Bikes, babies and Shabbat lunch

Published by The Jewish Chronicle online on 16th September 2011. Link here.

Having only made it to a JSoc Friday night dinner twice in my first year at Cambridge, I was flattered but somewhat surprised to be invited by the Jewish Chaplain to his house for Shabbat lunch.

As part of quite a big, relatively liberal London Jewish community, I had a batmitzvah, I did the whole summer camp thing, but my Hebrew isn't great, I don't exactly go to shul every week, and I've certainly never been to lunch with the Rabbi.

On further investigation, I discovered I hadn't been singled out for my lack of faith, he just invites the entire Jewish student body at some point, and he'd got to "S".

I opened the front door in a quiet corner of Cambridge on a charming scene. His wife had cooked a wonderful spread, there were babies everywhere, and the many guests were on top form. Apart from me.

Before my entry, I had spent a good five minutes outside trying to find somewhere to park my bike, eventually locking it in front of what turned out to be the Chaplain's front window. And guess what, despite the lack of combustion engine, apparently you're not supposed to cycle on Shabbat.

The faux pas then came thick and fast: I walked in and shook the rabbi's hand. Thankfully a better informed fresher had arrived just after me, and he leant over and whispered that I probably shouldn't shake any more hands. At least half of those congregated, the Rabbi included, were shomer negiah. Thank you Jonny.

The blessings began. In my house only the head of the household washes their hands, so a kindly soul did a "repeat-after-me" so I could wash mine. Pleased with my progress, I walked back to the table and demanded "what happens next?"

A table of twenty looked back at me, silent. Despite being at a Shabbat meal, I had never felt less Jewish.

While everyone else present laughed it off, and the rabbi and his wife didn't seem to mind my various mishaps in the slightest (but they still don't know I tore some loo roll), I was embarrassed. I made a short-lived promise to myself to learn more, to try harder, to "be a better Jew".

I finished up my parev ice cream, mumbled through benching, and remembering I had a meeting in town, left.

As others began the long walk back to the centre, I hopped on my bike and freewheeled back down the hill.

I don't know whether it was the fresh air or ease of travel, but on that bike ride I remembered that I believe in my kind of Judaism. I may not believe in keeping kosher, or keeping Shabbat, but I go to synagogue, and I engage in my community.

Whilst learning about my religion and knowing enough to respect the values of others is valuable, it is my personal opinion that keeping more mitzvot would make me a more observant Jew, but not necessarily a better one.

With this in mind, I returned to lunch at the rabbi's house a few weeks later. He and his family were as generous and welcoming as ever, and happily I remembered not to shake his hand. But after another blockbuster meal, I still cycled home.

Anna Sheinman is a third year law student at Downing College Cambridge. She is currently chief sub editor of the Cambridge tabloid newspaper The Tab. Follow her on Twitter, or read her blog.

How Rosh Hashanah influences the stock market

Published by The Jewish Chronicle on 20 September 2011. Link here.

Researchers have discovered that Jews control the stock markets – for two days of every year.

A new study by academics at Nova Southeastern University in Florida shows that Rosh Hashanah has an impact on the stock market.

"Observant Jewish traders represent a small proportion of all market participants," said Pan Yatrakis, a professor of finance and economics at the university. "But, at the margin, their withdrawal during the High Holy Days thins out the market, increases volatility and risk, and may discourage others from trading as well, thus creating a snowball effect."

Mr Yatrakis co-authored the study with Albert Williams, an assistant professor of finance and economics.

Honey: makes money funny

The pair looked at the daily closing values of the Dow Jones Industrial Average on the three trading days before Rosh Hashanah and the three trading days after Yom Kippur, between 1907 and 2008.

They found that the "Jewish Holiday Effect" yields a one per cent return, meaning that if £1 million worth of stock was sold around Rosh Hashanah, then bought back at Yom Kippur, a person should make around £10,000 profit.

The two professors are not the first to investigate the phenomenon.

A 2003 paper from Indiana's Mendoza College of Business found that Yom Kippur dampened trading in companies located in cities with a high Jewish population. The following year, researchers found that there was a bullish market at Rosh Hashana, and that there was a similar effect on St Patrick's Day.

Jews removed from iTunes gospel and Christian section

Published by The Jewish Chronicle on 19 September 2011. Link here.

The iTunes online store has responded to criticisms that Jewish songs were being listed as "Christian and Gospel" by changing the categorisation of the music in question.

