Want more Maccabi? Here’s what you didn’t see!

While most Maccabi Games' organizers were getting some much-deserved zzzzzz's on the morning of Aug. 7, Games director Jackie Lewis was wide awake.

Stationed at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, Lewis was greeting host families dropping off their out-of-town athletes headed for the airport. At 3 a.m.

Instead of yawns, droopy eyelids and disheveled demeanors, both the adults and teens expressed their graciousness to Lewis in the form of hugs and positive feedback.

"Our host families came up…

Gold medal dreams saved: S.F. boys’, girls’ basketball teams deliver

Rush Limbaugh really IS a big fat idiot

I don't care who you are, where you fall on the political spectrum, or how you feel about the Democratic Party: nobody could condone the sickening remarks that talk show host Rush Limbuagh made the other day comparing Democrats to the Nazi Party, as part of the heated health care reform debate. That is so incendiary, so beyond the realm of reasonable discourse, so insulting (not to mention, so wrong), this overpaid clown may have finally gone too far, even…

Kickin’ it off in style: Bands, mascots, cheerleaders rock S.F. Maccabi Games’ opening ceremonies

From Jewish Bulletin to J. – My Journey in the Bay Area Jewish Community

Something charitable for ‘everywun’

I literally just hung up the phone with Dan Jacobs, founder of Everywun, a socially conscious business headquartered in Palo Alto that allows, well everyone, to donate to their favorite charitable causes without dropping a dime. 

At this point, the conscientious reader would be saying, as I certainly did, "Hold up, how can I give monetarily without forking over any money?"

Rest assured, dear reader. Jacobs, 27, has an answer for you. In fact, he's got quite a few.

Welcome to Switzerland, “Schmuck”

So a week or so ago, I'm heading out of the office to start a vacation, and the boss drops the ol' blog reminder on me. Oh, just what everyone wants to read about, my one-week jaunt to Switzerland, France and Belgium. Moreover, the itinerary included NOTHING Jewish (nothing wrong with a J. break when you work at j. - right?).

You’re insane if you think a bat mitzvah with live animals corrupts the tradition

To all of the letter writers and opiners who a) hate that we at J. dedicated a cover story to safari-themed b’nai mitzvah parties and b) think it antithetical to Judaism that families are planning these events in the first place, I recommend you immediately sit down with a Jewish American tween (and the parents who want to appease them).

Talk to them for five minutes. You’ll see that a safari-theme bat mitzvah party with a zebra…

The Boy Wonder and me

If ever I enjoyed doing a story more than my piece on the little Torah savant, Mishael Hibshoosh, well, I can’t think of one. (Read the story here.)

He may be a Torah-chanting expert. He may be a keeper of the flame for Yemenite Judaism. But to me, he is perhaps the most adorable child I’ve ever met (my own son, now 25, excluded).

The cover story details Mishael’s highly polished skills at layning  (or, chanting) Torah. It…

AT&T Park for JCC Maccabi Games closing ceremonies?