JUF News Express

A performance of "dirty Yiddish songs" kicked off "Sex and the Shtetl," a three-day exploration of sexual mores and practices in the prewar Yiddish world sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies at Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union.

Life in the shtetl wasn’t all Shabbat candles and milking cows, say experts who come from as far away as Boston, London and Jerusalem to discuss cross-dressing in early Yiddish film, baby farms in late 19th-century Vilna and the Freudian underpinnings of Jewish jokes, writes the JTA's Sue Fishkoff.

“There was a lot of discussion about Jewish sexuality in the late 19th-century Yiddish world,” said Donny Inbar, associate director of arts and culture at the Israel Center of the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation.

It’s not anti-Semitism that causes Venezuelan Jews to fear daily for the safety of their families but “la inseguridad” -- insecurity. It's the general term Venezuelans use now to describe an unrelenting crime wave that cuts across the country's economically and ideologically polarized society. The issue consistently tops surveys here as Venezuelans’ biggest concern, reports the JTA's Jasmina Kelemen.

Venezuelan Jews say that as citizens of a state in which many have lost faith in the police and judicial system, they fear random violence far more than anti-Semitic attacks. They consistently cite crime as their main source of anxiety. In addition to murder, kidnappings for ransom -- a source of high anxiety for the city's wealthier inhabitants -- are said to be on the rise. Jews say they feel at particular risk due to the perception that the Jewish community can pony up a large ransom for a kidnapped Jew.

Chicagoan Walter Reed was among a handful of Jewish children from Germany who found refuge in the U.S. during the Nazi era, only to return as GIs to fight in World War II. The others included Henry Kissinger, a future secretary of state, and Manfred Steinfeld, a Chicagoan who went back to Germany to ensure proper respect for the graves of Holocaust victims he had buried more than half a century earlier.

With their language skills, they provided critical military intelligence by interrogating German prisoners, yet theirs was a forgotten chapter of World War II history until recently documented in a book, "The Enemy I Knew," writes Chicago Tribune's Ron Grossman.

A third of Jewish Americans who did not grow up in New York have nonetheless been told that they sound like they’re from that city. Sixty-eight percent of Reform Jews pronounce the word for the annual Jewish harvest festival “soo-COAT,” as Israelis do, while only 34 percent use the Yiddish pronunciation “SUK-kiss”; among the ultra-Orthodox, those numbers are basically reversed. And gay non-Jews use more Yiddish than straight non-Jews, though gay Jews and straight Jews use about the same amount. 

These are just a few findings of the Survey of American Jewish Language and Identity, the results of which were published online late last month by linguist Sarah Bunin Benor and sociologist Steven M. Cohen, writes Marissa Brostoff in Tablet.

Indian authorities are investigating whether two men recently arrested in Chicago on terrorism charges had a role in last November's attacks in Mumbai that killed 165 people, Indian government officials said, according to The Washington Post.

David Coleman Headley, 49, who was born in the United States but had lived in Pakistan and changed his name from Daood Gilani three years ago, was arrested last month along with Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 48, a Pakistani-born businessman and Canadian citizen. They were charged with plotting to attack a Danish newspaper that had printed cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, according to criminal complaints unsealed recently in a federal court in Chicago.

Indian police suspect that Headley conducted scouting missions of the Mumbai targets, including the city's main train station, the popular Leopold Cafe, and the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower and the Oberoi Trident hotels. Hotel records show he stayed in both hotels in 2007, authorities said.

Former Israeli politician and author Natan Sharansky called for a strong Jewish identity and universal human rights at a speech at Ida Noyes Monday, reports the University of Chicago Maroon.

Attended by about 250 students, faculty, and community members, the event was co-sponsored by the Chicago Friends of Israel, Newberger Hillel Center, and the Jewish United Fund.

At the event, which was strikingly calm in contrast to a controversial talk given last month by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, Sharansky said a people can maintain a strong sense of nationalism while addressing universal issues, contrary to the anti-nationalist message of John Lennon’s song, “Imagine."

“In this great freedom, where there is nothing to die for, there is no freedom, no meaning... If you’re not willing to die for anything, then you’re not living for anything meaningful,” Sharansky said.

A pathway used by many Jewish institutions to bring foreign religious and educational workers into the United States is tightening due to increased scrutiny from immigration authorities, writes Nathan Guttman in The Forward.

The temporary work visas for the religious professionals program — which many Jewish institutions use to gain work permits for rabbis, ritual slaughterers and teachers — now requires a lengthy process and close inspection of the institute sponsoring the foreign worker. Immigration authorities implemented the heightened level of scrutiny in response to reports of widespread fraud in use of these visas.

The result is a looming shortage in religious workers.