Kosher Salt

The boys basketball team at Beren Academy, an Orthodox Jewish day school in Houston, will have to forfeit its spot in the state semifinals because the scheduled game falls on a Friday night, ESPN reports.

The Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS), which organizes sports competitions for member schools, turned down Beren’s appeal to have the time of the game changed so that it would not fall on the Sabbath. The semifinal game against Dallas Covenant is scheduled for 9:00 pm this Friday.  Shabbat begins at 6:09 pm in Fort Worth, TX, where the game would be played.

Image via ESPN.com

TAPPS director, Edd Burleson, told The New York Times, “When Beren’s joined [TAPPS] years ago, we advised them that the Sabbath would present them with a problem with the finals. In the past, TAPPS has held firmly to their rules because if schedules are changed for these schools, it’s hard for other schools. If we solve one problem, we create another problem.”

While Burleson’s warning to Beren seems legitimate, it is odd that an association who has mostly religious-affiliated schools as members would be so intolerant toward a specific religion.

Of course, sports scheduling conflicts with religious events are nothing new, and it certainly doesn’t affect only Jews. It seems that the High Holidays have made as many appearances in the baseball playoffs as the Yankees.

But when you really think about it, it’s strange that religion and sports mix like oil and water, since many people are fanatically observant of sporting events, faithfully rooting for a team and worshipping star players like gods.

Even in professional sports, leagues have adjusted schedules because they conflicted with religious holidays.  Because Christmas fell on a Sunday last season, the NFL decided to move a majority of its games to the Saturday before. The Packers-Bears matchup was the only game played on Christmas, and it was even moved to Sunday night.

Granted, this was a minor adjustment and not necessarily one that was made because of religious consideration. It is the NFL’s general policy to make schedule changes if Christmas falls on a Sunday most so stadium and league employees don’t need to work on the holiday.

But TAPPS isn’t the NFL. There is not an obscene amount of money tied to the TAPPS tournament and there would have been no harm in moving the game up a few hours so that it could be finished before sundown. How can educators teach tolerance to students when they are being denied the same opportunities as others based on their religious beliefs?

If you want to support Beren’s boys basketball team, there is a petition to change the tournament schedule through the school’s website.

Watching the Academy Awards last night was similar to watching a G-rated amateur comedy show at the Nevele Resort circa 1987, with little to redeem it but J.Lo’s wardrobe malfunction (sort of) and Sandra Bullock speaking German. In my disappointment, I assumed that the Jews had come up short deeming it impossible that we could be behind a silent film like The Artist. After all, silence is not so easily achieved amongst the tribe. Much to my surprise, The Artists’s director and producer each have Jewish ancestry, prompting this Jewish Oscar round-up as good as the sound mixing in Hugo.

Here’s a look at some of the winner’s connections to the chosen people:

Michel Hazanavicius, Director of The Artist: This director is a French Jew whose parents and grandparents hid in the French countryside to survive the Nazi occupation.

Image via Oscar.go.com

Thomas Langmann, Producer of The Artist: Langmann has Eastern European Jewish grandparents, and his father produced the film “Two of Us” telling the story of a French Jew in hiding during WWII.

Woody Allen, Director/Screenwriter of Midnight in Paris: Explaining Woody Allen’s connection to Judaism would be as tired and overdone as Billy Crystal hosting the Oscars.

Meryl Streep for Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady: In 1978, Streep’s role as a German woman married to a Jewish artist in the miniseries Holocaust, and in 2005, her performance as an involved Jewish mother and therapist in Prime, both earn her honorary mentions.

Christopher Plummer for Hal Fields in The Beginners: Aside from the many Jewish characters in The Beginners, Plummer was in the Sound of Music — the pre-Producers original Nazi-related musical.

Octavia Spencer for Minny Jackson in The Help:  One time, @octaviaspencer tweeted “To all of my Jewish friends, Happy Passover.” So that counts.

“Man or Muppet” song from The Muppets: Jim Henson may have been a Christian Scientist, but Jason Segel is Jewish enough for anything Muppet-related to make this list. His smile really makes me get all Miss Piggy about him.

There you have it. Plus, I consider Sacha Baron Cohen a Jewish winner in that he convinced the Academy that his Dictator bit was worth the fight. Seacrest out.

If you haven’t watched the CBS show 2 Broke Girls, you’re not missing much. This week’s “And the Kosher Cupcakes” episode was a poor attempt at humorously taking on the Hasidic Jews of South Williamsburg. Max and Caroline, the two broke girls themselves who are waitresses/aspiring cupcake bakers, are hired to bake kosher cupcakes for a bar mitzvah.

For the record, I don’t regularly watch 2 Broke Girls, mostly because anything TV-related that Whitney Cummings (Broke Girls co-creator and EP) touches unfortunately feels contrived and wince-worthy. So, while I found the episode mostly offensive, it was less a result of the painful, forced Yiddish dialogue alongside the 13-year old pais-clad “pimps,” and much more a result of the episode being just so terribly unfunny.

Given that the show is designed to take a comedic look at Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I suppose acknowledging the area’s Jewish community was inevitable. The complete lack of humor and awkward use of dialogue, however, was not a great approach.

At one point, two bar mitzvah-age boys appear obedient in front of their parents and turn into foul-mouthed “pimps” once left alone with the two broke girls. To have young actors speak about “filling women’s mouths” with anything is just a poor attempt at humor. (Unless of course it’s a Comedy Central Roast, or a Will Ferrell movie. Those jokes are hilarious). To have child actors portraying lewd Hasidic Jewish boys for the sake of a few dirty bar mitzvah jokes is really just unappealing all around.

The A.V. Club nails the show’s style of humor saying, “The most irritating and prolonged [problem of the show] is that, like a fifth grader giving a book report, the writers just don’t seem to trust in the ability of the audience to retain information or get a joke that isn’t highlighted, starred, and given to you with 10 exclamation points.” And each one of the episode’s kugel euphemisms (i.e. “a pasta and a dessert”) does just that.

Comedy has tremendous value in society. As free speech goes, satire is the best form of it. Therefore, if you are going to attempt to shed some light on the idiosyncrasies of any religious group, race, or even neighborhood, please at least make sure it’s laugh-worthy.

Thankfully, Sylvia Fine from The Nanny (aka Renee Taylor) always makes things better.

Doron Petersan, Cupcake Wars champ and founder of vegan cafe Sticky Fingers Sweets & Eats in Columbia Heights, sat down with Kosher Salt to chat about her new new cookbook, the dirty secret behind cake pops, and what it takes to win a Food Network competition.

Petersan will be at Sixth & I to discuss her new cookbook, Sticky Fingers’ Sweets! 100 Super-Secret Vegan Recipes, on Thursday, March 1 at 7:00 pm.  And yes, there will be samples.