead in a tiled hygienic facility. I have seen photos of a man dressed as a stormtrooper emptying a tank labeled 'Gasoline' into a woman’s mouth. The woman holds the funnel and masturbates the Nazi with her right hand. These photos are grainy black-and-whites, yet are clearly contemporary. And here things get dirty: The Holocaust Porn industry is based in Israel. The films are mostly made by Israelis, and they are also mostly purchased by Israelis. The actresses are overwhelmingly Israeli-Russian immigrants. Is Israeli involvement in Holocaust Porn a sick manifestation of an addiction to persecution? Is it a reaction to assimilation—or a product of it? Is it the blackest form of satire? How different are these re-enactments from those rare bits of genuine Holocaust footage passed around for erotic consumption? In an essay on Holocaust Porn, Andrea Dworkin writes that the victims have become the victimizers. That’s not quite the point: the victims have become the victimizers while remaining the victims."

[Robert Reich is of course Jewish. Why would he not pose nude, and maybe hop into a porno movie? There is plenty of Jewish precedent.]
A Little Skin From Clinton Crony. No intern, cigar, or pizza involved in Reichian frolic,
thesmokinggun.com
"Look, if you told us that a former Bill Clinton cabinet member was posing nude for a pin-up calendar, we'd be hard-pressed to pick which pol we'd most like to see in the buff. Reno? Albright? Shalala? Herman? All fine choices--va-va-va-voom--in more ways than one. So imagine The Smoking Gun's disappointment when we learned that Robert Reich, who headed the Department of Labor, was the stripping Secretary. Reich, the 4' 10" Democratic dynamo who was routed in last year's Massachusetts gubernatorial primary, posed last week for a 2004 calendar that will raise funds for a Cambridge community television group (the organization will begin selling the $15 item this summer). But thanks to a carefully placed basket stuffed with lettuce and an erect baguette, the 57-year-old Reich, a Brandeis University professor, avoided, um, total disclosure."

Reform movement accepts transgendered rabbinical student,
by Joe Berkofsky, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 11, 2003
"The Reform movement’s rabbinical seminary has accepted a transgendered person, paving the way for what is believed would be the first ordination of a rabbi to have switched genders. The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati confirmed this week that it accepted a male rabbinical school applicant who used to be a woman. The prospective rabbi, Reuben Zellman, 24, of Oakland, Calif., who considers himself 'transgender and queer,' said he is not attempting to spark religious debates nor become a political lightning rod. 'As far as I know, I am the first person to do this, but that’s not why I’m doing it,' Zellman said ... Zellman — who was open about being transgender throughout the admissions process — was accepted 'on his own merits,' said the school’s National Director of Admissions, Rabbi Roxanne Schneider Shapiro ... Although Zellman would not say whether he’s undergone a sex-change operation, he should be considered a man if he is living as one, said Scott Gansl, president of the World Congress of Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Jewish Organizations. Soon after he transitioned, Zellman joined Congregation Sha’ar Zahav in San Francisco, a largely gay synagogue affiliated with the Reform movement that bills itself as including 'people of all sexual identities.'"

A glance at the May issue of Reason: The trouble with the "porn studies" movement,
Chronicle of Higher Education, April 18, 2003
"The proliferation and attempted legitimization of 'porn studies' have generated hot debate over the treatment of sex in academe, writes Cathy Young, a contributing editor to the magazine. Examining recent controversies -- among them a conference at the State University of New York at New Paltz in 1997 titled 'Revolting Behavior: The Challenges of Women's Sexual Freedom,' which included a workshop on sex toys and a sadomasochistic performance by a stripper -- Ms. Young worries that events with 'the intellectual weight of a bachelor party' have become 'officially sanctioned academic activities.' Academe may have 'edged out the art world as the center of the debate about graphic sexual content and cultural value,' Ms. Young writes, and most participants in that debate are extremists: pornography professors who promote 'transgressive' sexual acts and consider their research 'cutting edge' and conservative critics who argue that 'the depiction of sexuality in art is never an appropriate subject for academic study.' Ms. Young considers the porn-studies movement self-contradictory because events and conferences quickly 'degenerate into by-the-numbers male bashing,' and while female academics' participation in such activities is celebrated, 'male academics crusading to incorporate pornography into the curriculum [would be] crucified as lechers and sexists.' She concludes that the popularity of porn studies is 'a reductio ad absurdum of the postmodernist creed that no 'text' is truly superior to any other' and contends that 'a far more meaningful exploration of human sexuality' would include an analysis of emotions and the desire for power and conquest without featuring 'advocacy of lesbian S&M.' The article is not online, but information about the magazine is available at http://reason.com/ --Sara Lipka"

[The Boston Globe is part of the New York Times chain, which is owned by the Jewish Sulzberger family. The editor of the Boston Globe, Martin Baron, is Jewish. Joseph Pulitzer was also Jewish. The Boston Globe won its Pulitizer prize for muckraking Catholic Church sex scandals. No such attention is provided (nor prizes awarded) to parallel sex scandals (see this web page) endemic to the Jewish community.]
Boston Globe Wins Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for Church Abuse Stories; LA Times, Washington Post Each Win Three,
tbo.com (from Associated Press), April 7, 2003
"The Boston Globe won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for public service Monday for 'courageous, comprehensive coverage' in its disclosures of sexual abuse by priests in the Roman Catholic church ... The Globe's public service award was its 16th Pulitzer overall and third for that category. In awarding the prize, the Pulitzer board cited the paper's 'courageous, comprehensive coverage of sexual abuse by priests, an effort that pierced secrecy, stirred local national and international reaction and produced changes in the Roman Catholic Church.' 'You made history this past year. And you made the world a better and safer, and more humane place,' Globe Editor Martin Baron told a packed newsroom."

[From Mark Leno's web site: "A native of Wisconsin, Leno attended the University of Colorado at Boulder, then went on to become valedictorian of his graduating class at the American College of Jerusalem, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts Degree. Leno also spent two years in Rabbinical Studies at Hebrew Union in New York."]
YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK. Bill would force hiring of cross-dressers. Even Boy Scouts, Bible bookstores subject of California law,
World Net Daily, April 21, 2003
"The Democrat-controlled California Assembly passed a bill today mandating fines of up to $150,000 against business owners - including Bible bookstores and nonprofit organizations such as the Boy Scouts - for refusing to hire cross-dressing and transsexual job applicants. After more than 45 minutes of debate, with a majority of speakers opposing the bill, AB 196 passed the Assembly by the narrowest of margins. The vote was 41 to 34, the bare minimum needed to advance the bill to the state Senate. All the 'yes' votes on AB 196 were from Democrats. Voting 'no' were 31 Republicans and three Democrats ... Authored by homosexual Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, AB 196 would insert a new definition of 'gender' into the powerful state Fair Employment and Housing Act. The bill's subjective definition of 'gender' is 'identity, appearance, or behavior, whether or not that identity, appearance, or behavior is different from that traditionally associated with the victim's sex at birth.' Leno has cited reports from the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the San Francisco Department of Public Health and several other studies that have documented widespread discrimination against what he calls 'transgender people' ... AB 196 would force employers to allow male employees to wear women's clothes and deny religious business owners to follow their own moral convictions opposing cross-dressing or sex changes ... 'This bill would give drag queens unprecedented power to persecute the Boy Scouts and religious businesses, even the power to shut down a Bible bookstore,' said Randy Thomasson, executive director of Campaign for California Families, a statewide nonprofit, nonpartisan family issues leadership organization. 'People aren't going to sacrifice their dearly-held values. What small business or nonprofit organization could financially survive a government investigation and a $150,000 penalty? AB 196 is grossly intolerant of religious freedom and the Boy Scouts. This radical bill engages in reverse discrimination and would do real harm to persons of conscience.'"

ADL Investigation Reveals Strain of Anti-Semitism in Extreme Factions of the Anti-Abortion Movement,
ADL (Anti-Defamation League), October 30, 1998
"A strain of anti-Semitism runs through the extreme factions of the anti-abortion movement, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). In the days following the fatal shooting of Dr. Barnett Slepian, a Buffalo, NY gynecologist-obstetrician who performed abortions, speculation has surfaced as to whether Dr. Slepian may have been targeted because he was a Jew. Four of the five abortion providers shot by a sniper or snipers in Canada and the United States since 1994 have been Jewish. 'While there is no evidence to suggest that anti-Semitism was a motive for the attacks, we are deeply concerned about the strain of anti-Semitism running through some extreme factions of the movement,' said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. 'They make insidious claims that Jewish doctors control the practice and industry of abortion, often comparing them to Nazi war criminals.' He named Human Life International, a major anti-abortion group with a history of anti-Semitism, as ‘inordinately preoccupied with Jews' ... While most of the organized anti-abortion movement decries bigotry and violence, ADL’s investigation revealed that some anti-abortion groups and a few individuals, along with some extremist anti-Semitic groups, single out Jewish doctors who perform the procedure or describe Jews as controlling the abortion 'industry.' Followings are some examples of the use anti-Semitism and the Holocaust by anti-abortion extremists: Human Life International (HLI), a Virginia-based anti-abortion group, has singled out Jews as disproportionately responsible for, even controlling, the abortion-rights movement. The organization’s founder, Father Paul Marx, wrote as long ago as 1977: 'I do not blame the Jews for the abortion movement. I do say, and will say because it is the truth, that it is a strange thing how many leaders in the abortion movement are Jewish.' Marx supported his observation by noting, 'A famous genetics professor in Paris told me that the leaders of the abortion movement in France were Jewish. I saw one, a Jewish female liar, do her thing on behalf of abortion at the World Population Conference in Bucharest.' Marx also stated: 'The fact is, I am surprised and shocked by the number of Jews who lead the abortion movement in so many countries after their horrendous experience with Hitler…. My medical friends, and I have many, have told me again and again how many Jewish doctors do abortions freely. From a highly reliable source in a city I shall not name for the moment, I learned of a Jewish doctor who does sixteen abortions every Saturday morning for $300.00 each.' A decade later, in a 1987 newsletter, Marx charged: 'There’s a most ironic side to the widespread, furious objections of some Jews (and others) to Pope John Paul II’s routine diplomatic reception of Austrian President Kurt Waldheim: the same segment of the Jewish community that accuses the Pope of insensitivity to the Jewish Holocaust not only condones but has

Poll: Most Israelis not using contraceptives,
By Gideon Alon, Haaretz (Israel), May 21, 2003
"About half of Israeli women aged 25 to 44 do not use contraceptives, according to a poll exploring sexual behavior carried out on behalf of the Union for the Advancement of Women in Israel by Geocartographia. The poll's findings were presented yesterday to the Knesset Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women. The poll found that 42 percent of married women and women living with a partner do not use contraceptives; the figure rises to 58 percent among women not living with a partner. Birth control pills are the most popular form of contraception, used by 26 percent of women while 18 percent of women use intra-vaginal devices. Just 7 percent said they used condoms. Among the ultra-Orthodox community, only 15 percent of women use any form of birth control. A particularly worrying statistic is that around 70 percent of Israeli women who have casual sex do not use condoms and are thus not protected from sexually-transmitted diseases. The survey also revealed a worryingly low rate of condom usage among men - 42 percent of Israeli admitted never using condoms. Just 23 percent of men regularly use condoms during casual sex."

