Pickles and Poutine

Motzei Shabbos I was exhausted, and planned to trek home to sleep. Instead, I was convinced to make an appearance at a friend’s going away party. He’s a good enough friend to not mind me saying that I was won over by the promise of deep-fried pickles. Seriously. To say I was intrigued would be a gross understatement. So after we separated Shabbos from chol, welcomed the new week, we walked over to Dive Bar.

We were pleasantly surprised by the numerous vegetarian offerings to be found on the menu. Then, while debating between a veggie burger and beer chaser for the deep-fried pickles, or just a beer, my friend spotted it: poutine.

A well known Quebecois comfort food: A heap of Dive Bar Fries studded with farm fresh cheddar curd cheese that melts under hot, thick gravy! Tremendously satisfying. Goes well with a cold beer! Vegetarian gravy available.

The menu said everything it had to. We ordered a side of poutine for our pickles.

The pickles were good, but not great. I’m not a huge fan of salt (the flavour that is; I certainly am a fan of its chemical reaction in cooking and baking), but even I was giving the salt shaker a work out. They were lightly beer battered then fried. The pickles were still crunchy on the inside, while the batter was golden brown. I’d order them again, but maybe from another establishment (you know, in hopes of finding a better purveyor).

And then the poutine. Oh, the poutine. It was not poutine. It was possibly passible as disco fries. Maybe. The gravy was clearly from a vegetarian gravy mix; I could recognize and taste the dehydrated peppers, onions, and celery in the sauce. And the gravy was under the fries, not spooned over the whole dish to help in the cheese melting process. But no worries - the cheese was melted in an oven (gah!) or under the heat lamps (oy!) so it didn’t need the gravy’s assistance. And the cheese. Certainly not cheese curds. Probably not of the cheddar variety either. (We guessed it was mozzarella.) So entirely disappointing. Lacking the necessary components, it had no hope of tasting good, let alone tasting like real poutine. They should not be allowed to call it poutine on the menu. I feel quite strongly about this. I mean, what if some unsuspecting New Yorker ate this alleged poutine, not understanding the dish to be an imposter, and then never sought out the real goodness in Quebec? Tragedy. (The above picture is what poutine should look like. Saturday night’s poutine was nothing at all like this yummy concoction.)

In honour of the lack of squeaky cheese (cheese curds squeak, when you bite them, oh yes), I revive danse la poutine:

Kefiyah for ME?!

It may bear my name, but it certainly isn’t for me.

On Jewschool, Diaspora Mentality reports:

This is somewhat old news but it provides a new way to beat a dead scarf, so why not.

A few days ago I spotted a young German man on the Berlin subway wearing a Kaffiyeh Yisraelit. I mentioned this to a German friend. My friend did a quick google search and turned up this gem: The Kaffiyeh Feygele. It seems a gay or two on the “anti-German” left has now appropriated Rachel Ray’s favorite scarf.

In the place of the classic Levantine pattern, the Kaffiyeh Feygele has hearts, butt plugs, condoms and hammers and sickles. Also, it has stars of David in the corners. This is an article in the German paper Taz on the phenomenon.

Note the Pfizer brand viagra pills in the motif as well. Amazing.

According to the Crisco Connection website (the creators of this), the first run is a limited edition of 100. Quick, uh, hurry and get yours… today?

Canada Needs Your Help NOW!

Meanwhile, in Canada, there’s a storm brewing, and it’s going to get ugly. I urge all Canadians who read this to contact their MPs regarding changes to the Canadian DMCA, Industry Minister Jim Prentice’s no-consultation copyright law.

