It seems that Paula Abdul is not the only American Idol judge who is a member of the tribe, or at least not the only one with Jewish roots. Simon Cowell's paternal grandparents, Joseph Cowell and Esther Malinsky, were married in 1915 at West Ham Synagogue in London, reports Jewtastic.
No word on whether Cowell considers his ancestry "dreadful" or "brilliant."
Rent a rabbi?
A Reform rabbi will soon begin offering online advice for interfaith couples who want Jewish weddings.
InterfaithFamily.com, a support and resource center for intermarried families, has hired Rabbi Lev Baesh as its first Rabbinic Circle director. The 1994 graduate of Hebrew Union College begins work July 9.
Baesh's main tasks will be referring interfaith couples to rabbis who will officiate at their wedding and running a listserv for rabbis to discuss the issue and share practical tips.
"No one else in the Jewish community has been both willing to take this issue on and able to offer a high-quality, well publicized, free referral service," says InterfaithFamily.com president Ed Case.
He says this service differs from the "rent-a-rabbi" phenomenon because the rabbis on Baesh's list are all carefully vetted, and couples will be steered toward their local synagogues.
"Our intention is not to tell rabbis that they should officiate, or pressure them to do so," Case insists.
Princely kippah
Who would have thought that Prince Charles would not only have his own kippah, but that it would have the Prince of Wales royal feathers symbol on it?
Simon Sebag-Montefiore tells the London Jewish Chronicle, according to Jewtasic, that not only does the prince have his own yarmulke, but he had signed the register and the ketubah at Sebag-Monefiore's wedding to Santa Palma-Tomkinson, a Jew by choice and celebrity socialite in London.
We accept the yarmulke, but still can't figure out why the man who presumably will one day head the Church of England would be signing a Jewish wedding contract.
Connecting family trees
A 34-year-old Israeli is taking very seriously the notion of six degrees of separation. Danny Rolls hopes to have the world's Jewish population mapped out by the end of the year, and the entire Western world mapped out in two years.
"Our vision is to connect all the people in the world through family trees," says Rolls, the founder and CEO of social family network portal, Famillion, tells Israel21c. "We are all connected, wherever we come from, and once people realize that, it will change the way they think. People are always afraid of someone who is different from us, someone who is a stranger ‹ it's a basic trait of human nature. When people understand that we are all connected to one another, this sense of difference will disappear."
His company's Web site technology, he tells Israel 21c, automatically will connnect individual's family trees.
Google says no
to ZioPedia
Google is barring the anti-Zionist ZioPedia.org from using its ad space and donation accounts at Paypal and StormPay.
Brought to attention by the Australian Anti-Defamation League, ZioPedia breaches the three sites' acceptable use policies by promoting hate, violence or racial intolerance.
Founded in May 2006 by the Sydney-based Rebel Media Group, ZioPedia is a Wikipedia-like online encyclopedia and a collection of blogs devaluing the Holocaust and attacking the Jewish people. The writers, mostly Jews themselves, say Jews exploit the Holocaust and anti-Semitism to control Western media and public opinion.
Yet another case of Jews being our own worst enemies.
‹ Compiled with reports from JTA News and Features, The Jerusalem Post and other sources
