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Jewish Journal

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July 18, 2013

Lakers welcome back Jordan Farmar

Leave a Comment / Culture, Mobile, News, Sports /

The Lakers brought back a familiar face in (Jewish) veteran guard Jordan Farmar on Wednesday. Farmar had a bench role with the Lakers from 2006-2010 where he averaged 6.7 points and 2.1 assists per game. From the Lakers' press release:

EL SEGUNDO – The Los Angeles Lakers have signed free agent guard Jordan Farmar, it was announced today by General Manager Mitch Kupchak. Per team policy, terms of the agreement were not released.

“Jordan was a fan favorite and a key contributor to our championship teams in 2009 and 2010,” said Kupchak. “We're pleased to have him back with the Lakers and look forward to him once again making a positive impact on our team.”

Farmar, originally selected by the Lakers with the 26th overall pick in the 2006 NBA Draft, spent his first four NBA seasons with Los Angeles and helped the team to three consecutive NBA Finals appearances (2008-10) and back-to-back NBA Championships in 2009 and 2010. A participant in the Rookie-Sophomore Challenge at NBA All-Star Weekend in both 2007 and 2008, Farmar averaged 6.9 points and 2.1 assists in 18.1 minutes over a span of 301 career games during his first stint with the Lakers.

Signed by New Jersey (now Brooklyn) in July of 2010, Farmar spent two seasons with the Nets, averaging 9.6 points and a career-high 5.0 assists in 2010-11 and a career-best 10.4 points during a 2011-12 season in which he ranked eighth league-wide in three-point field goal percentage (.440).

After briefly playing abroad with Israeli champions Maccabi Tel Aviv during the NBA lockout in 2011 before rejoining the Nets, Farmar signed with Anadolu Efes Istanbul in Turkey for the entire 2012-13 season. In 29 Euroleague games with Anadolu Efes, he averaged 13.8 points on .397 shooting from behind the arc, 3.6 rebounds and 3.9 assists in 29.4 minutes. In 22 Turkish league games, Farmar posted similar averages of 13.7 points, 3.1 rebounds and 4.1 assists in 26.1 minutes.

A Los Angeles native, Farmar, named to the 2003-04 McDonald's High School All-American team after leading Taft High School to its first ever Los Angeles City title, played two seasons at UCLA where he was named Pac-10 Freshman of the Year, helped lead the Bruins to the 2006 NCAA championship game as a sophomore and concluded his two-year collegiate career averaging 13.5 points and 5.2 assists in 66 games.

The Lakers, who were swept in the first round of the playoffs this past season, intend to have him play behind current guards Steve Nash and Steve Blake. Given the 91 combined missed games of the current contingent — he should see plenty of playing time.

Los Angeles lost free agent center Dwight Howard to the Houston Rockets this offseason which has thrust them deep into a “rebuilding” year. The team has focused on thrift shopping — signing players to one-year, low salary contracts in an attempt to keep their books clear for next year's talent-laden free agent class.

[Related: Jordan Farmar and the Jewish (hoops) future]

Lakers star Kobe Bryant chimed in on the Farmar signing on his increasingly famous Twitter account: 

With a one-year contract, Farmar will earn $1,106,941 with the Lakers next season. The signing required a $500k contract buyout from his Euroleague team Anadolu Efes Istanbul.

Lakers welcome back Jordan Farmar Read More »

Troops erred in detaining Palestinian boy in Hebron, IDF says

Leave a Comment / Israel /

Israeli troops erred in detaining a 5-year-old Palestinian boy for throwing stones at soldiers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, an Israel Defense Forces official said.

“We made a mistake during the event, both in detaining the boy and detaining his father,” Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon, the head of the IDF Central Command said, told commanders Wednesday during an operational assessment of the incident. “This incident caused more harm than good.”

Following the assessment, Alon instructed commanders to clarify to their soldiers the protocol for detaining children, Haaretz reported. The legal age for responsibility is considered 12.

On Tuesday, the IDF opened an investigation into the incident.

A video of the incident was released last week by the B’Tselem human rights organization.

B’Tselem identified the boy as Wadi’a Maswadeh. The group said the soldiers brought him home, where they met his father and took them both away. The video shows the child crying and visibly distressed as he is put into an Israeli army jeep.

The father and son were held at an army base, where the video shows the father bound and blindfolded.

The two were later taken to the Palestinian police, who questioned them before they were released.

Troops erred in detaining Palestinian boy in Hebron, IDF says Read More »

Obama urges Netanyahu to resume peace talks with Palestinians

Leave a Comment / Is Featured?, Lead Story, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News, United States /

President Barack Obama spoke by telephone on Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and urged him to resume peace talks with Palestinians, the White House said in a statement.

The telephone call was part of regular consultations between the two leaders, the White House said, but came as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited the region to try to help restart talks that stalled in 2010.

“The President encouraged Prime Minister Netanyahu to continue to work with Secretary Kerry to resume negotiations with the Palestinians as soon as possible,” the White House said, noting the leaders also talked about security issues in Egypt, Iran and Syria.

Palestinian leaders put off a decision on Thursday about restarting peace talks with Israel, with most saying Israel must first meet their terms before negotiations can start, a Palestinian official said.

President Mahmoud Abbas had gathered fellow PLO leaders in Ramallah to discuss his meetings with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry this week. Kerry, who had extended his stay in the region in the hope of progress on resuming peace talks that stalled in 2010, will return to the United States on Friday.

No decision emerged from the Palestinians' gathering, one official who attended Thursday's meeting told Reuters, and Abbas formed a committee to present a formal response to Kerry's peace push on Friday.

“Most PLO officials who attended the meeting described Kerry's offer as not sufficient for resuming negotiations with Israel,” said the official, Qais Abdel-Karim.

The main sticking point seemed to be a Palestinian demand that Israel agree to negotiate on condition that the borders of a future Palestinian state would be based on boundaries drawn before a 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose rightist coalition government includes parties that back Jewish settlers on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, says he wants to start peace talks immediately, but without preconditions.

“There is a general tendency among PLO officials to reject resuming negotiations before Israel recognizes the 1967 borders as a base for the peace process and for it to end settlement activity,” said Abdel-Karim.

Kerry has given no details on where he believes the two sides might give ground, though he said after meeting Abbas in Jordan on Wednesday that differences had narrowed “very significantly”.

KERRY TO FLY HOME FRIDAY

Earlier on Thursday, the State Department had said there were currently no plans to announce a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian talks and a senior U.S. official later said Kerry would fly home on Friday after consulting both sides again.

It was unclear if Kerry would see the parties in person on Friday or consult them by telephone.

“It is appropriate and encouraging that there is such a serious debate about these issues,” the senior U.S. official said in a brief emailed comment as the Palestinian discussions continued. “We understand that there are many strongly held views and appreciate efforts to find a basis to move forward.”

Making his sixth visit to the region since March, Kerry has not spelled out his proposals. But his efforts won the notable endorsement of the Arab League, which said they “provide the ground and a suitable environment to start negotiations”.

Kerry has highlighted a 2002 offer made by the 22-nation League to make peace with Israel in return for a Palestinian state broadly inside borders that existed before the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in 1967.

An Israeli official, briefing anonymously, said Israel had agreed to a new wording on future border negotiations. However, a Netanyahu spokesman denied there had been any change in Israel's position.

ARAB SUPPORT

The Arab League confirmed this week that it was willing to consider swapping some land on either side of the 1967 borders, bringing it closer to Israel's position. Israel says the old borders are indefensible and that some West Bank settlement blocs should be incorporated into Israel.

Abbas, whose peace strategy is opposed by the Islamist group Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip, has sought Arab League support in the past to engage Israel. It was not clear if Wednesday's endorsement gave him enough political cover to resume talks.

Hamas's leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, called Kerry's efforts “a waste of time”.

Abbas had convened senior members of the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and his Fatah party in Ramallah, hub of the West Bank and seat of his U.S.-backed self-rule administration.

Before Thursday's meeting, Palestinian officials seemed pessimistic. They appeared to allude to reports that Kerry's formula lacked any mention of stopping settlement construction but might include a reference to Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state – something they never have accepted.

Negotiations, which have ebbed and flowed for two decades, last broke down in late 2010, after a partial settlement halt meant to foster talks ended and Netanyahu refused to extend it.

Palestinians familiar with Abbas's thinking speculated he might now forgo the call for a settlement moratorium given a recent slowdown in housing starts issued by Israel's government, though it may still be painful to roll back his previous demand.

Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Amman, Noah Browning in Cairo, Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem, and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Writing by Dan Williams, Ari Rabinovitch and Arshad Mohammed; editing by David Stamp

Obama urges Netanyahu to resume peace talks with Palestinians Read More »

OUCH! Snake bites man’s ‘snake’ on the toilet

Leave a Comment / Blogs, Israel /

A 30-year-old man was hospitalized Friday night after a snake bit his member while he was sitting on the toilet at his parents’ house in northern Israel.

According to a Channel 10 report, the man, a resident of central Israel, paid his parents a visit in the northern town of Nofit. While sitting on the john, he was rudely and painfully interrupted when a snake appeared and bit his penis. The victim “ran from the room in horror” and went to Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center for treatment, according to the report.

A blood test found that the snake was not venomous. The man was in good condition, but doctors decided to keep him under medical supervision.

Read more (if you dare) at timesofisrael.com.

OUCH! Snake bites man’s ‘snake’ on the toilet Read More »

What You Should Be Watching: Boys Over Flowers

Leave a Comment / Blogs, Hollywood, Mobile, Mobile Sections, News /

I wish I had a better explanation for the Boys Over Flowers thing. A friend mentioned it to me last June while we were walking around New York: there's this weird Korean soap opera I've been watching that I think you might like. She talked about the characters and their antics about how ridiculous and over-the-top it was and I smiled politely and said I would watch it without any intention of doing any such thing. But then, as these things happen: a month or or so later when I was hungover and lazing around, trying to figure out what I could watch without overtaxing my brain, I remembered her enthusiasm and thought I might give it a try. (The show is available in its entirety on Netflix.) I spent the rest of the week evangelizing about it with what I now recognize was a slightly insane fervor. I'd go out to dinner or meet someone for coffee and they'd ask me how I was and I would smile very widely and say “I'm great! Have you ever heard of Boys Over Flowers?”

There's something about this show. I mean, the number of versions of the story that exist attest to its weird enchanting power: Boys Over Flowers was originally a Japanese manga, and has since been adapted into various movies and television series in Japan, China, Taiwan and South Korea. The Korean version is the most famous one; it's the one I watched, and I think it's justifiably known. It's just… I don't know, man, it's just great.

It's ostensibly the story of a lower class girl named Guem Jan-di, the daughter of a dry cleaner, who, through a series of mishaps, ends up a student at Seoul's most exclusive private school. There she catches the eyes and the ire of a group of popular boys who call themselves F4, the sons and heirs of the most important corporations in the country. It's a lot of fantasy wish fulfillment– and a lot of montage makeover scenes– replete with lavish vacations and luxurious parties. There are dramaticly evil villains and a lot of really intense emotions. It's definitely cartoony– you can see its roots as manga all over the place.

What saves it from being cheesy is that it's just so weird. And weird without trying, I think, surreal because it cares so much more about creating story and heightening dramatic tension than it does about any kind of realism or believeability. There's no point (and, more importantly no fun) in trying to watch the show on any terms but its own: it demands that you just believe in it, full stop. It's fantasy without being fantasy, a world almost like our own and then not just, not quite. One of the boys of F4 helps Jan-di's best friend get revenge on a nasty ex by playing a song on the saxaphone for her. At a dance club. He's the only one of the boys who's not an heir; he's rich and famous because he makes beautiful pottery, pottery so good, apparently, that it makes women swoon. The show is earnest in its outrageousness. It plays its surrealism incredibly straight. There's none of the self-consciousness or snark that American shows sometimes try to leverage into lighter fare– Boys Over Flowers makes no apologies for what it is and what it's doing. I love it for that. Perhaps, um, unsurprisingly, given my taste for the genre. 

What You Should Be Watching: Boys Over Flowers Read More »

Watch: Snoop Lion helps Larry King become ‘first’ Jewish rapper

Leave a Comment / Culture, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News /

CNN star Larry King wants to become the first ever Jewish rapper, and he’s enlisted the assistance of none other than rhyming veteran Snoop Dogg Lion.

While Snoop didn’t break the news to King that artists like the Beastie Boys and Drake have already beaten him to it, he did do a pretty good job of coaching the 79 year old.

During a visit to Snoop’s Tha Double Gangsta Hood News Network, King was quizzed by the joint-toting rapper on his interests. Then the two launched into a rap about peanut butter, baseball, and dinner.

“Mazel tov Mr. King, let your voice and legacy continue to ring,” Snoop said, closing out the duet.

King’s no Jerry Lewis or anything, but you have to give the guy an A for effort.

(Some of video NSFW)

In addition to brightening our morning, this collaboration has also made us wonder, what’s up with all of the recent love between famous Jewish guys over 50 and rap stars?

Watch: Snoop Lion helps Larry King become ‘first’ Jewish rapper Read More »

Birthright Israel trip staffer almost bails for Heineken [VIDEO]

Leave a Comment / Culture /

Drop everything and go.