• Canadian DMCA is worse than the American one: The Canadian DMCA allows every single exception to copyright to be eliminated by adding DRM: whatever the law allows you to do, a corporation can take away, just by using DRM to prevent you from doing it. Breaking DRM is illegal, unless you fit into a tiny, narrow, useless exception for security research. It used to be that Parliament got to write copyright law. Now, it’s Hollywood companies, who get to overrule Parliamentary law with whatever “business rules” they put in their DRM.
• PSA Video on Canada’s new copyright bill, C-61
• Comic book explains the fight over the Canadian DMCA: Canadian copyfightin’ law prof Michael Geist sez, “Gordon Duggan of Appropriation Art has created a remarkable comic book [PDF - 2.8 MB] chronicling the recent battle over Canadian copyright reform. The book includes over 100 links to websites, articles, and other resources as every quote or reference is hyperlinked. It concludes with references to groups actively involved in copyright issues and suggestions for how to get active. This left me absolutely speechless.”
• How Canada’s DMCA will criminalize everyday Canadians: I’ve been hearing from Boing Boing readers who’ve written to the government to protest the bill, and the government line is “We’re not taking away rights, we’re giving them to the public! We’re making it legal to rip CDs and make other personal copies!” (Indeed, Prentice sent a letter to the Toronto Star that says just this). This isn’t mere disingenuousness: it’s a flat-out lie. Yes, the bill will legalize ripping your CDs, so long as there’s no DRM on them, and so long as the EULA doesn’t forbid it. The Canadian DMCA says to rightsholders, “There are no exceptions to copyright law, except the ones you permit. If you want to prohibit a use that Parliament has protected, go right ahead! Just add some DRM or stick it in the EULA, and whatever you say will become the law of the land.”
• Talking points for Canadians speaking to their MPs about the Canadian DMCA: This bill is bad for Canadians for a number of reasons…

Please write/call/email your MP NOW! If the bill passes, our copyright laws will go from decent to worse-than-America’s, with the goal being to strip Canadians of rights will empowering Hollywood. Let’s do something about it. Now.

[Much thanks to BoingBoing, from whom I blatantly copied for this post.]

Really Bad Idea

A follow up to Oh, dear G-d no:

“Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable,” said [Iranian-born Israeli Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz,] the former army chief who has also been defence minister.

Iran, which denies seeking nuclear weapons, has defied Western pressure to abandon its uranium enrichment projects. The leadership in Tehran has also threatened to retaliate against Israel – believed to have the Middle East’s only atomic arsenal – and U.S. targets in the Gulf for any attack on Iranian turf.

Mr. Mofaz also said in the interview that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel to be wiped off the map, “would disappear before Israel does.” [read more]

I maintain that this is a Bad Idea™. And will lead to a war between Israel and much of the Middle East, with other countries getting involved to support either side and… world war 3 has been born.

(And let’s not forget that the soon-to-be-former Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, said “that as president she would be willing to use nuclear weapons against Iran if it were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel.” Thank goodness she won’t be president!)

Oh, dear G-d no.

Ehud Olmert will urge President Bush to prepare an attack on Iran, an Israeli newspaper reported.

How is an “attack” at all the proper response to “stop your nuclear program”? Let’s see… they’ll bomb Iran and then Iran will learn its lesson and not retaliate, and definitely not use those nuclear weapons? Right. This is a great idea.

Building Israel

According to the JTA, “Israel announced plans to build hundreds of new homes in Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem.”

According to the NYTimes, “Israel announced plans on Sunday to build hundreds of new homes in an area of the occupied West Bank the Israeli government considers part of Jerusalem, despite U.S. and Palestinian calls to halt settlement expansion.”

According to the BBC, “The Israeli government has announced plans to build nearly 900 new housing units in a part of East Jerusalem that is considered occupied territory.”

I look at the story, knowing where Pisgat Zeev and Har Homa are, and question the Israeli government’s slant that these housing projects are meant to “bolster” Jerusalem. Bolster is only the right word to use here, if they mean “build up Jewish settlements in Palestinian land so that if/when a two state solution is realised, all of this area will be considered Jewish and/or “greater Jerusalem” and will stay with Israel, not Palestine.”

Time and again, Israel has agreed to cease new settlements, stop building up existing ones. And yet they continue to do it anyway.

And people wonder why land ownership issues are so convoluted?

Machon Schechter slams its students

Two brief, incomplete, articles were published last week by the Jerusalem Post and the JTA, talking about a, uh, problem at Schecter concerning gay rabbinical students. Jewschool has an exclusive report from sources close to the story, which I recommend reading.