[Moser and Kleinplatz come up as Jewish surnames:]
Psychiatric Association Debates Lifting Pedophilia Taboo,
By Lawrence Morahan, Cybercast News Service, June 11, 2003
"In a step critics charge could result in decriminalizing sexual contact between adults and children, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) recently sponsored a symposium in which participants discussed the removal of pedophilia from an upcoming edition of the psychiatric manual of mental disorders. Psychiatrists attending an annual APA convention May 19 in San Francisco proposed removing several long-recognized categories of mental illness - including pedophilia, exhibitionism, fetishism, transvestism, voyeurism and sadomasochism - from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Most of the mental illnesses being considered for removal are known as "paraphilias." Psychiatrist Charles Moser of San Francisco's Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality and co-author Peggy Kleinplatz of the University of Ottawa presented conferees with a paper entitled "DSM-IV-TR and the Paraphilias: An Argument for Removal." People whose sexual interests are atypical, culturally forbidden or religiously proscribed should not necessarily be labeled mentally ill, they argued. Different societies stigmatize different sexual behaviors, and since the existing research could not distinguish people with paraphilias from so-called "normophilics," there is no reason to diagnose paraphilics as either a distinct group or psychologically unhealthy, Moser and Kleinplatz stated. Participants also debated gender-identity disorder, a condition in which a person feels discomfort with his or her biological sex. Homosexual activists have long argued that gender identity disorder should not be assumed to be abnormal. "The situation of the paraphilias at present parallels that of homosexuality in the early 1970s. Without the support or political astuteness of those who fought for the removal of homosexuality, the paraphilias continue to be listed in the DSM," Moser and Kleinplatz wrote. A. Dean Byrd, vice president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) and a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Utah, condemned the debate. Taking the paraphilias out of the DSM without research would have negative consequences, he said. "What this does, in essence, is it has a chilling effect on research," Byrd said. "That is, once you declassify it, there's no reason to continue studying it. What we know is that the paraphilias really impair interpersonal sexual behavior...and to suggest that it could be 'normalized' simply takes away from the science, but more importantly, has a chilling effect on research." "Normalizing" pedophilia would have enormous implications, especially since civil laws closely follow the scientific community on social-moral matters, said Linda Ames Nicolosi, NARTH publications director. "If pedophilia is deemed normal by psychiatrists, then how can it remain illegal?" Nicolosi asked. "It will be a tough fight to prove in the courts that it should still be against the law."

[The Bible as Porno?]
A Good Book. A Jewish rabbi believes the Bible should be seen as a great work of fiction—and a racy read,
By Malcolm Beith, NEWSWEEK, July 10, 2003
" Over the past two years, [London-based American Reform Jewish Rabbi Sidney] Brichto thinks so. Brichto—director of the Liberal Jewish Movement in the UK for 25 years—has published eight volumes of “The People’s Bible,” which he hopes will transform the Bible back into the popular literary masterpiece it was once considered. So far, his work has been received favorably by respected critics, and despite his emphasis on an easy-to-read fluid narrative, none has accused him of “dumbing down” the Bible. With 10 more volumes to come, NEWSWEEK’s Malcolm Beith thought this would be the right time to ask Brichto exactly what he intends to achieve. Excerpts: NEWSWEEK: There have been some 3,000 translations of the Bible to date. Why another? Rabbi Sidney Brichto: The Bible has been tainted by holiness. No literary person really wants to read it. It’s a best seller least read. If you were to sit on a train and take a Bible out, it would be unusual for another person to sit next to you, because they’d think you’re either a Jehovah’s Witness or an evangelical and would be a bit frightened. I want people to read [the Bible] as literature. I want them to read the narrative as primarily fiction. They’re good stories. I want to make [the Bible] a good read … I have sex scenes, for example, in the story of Esther, because I think it requires [detail], not “He saw her, he asked her to come up to his place and he knew her and she was pregnant.” Something else happened. Those who do read the Bible read it like a duty, a chore."

A Harmful Message? New Book on Child Sex Sparks Uproar,
By Bryan Robinson, ABC News, April 5
"Judith Levine expected her book on child sexuality to stir some controversy, but she never dreamed she would be called an evil accomplice to child molesters. Though not yet released, Levine's book, Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex, has already attracted angry letters, phone calls and e-mails directed at her and her publisher, University of Minnesota Press. The book argues that efforts to protect children from sex can do more harm than good, especially when parents and educators are afraid to recognize children as sexual beings. Sex is a part of growing up for children and teenagers, Levine argues, and not all sexual encounters with adults are necessarily traumatic for minors. This has prompted critics to accuse Levine of endorsing child molestation and sexual abuse. "My book is not about intergenerational sex," Levine said. "I am not endorsing sex abuse of children. Quite the contrary. It was my hope that the book would allow parents and other adults to talk realistically about issues of kids and sexuality. Instead, there is an effort to suppress the book and stop that conversation ... Critics of Levine have called Harmful to Minors evil and say that she is endorsing a defense child molesters have used in criminal cases. "It's the latest academic cover for child molesters," said Robert Knight, executive director of The Culture and Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America. "Her book endorses child sexuality and says sex is good for children. This could easily be exploited by adults who have sex with children and who claim that it was done in the child's best interests, that they wanted it, and that they enjoyed it" ... Knight and other critics of Levine's arguments say that minors cannot make consensual decisions in sexual relationships with adults because they are never in positions of power. The adult is the authority figure because he or she is older and more experienced. "All child sex is coerced, no matter what the child's state of mind," said Knight. "Adults are always in a state of power and authority. No child can give meaningful consent."

[Eliot Javdan is Jewish].
Releasing Name of Bryant's Accuser Stirs Debate on Online Standards Mainstream media has tradition of not naming alleged rape victims, but no such code of behavior governs the Internet,
by Mark Glaser, USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review, July 25, 2003
"The Internet has been branded as the ethical swampland of journalism. Even large, respected news organizations are willing to risk more racy, questionable information on their Web sites first, then print or air the story later. The Net is home to gossip maven Matt Drudge and wannabe Drudges abound. But despite the effort of many respected online outlets, the broad perception is that a newspaper such as The Washington Post has more scruples than Fark.com. This story will not change that perception -- but will likely make it worse. This is a small portion of the aerial view BinaryReport posted of the accuser's neighborhood, along with her actual home address... Eliot Javdan, who graduated from the University of Southern California last year, runs BinaryReport.com and further researched the woman. (Warning: The site today posted the gruesome pictures of Saddam Hussein's dead sons.) He found the correct spelling of her name and posted her e-mail address, phone number, home address and even a link to a satellite photo of her neighborhood (with a pushpin marking her house). With a simple click, viewers could see the accuser's house and send her an e-mail. Javdan considers his site a more balanced version of Drudge Report, going beyond a conservative slant. He said all of the personal data on Bryant's accuser was public, and he linked to all his sources (including the EURweb story). After an "Inside Edition" story surfaced that the woman was receiving death threats via e-mail, her personal info was deleted from Javdan's site, except her name -- though links to the personal details are still there. Javdan would not comment on the change in details, but explained his rationale for running the info in the first place. "I am not sure if Kobe Bryant is being falsely accused, but what I do know is that his image has already been tarnished," he said via e-mail. "No matter what people say, Kobe's name will always have an asterisk beside it because of this incident."

[Milk, Salzman, Klein: Jewish]
SCHOOL'S 'OUT',
By CARL CAMPANILE, New York Post, July 28, 2003
"Class is in session. Ex-Wall Streeter William Salzman will be the first official principal of Harvey Milk HS, which is currently expanding from the third floor of this Village building. The city is opening a full-fledged high school for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students - the first of its kind in the nation, The Post has learned. Operating for two decades as a small alternative program with just two classrooms, the new Harvey Milk HS officially opens as a stand-alone public school with 100 students in September. The school, located at 2 Astor Place, is undergoing a $3.2 million in city-funded renovations approved by the old Board of Education in June of last year. It will eventually take in 170 students by September 2004, more than tripling last year's enrollment. The Hetrick-Martin Institute - the gay-rights youth-advocacy group that manages and helps finance the school in conjunction with the Department of Education - has hired the school's first principal. In the past, Harvey Milk HS - named after the slain gay San Francisco politician - was assigned an "off-site" supervisor who also oversaw several other schools. "This school will be a model for the country and possibly the world," Principal William Salzman said in an interview at the facility that will boast a new science lab, 60 laptop and desktop computers donated by IBM, additional classrooms and a new cafeteria. Salzman, a former Wall Street executive, was most recently assistant principal of guidance and business information technology at Brooklyn's Automotive HS. Salzman said Harvey Milk will be an academically rigorous school that follows Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's mandatory English and math programs. It will also specialize in computer technology, arts and a culinary program. "This is a not a touchy-feely situation," Salzman said. "We intend to have 95 percent of our students go on to college. We have a lot of talent coming into the school. We want to steer these kids in the right direction." State Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long blasted the school as "social engineering" that wastes tax dollars. "Is there a different way to teach homosexuals? Is there gay math? This is wrong. This makes absolutely no sense," Long said. "There's no reason these children should be treated separately."

The links between the racist right and the pro-life movement,
by Emma Nutter, Arthur (Trent University Student and College Newspaper), November 24, 1998
"Everybody seems to think the pro-life movement is just a bunch of elderly Christian women who believe that abortion is wrong. However, the anti-choice movement in North America is inextricably linked with far right and racist organizing ... . There is evidence of a strong anti-semitic sentiment within the anti-abortion movement. Dr. Barnett Slepian was most likely targeted because he was Jewish. Photos of Slepian were sent to the Hamilton Spectator with crosshairs drawn on his face and the words "Jew" and "Killer" scrawled on the photo. In addition to this, four of the five abortion doctors killed in the past two years have been Jewish. However, this isn’t the only example of anti-semitism within the anti-abortion movement. Human Life International, a Virginia based anti-abortion group, has singled out Jewish doctors for "controlling the abortion industry." In the 1993 Human Life International Newsletter, the question was posed; "Why are victims of one holo-caust perpetrating another?"

'How to be Gay' course draws fire at Michigan,
By George Archibald, THE WASHINGTON TIMES, August 18, 2003
"A course called "How to be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation," scheduled this fall, has reignited a culture war at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. A family-values lobbyist is leading public opposition to the self-proclaimed "uncompromising political militancy" of the professor who teaches "lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender." The lobbyist, Gary Glenn, says professor David M. Halperin and the university "are guilty of perpetrating a fraud against UM students and the people of Michigan [with] propaganda statements about so-called cultural studies and academic freedom" as they promote "queer studies" at taxpayer expense. Mr. Glenn, president of the Michigan affiliate of the conservative American Family Association, first criticized the "How to be Gay" courses three years ago. In 2000, the Michigan state legislature fell just four votes short of passing a measure to cut off all government funds for the courses. Last week, he renewed his crusade against Mr. Halperin's classes, urging Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm, a Democrat, the legislature and the university's Board of Regents to "stop letting homosexual activists use our tax dollars to subsidize this militant political agenda" ... The course description says students "will examine a number of cultural artifacts and activities" including "camp, diva-worship, drag, muscle culture, taste, style and political activism." Mr. Halperin's class explores "the role that initiation plays in the formation of gay male identity." The emphasis on "initiation" into homosexuality is what appears to be most offensive to conservatives like Mr. Glenn. "We don't know what [Mr. Halperin] does in the classroom," the state AFA president says in an interview. "It is outrageous that Michigan taxpayers are forced to pay for a class whose stated purpose is to 'experiment' with the 'initiation' of young men into a self-destructive homosexual lifestyle." Mr. Glenn notes that Mr. Halperin has boasted in print about his success in advancing a homosexual agenda ... University officials have been "inundated" with AFA-distributed postcards objecting to the course, says university spokeswoman Julie Peterson. But she does not expect the postcards to affect the university's support for Mr. Halperin."

State Senate condemns Boy Scouts' stance on gays. Resolution urges change in group's policy of exclusion,
By Jason Probst, Press Tribune, August 29, 2003
"The state senate voted 22-15 Monday in favor of a resolution critical of the Boy Scouts of America for not accepting gays and atheists as members. Sponsored by Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles), Assembly Concurrent Resolution 89 praises the Boy Scouts for their service and role in helping youth, but the end of the bill asks that the organization to allow all qualified applicants to join the organization "without discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or religious belief." With the Supreme Court ruling 5-4 in 2000 upholding the Scouts' decision to bar gay troop leaders, the organization has largely retained the right to enforce its oath and its own guidelines for membership. But the resolution passed Monday is an effort that Goldberg hopes will induce the organization to change its membership rules. Pressure from gay rights supporters and groups has impacted funding for the Boy Scouts as part of the campaign, as major donors like United Way have pulled financial support because of the Scouts' unwillingness to change their policy. The resolution passed the Assembly in April by a vote of 43-2. Goldberg is upbeat about her resolution passing the Senate floor, with a vote split down party lines. She says a necessary first step toward "getting the Boy Scouts into the 21st Century."