The change followed a Jerusalem Post report on Sunday which complained that Apple's music player did not have a genre for Jewish and Yiddish music.

Avraham Fried, an Orthodox Jew whose music had been listed as such said: "I would hate to think this is an attempt to bury Jewish music under a Christian or Gospel label."

This morning, however, the artists mentioned in the article, including the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach and Chasidic singer-songwriter Mordechai Ben David, as well as Mr Fried, had albums listed variously as Religious, Vocal and World.

Rival programme Windows Media Player also does not have a Jewish music genre, but appears to have escaped criticism by not having a Christian category either.

Lulav trade hit by Israel-Egypt spat

Published by The Jewish Chronicle on 19 September 2011. Link here.

Egypt has announced it will not export lulavs this year, due to worsening relations between Egypt and Israel.

The lulav, a palm frond, is one of the four species used in prayers on the festival of Succot.

Egypt has in previous years exported around 700,000 palm fronds to Israel, amounting to some 40 percent of annual demand. Another 700,000 are normally sent to Jews in the Diaspora.

But with relations between the two neighbouring countries cool, the annual trade is in danger.

Instead of importing from the Sinai Peninsula this year Israel will have to be self-sufficient in palm tree fronds, although there is the possibility of importing them from Spain, Jordan and Gaza.

Although Egypt did not allow lulavs to be exported for last year's festival, on the grounds of environmental protection, this was decided many months before the holiday, giving producers time to adjust.

But this year there is concern that because the decision has come just four weeks before Succot it may cause price rises and add to the economic woes of the country.

Palm tree growers in Israel told the Israeli Agriculture Ministry that they would not take advantage of the situation. They said that any price rise would be due to the higher cost of labour in the country.

A lulav currently costs between £10 and £50 in the UK.

Sarah Jessica Parker's unkosher drinking game

Published by The Jewish Chronicle on September 15th 2011. Link here.

Sarah Jessica Parker with the Sex and the City cast

Jewish actress Sarah Jessica Parker has suggested a not-so-kosher drinking game for her new film I Don't Know How She Does It.

In an interview with gossip website PopSugar she suggested that every time viewers saw her character's husband (played by Greg Kinnear) eat bacon, they should drink.

The film, released in the UK on Friday, stars the Sex and the City actress as a working mother, conflicted by her dual roles of successful business woman and loving wife and mother.

Consumption of non-kosher food on a film set caused trouble last year when Drew Barrymore and Justin Long were filming Going the Distance in the home of an Orthodox family in New York.

Mr Long's character had to eat a burger, and the non-kosher meat was prepared on the family's grill.

The studio replaced the grill and utensils when filming ended.

The Article I ACTUALLY Wrote For The Jewish Chronicle

About two paragraphs of this will be published, couched in hatred for Roald Dahl. Fair cop, here's what I wrote:

Sophie Dahl, former model and granddaughter of Roald Dahl, launched a £500,000 campaign on Tuesday to save her grandfather’s writing shed. The money is needed to restore the small brick and polystyrene hut, which has fallen into disrepair, and move the interior from its current location at the bottom of the garden in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, to the nearby Roald Dahl Museum.

The author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, who would have been celebrating his 95th birthday on Tuesday, visited the yellow-doored building every day for 30 years until his death in 1990.

Ms Dahl told The Telegraph that while she would miss visiting the shed, "it would be selfish to keep it here, it's time for it be seen by the public."

The great expense of the project is due to the delicate state of the structure, which remains exactly as the author left it, with pages from his notebook still scattered on the floor.

While Amelia Foster, the director of the museum, insists that the Dahl family have already made a “very significant financial contribution” to the project, and that they are looking for funding from foundations and trusts, not the general public, the reaction to the announcement has been mixed. Many commentators have asked why Sophie Dahl, a successful writer herself, and her husband, chart topping jazz singer Jamie Cullum, cannot come up with the money themselves. Radio 4’s Best of Today programme called the building a “literary article of some significance” but pointed out that “half a million seems like a lot of money for a shed”.

Review: The Change Up

Published by Itchy City on Friday 9th September 2011. Link here.

  

David Dobkin, who gave the world ‘Wedding Crashers’, is back with another American slapstick cum rom-com bromance. Just to change things up, this one’s called… ‘The Change Up’.

The film opens on high powered lawyer and father of three Dave, up at 3am to do the nappy change (yes, there’s poo involved), whilst his infant son bangs his head violently and repeatedly against the bars of his cot. Frankly, I don’t blame the kid: the concept of this film inspires kamikaze in even the tiniest of minds.