Some stories have been floating around the media with varying levels of accuracy, but Jewschool has obtained the full (or fuller) story from reliable sources. The real story here isn’t about gay and lesbian rabbis in the Conservative movement (that was last year’s story); it’s about the lengths to which people and institutions will go out of fear, demonizing their own students and losing all perspective.

The story begins a year ago this week, when the Jewish Theological Seminary announced that it would begin admitting openly gay and lesbian students to its rabbinical and cantorial schools. (The American Jewish University, formerly the University of Judaism, is now also admitting gay and lesbian students.) One year later, to mark the anniversary, JTS held a program on Wednesday called Hazak Hazak V’nithazek: Celebrating Strength Through Inclusion, a full day of study, conversation, and celebration.

Several JTS students studying this year at Machon Schechter (the Conservative rabbinical school in Jerusalem where American Conservative rabbinical students are required to spend a year) wanted to participate in the celebration going on in New York in some way, and since they couldn’t attend physically, they organized a small parallel event in Israel. According to email invitations sent to the Conservative Yeshiva and other rabbinical students in Jerusalem, the students invited Yonatan Gher, former Director of Communications for the Masorti (Israeli Conservative) movement, incoming director of the Jerusalem Open House, and a member of Masorti congregations his whole life (and recently profiled in the New York Times because he and his partner are having a child via a surrogate mother in India), to speak over lunch about his personal experiences as a member of a GLBT family in the Masorti movement.

The email announcing the event makes clear what this event was not: It was not intended as a proposal for an official Schechter event. It was not a discussion of Schechter’s admissions policy. (Schechter does not admit gay and lesbian students.) It was not a protest or demonstration to advocate for change in Schechter policy. It was not a halakhic debate, nor was it an exposition of a particular halakhic position. It was not an event manufactured for the media. It was not a “ceremony,” as the media has incorrectly reported it. It was simply a lunch-and-learn with an opportunity for students to listen to Mr. Gher’s personal story and to participate remotely in JTS’s anniversary event. The email says that outright.

Read more…

Québec, encore.

English translation will follow shortly (in the comments). I felt it important to write in French after being back in Quebec for a week… (With thanks to .)

[Cross-posted from Jewschool.]

Et les Montréalais ne vois rien de mal à leur perspective «orthodoxe est le seul judaïsme nous [ne] pratiquons [pas]»? Ceux qui me connaissent ont déjà entendu mon discours contre la communauté juive de Montréal. Les options sont orthodoxes, orthodoxes, ou conservadoxes. Oui, il y a une synagogue réforme classique à Westmount. Et, oui, il y a une synagogue reconstructioniste à Côte-St-Luc. Mais pour un homme shomer Shabbos vivant sur le côté est, ces deux options ne sont pas viables. Selon les statistiques, je les appris par coeur dans un cours universitaire, Montréal est la seule ville en Amérique du Nord ayant plus orthodoxe que conservateurs et réformateurs juifs (c’est-à-dire, il y a très peu de Juifs qui s’identifient réformateurs ou conservateurs, même ceux qui mangent leurs hamburgers avec fromage). Il s’agit d’une ville où le discours d’ouverture sur les premières pages de l’annuaire des entreprises juives a commencé par une blague contre les réformateurs - et personne n’a jugé inapproprié.

Donc, il je ne suis pas étonné quand je vois que les effets de la fermeture et l’insularité de la communauté orthodoxe ont fait des ravages sur la société québécoise.

Un sondage national mené à la suite de la commission sur les «accommodements raisonnables» révèle une disparité frappante entre les attitudes Québécois à l’égard des Juifs et celles des autres Canadiens. Le sondage commandé par l’Association d’études canadiennes (AEC) et effectué par Léger Marketing entre le 31 Janvier et 4 février a demandé à 1500 Canadiens s’ils étaient en accord avec, en désaccord avec, ou ne savaient pas/n’ont pas d’opinion sur une série de déclarations concernant les juifs et l’antisémitisme. Selon les résultats du sondage, 41% des Québécois étaient en accord, tandis qu’un autre 41% étaient en désaccord avec l’idée que «les Juifs veulent imposer leurs coutumes et leurs traditions aux autres». Par contre, face à cette même idée, le reste du Canada étaient en accord à 11%, et en désaccord à 74%. La moyenne nationale était de 19% d’accord et 64% en désaccord.

Quant à une autre déclaration - «les Juifs veulent participer pleinement à la société» – 41% des Québécois étaient en désaccord, et 31% étaient en accord, à comparer au reste du Canada qui a répondu en désaccord à 8% et en accord à 72%. La moyenne nationale était de 16% en désaccord et 63% en accord.

À l’idée «les juifs ont apporté une importante contribution à la société», 35% des Québécois étaient en désaccord et 41% étaient en accord, tandis qu’au reste du Canada 10% étaient en désaccord et 74% étaient en accord. La moyenne canadienne était de 16% en désaccord et 65% en accord. [citation.]

Ne vous méprenez pas: je suis attristé que, en l’an 2008, à la société civilisée du monde occidental, les gens peuvent toujours penser si à l’envers. Dans le cas du Québec, je pense que la responsabilité est double et de grands changements sont nécessaires.

Je pense que ces problèmes sont le résultat d’une province traditionnellement catholique, avec l’Église au centre - les écoles publiques étaient (et sont encore, sans doute) gérés par les conseils scolaires français catholiques. Mes parents, qui ont grandi tous les deux au Québec, ont de nombreuses histoires à raconter sur ce sujet. Soit de se faire battre le dimanche après-midi par les ados catholiques qui viennent aux quartiers juifs (histoire de s’amuser après la messe), soit de se faire taquiner et se faire demander de «montrer leurs cornes», où bien d’être obligés de rester dans les couloirs pendant les prières se faisaient à l’école. Même à mon quartier de l’est, moi aussi, j’était affronté à antisémitisme qui m’a stupéfié – je me suis fait aussi demander de «montrer mes cornes» et me fait appeler les noms racistes. Le résultat de cette histoire de tourments et d’ignorance continuelle, c’est que la population juive vit dans les communautés insulaires exclusives dans les quartiers spécifiques. Je suis sûr que cela crée, d’un certain degré, la protection contre la haine, mais elle crée aussi des problèmes. Les Québécois n’ont donc pas l’occasion de fréquenter les Juifs, d’apprendre à connaître les Juifs comme leurs voisins, et de témoigner qu’il n’y a rien de bizarre ou de sinistre en cours. (Cette situation est à comparer avec celle au reste du Canada où les Juifs vivent en quartiers plus mitigés et intégrés. Ces quartiers juifs au reste du Canada n’arrivent même pas d’atteindre le même taux de densité juive comme, par exemple, à Côte-St-Luc et à Hampstead (les arrondissements de Montréal), qui ont tous les deux un taux de densité de plus de 70% juive.)

Comment pouvons-nous s’avancer? La province devrait réexaminer le système scolaire qui ne semble pas parvenir à créer un environnement ouvert, divers, et qui comprend toute la société. Les hommes politiques doivent se résister au Parti Québécois et demander que ces idées xénophobes et racistes soient rejetées (le province de Québec est, et doit être, pour biens d’autres que les «québécois»; dont les anglophones Québécois, les immigrants et d’autres Canadiens, qui viennent y habiter. Tous ces groupes devraient être traités de façon égale). De cette façon, la notion d’«accommodements raisonnables» et ses débats seront une chose du passé, et le Québec cessera de tacher une nation autrement avant-gardiste.