That’s the pitch made to travelers at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport in a Heineken ad campaign, who were given the opportunity to press a button that would select a vacation destination — departing immediately.

As seen on the video posted to the Heineken YouTube page, the campaign was was so compelling that a Taglit-Birthright Israel group leader contemplated bailing on his bus and let the beer company choose a new destination.

Fortunately, we think, his female counterpart was a bit more level-headed in her approach.

Remember, kids: rule number one of Birthright’s alcohol policy: ”Drinking is not permitted on the flight to Israel.”

Birthright Israel trip staffer almost bails for Heineken [VIDEO] Read More »

Off to the Holy Land: “People of the Loose Strap”

Leave a Comment / Blogs, Is Featured?, Israel, Judaism, Mobile, Mobile Sections, News /

I don’t have to tell you what it’s like to be on a packed, nonstop, 14-hour El Al flight to Tel Aviv, but I will anyway.

You know, the usual: Crying babies; a Zionist youth group with plenty of testosterone (all wearing red T-shirts); an Israeli dude who looks like a former commando cheating to the last second to talk on his cell phone before takeoff; flight attendants who spend as much time taking care of the crying babies as the parents; an old lady who tries to peek at my computer screen as I write; the smell of homemade food (stuffed cabbage?); a Charedi man with a look of permanent grouchiness on his face, maybe due to the presence of very short shorts worn by several women within spitting distance of his window seat; a constant flow of human bodies rising up to search overhead compartments, with the neat clacking sound providing a welcome counterpoint to the soundtrack of the crying bambinos; and, well, I could go on.

But what I want to focus your attention on is a loose luggage strap, color black.

As you know, there’s a certain period after takeoff when the fasten seatbelt sign is on and flight attendants are AWOL. That’s the law– they have to sit. So, if you need anything during that time, you’re on your own.

The grandmother sitting next to me (the one pretending not to look at what I’m writing) needed something. Urgently.

What happened is that she saw a loose luggage strap, color black, doubled up, sticking out of an overhead compartment. Maybe she thought it was a safety hazard. Who knows, maybe she used to be a flight attendant with Pan American Airlines fifty years ago and in her training they talked about how a baby got killed once because a loose strap forced open an overhead compartment during a rough takeoff and the falling luggage missile knocked out the poor bambino. I don’t know.

The point is, that loose strap was giving her the shpilkes.

She whispered to her friend and pointed at it. When she wasn’t peeking at my computer screen, her eyes gravitated back to the stray strap. She made the motion of looking for a flight attendant. I knew she was trying to play it cool—not wanting to make too big a deal out of it.

But her repressed shpilkes act wasn’t fooling me. I have a sharp antenna for Jewish grandmothers with shpilkes. That loose strap was weighing heavily on her mind, that’s for sure. Well, it was weighing on her, that is, until twenty minutes later when a flight attendant noticed the runaway strap and, in a sharp double-clacking motion, put a quick end to the whole saga.

Now the grandmother is sleeping like a baby.

You see, this is one of the occupational hazards of being a columnist and a passionate observer of humanity—especially Jewish humanity—AND having 14 hours to kill on a noisy El Al flight. You end up looking for loose straps.

Even more hazardous, when you also have a weakness for meaningful insights and metaphors, and you haven’t much else to do, you end up staring at that loose strap and asking deep questions like, “Is there meaning in that thing?”

Well, of course there is!

(What did you think I’d say?)

I mean, seriously, are we not the people of the loose strap? The people with forever unfinished business? The people who love to catch the smallest mistakes?

Are we not the people with thin skins and stiff necks who’ve learned the hard way to always look over our shoulders—just as that worried grandmother sitting next to me did?

Are we not the people who’ve lived for 5,773 years knowing that we can never be satisfied?

Forget the people of the book– we are the people of “there’s always something.”

No matter how much we accomplish, no matter how loved and accepted we are, no matter how “good” things look, there’s always something.

A looming threat. An unanswered question. A fear that things may be too good.

Even a threatening loose strap sticking out from an overhead compartment with bambinos sitting just below.

Like I said, when you’re bored, you can find meaning in anything.

But now I have to go. It’s too hard on my neck to type while trying to hide the computer screen from the grandmother sitting next to me who just woke up. I can’t take the chance that she understands English.

In twelve hours, I will touch ground to seek relief for my Israel addiction.

If I see anything else interesting, I’ll let you know.

Off to the Holy Land: “People of the Loose Strap” Read More »