So we’ve got Dave (aka Jason Bateman, the dude from ‘Arrested Development’), who’s bored by his great job, frustrated by his hot wife and irritated by his charming children. Ungrateful b*****. His best mate is Mitch, a stoned, out-of-work actor who shags fit girls and does fun stuff all day, but whose life essentially sucks. Possibly not the most stretching role for Ryan Reynolds, aka the actor who just divorced Scarlett Johansson.

Anyway, guess what? They want each other’s lives. It’s like someone’s prayer has been answered, and ‘Freaky Friday’ was never made. Twice. Or ‘13 going on 30’. This concept has been made into a film so many times, actress Leslie Mann, who plays Dave’s hot wife has already been in one: Zac Ephron’s soppy ‘17 again’. If ‘The Change Up’ is taking the piss out of the genre, they were being pretty darn subtle about it, because they stuck to the formula like… well like something sticky. Here’s how it went:

So they wish they were each other, something magicky happens: a lightning strike, a drunk fairy, this time peeing in a fountain, and next morning they look in the mirror, shock, horror, lah-dee-dah, it’s come true. They live each other’s lives, it’s ‘surprisingly’ difficult being the other person, and hilarity ensues. They live, they love, they learn about themselves. There’s a romantic subplot, in this case the feisty Olivia Wilde, Thirteen from ‘House’, and there is at least one schmaltzy montage. So far, so painfully obvious.

Thirteen from 'House', aka Olivia Wilde, aka the hot girl in the film. Smokin'.

But somewhere along the way, this film delivers. Specifically, on the ‘hilarity ensues’ step. Damn is it funny. The physical humour is scatological but solid (insert constipation joke here), and involves babies and blenders, always a winning combo, but the joy is in the one liners. Mid fight: ‘get my hands of you!’, mid conversation: ‘you know, the cancer list. The first three women you’d shag if your wife dropped dead of cancer’. Itchy are compiling one already.

My Summer in Your Hands - The Whole Tab Blog

Published by The Tab in August 2011 - link here

Anna Sheinman, a third year lawyer from Downing, has three weeks to get home from Greece. She has an Interrail ticket, a backpack, and your instructions. That’s right: at the end of every post, you will decide what Anna does next. Her summer is in your hands.

Monday 8th August

I am sitting in a small, stiflingly hot room that is filled with bachelor pad-style leather chairs and has pictures of Greek gods on the walls. I am surrounded by chavvy, middle-eastern men. They are staring at me. I would like to think this is because I look really good today, but it’s probably because I’m covered in mud.

In time honoured literary tradition, I shall backtrack in order to explain how I got here.

For the next three weeks, I will be interrailing. Every summer, I am confronted by reams of Facebook statuses (statae? staetum?) that assure me this is perfectly normal, doable, and not even particularly adventurous. I like trains, airplanes give me greenhouse gas guilt, and I had to get back from the family holiday in Greece somehow, so the interrail ticket was bought. Sorted.

What I did not account for was my complete inability to plan ahead more than about five minutes. This, I am discovering, makes travelling in Europe difficult, expensive, and ultimately very muddy.

My journey began in the Cyclades. I spent a week on an island called Naxos, and passed the time avoiding my parents and drinking unlabelled, homebrewed firewater with a friend. Life was so easy back then.

A boat back to Athens, a dozen stops on the metropolis’ exceptionally efficient metro, and a train ride chatting to an artist called Lenous who is convinced that the anarchic revolution is imminent, and now I’m in Thessaloniki.

The whitewashed walls of Thessaloniki…

My hostel is disgusting. It’s the only one I could afford and it’s filthy, and surrounded by strip clubs. Hoping the cultural delights of Greece’s second city were simply further afield, I wandered into town. Whilst I was meandering along, reminiscing over the whitewashed houses and clean-shaven men of Naxos (who thought I’d miss those pervy guys so fast?!), I got lost, fell off a curb outside a busy cafe, and landed in a big-ass puddle. This will teach me not to wear white shorts. Needless to say, the only hotspots I found in town (other than, in fairness, a rather yummy lunch) were those on my very embarrassed face.

Covered in mud, I traipsed back to my airless hostel. I am now on a quest to get the sod out of here. I’ve been told that there are NO TRAINS here. This makes interrailing tricky. I’ve also been told that the Republic of Macedonia doesn’t exist. This also makes life tricky. But, one slightly shady character (oh ok, my hostel owner) told me that his mate has a minibus going to Skopje this afternoon. This, it would seem, is my only chance to escape this ugly town. I will see what Macedonia has to offer, but where next?