[Yes, Congresswoman Susan Davis is Jewish]
California Congresswoman Proudly Supports Obscene Bisexual Conference,
Traditional Values Coalition, August 29, 2003
"Summary: San Diego Congresswoman Susan Davis (D) attended a bisexual conference over the weekend that featured full female and male nudity and workshops on sex toys. Congressman Susan Davis (D-CA) was a keynote speaker at the North American Conference on Bisexuality at the Radisson Hotel in San Diego last weekend (August 22-23, 2003). The conference included workshops on masturbation and how to host sex orgies in hotel rooms and private homes. Presenter Tom Limoncelli said: "I think sex parties are a way to change the world." Part of this workshop involved discussions of holding sacred sexuality or magic rituals as part of these sex orgies. On Saturday morning, the bisexuals held a workshop called "Body Electric School-trained Sacred Intimate," on erotic touch, featuring nude males and females. For more on this story, read Allyson Smith's first-hand report on WorldNetDaily: WorldNetDaily: Congresswoman at XXX-rated sex meeting. TAKE ACTION: Contact Rep. Susan Davis and ask why she supports bisexuality and the radical homosexual agenda. You can use CapWiz to contact her: http://traditionalvalues.org/capwiz.php "

The Purpose and Meaning of Sex in Judaism. Judaism approves of sex and sexual pleasure, valuing it as a means toward procreation and companionship,
By Michael Gold, Jewish Learning
"The Torah never explicitly lays out a sexual ethic; rather, it hints at certain attitudes in numerous passages. These attitudes are further explored in the rabbinic interpretations of these passages articulated in the Talmud and midrash ... For the most part, Judaism rejected the negative teachings about sex that later became prevalent in Christianity. In fact, the rabbis throughout the talmudic period and the Middle Ages often spoke of sexual relations as a wonderful part of God’s creation ... The creation stories in the Torah suggest two purposes of sexual activity. The first and most obvious is procreation ... The second purpose of sexual relations is companionship, which the Torah seems to regard as an even greater justification for sexual relations than procreation. In Jewish tradition, the belief that “it is not good for man to be alone” is as important if not more important than the command to “be fruitful and increase.” The Torah uses the term yada—“to know”—to indicate a sexual relationship. Sex is thus considered more than a mere biological act; it involves intimate knowledge shared by two human beings. The positive attitude of Judaism toward sexuality stands in sharp contrast with a more negative picture that developed in early Christianity. Although Christians disagreed on the nature of Adam’s sin in the Bible, it was generally believed to be tied up with sexuality."

Attorney's porn site work lifts eyebrows. Free advice on Net shocks some towns,
"by PETER N. SPENCER AND MATTHEW J. DOWLING, Star-Ledger (New Jersey), October 2, 2003
"The municipal attorney for five towns in Hunterdon, Warren and Somerset counties has been offering free legal advice to operators of pornography Web sites as a way to drum up business for the Internet law portion of his Warren Township-based practice. Eric M. Bernstein said his firm earns money from the adult entertainment industry, but it does not interfere with his work for municipal governments. In addition, he said he notified municipal officials of his involvement with Internet pornography law. "I advised all of them of my involvement so they had an opportunity to let me know if they objected to it," said Bernstein, who declined to identify his clients in the adult entertainment business. High Bridge Mayor Al Schweikert said he's received at least 20 calls from outraged residents this week and was personally revolted by Bernstein's position as a moderator for chat.ynotmasters.com. The Web site serves as an information resource for Internet porn operators and a forum for porn industry news. It does not show pornographic material. "If he is capable of making these types of decisions in his own life, he shouldn't be making decisions about our town," Schweikert said ... In addition to High Bridge, Bernstein serves as municipal attorney for Franklin Township and Lebanon Township in Hunterdon County, North Plainfield in Somerset County and Washington Township in Warren County. Despite Bernstein's assertion that he informed the municipalities of his legal work for adult entertainment clients, only Lebanon Township Mayor Jay Weeks said he knew of the ties before being contacted by a reporter this week. Weeks said he was made aware of Bernstein's ties to the adult entertainment industry several months ago."

Say Hello to the Prof in Drag. Class on sexual minorities pushes students to 'challenge stereotypes',
By JESSICA LIEBMAN, Cornell Daily Sun, October 9, 2003
"Students in Human Development 284: Gender and Sexual Minorities had anything but your typical lecture several weeks ago. In place of two professors, two drag queens, Cherry Forever and Sir Luscious Lurell, danced and lip-synched to the music of Blu Cantrell and Sean Paul and then answered students' questions. The performance was entirely Prof. Ritch Savin-Williams' idea. He and Kenneth Cohen, co-lecturers of HD 284, wanted to show students what being a drag queen is really like. "We can know it and learn it, but what does it feel like?" Savin-Williams said. The drag queen presentation was not a "show and tell. I want to think of ways to push students further. I keep searching for opportunities to provide personal contact," he continued ... Next year Cohen will teach alone, and the class will move back to its evening slot. "The course is predominately women, around 70-80 percent. The men in the class are 50 percent gay and 50 percent straight," Savin-Williams said. At the first lecture he warned women: "The number of bisexuals in the course increases dramatically by the end. Women realize what they are feeling may not be straight, and some end up becoming bisexuals, and some lesbians," he said. The straight men in the course are, according to Savin-Williams, "gentler, kinder men, committed to being decent human beings. Those are the men who feel comfortable taking the course" ... Although Savin-Williams will not be teaching the course next year, Cohen will find new ways to transform it even further. Drag queens were just the beginning; the possibilities are endless."

[Here's the staff for "Coupling" -- plenty of obvious Jewish surnames (and others surely disguised), including the lead Executive Producer, Ben Silverman]
FILE YOUR FORMAL INDECENCY COMPLAINT AGAINST THE September 25 and October 2, 2003 EPISODES OF NBC-TV’s “COUPLING” WITH THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (FCC) NOW!
Parents Television Council

Organizers welcome planned international gay fest in Jerusalem with pride,
By Ellis Shuman, Israel Insider, October 23, 2003
"The city of Jerusalem has been selected to host the 2005 InterPride international gay and lesbian parade, an event that could potentially bring hundreds of thousands of tourists to Israel. Local organizers of the event say they have their work cut out for them. Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox mayor called a recent gay parade in the city an "abomination." "An event of this magnitude has never occurred before anywhere in Israel," said Jerry Levinson, chairman of Jerusalem's Gay and Lesbian Center. The last InterPride celebration was held in Rome in 2000 and attracted half a million visitors. "Doing this in Jerusalem is so much more interesting and special - because of the diversity of the city, because you have Arabs and Jews together, secular and Orthodox - and that's something very special I don't think you get anywhere else, not even in Israel," said Hagai El-Ad, executive director of Jerusalem Open House. Jerusalem only started hosting gay parades two years ago. The local parades, which drew some 4,000 participants, were heavily criticized by the city council and many local residents. Former Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert withheld municipal funding for the 2002 parade, but the High Court of Justice later ordered the Jerusalem Municipality to pay organizers 40,000 shekels for the annual event, in line with the sum the city provided for other marches. A spokesman for Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupoliansky said earlier this week that the issue of permits for such a parade was a police, and not a municipal, affair. Deputy Mayor Eliezer Simhayoff (Shas) said he wasn't concerned about the planned event, Yediot Aharonot reported. "This is a fantasy that won't be realized. There are many ways to encourage tourism to Jerusalem, and this is not one of them. We don't need to bring here tourists who will only create provocations. Jerusalem is a much more unique city than Rome. It has many Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) residents and we must consider their feelings." Simhayoff said he didn't think the Jerusalem Municipality should, or would provide funding for the event."

Strip-trivia can be a game of Jewish survival,
By Efrat Shalom, Haaretz (Israel), November 5, 2003
"For the next five days, participants were required to take part in various competitions and activities - all broadcast via a Web site set up for the occasion, as well as on a large-screen TV in the Hillel auditorium. The contestants took part in Reike and salsa workshops, listened to lectures about Israel and played "strip-trivia," which featured questions about Israel. They exhibited poor knowledge of the subject: according to the participants, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda is a street in Tel Aviv, and Hebrew has been spoken continuously since biblical times; only one contestant knew that the president of Israel is Moshe Katzav. None knew the reason why Jews celebrate Sukkot. According to the rules of the game, each wrong answer required the removal of an article of clothing, and in fairly little time a pile of clothes formed on the floor of the Sukka. Another task required the participants to enter a room in which they had at their disposal a telephone and a computer hooked up to the Internet. They were given 20 minutes to convince as many people as possible to contribute money to needy Jews."

[So when does Ms. Feldt appear in Playboy?]
Planned Parenthood President Named One of Glamour Magazine's 'Women of the Year',
U.S.Newswire, November 11, 2003
"Glamour magazine has named Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) President Gloria Feldt one of its "2003 Glamour Women of the Year." The magazine's 14th annual Women of the Year Awards, held last night at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City recognized 12 extraordinary and inspirational women from a variety of fields, including entertainment, business, sports, music, science/medicine, education and politics. "In these dangerous times for our movement, it is an act of bravery for you to bestow an award on an organization that works day in and day out for reproductive freedom," Feldt said. "It is an honor to work with the most courageous people on earth, and I honor Glamour magazine for honoring us." Glamour recognized Feldt as a leading advocate in the women's reproductive rights movement. "Thanks to her leadership and determination, health insurance providers in 21 states, covering more than half of all American women are now required to pay for oral contraceptives," stated actress Sarah Michelle Gellar who presented Feldt with her award. "Gloria is a champion for women's rights and an inspiration to millions of young women around the world."

[Your handy Jewish porn reference list. Who dominates this field?]
A New Reality Show Is Porn,
by Joal Ryan, Yahoo! News, November 4, 2003
"A porn star, a fashion designer and a tennis player walk into a bar. The bartender says, "So, you folks all want your own reality series?" It's no joke (except for the part about the bar). The ever-expanding reality TV universe soon will include shows about a star tennis player (U.S. Open champ Andy Roddick), fledgling fashionistas (Project Runway) and aspiring adult-film thespians (Can You Be a Porn Star?). Former California gubernatorial candidate Mary Carey and Free Will Humping leading lady Tabitha Stevens will host the eight-episode, porn-star show, to debut on iN DEMAND and other pay-per-view outlets January 8. Industry legend Ginger Lynn will head a panel of distinguished judges who collectively have appeared in the likes of Whore of the Worlds and Thai Me Up. Billed as "the natural evolution" of the reality-TV boom, Can You Be a Porn Star? will track 28 women as they move, four at a time, into a Los Angeles home and endure a "gauntlet of interviews, photo shoots, challenges and surprises." Less this sound a bit too ABC Family Channel, the producers promise the show will be chockfull of "uninhibited nudity." The winner will receive a one-year video contract, $100,000 and all the...Well, we really shouldn't get into that here. In a statement Monday, producer Harry Feingold promised Can You Be a Porn Star? will be fun for the whole family--make that, the whole adult family. "We think [the show] will become an enjoyable, addictive series not just for men, but for wives and girlfriends who enjoy both reality TV and adult entertainment," Feingold said."

Sacred Sex,
by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Eve Ilsen
futurenet.org (Sustainable Sex ~ winter 1997 / 1998)
"I ask my Bar Mitzvah boys, “Do you masturbate?” And first they are a little sheepish about it and then they say, “Yes,” and I say, “You know what? It is a good thing to do on the Sabbath! Take your time, put on some music, and explore your body and what feels good for you, and most important, let God in.” Can you imagine when a youth learns to honor the power and the fire how different their sexual encounters are going to be later on? The language that we have currently to speak about sexuality and to impart it to the next generation needs help because we aren’t able to bring it into holy discourse any more. We badly need a word other than “fuck.” Hear the short vowel in there? It’s all expletive. I would like a “oooooo eeeeeoooooww” in there!"

