Fabulous, Feel-good, and Fatwa-Free

By Symi Rom-Rymer When a Muslim and a Jew walk into a bar, it’s a joke.  When a Muslim discovers he was born Jewish, it’s a movie.  The Infidel, shown as part of the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival, is the story of Mahmud Nasir (Omid Djalili), a middle-aged Muslim man from London’s East End, who discovers after his mother’s death that he was adopted as a baby.  Not only was he adopted, but his birth parents were Jews.  Jews who named him Solomon (Solly) Shimshillewitz, or as his new friend Leonard Goldberg (Richard Schiff) suggests: Jewy-Jew-JewJewawtiz. While Nasir is trying to cope with his new identity, he also must deal with the impending marriage of his son to the stepdaughter of one of Egypt’s most radical imams, Arshad El Masri (Yigal Naor).  The movie takes off when...

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This Week's Links: Is it Summer yet? Edition

By Benjamin Schuman-Stoler SPAM is back! A nice summary of the basic problems and solutions related to bringing kids to synagogue. "AJC extended today congratulations to Cem Özdemir, the newly elected co-leader of the Green Party in Germany. Özdemir has been a longstanding participant in the Turkish-Jewish Roundatble, sponsored by AJC's Berlin Office." Anti-Semitic graffiti was found on a cafe in Northwest London. With election hoopla finally dying down, Jewish news has mellowed out. One Jewish blogger is reallllllly bored. The result? A list of 22 useful travel tips for you and me. And this week's award for most ridiculous news story goes to the Danish. Oh they take it home, and easily, for trying to ban circumcision under the age of 15. Not only would that effectively ban Jews from one of our historical homes,...

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