Sunday, August 05, 2007

Haveil Havalim: the Sex Edition

It was Tu Ba'av last week, our national holiday about sex. This week's Haveil Havalim is therefore all about sex, too. It's not my fault, of course; I just post what the submitters send to me. It's not like I'm obsessed with sex, or see sex where there isn't any, or anything like that.

Jewish

Discarded Lies describes God's sexual relationship with Israel, and more about Tu Ba'av.

Rafi G thinks we need to sex up our synagogues services to prevent people from using their cellphones.

Dixie Yid gives a lesson about having to "fall" to be rebuilt, an obvious reference to sex.

Hirhurim Musings describes Reb Shimon Shkop's early relation with YU, and something about secular studies, which may have something to do with sex, but I'm not entirely sure.

A Simply Jew writes about the song HaSimcha Tamid BaLev by Erez Levanon, and something about some part of his body overflowing with something whenever he hears it.

He then goes on about Steven Spielberg's Jewish ancestors from Sudilkov. Back then, they had lots of time and lots of children.

Soccer Dad tries to organize some Tu Ba'av amateur matchmaking on his site.

Cross Current describes the relationship between R. Akiva Eiger and Mendelssohn, two very different personalities. Also, very different types of people like sex.

Limmud, a conference for all types of Jewish learning in various different subjects, such as music, religion, sex, literature, and so on, will have a conference in South Africa, as It's Almost Supernatural reports.

Rabbi Fleischmann writes about how the external part of a human being is important, and I'm sure he's referring to sex.

Judeopundit questions why concern for ethics means revamping what kashrut means. Next someone will write about about kosher sex.

Friar Yid talks about various Rabbi's recent guilt trips about aliyah, and whether this means some people love more or less than other people.

There are no Feminists on a Sinking Ship cites a Jewish Press article about yeshivas and parents with differing hashkafot, and what this means for the child's eventual career and marriage.

Jewlicious talks about hot tznius girls swinging their arms.

Rabbi Without a Cause tells us to make people happy and smiling, which is good advice for you know what. Of course, he also says to leave them laughing, which is more of my experience with you know what.

Israel

Temunot posts an obviously allegorical description of the wet, surging, and rushing Dan River.

Psychotoddler relates an equally allegorical tale of a search for a sexy bank clerk names Rivka while frustratingly trying to change dollars into shekels.

Secular Blasphemy finds the nightlife (and daytime) sexy and fun in Jerusalem.

The Muqata welcomes home more Nefesh to Nefesh arrivals. Aliyah is a bit like sex, I think.

Even Yaruka talks about Orange (Freud, nudge nudge), a flirting sales rep, and the surprising things that go on when you get a house visitor while trying to buy a phone.

On the subject of Freud, Leon Feingold talks about bats and balls as the IBL season wraps up.

Me-ander takes pictures of Israel's airport, while carrying pouches that made her feel like a pregnant woman carrying twins.

Yael shares some sexy pictures of herself and some boys at the beach.

Israel's national blog now has a Youtube presence, home to millions of videos of people undressing (not that I would know).

Politics

The New Republic delicately avoids mentioning anything about sex while talking about how Jordan may need to be involved in the peace process. But if you take the first occurrences in the article of the letters "s", "e", and "x", they spell out the word "sex". Coincidence? I don't think so.

Elder of Ziyon notes that the IDF is simply miserable about hasbara, which doesn't surprise me considering the way that they handle sexual abuse cases.

Dry Bones offers up an old cartoon about Don Quixote, an old story about a man suffering from sexual fantasies about a farmgirl, while describing the need for common enemies in the peace process.

Simply Jews notes the Iranian arrests of alleged Pro-democracy Americans. Frankly, I think the antidisestablishmentarians in Iran don't get enough sex.

He goes on to talk about the over-zealous political coverage of Debbie Schlussel about a movie made in Hollywood, a town that is just drenched in smut and sin.

Five Spirited Zionists discusses the U.S. arms sale to Saudi Arabia, which brings to mind the old peace slogan: Make Love, Not War.

Dave Bender talks about an Israeli leadership mission to Columbus, GA, and posts a picture of Keren Barak, Likud Party Knesset member nominee, who's pretty sexy.