Mrs. Santa in Drag at Thanksgiving Parade,
By CHAKA FERGUSON, Yahoo!News (from Associated Press), November 26, 2003 [Same story at Newsday]
"The annual Thanksgiving parade is famous for its giant balloon caricatures, but Mrs. Santa in drag may be drawing the second looks this year. In lighthearted support of a recent Massachusetts high court ruling favoring gay marriage, actor Harvey Fierstein — Broadway's most famous drag queen — will dress as the Mrs. Claus while riding downtown on a float. Fierstein, star of the Broadway musical hit "Hairspray" and an openly gay three-time Tony Award winner, wrote an op-ed piece in Wednesday's New York Times promoting his planned homage to Mrs. Claus during Thursday's parade. Fierstein, who was not immediately available for comment, wrote that "to the delight of millions of little children, the Santa in New York's great parade will be half of a same-sex couple." "And guess who the other half will be?" he asked. "Me! Harvey Fierstein, nice Jewish boy from Bensonhurst, dressed in holiday finery portraying the one and only Mrs. Claus."

You Better Watch Out,
By HARVEY FIERSTEIN, New York Times, November 26, 2003 ARTICLE
"According to legend, New York lore and two major Hollywood flicks, Macy's Santa is the real deal. And tomorrow, to the delight of millions of little children (not to mention the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court), the Santa in New York's great parade will be half of a same-sex couple. And guess who the other half will be? Me! Harvey Fierstein, nice Jewish boy from Bensonhurst, dressed in holiday finery portraying the one and only Mrs. Claus. Won't America get a kick out of that? But what if Santa really was gay? Could there be a another Mr. Claus? Would those grinches who, as we speak, are fashioning legislation to deny marriage to gay and lesbian Americans make an exception for the jolly old soul? What has Santa ever done except bring joy and gifts to all? Just the sight of his face is enough to bring a smile to the Scroogiest of politicians ... Of course, there will be those who say, Santa Claus lives near Canada and isn't even an American. To them I reply, neither is anyone who would deny a person full citizenship because of whom he or she loves. Besides, we've been looking at a time share on the Cape. Happy holiday and remember to wave to me on my float. I'll be the man in the big red dress."

Frum Sex
[Ongoing Orthodox Jewish dialogue about sex.]

A list of prominent Jewish activists in the activist gay community,
researched and submitted by a JTR reader

Site for alternative Jews in Brazil, [from Breakling News list on right at JTA home page], Jewish Telegraphic Agency, January 2004
"A Brazilian Jewish group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Jews launched a Web site. Brazilian Gay, Lesbian, Transvestite, Bisexual, Transgender Jews and Sympathizers has some 280 members aged 18-60 — 70 percent of them male — who debate subjects such as human rights, citizenship, civil unions, safety, religion and Zionism, according to the group’s president, Ari Teperman. The group, whose Portugese Web site is www.jgbr.com.br, was created in 1999. “Our objective is to bring together all homosexual Jews and Jewesses who need room to dialogue about themes related to homosexuality and their relationship with Judaism and the Jewish community,” Teperman said. The group also wants to fight prejudice."

Beyond Diversity Day: A Q&A on Gay and Lesbian Issues in Schools Series: Curriculum, Cultures, and (Homo)Sexualities Series,
By Arthur Lipkin, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
"Beyond Diversity Day is a handbook for teachers, counselors, administrators, policy makers, parents, and students who want to understand and affirm sexuality differences; promote and protect the well-being of all students; and reduce bigotry, self-hatred, and violence. In question-and-answer format, Arthur Lipkin offers advice on how to nurture positive relationships among glbt youth, their families, and the schools; welcome glbt families in the school community; support glbt educators; and incorporate sound and appropriate glbt-related curricula across disciplines. Written by a veteran high school and university teacher and staff developer, Beyond Diversity Day weaves sound scholarship with vivid real-world examples from classrooms and the media. It offers a compelling blueprint for working with diverse students and for improving schools. About The Author Arthur Lipkin, an associate editor of the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Issues in Education, is a former instructor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He directed the Safe Colleges Program of the Massachusetts Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth and taught in the Cambridge Public Schools for twenty years. He is also the author of Understanding Homosexuality, Changing Schools (1999)"

[Universal has for decades been a Jewish-run company, but we're not sure of the exact hierearchy right now. The porn company Vivid is also Jewish -- founded by Stephen Hirsch, and featuring current co-chief Bill Asher.]
What most likely will make Vivendi's and Vivid's 'uncensored' music channel a success, if it be one, is the sex—and lots of it,
Morality in Media, January 8, 2004
"The Los Angeles Times reported on January 2 that the world’s biggest record conglomerate, Universal Music Group, “is trying to start its own uncensored music TV channel.” According to the paper, Universal Music Group and Vivid Entertainment Group would each own 45% shares of the proposed commercial-free premium channel. Universal is a unit of media giant Vivendi Universal. Vivid is one of the giants among our nation’s population of hardcore pornographers. Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media had the following comments: “In general, there has been a ‘courtship’ going on between our nation’s secular entertainment media (film, TV and rap/music) and the hardcore pornography industry headquartered just north of Hollywood in the San Fernando Valley. “But in the youth-oriented rap and music business, it would appear that the ‘courtship’ is rapidly progressing to an incestuous marriage, with rappers and musicians not only incorporating elements of the world of hardcore pornography into their own performances and but also with rappers now performing in and creating hardcore pornographic videos. “Perhaps then, it should come as no surprise that a major record company has now embarked upon a joint venture with one of the nation’s largest hardcore pornographers to launch a new premium ‘music’ channel that reportedly will be more nasty, vulgar and sexual than MTV."

[We post the following old story again to understand the Jewish dimensions of the story above . See also, of course, our documentation of the Jewish porn world.]
Prime-Time Porn Borrowing tactics from the old Hollywood studios, Vivid Entertainment has ditched the plain brown wrapper and is taking the multibillion-dollar sex-film industry mainstream,
By Paul Keegan, Business 2.0, June 2003 Issue
"On a sunny day in New York City, Steve Hirsch ... switches off CNN and goes right for the porn channel. "These are mostly video compilations," he says dismissively as he flips past the ads -- Extra Busty Beauties, Real Hard Sex, More Dripping Wet Sex, Lots of Filthy Sex, Filthy Sex Fantasies -- then stops. 'Here we go.' It's a glitzy head shot of Jenna Jameson, the reigning superstar of porn, appearing in her latest release, I Dream of Jenna, billed as 'a comical adventure with 10 of the nastiest sex scenes ever filmed!' Hirsch is 41 years old. He has a broad, handsome face and deep California tan, and he wears his collar open, revealing glimpses of a massive chest earned from pumping iron three days a week. Jameson's film is just what he was looking for -- not a compilation of steamy scenes but an actual movie with a story line, high production values, and a star-studded cast led by the vixen he calls 'by far the biggest star in the history of the adult business.' But Hirsch won't actually watch this movie -- he couldn't care less about Jameson's sexual escapades. What really turns him on is the business of porn. Nineteen years ago, he and a partner scraped together $20,000 to found Vivid Entertainment of Van Nuys, Calif. Today, Hirsch is a multimillionaire, Vivid is the biggest XXX film studio in the world, with revenue estimated at $100 million, and it has Jameson locked up in a seven-year deal. More important, Hirsch is the executive most responsible for transforming a disreputable underground industry into a mainstream, multibillion-dollar business. It now sends hard-core movies to TV screens across America through hotel chains like Marriott (MAR) and Hilton (HLT) and satellite and cable operators Comcast (CMCSK), DirecTV, and AOL Time Warner (AOL) (publisher of this magazine) and is turning unknown strippers and models into celebrities overnight. You've probably never heard of Steve Hirsch -- and that's how he likes it. He'd rather have you focus on his Vivid Girls, porn stars he began manufacturing in 1984 by bringing back the old Hollywood contract system ... Jenna Jameson, porn's top star, gets royal treatment -- and brings in an estimated $15 million a year. All of which makes this soft-spoken businessman a striking emblem of what's happened to the world of porn in recent years. As the industry has grown to proportions befitting its obsession with size -- altogether, magazines, movies, websites, sex toys, phone lines, and strip clubs account for somewhere between $4 billion and $10 billion annually -- it has become so complex and competitive that only the smartest, soberest business minds can prosper. And though the XXX film business was once considered the sleazy underbelly of Hollywood, today Hirsch lectures at the USC Business School and has a Dartmouth grad and MBA as co-chairman of his firm ... Bill Asher, Vivid's Ivy League chairman, remembers that when he left Playboy's cable division to run Hirsch's hard-core channels just four years ago, he felt like he had one foot in the gutter and one in the real business world. 'Now I look around,' he says, 'and I think to myself, 'What happened to the gutter?'"

Erotic Museum Celebrates the Tame, Tawdry,
Earthlink (from Associated Press), January 21, 2004
"One look at Hollywood's newest tourist attraction and it's easy to mistake it for any number of adult shops along the popular Walk of Fame. The nude pictures, sex toys and stag films aren't meant to arouse but to edify. This is, after all, the Erotic Museum, which pays tribute to all things sexual, from the tame to the tawdry. It chronicles sex through the ages with nude abstracts by Pablo Picasso, erotic jade figurines from ancient China, vintage sex toys and sultry computer-animated dancers. For nearly $13 for the price of admission, visitors can touch rubber toys or peruse patent applications for various oddball erotic inventions such as a diagram of a newfangled "female security device." No one under 18 is admitted. Owners said Los Angeles, home to both mainstream movies and the adult film industry, seemed ideal for a museum celebrating erotica. "Lord knows the entertainment industry is giving people their sexual cues these days," said museum curator Eric Singley, 33 ...Co-founder Mark Volper, a former engineer who has worked in advertising, said he got the idea after visiting sex museums in Europe. The owners spent about $900,000 buying artifacts and renovating the two-story, 6,000-square-foot space, previously a Hollywood souvenir shop. Volper, a Russian immigrant, said the risque exhibits serve as a reminder of his newfound civil liberties ... Singley said he wanted the museum to showcase most aspects of sex, the only taboo subjects being children and violence. Several protesters rallied at the museum's opening last Friday, Singley said, but he wasn't worried about offending visitors. "It's a sex museum. What am I supposed to do?" he asked. "It could not be PG."

[More spreading -- above -- of Jewish porn into mainstream culture, where the REAL money is.
Boris Smorodinsky. CEO of Erotic Museum. "A desire to make a better life for his family, motivated by the discrimination he felt as a Jew in communist Russia, led Smorodinsky to immigrated to Los Angeles in 1989 ..."
Marina Smorodinsky, Director of Erotic Museum: "Marina began a 26-year career with a prominent publishing house in her native Moscow, working on behalf of musicians and composers (among book's composers were Dmitri Shostakvich and Leonard Bernstein) interviewing the likes of Yehudi Menuhin."
And is the economic piston behind the new Hollywood "Erotic Museum," Marc Volper (an immigrant from Russia) also Jewish? Any clues? What do do you think? Could it be the Usual Network that stretches from this Porno Museum to the Holocaust Museum and Simon Weisenthal Center?
Mark Volper. CFO. "A driving force behind the development and launch of The Erotic Museum in Hollywood, Mark Volper brings an MBA degree and a diverse background in real estate, operations and finance to his post as chief financial officer. As the museum prepares for launch in October 2003, Volper has been primarily responsible for developing its business plan, assembling a consortium of private investors and laying the groundwork for its long-term growth. Enamored of the artist’s life as a child in Moscow, Volper instead pursued a more practical path, earning an undergraduate degree as a petrochemical engineer and subsequently an MBA equivalent from Moscow University. Throughout the 70’s, while working in his field, Volper reignited his childhood passion in his involvement with the refusenik movement, helping artists to survive and promote their work beyond the Soviet Union. In 1981, at age 34, Volper had the good fortune to leave Russia for the U.S., smuggling a broad collection of refusenik art including several ink drawings by surrealist Vladimir Yankilevsky ... In 1997 Volper teamed with longtime college friend Boris Smorodinsky and his friend’s wife Marina, a professional editor and journalist, to open his own business, Amerigraphics. As it grew from a print service bureau into graphic design, the partners spun off a separate company, ADS Creative, to focus on the latter, broadening their services into advertising and marketing. During the past six years its clients have included corporate leaders such as Marriott, entertainment entities including HBO, "The Drew Carey Show," Fireworks Entertainment, and Curb Entertainment and such schools and galleries as the Art Institute of Los Angeles, Holocaust Museum and Simon Wiesenthal Center. Once freed from Soviet oppression, Volper’s intrinsic love of art motivated him to visit galleries around the world, discovering erotic museums in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Paris and Canberra. In early 2002 he and the Smorodinskys began to consider opening a local branch of the Paris or Amsterdam museum, but eventually turned their thought to a freestanding venture, one which combined art, education and entertainment to great effect. The October opening of The Erotic Museum is due, in no small part, to the passion and commitment of Mark Volper."
[Plenty of Jews online with the more anglicized "Wolper."]

