"I would be at a grocery store or the Wal-Mart and people would say 'Hate Jews?' or 'Jew Hater?' and I had no idea what they were talking about," Frank Gumina told the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. "You know how people just say things that don't make any sense."

Then his mechanic sounded out the letters and number on Gumina's license plate, HA8 JWZ ‹ as in "Hate Jews."

Gumina immediately called the Georgia Department of Revenue and the Atlanta office of the Anti-Defamation League. The tags were retired, and so far no one has determined if Gumina's new tags carry a message.

Person of the year

Curb Your Enthusiasm's Larry David has been selected as JDate's 2007 Person of the Year. The actor/writer was selected, JDate says, for his ability to integrate Jewish humor into his show.

JDaters were asked to name their favorite Jewish person of 2007. Coming in behind David were comedian Sarah Silverman, actor Seth Rogen, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sen. Barbara Boxer, talk show host Donny Deutsch, High School Musical's Ashley Tisdale and Sen. Arlen Specter.

"My only condition in accepting this award is that I don't have to go on a date," said Larry David, a University of Maryland grad, upon learning of his newly crowned title.

Given that he recently split with both his real and TV wives, maybe he should rethink that.

Nothing soapy about this gift

Moshe Kantor, the president of the European Jewish Congress and the Russian Jewish Congress, likes to give bars of soap as a gift ‹ not the decorative, aromatic kind, though. He prefers bars of soap like the ones that the Nazis gave to Holocaust victims before sending them to the gas chambers.

Kantor has presented them to such world leaders as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Vladmir Putin and Israel President Shimon Peres, according to The Jewish Week in New York.

"My idea behind the soap is, are we going to let history repeat itself? Are we going to endanger the world with another Holocaust?" he tells the paper. "I am fully aware that my way of presenting the point is not a gentle one, but I believe that if today we wish to influence world leaders, we must do it in a creative way ‹ in a way that will leave them impressed or maybe shocked. But our message should come through."

'Greening of Israel' ‹

San Francisco-style

San Francisco is seeing the "green" face of Israel, thanks to BlueStarPR, a Frisco-based public relations firm that has plastered the downtown area with posters declaring, "Who makes the greenest energy? Israel."

Company founder Jonathan Carey says this marks the start of a new ad campaign for his four-year-old firm, which promotes Israel in a city that is not always friendly to the Jewish state.

"From the start, our PR goal has been to use issues that people already care about, like women, the LGBT community and the environment, and relate that to Israel," