NOT Wishing You a Shana Tova

My inbox is filling up with a lot of spam, and it's really annoying.

The subject is invariably the same: Shana Tova.

I've been hearing from acquaintances with whom I haven't spoken for years who probably hit "send" to everyone in their contact list; PR companies for whom it'll be a good year if they get some press out of the people on their mailing list; random people whose names I don't recognize. My particular favorites are those from old flames who take advantage of the Jewish New Year to reconnect with me. (Many singles out there use the holiday as an excuse to flirt - you know who you are...) It's a Rosh HaShana spam fest, and it's doubly annoying when they include files or pictures over 1 MB. Stop cramming my computer!

These Shana Tova greetings are impersonal and disingenuous. I know the majority of these Jewish spammers don't really mean to wish me a good year. They're being polite, getting over a formality, and kissing tails (and not the heads). But it's not polite. It's actually very rude. If you want to wish me a happy new year, personalize the greeting so that I know you mean it, send it to ME only, or else end up in my junk folder.

So this Rosh HaShanah I'm not wishing anyone a fake "good year", but I will wish everyone who reads this an original, thoughtful new year's greeting inspired by Britney Spears. There's been a lot of media buzz over her allegedly failed performance at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs). I agree the performance lacked her usual power and verve, even though the ex-pop goddess always holds a special place in my heart.

And so, to all my readers and friends, may you be like the head: like Britney's performance at the 2000 VMA’s: full of passion, strength, beauty, certainty, power, focus, concentration, successful and lots of fun.
[Editor's note: Be forewarned. Britney is not wearing much at all in either video.]
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And may you not be like the tail: like Britney's failed performance at the 2007 VMA’s: unfocused, uncertain, inauthentic, stumbling, floppy, and lazy.
Click here to view

I wish Britney Spears and the Jewish people a year of healing, self-knowledge, personal growth, inner strength and some sanity (including yours truly).

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Triple Whammy Anti-Islamists

So when I was in LA over Pesach I went to a kick-ass lecture at UCLA (register here to watch it) criticizing Islamic totalitarianism by very hardcore Islam critics who are not afraid to tell it like it is. It was organized by the "Logic" club which is the campus club for fans of Ayn Rand.

It was a triple whammy panel with Daniel Pipes, Wafa Sultan, and Yaron Brook. Pipes is the most well-known, a scholar of Islam who I think invented the word "Islamist." The "Islamists" in the room (Muslim radicals) can't stand him and always stand in the hall and boo him when he speaks, until they are eventually shooed away.

Wafa Sultan, a Muslim hozer b'she'elah (rebel) risks her life to speak the truth about her former religion. (Read my brief interview with her.)

My personal favorite, who people are just starting to discover, is Yaron Brook, an expatriate Israeli who is the head of the Ayn Rand Institute and stridently speaks out pro-Israel from a secular, "rightist" perspective, bashing both secular leftsits and the relgious right alike. (Read my interview with him from ages ago as well.)

What I like about them is that they seek to ground their arguments in secular logic.

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From Gush Katif to American Idol

With the sixth American Idol season kicking off, I decided to share my experience trying out for American Idol last year (pictured, on right) a few days after protesting in Gush Katif.

I didn't know how to fight the IDF. There was no way to fight the IDF. They were my brothers and sisters.

So sitting on the lawn outside of the Neve Dekalim synagogue as an infiltrator into Gush Katif, fighting to stop the Disengagement, I found my best weapon: my voice.

As the IDF stood around the perimeter of the synagogue lawn, they looked tired, listless, and bored, yet ready for the job at hand the minute they would receive the order. Their commanders had them march around at random, calculating the right time to charge.

Thousands of Israelis and I tried to stave them off as long as we could. Some lovingly talked with them, some prayed in front of them. I plopped myself down on the grass and sang a cappella to rows of soldiers, each clad in claps and vests mercilessly imprinted with the Star of David.

I sang every loving, cheesy Jewish ballad I could remember from my Jewish day school days.

"Our brothers, the entire house of Israel, cast into sorrow and captivity, standing between sea and land…"

"God created within me a pure soul…"

Realizing they were probably not into the Jewish stuff, otherwise the popular slogan, "Jew does not expel Jew" might have made an impression, I sang "There Can Be Miracles When You Believe" from the Prince of Egypt. Some cried; some sang along; most remained stoic.

Yet, I knew that I softened them as I sang. I knew that maybe I touched a chord as I sang the chords - maybe not enough to make them refuse orders, but enough to make them really think about their actions.

But it didn't work as well as I had hoped. Eventually, they hauled me out of the synagogue, where I had continued to sing prayers with thousands of earnest, idealistic, loving teenage women.

Their songs didn't work either, and as two female soldiers dragged me out of the synagogue, I yelled to the soldiers forming human gates on each side of me, "Way to go IDF! I'm going back to America!"

And I knew I would go back to America, not forever, but at least for a well-deserved vacation.

I returned to my apartment in Tel Aviv and everything was different - or at least I was; every one else was too much the same. Most of my friends hardly cared that thousands of Jews were being torn from their home with no where to go. They hardly cared that Gush Katif would turn into a free terrorist trade network. They had bills and boyfriend problems to worry about.

The only remedy to my frustration and depression, I thought, was to join the ranks of shallowness and apathy: I booked a trip to the US in time to tryout for American Idol.

Yes, perhaps if my voice couldn't stop the State of Israel and the Jewish people from the brink of destruction, then maybe it could get me a spot in my favorite American talent contest. If I wasn't cut out to be an Israeli heroine, then maybe I was cut out to be an American Idol…

I arrived to the Gillette stadium in Boston with a friend from New York. After registering a day earlier for an audition wristband, 7,000 American Idol hopefuls and I took our seats. They would call us row by row to sing our song of choice a cappella in front of producers: first come, first sing. Those who graduated this audition would move on to sing for Simon, Paula, and Randy.

The audition was rainy, cloudy, and annoying. The producers had us all sing "Singing in the Rain" with an umbrella dance as if that was fun, while I was still debating which song to sing. "There Can Be Miracles When You Believe"? Nah, I couldn't pull it off. "Eternal Flame" by the Bangles. Maybe. Then it hit me: "I Need a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler.

Maybe the producers would feel my emotion, for I really needed a hero. I left Israel lacking hope, faith, and inspiration.

Finally, after watching hordes of Kelly, Ruben, Fantasia, and Carrie wannabes get sent home and only a handful follow the path to victory, my row was called. We would split into groups of four and line up in front of two producers divided among 14 booths. As I reached my booth, a bitter looking woman wearing sunglasses told me to go first.

Great.

I reminded myself that I sang impromptu in front of the IDF, so singing in front of strangers should be a piece of cake, right? I mustered up my courage, looked into the judges' eyes, and sang my call:

"Where have all the good men gone, and where are all the gods…"

The lady stopped me as I reached the chorus. "Thank you," she said.

Then the others took their turn to be met with the same response.

"You all have good voices, but not of the American Idol caliber," she concluded.

It became clear from talking to people that they either chose the vocalists who were phenomenally good, humorously bad, or just plain freaky. That's what gets the ratings.

I had no gimmick. All I had was the memory of Gush Katif and the faces of those soldiers egging me on. And all I had was that memory to make me realize that I wasn't an American Idol.

My heroes were not the thousands vying to become an idol. My heroes were the thousands of Gush Katif infiltrators who fought for what they believed was right. My heroes were the young women I sang with in the synagogue. My heroes were the people who justly defended their homes. My heroes were the few soldiers who refused orders.

In America there are idols in training. But in Israel there are heroes in training. And I'm privileged to remain a contestant in one of the most real, meaningful, and historic contests for heroes of the Jewish people.

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