Rabbi invents prayer for porn-surfing Jews,
Ananonva, January 20, 2004
"An Israeli rabbi has invented a prayer to help Jews overcome the guilt of visiting pornographic websites. The benediction by Shlomo Eliahu says: "Please God, help me cleanse the computer of viruses and evil photographs which disturb and ruin my work..., so that I shall be able to cleanse myself (of sin)." Mr Eliahu said he had seen a marked increase in the number of men who had come to him to confess their internet sins. The callers said they were worried that the time they were spending surfing for porn was ruining their family lives, the daily Yedioth Ahronoth reports. The rabbi recommends that Jews recite the prayer when they log on, or even programme it to flash up on their computer screens so they are spiritually covered whether they enter a dodgy site intentionally or by mistake."

[Another neurotic Jewish weird-oh and another Jewish disinformation scam. Yes, there's a direct closure between a Queen of Copulation and the Jewish state. Why not? Jews are the porn maestros of the Western world, Israel champions an ardent sex slave industry, and this famous "sex therapist's" perverse "love" is obviously well-founded. If this woman is so incredibly dysfunctional with her emotional loyalties here, God help those who actually considered whatever she said in her life on the subject of sex to be "therapy."]
Dr. Ruth Shares Her Passion — for Israel,
By ETHAN PORTER, Forward, January 23, 2004
"As America's most outspoken sex therapist, Dr. Ruth Westheimer is an expert at keeping romance alive. Now, Dr. Ruth is focusing on a different kind of passion: her love for Israel. Before she was writing books and hosting talk shows about sex, Dr. Ruth served in the Haganah, fighting valiantly in Israel's War of Independence. More than five decades later, her love for the Jewish state has not waned. In order to best express her feelings, Dr. Ruth is primed to lead a new campaign, "Love is Real," sponsored by Hillel, the largest Jewish campus organization in the world. The aim of the campaign is to change the tone of discussions regarding Israel on college campuses. In contrast to the inflamed rhetoric that frequently dominates such debates in the hallways of academia, "Love is Real" intends to sound a more positive note. "What you are embarking upon ... is really to speak about commitment," Dr. Ruth told an audience attending a sneak preview of the campaign earlier this month. As she sees it, the Jewish commitment to Israel is analogous to the commitment required for a healthy romantic partnership. Dr. Ruth's official position in the campaign is honorary chairperson. She will appear in "Love is Real" literature, and may speak on campuses that are involved when the project kicks off nationally in mid-February. Student participants will be identifiable by their T-shirts and buttons bearing the slogan "Love is Real." If all goes according to plan, other students will inquire about the meaning of the emblem; participants then will share their personal stories about Israel and present the inquirers with buttons bearing the slogan. As more stories are told and more buttons are exchanged, a virtual web of love for Israel hopefully will emerge on campus ... Hillel plans to distribute 15,000 buttons to more than 1,000 participants on more than 100 campuses. It is a huge endeavor but a lot will be improvised, and thus, in the words of Firestone, "more authentic" ... If Dr. Ruth is best known for advising the lovelorn on matters of sex, she's still an Israeli at heart — and an Israeli veteran at that, as she reminded the students who attended the sneak preview. "Watch out for me," she said. "I can still put five bullets of a stun gun into the little red circle."

[JTR Contributor's comment: "Must we presume gay marriage is legal and condoned in Israel?"]
Jewish groups say they’ll fight bid for amendment against gay marriage,
Virtual Jerusalem
"President Bush has thrown down the gauntlet on the issue of gay marriage, and many Jewish groups are lining up for the fight. As part of his State of the Union address last week, Bush suggested support for a constitutional amendment codifying marriage as a union only between a man and a woman. The call came after jurists Bush described as “activist judges” ruled that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry ... Among the major American organized religions, Judaism is one of the more progressive when it comes to issues of homosexuality. The Reform movement, which welcomes gay clergy, determined in 2000 that gay unions were “worthy of affirmation through appropriate Jewish ritual.” The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s Committee on Law and Standards is expected to begin debate this year on issues relating to the status of homosexuals. Though it will not specifically discuss gay marriage or the ordination of gay rabbis, the debate is considered the first step in that process. The Orthodox and more traditional Jewish denominations see no room for debate on the religious prohibition against homosexuality. Many Jewish groups have supported the Massachusetts decision. The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston earlier this month urged the state government to pass laws accepting same-sex marriage, in keeping with the court ruling. Many Jewish groups opposed the Defense of Marriage Act, which President Clinton signed in 1996, and Jewish leaders suggested that they would play a large role in opposing a similar constitutional amendment. “Our position has been that we support efforts to extend all rights of civil marriage to couples in domestic partnerships,” said Steve Freedman, director of legal affairs for the Anti-Defamation League, using a term often used to describe gay unions. The National Council of Jewish Women has filed briefs in support of gay marriage in several court cases."

[This doesn't appear to be satire. No joke. It's the real thing, an expresssion of the sacred: taking your Jewishness to heart. Star of David pasties and g-strings available on request?]
Yarmulke Bra
"Inspired by the MC Paul Barman lyric, "I couldn't stay calm because/ she revealed a bra made of two yarmulkes," designer KS turns the fantasy into a reality. All bras are one of a kind. The Yarmulkes themselves are imported from Israel and are individual works of art. Available in three styles: Bat-mitzvah(S/M sizes), Boobooshka(L size) and Sports(M/L sizes). Customers interested in bras made from their vintage bat mitzvah or bar mitzvah yarmulkes, may contact us directly at custom@yarmulkebra.com."

[MTV is a division of Murray Rothstein's (today known as "Sumner Redstone") Viacom conglomerate, which own CBS too. Redstone's number 2 man? Also Jewish. Mel Karmazin. The head of CBS, Leslie Moonves, is also Jewish. From our WVR archives: "In 2001 Rabbi Ira Korff complained that "the suggestiveness in the media these days is increasingly irresponsible -- it's really pornography -- and its been bothering me more and more." Korff should know what he's talking about. He is the former president of National Amusements Inc., which owns Viacom, the second-largest media conglommerate on earth (controlled by Jewish mogul Sumner Redstone). "Korff," notes the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, "says the worst purveyor of violence and profanity on TV is Music Television (MTV,) which is owned by Viacom. But he adds, 'I have no interest in attacking Viacom, and MTV is an ethically run business.' After all, much of his own wealth was made while serving as president and later consultant to National Amusements Inc." [HAUSMAN, T., 6-22-01]
OUTRAGE AT CBS AFTER JANET BARES BREAST DURING DINNER HOUR; SUPER BOWL SHOW PUSHES LIMITS,
Drudge Report, February 1, 2004
"**Exclusive** Top CBS executives approved a musical skit where Janet Jackson would expose her breast during the MTV-produced Super Bowl half-time concert, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. "The decision to go forward went to the very top of the network," a well-placed source explained from New York. The groundbreaking scene came during the most-watched television broadcast of the year -- and during the dinner hour for the nation's west coast viewers. Officially, CBS drew distance from the show: "CBS deeply regrets the incident that occurred during the Super Bowl halftime show," the network said in a release. "We attended all rehearsals throughout the week and there was no indication that any such thing would happen. The moment did not conform to CBS broadcast standards and we would like to apologize to anyone who was offended." In a press release before Sunday's game, CBS's sister outlet [VIACOM's] MTV promised "Janet's Shocking Moments." "I'll get you naked by the end of this song," sang performer Justin Timberlake, moments before he ripped off Jackson's top, exposing a bare breast -- the nipple covered by a metal 'solar' nipple medallion. CBS's main New York switchboard was immediately bombarded with complaints about the stunt, network sources said late Sunday. The NFL claimed outrage over the stunt: Statement by NFL Executive Vice President Joe Browne regarding the Super Bowl halftime show: "We were extremely disappointed by elements of the MTV-produced Halftime show. They were totally inconsistent with assurances our office was given about the show. It's unlikely that MTV will produce another Super Bowl halftime."

New website: I Don't Want My MTV.

[Check out the graphic below -- symbol for our times. It's the Jewish/Israel icon: the yeshiva student searching out the shiksa whore, dragging her out of Europe into Hellhole Israel. (Lots of articles about the Israeli sex slave trade, here). Now at your movie theater. "Holy Land" indeed. Raise that flag pole, prostitute! And then let's raise it doggie style. Long live the wind-blown Star of David!]
The Holy Land,
The Holy Land Movie

[Based on the surname and the prestigious college (the great Jewish status magnet), it would appear that Marc Hauser, the "advisor" for the new Harvard porno magazine, is Jewish. Makes sense. The founding students we can't tell. We suggest famous porn-defender and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz as the first center fold.]
Committee Approves Porn Magazine. H Bomb will feature nude pictures of undergraduates,
By EBONIE D. HAZLE, Harvard Crimson, February 11, 2004
"After flipping through the pages of Squirm, a Vassar College erotica magazine, the Committee on College Life (CCL) voted to approve a student-run magazine that will feature nude pictures of Harvard undergraduates and articles about sexual issues at its meeting yesterday. Fourteen members of the CCL approved H Bomb—a magazine that will be similar to the Vassar publication—as an official Harvard publication. Two members abstained. Assistant Dean of the College Paul J. McLoughlin, a CCL member, said he consulted University General Counsel Robert W. Iuliano ’83, the University news office and University spokesperson Robert P. Mitchell before the decision. “I needed to see if there were liability issues,” McLoughlin said. In order to avoid liability, students will not be able to take nude pictures inside of Harvard buildings, according to McLoughlin. He also said that although approved, the magazine will not necessarily be funded by the College. “They will still have to go through the granting application process. [Approval] gives them the ability to apply for grants but nothing else,” he said, adding that “just to get a publication off and running is about $6,000.” In early December, Katharina C. Baldegg ’06 and Camilla A. Hrdy ’05, the two students who proposed the magazine, met with McLoughlin to begin the approval process for H Bomb. Baldegg said that she did not think the process was especially difficult. CCL, which is composed of students, faculty and administrators, approves the creation of all new student groups, including publications. “I don’t think we faced any opposition. People have been very open about it,” she said. Hrdy said that “initially there was some concern about the nudity aspect,” but that CCL members eventually “got past the fear of porn.” Baldegg added that she does not object to H Bomb being called porn. “It’s a sex magazine that will hopefully be run by students of all sexual orientations and backgrounds,” Baldegg said. ... Professor of Psychology Marc D. Hauser, who teaches Science B-29, “Evolution of Human Nature,” nicknamed “Sex” by students, will serve as the Faculty adviser for H Bomb. Hauser could not be reached for contact yesterday because he is out of town."

Rachel Kramer Bussel
"Rachel's Bio Rachel Kramer Bussel is a New York-based freelance writer focusing primarily on sex, smut, books, music and popular culture. Her books include The Lesbian Sex Book, 2nd edition (Alyson, 2003), Up All Night: Adventures in Lesbian Sex (Alyson, 2004), and the forthcoming Glamour Girls: Femme/Femme Erotica (Haworth Press), Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z (Pretty Things Press, 2005) and A Spanking Good Time: Essays on Spanking and Being Spanked. She has written for numerous publications including Alternative Press, Adult Video News, AVN Online, Bust, Cleansheets.com, Curve, Diva, Girlfriends, New York Hot Sex, On Our Backs, Playgirl, Rockrgrl, San Francisco Bay Guardian, The San Francisco Chronicle, Velvet Park, The Village Voice and others. She currently writes the Erotic Gossip column at Erotica-readers.com, a nightlife column for New York Blade, and serves as a Contributing Editor at Cleansheets.com and Editorial Assistant at On Our Backs."

