The 20 Male Poses of Facebook

In the neverending quest to discuss the relevant issues of the day, I pass along this spot-on dissection of the male Facebook profile picture habits!

Guys, ever think that you are being wildly creative and unique with your latest Facebook profile pic? Well think again.

This post from 2birds1blog most definitely has you pegged, whether its the shot of you looking your best at the office hannukah party or the ultra emo shot you took yourself while standing on your head. (I for one am currently violating Rule 13: Do not allow Tupperware to share the spotlight in your picture... No, no there is a real Rule 13 and yes I am breaking it as we speak!)

So will this change the way we use Facebook or make us stop and think about its place in the world? Hell no. But it's guaranteed to make you laugh more than 6 times and give you a chance to make fun of your friends along the way. AKA, perfect Thursday afternoon entertainment. Enjoy! (And special thanks to the DC friend who was busy enough at work to pass this along!)

Disclaimer: This post does contain material that may not be suitable for young children...So if you are a young child, what the heck are you doing reading our blog anyway? Go away.
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Jews and Money: Pay Up!

Just how Jewish is our friend Y? Well, if you blog with us, you owe him $3 and he'll remind you!!

Today, Y proved another stereotype about Jews. We spent the afternoon hanging out, talking about the direction of the blog... we got a lot done. At last, we have a domain name reserved (thestloujew.com --- it redirects here until we go pro) and you can follow us on twitter.

Y and I had some questions for our fellow Jew Crew bloggers... he wrapped up a phone call with Zuz like this...
Y: Oh yeah, we registered our domain name today- it's a done deal.
Zuz: Cool, I didn't know we were doing that.
Y: Yeah, we'll talk about it at our meeting tomorrow.
[insert thirty seconds of random catch-up talk here...boys are weird]
Y: By the way, you owe me $3.
Zuz: What?
Y: for the domain name, everybody owes me $3.
[Y looks at me like "yeah, chick, you gotta pay too!"]
LC: Geez, Y, you're such a Jew!
Zuz: No kidding.
Y: You're right- someone should blog about this!

Mo' money, mo' problems... such is the life of the Jewish Young Adult. I can't blame Y, I'd want my $3, too. The St. Lou Jew runs a tight ship!

On that note, we'll be bringing in a feed of our "tweets" soon so we can let you know where we'll be and what we'll be doing if you dutiful readers would like to join. The more the merrier.
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The Jewish Connection

What is the "Jewish Connection?" Do you know who I know? Probably.

Last Friday night, I went to Shabbat dinner at Y’s apartment- my second Shabbat in a month- and it was awesome. I met a couple new people, and saw some new jew friends from the Shabbat I had previously attended. Now that I’ve hung out with a couple of these people, I feel like I’m making some real friends and not just the kind on Facebook. And they’re not all guys! Chicks like me have a little trouble making decent girlfriends, but I met one girl who was very interested in my first blog post. She is a very kind person, and though she seems shy, she invited me to come to synagogue with her one Saturday.

(To be honest, I never went to synagogue on Saturdays when I was “growing up” Jewish) So I’d like to go and see if this tradition is something I’d be into. It’s people like this girl that make any community stronger. To embrace a fellow comrade and invite them to a regular happening purely because of your faith is not uncommon.; to me, however, it reminds me of other religions I may have mocked at one point previously. I see a future post in the works.

Anyway, this brings up my theory of the Jewish Connection. In St. Louis, growing up Jewish means that we all know the same 95 Jewish kids from our days in school- be it Hebrew school or k-12. I hardly knew anyone, even Y, when I showed up to that first Shabbat dinner, but it turns out, we all know (or are related to) the same group of people, the same community. Since we all know the same 95 kids, jumping into conversations like old friends isn’t hard to do.

Funny enough, “Jewish Connection” is what I would say to my friend Josh when I needed a favor. And he’d do the same. We were the only Jewish kids at our high school, but had known each other since we were six years old thanks to Sunday school. Thanks to that bond we shared growing up, I took pride in helping out a fellow Semite. Come to think of it, I still haven’t been able to find him a girlfriend and he called “jewish connection” on that a while ago.

Next time, I promise to blog about something more lighthearted. Something St. Louis. I do plan on going to synagogue to check it out, so I’ll keep you dutiful readers posted. Until then, back to work! I wish I could call “Jewish Connection” at work. It would make my corporate slavery position much easier…

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The role of the Shiksa

I saw this image on a T-Shirt and couldn't help but laugh, and think about a recent conversation I had with a (non-Jewish) friend of mine.

She sent me a text informing me that she was hanging out with a Jewish friend and they were trying to think of the Yiddish word for a non-Jewish girl and a guy that dates non-Jewish girls.

The word for a non-Jewish girl is Shiksa (literally cockroach), as for the guy that dates the Shiksa, well. . . so far as I know, we don't have a word, which is probably due to the fact that its a pretty common practice.

There is certainly a deep conflict between the egalitarian principles espoused in much of reform Judaism and the deep bias against inter-marriage.

I've done some (pseudo)research into sites like JDate et. al, and there are quite a few non-Jews (mostly women) who have profiles on the site. Its clear that the attraction goes both ways. Granted, its much easier for a Jewish person to find a non-Jewish mate as a simple fact of numbers. By restricting your potential partner set to just Jews, you cut a whole lot of potential out of the picture.
Why is it, though, that non-Jews (once again, mostly women) are going out of their way to seek out Jewish partners (mostly men)?

Some of the answers seem to revolve around the classical American Jewish stereotypes. That Jewish men are more responsible and mature (*cough), better with their money and more family oriented. That they treat women well, cave easily to their demands, and provide steady partnership. . . much of this may be true, at least partially, but what about our stereotypes of non-Jewish women?

How often have I heard, despite the joking tone, that 'goys are for practice'? ...Sure, that relationship was going along swimmingly, until the parents started thinking about where the wedding would be held, how the children would be raised, and then, well, things went to hell, just like her parents promised you would.

What is it though, that simultaneously drives us away from Jewish partners until we are ready to consider the possibility of serious (potentially final status) relationships?

I'm as inundated with images of rail thin, large-chested, tan, blonde women without any body hair as any other media consumer in America, but perhaps as a Jew, these traits have a different meaning. Perhaps they are signals of beauty that we are supposed to aspire to based on our swarthy or pale predispositions, as part of our 'quest to become white'.

I think that as part of the integration process, we have held Gentile women as the standard of beauty to embrace, evidenced by the popularity of nose jobs, tanning beds and laser hair removal to some in the community. It is likely that, as we reach the limits of integration, we start to see a resurgence of pride in who we are, naturally.

It wasn't until I spent some time in Israel that I started realizing, or rather reminding myself, that Jewish women are beautiful. Now, I'm sure there is a point about identity politics or psychology in here somewhere, but really, it just clicked one day; I like dark, curly hair, I love dark, pensive eyes. Sure, our melanin might be pretty lacking, but hey, try getting kicked out of every Mediterranean country over the past 2000 years and see how you end up looking!

I'm interested in what people think though, so why do you never/always date Jewish/non-Jewish women/men?

*EDIT* There are gorgeous Jewish women with red hair, and even blond hair. I mean, Natalie Portman looked decent even without hair in V for Vendetta (although I couldn't help but think of pictures of those interred at camps during the Holocaust).

Also, there is a really interested article tangentially related to this that I just found.

שבת שלום

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