We love stories like this: The UK’s Telegraph tells of an unwed mother who gave up her baby boy to a Jewish adoption agency in Florida in 1968. Years later, she and her daughter try to find him via detectives and poring over old records to no avail. But bashert knows no bounds, especially in San Francisco…

Most of the time we’d like to follow Jack Black around with a salt shaker full of Ritalin. But we like him because he seems like that spazzy kid from Hebrew school who couldn’t sit still long enough to remember the Sh’ma but hit the big time anyway, in spite of having few social skills and what we suspect is a mild case of Tourette’s.
He’s in the news ’cause he’ll soon be starring in the remake (of the remake) King Kong (not as the gorilla- an obvious case of miscasting) and has a reality show in the works. However, we find his quote in the Perspectives section of this week’s Newsweek the most entertaining news yet.
When asked with what woman he’d want to be stranded on a desert island, Jack replied:
“I’d have to go with Hillary Clinton. Forever could be, like, 50 years, so if I’m stranded with one person she better be kick-ass both upstairs and downstairs.”
Yeah, but how long would Hillary put up with his freak-self before she bashed him over the head with a coconut?

How flattering to log on this morning and find Jmerica’s name in one of Jewschool‘s headlines! Sure, it’s paired with an obscenity, but we won’t let the bastards get us down.
This began when we (maybe too) gleefully pointed out a mistake on Jewsweek‘s Yada blog. For some reason, Mobius, Jewschool’s creator, took this personally and accused us of stealing news items (um, hello, this is the Internet; it’s all there for the taking and we always give props when someone else gets there first.) We take full responsibility for the comment spam incident, but homie didn’t have to post a Jmerica staffer’s freaking phone number so all the other irate blog nerds could– what?– crank call him? Not exactly mensch-like behavior. We know Mobius’ phone number but we’d never be petty enough to post it; besides, his mom would probably answer anyway.
Jmerica aspires to bring us all together; it bums us out greatly that a fellow Jewish blogger would flame another Jewish site. We’d been looking to Jewschool as an older, smarter, more political brother, but now we feel like an eighty-pound sixth grader in a junior high full of bullies with moustaches. Then again, site traffic is up 400% today, so even bad publicity is good publicity. Many thanks to all those Jmericans who defended us in Jewschool’s comments.

Don’t we feel smug. Jewsweek’s Yada blog posted this today:
“We can all say Shalom to Shalom Harlow, the Jewish actress who was part of the ensemble cast of Fox’s The Jury. After disappointing ratings, Fox has stopped production on the courtroom drama after just 10 episodes. Like we needed another courtroom drama anyway.”
For the last damn time, bro, there’s no such thing as a Jewish supermodel. Or supermodel/actress, whatever.

Is Lady Luck Jewish? A couple of San Francisco Giants relief pitchers seem to think so. Scott Eyre and Wayne Franklin told J. that their custom black-and-orange cleats embroidered with the word “mazel” began as a dugout mantra “mazel, mazel,” which they’ve mistakenly interpreted to mean “good things.”
We caught the Giants getting their tushes shined by the A’s a couple weeks back, so we’re recommending these boys get some Yiddish lessons.

There’s a world record for wife-carrying, so why not shofar-blowing?
JVibe reports that August 17, Jews will gather for the “The Great Shofar Blowout” in Massachusetts to set a world record for “most number of shofars sounded in unison.” Guinness World Records of London has determined there must be at least 100 shofars bleating to set a record, which could interrupt sheep mating in surrounding states.

Some enterprising tailors may be giving Victoria’s Secret a run for their money: Yes, that’s a bra made from good old-fashioned, “I Went To My Arnie Katz’ Bar Mitzvah And All I Got Was This Pink Satin Beanie” yarmulkes. It’s no hoax, either; you can buy them in three lovely styles, the Bat-mitzvah, Boobooshka (shown here) and Sports (in spite of its name, it doesn’t look like it would offer much support at the gym.)
Now, how long will it be before Madonna gets her boobies in one?

We were checking out Rebbe Soul‘s “Change the World With A Sound” last week, digging on his pan-Judaic rock n’ roll swirling guitar thing. Delightful stuff. Then a few days later, we got to chatting with one of the djembe drummers at an African dance class out in the boonies. Turns out he’s Rebbe Soul’s percussionist and will be touring with him later this year.
A small coincidence, yes, but Jmerican nonetheless.

Remember the Jdater who billed his companion for her share of dinner? Well, the most clueless guy of the year has a fan site. Save Andrew Goldberg champions “any guy that’s ever paid for a dinner date and never got another call” and is founded on “the stereotypical principles of Jewish frugality and financial know-how”. This raised our hackles a bit, since we suspected that this site was not created by someone Jewish, but we don’t like to be oversensitive.
Under Fan/Hate Mail, they’ve posted a terribly misspelled e-mail from someone who felt the same way. The response is “Blame the parties involved in this incident if you believe it promotes Jewish stereotypes.”
On one hand, it’s just a silly site and f’ ’em if they can’t take a joke, right? On the other hand, humor about your tribe feels different when it’s coming from someone else. Much like African-Americans can bat around the “N” word because shared experience makes an insult into a familiarity, we enjoy lampooning the hell out of JDate and the particularities of being Jewish. But we don’t need some goy stealing our thunder about it.
Thoughts?

We saw Princess Superstar on MTV a few weeks back and only now realized she’s MOT. This diva has turned out four albums, started her own record label and has opened for acts such as Bubba Sparks and N.E.R.D. Damn… a smokin’ hot, foul-mouthed Jewish rapper chick? Where do we sign up?