It was a close one. 79 of you said you’d like Anna to go to Bosnia, whilst 72 of you wanted to send her off to Croatia. But, Bosnia won, and Anna’s off!

 Friday 12th August

The last few days have centred around Annas. And by that, I don’t mean the product of my burgeoning personality disorders (yet).

That ‘minibus’ out of Thessaloniki eventually materialised in the form of a beaten up maroon Volvo, which was driven by a chain smoking pensioner. I sat next to a Macedonian girl called Ana (see where I’m going with this?), who is one of those golden people. Not only is she luminescently beautiful, with a golden tan from her Italian holiday – and speaks perfect English – but she is so kind, you can’t even hate her for it. She counseled that Skopje is horrible in August: it is devoid of people, covered in building works, and 52 degrees. Ana told me I should head straight to Lake Ohrid, Macedonia’s answer to Brighton. Then she spent an hour helping me find her hostel. Major girl-crush.

I spent a couple of hours the next morning verifying her story. I wandered Skopje’s bazaar and stared in horror at the wildly expensive, ugly statue of Alexander the Great that has just been erected in their main square. The bronze monstrosity’s €9 million price tag is even more confusing when you know that the place Alexander came from is actually now in Greece. After a quick game of ‘spot the building that isn’t under scaffolding’, I got on the bus. One slight altercation en-route with an overly flirty Grandpa later (“So what do you think cheating is?”) I was in the mountain ringed town of Ohrid, a tangle of crumbling streets which tumble down steep hills to a vast, glassy lake.

Beautiful lake Ohrid

I arrived at the aptly named Sunny Lake Hostel at the same time as a Finnish girl called (guess what?) Anna. Along with a hostel full of variously quirky, loud, and charming people, we spent a happy two days swimming, cooking group meals, eating ice cream at 25p a scoop, and competing as to how many of the area’s 365 churches we could visit.

Back in sweaty Skopje for a couple of hours before my night train, Macedonian Ana invited me out for dinner. Arriving at the restaurant hungry and tired, I was plied with questions, sushi, and sparkling wine by her friends and her. She decried the thought that I pay, and ordered a taxi to take me to my train. The Macedonians, it seems, know how to host.

On board the train I heard a voice behind me: “I said I’d see you again.” It was the creepy Grandpa. So, I shut my cabin door tight, and slept until I woke with the light and views across the Serbian hills. I have spent the day exploring Belgrade, which is surprisingly chic. My helpful hostel keeper even tells me the night life is “bangin’.”

But, the poll is in, and I am off to Bosnia. A lovely Serbian girl who sleeps in the bed next to mine has offered to drive me there tomorrow morning. And yes, her name is Anna.

The poll is now closed, and it was another close one – 51% of you voted for Hungary, so Anna’s packing her bags again.

 Saturday 20th August

It was at dinner on my first night in Sarajevo, Bosnia’s charming capital, when I was asked, not for the first time, why I was traveling alone. I answered, as I always do, that I travel solo because it means I meet more people, and I love meeting people. Although I enjoy how different people are, the huge range of travellers I encounter while backpacking means that, socially speaking, there are some hits and misses. And I was in the middle of a fabulous miss.

My dining partner Anton was a Kiwi from my hostel who had impressively found an organic, vegetarian restaurant in Sarajevo. He presented his finding as luck, but it became clear it was more likely a result of his incredibly irritating eating disorder. He was a vegan, obsessing over the nutritional content of what he ate, constantly popping hazelnuts from a plastic baggy, scanning the back of a bottle of orange juice for whatever he thought the Bosnian was for ascorbic acid in aid of “keep strong and healthy looking.” I politely declined to tell him that whilst his body looked healthy, his hair looked and smelled as if a rat had died on his head. I felt like he probably had enough neurosis in his life.

Lovely souvenirs…

But, if I though that was bad, worse was to follow. True social awkwardness was reserved for the next day, in a small northern town called Bihac, which is, I am delighted to report, pronounced ‘biatch’. I was staying in a private room, and my very sweet hostess with the troll-like name Bogdanka asked if I wanted to be shown around the town. Walking in silence, she stopped at a stall selling hideous souvenirs. About to try and work out how to make a joke about how tacky they were using international sign language, I stopped as it became clear she had just bought me one. I am now the proud possessor of a cross section of tree with an oil painting of Bihac on.