Daled Amos talks about the last eight Jews in Baghdad. With only eight Jews, it's probably pretty hard to get a date.

Eight Jews? That's luxury. Jewish Blogmeister reports that only one Jew lives in Afghanistan. Dating's out of the question.

Thoughts By Seawitch describes the poor treatment of Jews at the hands of the Ottomans before the creation of Israel, a period that was so difficult, it was hard to think about the joyful things in life such as sex.

Gateway Pundit gives us Hillel Halkin's opinion on how Israel used to use its suffering for hasbara purposes, and should still today, which would make life better for all of us and give us more time to ...

Yourish describes Syria's hostile overtures, and the illicit relationship between Syria and Iran.

View from a Height describes other relations, such as the upcoming Saudi participation in peace efforts.

Jewish Current Issues talks about yet another misguided attempt to put political handovers before resolving terror issues, which is like trying to have sex in the expectation that foreplay will follow.

Israellycool mocks a Hamas matyr, ending with a quip about his seventy-two virgins.

Seraphic Secret complains about repeating the same mistaken gestures and getting nothing in return, which reminds me a lot about my sex life as a teenager.

An Israeli man suggestively stuffs the barrel of his gun with ripe fruit in a protest against rocket attacks on Sderot.

Yid With Lid takes issue with the Reform movement's stand on a new JNF bill about leasing land to non-Jews, and undoubtedly would have issues with the Reform movement's stand on sexual issues, too. He also equates Olmert's quota plan regarding Sudanese refugees with the British white paper during WWII, which ultimately led to the deaths of untold thousands of Jews. Olmert should have more sex and stop making morally bad political decisions.

Random Thoughts discusses an interview in which a man from Hizbullah claims that they appreciated Olmert pulling out early, a feeling shared by many women about Olmert.

Barbara's Tchatzkahs talks about narcissism, abusive relationships, and other relationship troubles.

Israel Matzav writes that Olmert may now be letting a lot of Palestinian refugees back into Israel. There used to be fewer refugees, but there are a lot more now because the Palestinians, apparently, uh, you know.

Other

Temunot's post has absolutely nothing to do with sex, but is a heartfelt song from Malki, a 15 year old girl killed in the Sbarro pizzeria bombing. Others, such as Schvach and Israel Matzav also talk about Malki. Similarly, Elie's Expositions writes a poem about his son.

Rubicon3 mentions the new U.S. postal stamps featuring comic book superheroes, many of whom were created by (male geeky) Jewish talents, and all of whom had sexual hangups (big surprise).

Orthomom describes how a billboard with a lot of naked bottoms got a rise out of some church members. And goes on to talk about many other things naked. Such as using sex and sexual innuendo to attract people's attention, which I, of course, would never do.

Treppenwitz describes how we all feel special, but special people can make us feel special. Then he gets a lot of makeup put on his face by some cute young woman.

Life of Rubin describes the survival of a Jewish casualty of the Minneapolis bridge disaster, whose deep plunge into the dark waters of the Mississippi River caused him to act on his most basic instincts.

Sweet Rose has a fourth blogiversary, and she describes about how she has felt exposing herself over the last four years.

Little Frumhouse on the Prairie asks about blog addiction, and the trouble it may cause with one's spouse.

Shiloh Musings says that, after getting back from a trip to New York and New Jersey, nothing's new. Which is true about sex, too.

My Right Word writes about a sexy new perfume called Shiloh. And she goes to write about hot Jewish females and lots of talk about sex.

Everyone Needs Therapy talks about Intimate Opportunities, claiming that it's not what you think (yeah, right).

Rabbi Fleischmann posts a blog quiz, which is a lot like a sex quiz, except about blogs, not sex.

Random Thoughts talks about bedtime.

Ha'azina Tefilati writes a moving post about depression and being too close to the problem, something that even sex can't always help you with.

Ellie's Talk writes about "riding the bicycle" and different types of riders.

Baka Diary hates the breast stroke.

This Normal Life bemoaned the shabbat waiting for the release of the last Harry Potter book, which, by the way, was chock full of sexual tension.

Now go take a cold shower.

Yehuda

15 comments:

Batya said...

Wonderful job!

We're the ones who have to put up with them said...

Very clever Yehuda! Well done!

