Jewish Las Vegas Is A Feudal Town

I expect a Jewish newspaper to return to Las Vegas around Passover.

It will be called The Las Vegas Jewish Ink. It has no website yet.

“The Las Vegas Jewish Reporter” was closed by the local Federation last year.

Jewish Las Vegas is a feudal society. A few billionaires call the shots (some of the world’s wealthiest Jews live there, such as Sheldon Adelson of the Venetian) and the community is usually happy to follow their directions.

What troubles the Las Vegas Jewish Federation troubles most non-profits. There’s a lack of oversight. There’s not an engaged lay board. They’re not inspired and committed. They have no mission.

 

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Is Yoga Idol-Worship?

Oy! The Lubavitcher rebbe said that all forms of yoga (in addition to transcendental meditation) are not kosher.

Oy! Why does this have to come up now? I quite enjoy going to Chabad. Oy!

Beth comments: “Do you follow the Lubavitcher rebbe? I’m pretty sure lusting after shiksas isn’t kosher either.”

Beth, in your morally degraded state, you do not understand that for me shiksas are purely a form of exercise. Practice, as it were, for the real thing that awaits me on the Great Day.

Many shiksas argue these days that they are just archetypal principles, but any third-grader in Hebrew school will tell you that they are idols. Veneration and offerings are unacceptable. I avoid shiksas where the shiksa is too into the mythos.

 

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Good Luck Is The Most Important Ingredient

I’ll never forget the day my therapist asked me, “What do you get out of being in an emotionally unsafe relationship?”

I’d never though of that. The question took me aback, but then I quickly answered, “It leaves me free to look. I’m not risking anything precious. I can talk to all the women I want and see if I can find someone better for me.

“If I walked around with a million dollar diamond entrusted to me and I also knew that it would be really easy to lose it, it could happen any moment, I’d feel tremendous anxiety. On the other hand, if you gave me a $1 diamond and told me I could lose it easily, I wouldn’t care so much.

 

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Operation Optimism: An Interview

I’m walking home from the library. A young black man follows me carrying a bag.

It’s dark. I cross to the other side of the street next to the basketball court. From there, a group of young black men yell out at the young man, “Why You Trying To Look Like A Schoolboy, Nigger?”

He keeps silent and skulks on.

I look at him differently. So that bag was filled with books? I guess we have a lot in common. We could hang. Man, I had no idea of the pressure you were under from your friends. Books are life, man. They are a tree of life to those who hold them close.

 

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The Case For Racial Profiling

Dennis Prager said near the end of his second hour today of his radio show: “The U.S. intensifies screening of travelers from 14 nations.”

He reads from the New York Times report.

“Apparently we are nationally profiling and religiously profiling.

“Isn’t that profiling? So all of the left-wing hullabaloo about profiling turns out to be nonsense?

“For all of my lifetime, the very notion that person X from background X might be more likely to commit a certain crime was considered racism. Not common sense. Racism. Now all of a sudden a dictate has gone out from the White House and it’s no longer racism.”

 

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Operation Optimism: An Interview III

My New Jersey friend Alec Borenstein is an attorney and a life coach.

He has this Facebook group “Operation Optimism.”

“We’re constantly bombarded with negative imagery,” says Alec. “If you just watch the 11pm news, you will see that almost every story is about what we should be afraid of, what we should run from. All these different ways of closing ourselves off as people. With Operation Optimism, I want to create a community of people who focus on what is going well in the world.”

I interview Alec at my hovel on Sunday.

“We’re not going to be unreasonably optimistic,” he says. “The idea is to understand the reality of our situation and to change it, to move towards a more positive direction.”

“If you focus on what is going well in your life, you can change more effectively.”

Alec’s father Abraham is also an attorney as well as a Broadway producer.

 

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Operation Optimism: An Interview II

My New Jersey friend Alec Borenstein is an attorney and a life coach.

He has this Facebook group “Operation Optimism.”

“We’re constantly bombarded with negative imagery,” says Alec. “If you just watch the 11pm news, you will see that almost every story is about what we should be afraid of, what we should run from. All these different ways of closing ourselves off as people. With Operation Optimism, I want to create a community of people who focus on what is going well in the world.”

I interview Alec at my hovel on Sunday.

“We’re not going to be unreasonably optimistic,” he says. “The idea is to understand the reality of our situation and to change it, to move towards a more positive direction.”

“If you focus on what is going well in your life, you can change more effectively.”

Alec’s father Abraham is also an attorney as well as a Broadway producer.

 

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