Over drinks I produced pen and paper and we began communicating through pictures. Polite pictoral conversation ensued: I drew a picture of her in front of her house and a tick in a valiant attempt to tell her she had a beautiful home. I noticed her wedding ring, so I drew her holding hands with a man, and a question mark, then I smiled. She looked confused, then picked up the pen and slowly drew. An arch. A cross. A date. Oh crap. He was dead.

Having fun white water rafting

On a lighter note, and happily not resulting in any fatalities, the reason I was in the arse-end of nowhere in Bosnia was to go white water rafting. And, I’m pleased to report it was truly amazing. Kitted up to the nines in a boat with five others, and a skipper who we met watching him jump off an 18m waterfall, we paddled for three hours, through valleys, over rapids, and flung ourselves down five metre drops. The crowning moment was jumping out of the boat and slamming down three sets of foamy rapids, feet first, until we finally came to settle on a sand bank, Croatia on one side, Bosnia on the other.

The poll is closed, and pictures of Anna planking in Berlin’s most famous sites are on the way…

Saturday 27th August

I waited for a train out of Bosnia for seven hours. SEVEN HOURS. Tab readers may have wanted me to go to Hungary, but the Bosnian train system definitely didn’t. As it happens, I love trains, and was perfectly content clambering over old Soviet engines and walking back and forth along the abandoned, grassy tracks. However, in doing so I attracted the attentions of the village idiot. Despite it being quite clear that neither of us spoke each other’s language, he insisted on talking at me at great length, until a friend Facebooked me the Bosnian for: “Please leave me alone, you’re scary and smell of fish.”

Whilst his marine odour was off-putting, and confusing so far from the sea, I mostly resented said Balkan tramp for suspending my romantic illusions of train travel. I love how, unlike planes, trains are all different, from the gleaming German triple bunk sleepers I would encounter later to the ratty faded-plush cabins of the Croatian train I eventually boarded that day. I love that trains are the only form of transport on which it is socially acceptable to talk to strangers, like the ex-Slovakian national wrestler I met on the train out of Hungary, who shyly wouldn’t tell me what his day job was now, but it seemed to involve him standing around at parties with his top off. Yum.

I did, as instructed, make it to Hungary. Budapest to be precise. I ate fruit soup, took a walking tour around its grand monuments, and learned that the Hungarians suck at choosing which side to take in a war. They should stick to fruit soup. But the date of my Eurostar (aka train porn) out of Brussels loomed large and I hurried on.

I am now in Berlin, and, as promised, I have been confusing large groups of Italian tourists by lying face down in front of its most iconic sites: The Brandenburg Gate, The Reichstag, The Altes Museum, The East Side Gallery, and just because I could, a tank. A ‘tank plank’ if you will. Pictures below:

My travels in your hands: Skipping Skopje

My first blog post for The Tab will be up soon, I'll post it on here as well. It obvs needed to be edited etc, so it's a day behind. I'm now in Skopje, which apparently gets to 53 degrees during the day, and is an ugly communist wreck, so I'm getting the hell out of here asap to Lake Ohrid for a couple of days. After that, The Tab article will ask you to vote on what next. :)

My Travels in Your Hands: Get the fear, Raki's here

As previously noted, Greeek food is not one of the world's great cuisines. A focus on oil, deep frying and an overrealiance on meat means you have to work hard not just to eat well, but to not get a Greek man's gut whilst at it. Their alcohol however, is another story.

Whilst the local beer (I favour Mythos) isn't going to win any prizes, their wine totally rocks. Everyone makes their own, so it's mostly like an old boyfriend of mine: young, sweet and a bit wet.

But better than that is the hard stuff. My Dad makes friends with waiters, it's his thing, I don't know, and so at the end of each meal a selection of local firewater comes to the table. One taverna insisted on the lethal Ouzo for the boys, and Kitron for the girls. Kitron is, as it sounds, lemony, but as far as I can tell is made from pressing the leaves of an etrog. (Non Jews - an etrog looks like a big lemon, and is used as a symbol in a harvest festival, here's the wiki page).

But tonight, now that my friend Gabi has arrived, our weapon of choice is Raki. It's a bit like Ouzo or Pastis: aniseedy, and strong as hell. Because we're... reckless? Stupid? We have bought an unmarked, homemade bottle of the stuff from the local shop. We're scared, very scared. Please witness:

Will let you know how my head feels in the morning.