Lesbian Porn with a Naughty Edge,
by Rachel Kramer Bussel, AVN Online

The Official Web Site of Drs. Laura and Jennifer Berman
"Take our new and exclusive Genital Image Survey. It an easy and private test and can instantly give you results. Actually, as attitudes change and feelings change, you can take the survey again to note changes in feelings and attitudes. Read Dr. Laura Berman's Article How Women Perceive Their Own Genitals Open Doors to Sexual Questions About Sexual Function."

Straight and narrow, Leo McKinstry says that in its often admirable determination to help gays and lesbians, local government is creating a new problem: heterophobia
by Leo McKinstry, The Spectator (UK) (via lewrockwell.com), January 31, 2004
"As I waded through page after page of interminable dogma and municipal jargon, one statement suddenly leapt out at me: ‘Some 50 per cent of people being approved of as adoptive parents in Brighton and Hove are from the lesbian, gay and bisexual community.’ Those words — from a policy document entitled ‘Sexuality — the New Agenda’, published this month by the Local Government Association (LGA), the umbrella body for local authorities — were followed by another disturbing sentence: ‘Brighton and Hove Council has also shown that it is committed to taking rigorous action against homophobia, including, in one instance, de-registering foster carers who stated that they opposed lesbians being parents.’ Even in Blair’s exciting new pro-gay Britain, this seemed to be too extreme to be true. And indeed it was. In its enthusiasm to highlight supposed enlightened principles, the LGA had grossly distorted the truth about Brighton. In reality, according to the council, 16 per cent of adoptive parents are gay, while no potential foster carers have been struck off the register for their attitudes towards lesbian parenting. To many traditionalists, that figure of 16 per cent will still seem grotesque. Yet the fact that the LGA wanted to treble it, as well as boasting of town-hall vigilance against thought-crimes on the south coast, only shows the extent to which our public sector has been gripped by the hardline ideology of gay rights ... The LGA report was written in co-operation with Stonewall, the gay pressure group which has, in recent years, received more than £1.4 million of lottery-funded money to further its campaigning work. For instance, £89,000 has been given to research into ‘the causes of homelessness amongst lesbian and gay youth’ and another £29,000 is used to fund a ‘prejudice research’ project which will ‘provide a cross-strand, cross-community approach to tackling prejudice’. But the strongest indication of Stonewall’s position lies in its own project Citizenship 21, which has been funded to the tune of no less than £892,000 by the National Lottery. Some of this lavish subsidy goes towards Citizenship 21’s staff, who include project manager Ali Harris, a former campaigner for the Hebrew Immigrant Society, and Juris Lavikovs, the information officer who boasts that he once worked in the ‘lesbian and gay movement in Latvia’. Much of the rest of the money goes on grants, many of which defy parody. So £5,000 has been spent on the ‘South Asian Queer Photography Project’ to produce a ‘book of photographs showing the lives of South Asian lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities living in England’; the same sum went to ‘Dorothy’s Helping Hand’, which is ‘a support group for lesbians, bisexual and heterosexual women in the Bolton area who are experiencing mental health difficulties’ ... Another grant was handed out to make ‘a video documenting the Jewish Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Experience’ and there has also been backing for the ‘Insight Drama Therapy Project’, aimed at tackling racism and homophobia in Milton Keynes ... The gay discrimination industry, like the rest of the equality sector, has a vested interest in exaggerating the very problems it says it wants to resolve: the more alleged prejudice it uncovers, the more it can justify its demands for more funds and more powers. Whole new categories of oppression are being invented to provide work for the bureaucrats, such as ‘Transphobia’, the dislike of transsexuals. But, in its ever more hysterical campaigning, the industry is fast becoming guilty of its own prejudice: heterophobia — suspicion of straight, married couples."

[Folks, here's where we are today in America. The San Francisco Examiner isn't supposed to be a "Jewish"newspaper, at least officially. But the rhetoric of sanction ("Mazel Tov") of gay marriages from its editors clarifies its fundamental ideological base. Glorida Allred, ALSO, is of course also Jewish.]
Mazel tov to S.F.'s gay marriages, [Editorial]
San Francisco Examiner, February 13, 2004
"CONGRATULATIONS AND GOOD LUCK to the same-sex couples who were married in City Hall on Thursday. They not only embarked on a new stage in their lives together, they also made history. Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon had the honor of being the first same-sex couple married in the U.S. Martin, 83, and Lyon, 79, will have been together for 51 years this Saturday. And bravo, Mayor Gavin Newsom, for having the courage to make the weddings possible and for acting swiftly to prevent a court injunction from blocking the unions. San Francisco has proved itself a leader in social causes once again. The rationalizations for allowing civil marriages of one class of adults but not another have always seemed flimsy to us. The idea that gay marriage will somehow erode or degrade existing marriages, for instance, is bizarre and illogical. -- Now comes an entirely new challenge for these lucky couples -- staying married. In addition to the tests faced by all married couples, there's the question of whether these marriages will stand legally. It's likely they'll be challenged in court. Then again, equality may prevail: The constitutionality of the laws on which such a challenge would be based is itself under fire from a suit filed Thursday by lawyer Gloria Allred on behalf of two same-sex couples who were refused licenses to marry."

Solomon Offers to Drop Hilton Lawsuit in Exchange for Sex Tape Rights,
WTEV (Jacksonville, FL), January 29, 2004
"Paris Hilton's sex tape co-star Rick Solomon has reportedly offered to drop his $10 million lawsuit against her family - in exchange for the distribution rights to the controversial video. Solomon - the husband of former Charmed star Shannen Doherty - made the offer on January 15 according to court papers obtained by website thesmokinggun.com, to the disgust of the Hilton family's lawyers. A fight broke out after the Hilton family accused Solomon of being responsible for leaking the tape on the internet, in which the former couple are seen having sex. Solomon has denied any responsibility but has now asked to be allowed to sell the tape via pay-per-view, if he drops the case. But Hilton lawyer Heather McCloskey has branded the move "beneath contempt," according to pagesix.com."

[Note: Yet another slutty Jewish intern set to drag down another Democratic political figure by the balls, literally? (Monica Lewinsky, Chandra Levin, and now Alex Polier...?) This article spells the surname of the new Monica Lewinsky two ways: Poller and Polier. If its Polier, she is probably Jewish (there's a famous Jewish Justine Wise Polier). Alex's fiance even sounds to be Israeli: Yaron Schwartzman.]
Pic of 'JFK' sex storm girl Scandal ... Alex Poller,
By BRIAN FLYNN, Sun (UK), February 14, 2004
"THIS is the girl at the centre of a sex scandal that threatens Democratic front-runner John Kerry’s run for the White House. Presidential hopeful Kerry, dubbed the new JFK, has denied claims he had a two-year fling with brunette Alex Polier. Alex, 27, was a cross-country runner and in the world affairs club at her Philadelphia school. One source said: “She was attractive, intelligent and one of the leaders in her year.” She went on to graduate from Columbia University, New York, and met Kerry, 60, as she began a career as a freelance journalist. Denial ... John Kerry But a probe was under way yesterday into allegations that twice-wed Kerry seduced her after inviting her to join his campaign team in spring 2001. There is no evidence to support the claims. Dad-of-two Kerry was set to seal the nomination to take on George Bush in the November election when the allegations surfaced. Alex, who is in Africa with her fiancé Yaron Schwartzman, refused to comment."

[The Slutty Jewish Intern Syndrome continues? Chandra Levy and Monica Lewinsky II-Gate? Polier can be a Jewish name (there's a famous Jew, for example -- Justine Wise Polier. And since Alexandra Polier is marrying an Israeli, her own ethnicity pretty much becomes a moot point. The Vulcan Mind-Meld influence is there.]
Woman Denies Rumors of Kerry Affair,
Earthlink (from Associated Press) February 16, 2004
"NAIROBI, Kenya - A woman who has been the subject of rumors linking her to Sen. John Kerry denied Monday that she ever had an affair with the Democratic presidential candidate. Breaking her silence four days after the allegations surfaced on the Internet, Alexandra Polier issued a statement to The Associated Press, saying, "I have never had a relationship with Senator Kerry, and the rumors in the press are completely false." Kerry already has denied reports that he had an extramarital affair. On Monday, his campaign said he would have no further comment. Polier's statement was released to the AP in Nairobi, where the 27-year-old freelance journalist is visiting the parents of her fiance, Yaron Schwartzman, an Israeli who was raised in Kenya. She previously worked as an editorial assistant for the AP in New York. "Whoever is spreading these rumors and allegations does not know me," Polier said, appealing to the media to respect her privacy and the privacy of her fiance and his family. Polier also took issue with reports that referred to her as a former Kerry intern. "I never interned or worked for John Kerry," she told AP over the phone. In a separate statement, Polier's parents, Terry and Donna Polier of Malvern, Pa., dismissed the "completely false and unsubstantiated" allegations about their daughter ... Rumors of a relationship between Kerry and Polier first appeared Thursday on the Internet and were picked up by newspapers in several countries outside the United States. Few U.S. publications printed her name, however. Asked Friday about the reports, Kerry told reporters: "I just deny it categorically. It's rumor. It's untrue. And that's the last time I intend" to respond to questions about it. Regarding her silence until now, Polier said, "Because these stories were false, I assumed the media would ignore them. It seems that efforts to peddle these lies continue, so I feel compelled to address them." By Monday, reporters and photographers were camped outside the Schwartzmans' Nairobi home, and at one point pursued the car of Yaron's mother, Hannah Schwartzman, as she left the walled compound."

[The Jewish magazine below, "Heeb," is real, not satire, but you can't download any online articles from it. They want you to buy the magazine. "Sexy Israeli Expats" (yet more Jewish porno stars?) sounds pretty interesting, as does "The Jews Who Run Hip-Hop." In this picture though, we don't think Eve worked this way. We can't help but wonder as this woman crawls out of the bushes after apparently snorting cocaine, bedding down with a nest of eager serpents, "letting it all hang out," and howling at the moon: is it real Palestinian blood in her mouth, or artificial?]

[Guess what? Stephen Spielberg (yes, the movie Holocaust guy) gets considerable credit for this great new magazine!]
Spielberg Enables Excitable Editors to Start a New Magazine—Heeb,
by Gabriel Snyder, New York Observer, Date unknown
"Jennifer Bleyer, a 25-year-old Columbia graduate and freelance writer living in Fort Greene, thinks her Jewish friends are pretty hip. She also believes that a disproportionate number of the hipster scrawling around her Brooklyn neighborhood happen to be Jews. And that’s why Ms. Bleyer decided one day that the world needed a magazine about cool Jews, and that she would publish it. And now, flush with grant money from a fellowship supported by Jewish big shots like Steven Spielberg, Charles Bronfman and others, Ms. Bleyer and her post-collegiate buddies are busily working on bringing this new cool-Jew magazine to life. The first issue is due in January. They have assigned some articles and taken some photos, and they also have a title: Heeb, as in the old ethnic slur, short for "Hebrew." It’s the kind of title, of course, that makes a bubbie verbroigis. But it’s all part of what Ms. Bleyer termed an "image makeover." "Who wants to call themselves ‘Jew’?" Ms. Bleyer asked. "We’ve been called Jews for 4,000 years. It’s played out. Heeb just sounds so much cooler." Using her $60,000 grant, Ms. Bleyer thinks she can publish at least one issue of Heeb. The idea is to publish it quarterly after that, but for that to happen, the magazine will have to raise more money ... "We also want to be the magazine that gives big props to Monica and Chandra," Ms. Bleyer said. "Like, Jewish sluts of the world, unite!" Ms. Schwartzman, 26, who by day works in the grants and programs department of the Foundation for Jewish Culture, had finished Heeb’s first-ever fashion shoot, which will feature mostly Jewish models wearing clothes by Jewish designers. She was reluctant to describe the shoot in much detail, but she said it was a "re-creation of a Jewish event–like really familiar, yet in the way we handled it, completely unfamiliar." She also mentioned, in passing, a "circumcision" photo shoot she promised would be shot by a well-known photographer who’s agreed to do it for free. Mr. Schiller, 27, who pays the rent by running a video-production company that primarily produces video press kits for Universal Records bands, said he was interested in non-Jews who reference Jewish culture. "I’d love to talk to Jay-Z and ask him why he throws up the sign of the kohanim on his album. And, I’d like to talk to some reggae artists about their connections to the whole idea of Zionism," he said. "It’d be cool to interview Michael Jackson and ask him what he does with [Rabbi] Shmuley Boteach ... The whole idea behind Heeb, Ms. Bleyer said, was to be a general-interest magazine in which everything is connected somehow to Jews ... The initial funding for Heeb came from the Joshua Venture fellowship program, jointly supported by Mr. Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, as well as several others ... However, since Heeb put up a Web site, at heebmagazine.com, Ms. Bleyer said she’s received some angry e-mails. "There are actually some people, who are fairly prominent in the Jewish community, who have written me some nasty e-mails, who definitely said that they’re offended by the name," she said. Not that Ms. Bleyer seemed to mind offending more conservative Jews. The joke on the Heeb staff, she said, is that anything too offensive for Heeb will go in "our sister magazine, Kike." Nonetheless, she’s had numerous people tell her it’s just funny. "Really, the name is just brilliant branding," Ms. Bleyer said confidently ... At brunch, Ms. Bleyer began to explain how being a leftist was part of her Jewish identity. "Like that’s the Jewish tradition. Jews were like the labor movement in this country–" She cut off mid-sentence as a drum beat could be heard coming from down the street. "Hey, what is that?" she asked. Everyone at the table craned their necks. Up the street, a couple of kids came into view carrying a banner reading "Hanson Place Adventurer Club," followed by about a dozen other African-American teenage boys and girls, dressed in khaki and blue uniforms modeled on the Boy Scout outfits, playing a beat more funky than martial. "Wow, cool," Ms. Bleyer said as the marching band passed in front of the restaurant. "They’re just cruising down the street on a Saturday." Behind the kids in the band were a couple dozen adults carrying big bunches of multicolored balloons. Ms. Bleyer was impressed. "That’s something we would find some way to write about at Heeb," she said. "We would find the Jewish connection."