Mais je pense également que la responsabilité revient à la communauté juive de tendre la main et de contribuer à l’instruction. La première fois que j’ai rencontré antisémitisme à Montréal je marchais vers le côté ouest, vers le shul le jour du Yom Kippour, il y a quelques années. Par coïncidence, un membre du Congrès juif canadien a donné une conférence sur l’antisémitisme entre les services du matin et l’après-midi. Il a remarqué comment les Juifs de Montréal sont mis à part. «Vous rappelez-vous la dernière fois que vous êtes allé jusqu’à la rue St-Laurent?» At-il demandé, «Ou bien la rue St-Denis!?» Son point de vue était que la communauté juive avait besoin d’assumer des responsabilités à «construire des ponts». Comme les Juifs ne se mélangent pas avec les Québécois, beaucoup de Québécois propagent l’antisémitisme purement parce qu’ils n’ont jamais rencontré un Juif. J’ai cité mes expériences avec l’antisémitisme au cours de la période de questions. Quand j’ai dit que j’habite à l’est de la rue St-Denis (le côté français de la ville), je me suis fait dire que devais déménager et que je n’aurais pas à faire face à la haine dans les quartiers juifs. Les ghettos juifs ne sont pas la solution, ils n’ont pas fonctionné jusqu’ici, comme vous pouvez voir, grâce aux débats sur l’accommodement raisonnable et les statistiques ci-dessus. Les juifs devraient reconnaître qu’il y a un côté est de la ville de Montréal et qu’il existe toute une province au delà de l’île de Montréal, où les gens peuvent, et doivent, passer toute leur vie sans rencontrer un Juif. Prendre des excursions avec votre famille et vos enfants vers les petites villes. Apprendre le français. Connaître mieux vos collègues de travail québécois.

Je suis fermement convaincu que les mauvaises attitudes du Québec peuvent se transformer. Néanmoins, il va falloir travailler, pardonner, et surtout éduquer chez les deux côtés afin d’améliorer les conditions de vie dans la belle Province.

Our greatest ally?

Another incredibly stupid policy coming out of the US. It seems that Canadian luggage is screened twice:

The policy, developed after 9/11 and in place since 2003, requires all bags from flights coming from Canada to be screened at U.S. airports by the federally regulated Transportation Security Administration before they can be loaded onto connecting planes. This, despite having already been screened and precleared by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers stationed at Canada’s eight major airports. The airport in Shannon, Ireland, is the only other in the world with preclearance to the United States.”In essence, that bag that’s already been deemed safe … gets to the United States, is taken off the airplane, goes back inside the air terminal building, gets rescreened and resecured, and is then sent back out to the second airplane and loaded,” said Jim Facette, president and CEO of the Canadian Airports Council, which represents airports across the country.

“So two things are happening: The passenger is waiting a longer period of time than they need to because screening can take between 75 and 90 minutes, and the TSA is incurring a whole lot of costs. It’s unnecessary.”

Unnecessary, airports and airlines in both Canada and the United States maintain, because the screening technology and security procedures in place in both countries are virtually identical, and precleared passengers can’t access their checked bags between flights. [Source.]

There’s a waste of money happening, as increase in missed connections and lost luggage, and the US hasn’t been able to show any evidence that this practice is making any difference! Ridiculous.

Canadian: derogatory?

According to an article in the National Post. “Canadian” is being used by some Southern Americans as synonym for “black” or “nigger.” A way for people to be racist, covertly.

Last August, a blogger in Cincinnati going by the name CincyBlurg reported that a black friend from the southeastern U.S. had recently discovered that she was being called a Canadian. “She told me a story of when she was working in a shop in the South and she overheard some of her customers complaining that they were always waited on by a Canadian at that place. She didn’t understand what they were talking about and assumed they must be talking about someone else,” the blogger wrote.”After this happened several times with different patrons, she mentioned it to one of her co-workers. He told her that ‘Canadian’ was the new derogatory term that racist Southerners were using to describe persons they would have previously referred to [with the N-word.]“

Stefan Dollinger, a postdoctoral fellow in linguistics at University of British Columbia and director of the university’s Canadian English lab, speculated that the slur reflects a sense of Canadians as the other.

“This ‘code’ word, is the replacement of a no-longer tolerated label for one outsider group, with, from the U.S. view, another outsider group: Canadians. It could have been terms for Mexicans, Latinos etc. but this would have been too obvious,” he said. “What’s left? Right, the guys to the north.”

Weird.