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Wow! That is a humongous one! And I purely love that "antidisestablishmentarians" and fully intend to use it with your kind permission.

Only one minor point: Keren Barak sexy? Nu...

Shoshana said...

Love it! Great job!

Barbara said...

Sex? What's THAT?

You're a cheeky one, Yehuda! Good job.

Yehuda Berlinger said...

Am I correct that all of the comments above, except for Snoopy, come from women?

Interesting ...

Yehuda

YMedad said...

You really do have sex on the mind but you got my sex wrong: MyRightWord is quite masculine.

therapydoc said...

It's great to hear someone own this obsession. Hats off. I mean, hats on.

DixieYid (يهودي جنوبي) said...

For the record, I appreciate your work in putting this havel havalim together, but I do not appreciate your mis-charactarization of mine and others' posts. Even if you're only doing it to be funny, it still insults to me to have my post misrepresented in such an innappropriate way. If you decide to host another blog carnival in the future, I wish you success, but ask that you consider the sensibilities of the people you are linking to. Thanks.

-Dixie Yid

Yehuda Berlinger said...

Thanks for the nice comments from those who liked it.

Unfortunately, I seemed to have annoyed a few people, including (so far) dixie yid and soccer dad.

I'm truly sorry for this. I apologize in particular to dixie yid, and anyone else who thinks that I misrepresented their posts.

I tried, as usual, to be amusing, while also being respectful and NOT misrepresenting the more serious posts. I thought I made it fairly obvious that my comments had almost nothing to do with the content I was linking to, and that I was "seeing things that weren't there".

In particular, I was very careful about the posts about Malki and the Sbarro bombing.

I also tried to ensure that nothing I wrote was really vulgar, obscene, or tactless.

It may be that some people, especially in the religious Jewish world, are uncomfortable joking about sex; or that they feel that the trust entailed to me as HH producer is supposed to mean that I steer clear of salacious topics.

Or, it may be that some people feel that any joking when linking to serious posts are out of line, even if I keep to all the self-imposed rules I described above.

My past three HH's were certainly not straightforward. They were jokes from one end to the other, and the links were used in incorrect contexts from one end to the other. Nevertheless, I only received positive comments about them. The last HH I did even had a naked woman wielding a gun and it didn't seem to bother anyone.

Can't please everyone, I guess.

If David wishes me to do another HH in the future, rest assured that there will be no references to sex in them.

I can't promise that they will be straightforward, however. I only have the patience to string together 60 or 70 links if I can do it in the form of a story.

Yehuda

Anonymous said...

Great job Yehuda! Maybe too great. When I sat down it was 7 pm, now thanks to you and your roundup it's 10 pm and there's still more to read! For what it's worth, I got the point that you were purposefully not entirely accurate in your descriptions - this was in honor of Tu B'av so, people... chill!

Rivka said...

Thank you for the link. I admit I was a little nervous about how you'd link a post on depression with sex (rest assured, more sex is not the solution), but I thought you did a very laudible job and I like how you handled it. Oh. Handled it. Now my mind is seeing sex where there isn't any.

Rivka said...

I feel I must publicly apologize, Yehuda. I put up a post on my blog announcing this week's Haveil Havalim here and I titled it, Sometimes more sex is not the answer, which at the time I wrote that was intended to be an agreement with your comment associated with the link to my blog.

But when I saw it among the other links, it looked critical and judgmental, neither of which I ever intended. I have since changed the title of the post but it doesn't affect the permalink, so it still sits there, I fear, looking critical and judgmental, and I'm sorry about that. It's not at all how I intended it to appear.

DixieYid (يهودي جنوبي) said...

Yehuda,

It's totally okay. I understand what you're saying and that, to the best of your ability, you are trying to do something that can be tedious and boring in a funny and creative way.

You mentioned that you were trying to do it in a way that was not overly tactless or vulgar. I guess the problem is that the standards of what is tactless and vulgar vary *greatly* from person to person. And many years ago, before becoming observant, I would probably be in a very similar mindset to you.

It can be very difficult, if not impossible, due to time constraints, to put one's self into a position to understand everyone else's perspective. At the same time, I hope my comment is helpful for the future. Best of luck! :-)

-Dixie Yid

therapydoc said...

Nah, Jews are never obsessed with ANYTHING, let alone sex.