[More Jewish spreading of neurosis, victimhood obsession, and destruction. And more spreading of Jewish liberation values. Eve Ensler, author of "Vagina Monologues" is Jewish. Surpise, surprise. "Ensler is actively involved in the organized Jewish community, and has even been awarded a "Lion of Judah" in recognition of her activities and philanthropic donations. Her life-partner, Ariel Jordan, a psychotherapist and filmmaker, was born and raised [in Israel], and they have visited [it] several times before." Imagine a play by a male entitled, say, "I'll Let my Penis do the Talking." It would be the obvious sex-obsession of a single-minded 13-year old, it would be condemned as sexist, and no one would take it seriously, except in Pornoville.]
Feminism's troubling 'classic',
By Cathy Young, Boston Globe, February 23, 2004
"OVER THE PAST few years we've gotten used to the new custom of celebrating Valentine's Day, the holiday of romantic love, with performances of "The Vagina Monologues," the play by Eve Ensler which takes a decidedly jaundiced view of relations between men and women. This year, however, Amherst Regional High School managed to break new ground, and cause some shock waves, by putting on an official high school production of the play. The controversy has focused on the play's sexually explicit nature, which is hardly surprising. The idea of teenage girls performing Ensler's monologues -- complete with graphic sexual descriptions, in-your-face vulgar language, and reenactments of orgasmic moans -- in front of an adult audience is rather freaky. Amherst Bulletin columnist Larry Kelly, one of the few parents who publicly objected to the production, has noted that many of those girls aren't old enough to be admitted to an R-rated movie. (His proposal that the cast be limited to seniors was shot down.) One particularly questionable monologue deals with a 16-year-old girl who learns to love her genitals and, by extension, herself after a sexual encounter with a 24-year-old woman. In the original version of the play, the girl was 13 and the monologue included the statement, "If it was rape, it was a good rape." This segment has repeatedly caused controversy, and Ensler has toned it down in response to criticism. Yet even with the changes, we are talking about a 24-year-old seducing a 16-year-old after plying her with alcohol. This would most likely be a crime under Massachusetts state law (though the law is somewhat confusing, variously setting the age of consent at 16 or 18 depending on the circumstances). But even aside from questions of legality, does a high school really want to send students the message that such behavior is acceptable? And does anyone think that a high school or a college would produce such a play, or that feminist groups would endorse it, if it condoned a 24-year-old man having sex with a 16-year-old girl? Of course, in the world of "The Vagina Monologues," any positive depiction of a male-female relationship, regardless of age, is pretty rare. With one or two exceptions, men are depicted as oafish at best and abusive at worst. The status of "The Vagina Monologues" as a feminist classic is somewhat mystifying. A major part of the play's message is that, as a woman, you are your vagina. Call me naive, but I thought one of feminism's basic ideas was that women are not defined by their anatomy. In a New York Times interview a few years ago, Ensler talked about women's special "vagina intelligence" in which "understanding of the world comes through the body." While it's important for teenage girls to have a positive attitude toward their bodies, I would hope that our educational system would encourage them, first and foremost, to understand the world through their minds. The play's focus on male violence and abuse toward women is even more troubling than its focus on female bodies ... [A] play that purports to celebrate women and dwells so relentlessly on the evil that men do sends girls the wrong message. Betty Dodson, a feminist sex educator, has been harshly critical of "The Vagina Monologues" because "women end up celebrating sexual violence and not the creative or regenerative pleasures of erotic love." A few years ago, Amherst High canceled a production of "West Side Story" because of concerns about racial stereotypes in the famous musical. How ironic: Back then, school officials apparently missed the fact that "West Side Story" is actually about the evil of racism. Now, they have missed the fact that "The Vagina Monologues" actually promotes victimhood and hate, not empowerment."

[Older article: Further context for "Vagina Monologues":]
Attention Jewish women: Eve Ensler thinks you’re hot,
Jewish Week, January 10, 2003
"Jewish women are really sexy,” said the creator of “The Vagina Monologues” this week, after shooting publicity photos for an upcoming benefit performance of her hit show. Proceeds from the Feb. 12 performance, being presented at Town Hall by the women of UJA-Federation of New York, will aid Jewish victims of domestic violence. It’s one of 1,050 benefit readings of the play that will take place around Valentines Day, which Ensler has reclaimed as “V-Day.” The “V” means victory over violence and, of course, as her Web site enthusiastically puts it, “vagina!” “The Vagina Monologues” gives voice to a range of women’s attitudes toward their most private part and includes orgasms in a Berlitz-worthy range of dialects, including the rock singer Grace Slick moan, the elegant moan and, of course, the Jewish moan ... The Scarsdale native is just back from a trip to Israel with her kibbutz-born partner, Ariel Jordan, and actress Jane Fonda, where they visited victims of violence on both sides of the conflict. Ensler often speaks about sexual and physical abuse she suffered as a child at her father’s hands and says she hopes this benefit will change the Jewish community’s consciousness. “My Jewish father was the perpetrator, but I couldn’t speak about it in the community because ‘Jews didn’t perpetrate,’ ” she said. “When I began breaking my own shame and talking about my father, a lot of neighbors and friends were angry at me for being “a bad Jew,” she said. “Somehow it’s un-Jewish to talk about it. We have to change that.”

[More context for "Vagina Monologues.]
Jane and Eve in the Holy Land,
By Orna Coussin, Haaretz (Israel), February 24, 1004
"Jane Fonda and Eve Ensler did not rest for a moment; they evinced courtesy and caring almost non-stop during their brief visit to Israel this weekend. Fonda only complained a little about the photographers who would not leave her alone ... On the other hand, visiting Israel accompanied by Fonda is a special visit, Politically, Ensler sees Israel as "the center of the world. "What happens here," says Ensler, "will affect all of us." Therefore the conflict here is of magnified importance. The encounter with the activists in Israel will perhaps give rise to an international peace conference of women in a neutral country (but only if it influences the reality, stipulated Fonda). Personally, Israel is also important to Ensler because it is the birthplace of her partner, Ariel Jordan, the man who "co-conceived" "The Vagina Monologues" with her, as she says, and like her was the victim of incest in his childhood - a fact of life that has motivated Ensler all her life, in whatever she does. Jordan, a handsome, gray-haired psychotherapist and filmmaker, was born in Kfar Blum and said he took advantage of this visit to renew his connection with this mother and his brothers. When he was an Israeli, his name was Ilan Tiano. In New York, as part of a process of mental recovery, he shook off his Israeli identity and changed his name to Ariel Jordan (after the River Jordan that flows through his kibbutz). "To carry the name of my father, who raped me from the age of three to the age of 14, was not something that I wanted or could do," he related on Thursday night, in the warmth of the bar at The American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem, where the delegation lodged. Last week Jordan met his mother after 15 years of complete alienation. "We met the day before yesterday, we hugged and we kissed," he said, "and she even phoned today to ask how I was doing. This is something that never happened in my life." Jordan said it was also he who encouraged Ensler to meet with her mother after she had not spoken to her for years. Ten years ago, Ensler said, she forgave her mother, who had ignored the sexual, physical and mental abuse by her father. "I decided to stop being a victim," she said repeatedly. Jordan and Ensler's frankness is their most influential political act. Jordan says that during the 1980s, there was not a single interview program on American television on which he did not appear. "But at some stage, I stopped giving interviews, because I did not want to be the Eli Wiesel of incest" ... At one of the high points of the visit, in an events tent at the Jewish-Arab community of Neveh Shalom on Friday evening, Ensler read portions of "The Vagina Monologues," among them the part in which she plays a lesbian, who discovers that her role in life is to pleasure women and reports on the orgasmic moans of the women she pleasures - like the Jewish woman who cries "No!," the Catholic woman who cries "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" and the Muslim woman who cries "It's a sin, it's a sin!" Or the amusing story about a woman "who had a good experience with a man" - one called Bob, who liked to gaze at vaginas and admired the way they looked and also their smell. She told about American women who came to her performances with a lapel pin saying "I'm your Bob." She suggested that Israeli and Palestinian women do something similar."

Psychoanalysts Reaffirm Marriage Resolution, Says American Psychoanalytic Association,
U.S. Newswire, March 3, 2004
"In response to President Bush's call for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, the American Psychoanalytic Association reaffirms its 1997 Marriage Resolution: "Because marriage is a basic human right and an individual personal choice, RESOLVED, the State should not interfere with same-gender couples who choose to marry and share fully and equally in the rights, responsibilities, and commitment of civil marriage." Following discussion, the Marriage Resolution was endorsed by an overwhelming majority vote of APsaA's Executive Council on December 18, 1997, with only one negative vote and one abstention. Psychoanalyst Gary Grossman, chair of APsaA's Committee on Gay and Lesbian Issues, is available for interviews or comments."

[JTR Contributor's comment: "Note of irony: A most fervant supporter of anything organized Jewry wants is longtime Utah "family values" Senator Orrin Hatch. Much like the fraternity initiation scene in "Animal House", Hatch will still tell Foxman "thank you sir, I'd like another". ]
ADL Opposes Proposed Amendment to Utah's Constitution on Same Sex Marriage,
U.S. Newswire, March 2, 2004
"The Anti-Defamation League opposes any effort to amend the Constitution of the State of Utah in a manner which would discriminate against a specific group of Utahns. While religious communities should be able to decide for themselves what relationships they will recognize, ADL supports efforts to extend all the rights, protections and benefits of civil marriage to same sex couples. Discrimination based on sexual orientation is as ugly as any other form of discrimination. The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice, discrimination, and bigotry."

[More Jewish-decided "entertainment for you." Hey, shut up and be tolerant!]
Reality meets bizarre in the 'Mad House',
By Suzanne C. Ryan, Boston Globe, March 4, 2004
"Like most reality-show contestants, Eric Lindquist knew there would be some bizarre twist when he signed up for the Sci Fi Channel's new "Mad Mad House" series. After all, it is the Sci Fi Channel. Ten ordinary guests will live in a Los Angeles home with a real-life vampire, a witch, a voodoo priestess, a nudist, and a modern primitive (someone who brands, scars, tattoos, and pierces his body). Not only will they all share sleeping quarters in a dark, Goth-looking mansion, but the contestants will also have to participate in various rituals. Tonight it means splashing around in a pool of stage blood and joining in a voodoo ceremony. If they refuse, they risk being voted off the program by the judges, the self-described "alternative lifestyle practitioners" who inhabit the house. "I was spooked," said Lindquist. "It was crazy." Indeed, tonight Don Henrie, the so-called vampire, will select Lindquist as his roommate and insist that Lindquist lie down, briefly, in the coffin where Henrie usually sleeps. "I'm claustrophobic and he closed the coffin on me," Lindquist recalls. "The whole experience was like beyond the beyond." On the other hand, the guest who endures the next 10 weeks will win $100,000. "Mad Mad House" is part of Sci Fi's new Thursday night block, two hours of edgy original series ... "Mad Mad House" was a stretch for the channel because reality and science fiction should be mutually exclusive, said Mark Stern, executive vice president of original programming for the network. "It's been a challenge to find a show that makes sense for us," said Stern. "What's interesting about this show is that it makes you question your tolerance of other people's philosophies. Hopefully, people will shed a bit of their repression and see that these people" -- the "Alts," as they're called -- "are not just freaks."

[More Hollywood Jewish contribution to "culture."]
There's life in the Western yet, pardner -- HBO's 'Deadwood' brings a #*%*#! realism to the old genre that makes the classic 'Gunsmoke' pale in comparison,
by Tim Goodman, San Francisco Chronicle, March 19, 2004
"In a medium where chance-taking is rare enough but exceeding one's reach is virtually unheard of, you have to admire the spectacular, co-joined vision of David Milch and HBO, as they try not only to resurrect a tired old genre like the Western but also invigorate it with a garrulous streak of blue that might burst the fretful head of every sitting member of the Federal Communications Commission. "Deadwood," from the man who put the grit and bile and Mamet-ness into "NYPD Blue," is a Western that beats you about the head with obscenities in an effort to establish the tone of an outlaw settlement in 1876 -- where there was no authority and gold was in the streams, liquor in the heads and pistols in the hands of all the black hats who staked a claim there. "Deadwood," as you learn in the first few minutes, never met a man or woman afraid to put a swear word between ordinary English ones. But the language of "Deadwood" isn't so troubling in principle. It's the fact that it demands to be written about, needs to be addressed and, one would guess, blown into a controversy, simply by being so ever-present. Profanity becomes a character in "Deadwood." And like a lot of flashy supporting roles, it has stolen the thunder of the main actors, the entire series, really, at least for a few weeks. By the third episode -- and by all means, hang around for it -- all we adults will be inured to the sound of Robin Weigert, as Calamity Jane, setting an unbreakable record for the amount of times a woman on television has said "c -- ." It's a lot. No, really, a lot. HBO cut Milch enormous slack on this issue, and undoubtedly there will be some clever type who believes that Milch is just furthering on pay cable what he started on network television when "NYPD Blue" busted through language and, later, visual barriers. And honestly, even if profanity doesn't offend you, even if you bathe yourself in it regularly, you're still going to be stunned by the use of it in "Deadwood."

[The growing Culture War between the Jewish Culture Controllers and their hedonism and decadence versus all Others continues to heat up. Sumner Redstone: born Murray Rothstein. Number #2 man at Viacom? Also Jewish. Mel Karmazian.]
Viacom in Talks to Develop Gay TV Network,
Earthlink (from Associated Press), March 30, 2004
"Viacom has "tightened up" its decency standards in the wake of Janet Jackson's racy Super Bowl performance and is in preliminary discussions to launch a gay cable network in the United States, its chairman and chief executive said Tuesday. In Mexico City for the launch of VH1 Latin America, Sumner Redstone told reporters that Viacom was "not a culprit, we were a victim" of Jackson's performance, during which the singer's breast was briefly exposed to a national audience. Viacom controls several companies that have been at the center of a debate about what's appropriate on America's airwaves - including CBS, which aired the Super Bowl, and MTV, which produced the halftime show featuring Jackson. Redstone said the incident, which Jackson has apologized for, had prompted his company to be more careful about decency. "We are very conscious of the issue and we are watching it, particularly because of what happened to us at the Super Bowl," he said. Viacom also owns Infinity Broadcasting, which regulators earlier this month recommended fining the maximum $27,500 for a 2001 broadcast by shock-jock disc jockey Howard Stern that featured discussions about sexual practices and techniques ... Redstone also said Tuesday that he has been in discussions with U.S. cable operators about the possibility of launching a gay and lesbian channel. He called the would-be network "a good channel for them, and a good channel for Viacom." "We are prepared to give it a go, and I'm optimistic about it," he said, adding that "there's no reason why we shouldn't aspire to reach such an enormous demographic, not only in the United States, but in the world." Redstone, 80, is worth $8.9 billion and is the world's 35th richest man, according to Forbes Magazine. He brushed off concerns a channel geared toward homosexuals could be opposed by some conservative and religious groups in the United States. "The channel will succeed, I believe," he said. "And we will not be deterred by nay-sayers." Viacom media companies are in 166 countries and territories, but Redstone called Mexico one of the conglomerate's top five international priorities. Latin American versions of MTV and Nickelodeon are both broadcast on Mexican cable television. Based in Mexico City, VH1 Latin America is scheduled to go on the air Thursday. Redstone said his company planned to work with the Mexican government and private investors to ensure all three networks are available on free, open-air television soon. "Mexico has 50 percent of its population under 24, which, as I like to say, is music to our ears," he said. "Because those are the demographics that our brands focus on."

[Sort of like the massive "Easter Demand" for Gay Marriage?]
Over 120 Jewish Leaders Sign Passover Petition for Marriage Equality,
U.S. Newswire, March 31, 2004
"Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) announced that over 120 rabbis and Jewish leaders from all over the country have signed PFLAG's Passover Petition for Marriage Equality. At this time when Jewish families celebrate freedom from oppression, PFLAG implores fair-minded citizens across the nation to work for the freedom of gay and lesbian families from the oppressive homophobia and inequality that mark their daily lives. This effort, organized by PFLAG board member Rabbi Emeritus David Horowitz, joins the enduring message of Passover with the hope of equality for gay and lesbian families ... PFLAG'S PASSOVER STATEMENT "Passover is the Jewish community's celebration of our liberation from slavery. Each year we recall our exodus from bondage and rejoice in our freedom from oppression. We also recognize that we are not entirely free until every human being is free, free from tyranny, free from prejudice, free from discrimination, and free to pursue the fullness of life. There is now an attempt to amend the Constitution of the United States of America in such a way that it would preclude basic civil rights from the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members of our community. We, all leaders in the Jewish community, deplore such an attempt and instead urge the president and members of Congress to protect the freedom of all that we might all celebrate our freedom together."

[A new Jewish "pornographer" is to head BBC. Note this fact in relation to the above Israeli complaint about the BBC's alleged past "bias" against Israel.]
Michael Grade is new BBC chairman,
BBC (UK) April 2, 2004
"Former BBC One and Channel 4 boss Michael Grade has been confirmed as the new BBC chairman. The former BBC executive, 61, takes on a role vacated by Gavyn Davies, who resigned in the wake of criticism in the Hutton Report in January. Mr Grade has immense media experience and was among the favourites to get the job despite his maverick reputation. He said he was "proud and delighted" to get the job and will take the lead role in appointing a new director general. "This is quite a day for me," he said. "I would like to thank those who appointed me for having the courage to break the mould" ... MICHAEL GRADE'S CV 1964: Sports columnist, Daily Mirror 1966: Theatrical agent, London 1973: Deputy controller of entertainment programmes, LWT 1984: Controller, BBC One 1986: Director of programmes, BBC Television 1988: Chief executive, Channel 4 1997: Chief executive, First Leisure 1999: Chairman, Pinewood-Shepperton studios 2001: Chairman, Camelot ... Mr Grade will take up the £81,320-a-year post for four years from 17 May. The appointment was made by the government after interviews were conducted last week by an independent panel, headed by a civil servant. Mr Grade, a former director of BBC Television, will now have to appoint a new director general to replace Greg Dyke ... During his time as chief executive of Channel 4, Mr Grade was not afraid of controversy, being labelled "pornographer-in-chief" by the Daily Mail. He comes from a showbusiness family, having television mogul Lord Grade, a pioneer of ITV, as his uncle. As well as being director of programmes at London Weekend Television and BBC Television, he went on to head the merged Pinewood and Shepperton film studios."

[More "Jewish themes" about sex.]
Holy sex and holy walls,
by Rabbi Smuley Boteach, World Net Daily, April 16, 2004
"One of America's biggest hit comedies is HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm," starring Larry David, the co-creator of TV's "Seinfeld." Since David is unashamedly Jewish, the show often prominently features Jewish themes. A few weeks ago, in the penultimate season finale, the show revolved around the idea that Larry, who was afforded a 10th anniversary present by his wife allowing him to have sex with a stranger only once, chose a Hassidic Jewish woman as his partner. But before meeting her, he is told by his other two Jewish friends to make sure to bring a sheet with hole in the middle, because it is well known that orthodox Jews all have sex through a sheet with a hole in the middle. Through countless lectures that I have delivered around the world, I have discovered that the vast majority of people actually believe this to be true: that orthodox Jews do indeed have sex through a sheet with a hole in the middle ... do you really expect me to respond to this "hole in the sheet" nonsense with a serious rejoinder? It's one of the most ludicrous slanders against Jews, and yet hundreds of millions of people believe it. (As an aside, not only does Jewish law not mandate that a sheet be used, it wouldn't allow it even if the couple desired it out of a misguided sense of piety. Jewish law does not allow any articles of clothing to be worn during lovemaking. Sex, in Jewish thought, entails an all-encompassing intimacy that precludes any articles of clothing serving as a barrier to flesh pressing against flesh. Indeed, even condoms a.re prohibited as a contraceptive because of the artificial obstruction it imposes between husband and wife, and the pill or a diaphragm should be used instead, once the couple has had a boy and a girl.) The point about the "hole in the sheet" may seem trivial, but I mention it to prove a point. Throughout history the Jews have been accused of some pretty weird stuff. Yet, amazingly, the world always seems to believe it."

Controversial feminist writer wins Nobel Prize,
by Nigel Reynolds, Telegraph (UK), October 8, 2004
"The book world responded with amazement yesterday - after an Austrian feminist writer was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Elfriede Jelenik, a 57-year-old recluse, is barely-known outside the German-speaking world and her few novels published in English sell only a few hundred copies a year in this country. She strongly divides her own countrymen and has become a hate figure to Austria's Right and the middle classes whom she satirises in her writing. A novelist, poet and playwright, she frequently deploys sex in her writing - notably sadomasochism and voyeurism - to demonstrate how women are dominated by men and capitalism. In her best known and autobiographical book, The Piano Teacher, turned into a film starring the French actress Isabelle Huppert, the middle-aged heroine indulges in violent sex and mutilates her own genitalia with a razor. Pete Ayrton, her British publisher, said yesterday: "She is difficult. She is controversial and I don't think that her books are the sort you would chose to read with a cup of Horlicks." Jelenik's victory - and cheque for 10 million Swedish crowns (£1 million) - was a shock at the Frankfurt Book Fair, where the world's leading publishers are meeting. Despite the Nobel jury's reputation for picking obscure writers, there had been widespread expectation that this year's award would see a contest between two distinguished Americans, Philip Roth and John Updike, and Margaret Atwood, a Canadian. "I have absolutely no idea who Jelenik is," said one prominent British publisher at Frankfurt, who asked to remain anonymous. "I thought it would go to an Albanian this year, so I am only slightly wrong. But I bet it'll be an Indian next year." "This is so typical of the Swedes," said a leading British literary agent. "I have just come from a lunch with four top British publishers and not one of us had heard of her. The Swedes are so perverse that the prize doesn't count for much any longer." Jelenik lives quietly with her elderly mother in a large house in Vienna. Her father, of Czech-Jewish descent, is dead. A former music student and a member of the Communist Party from 1974 to 1991, she started writing in the 1960s and has written more than a dozen novels. Mr Ayrton, whose small firm The Serpent's Tail, has published her in Britain for 15 years, said: "She is a very controversial figure in Austria. She is at the forefront of the fight against the Fascist Right, she is a feminist and she writes about sex.'"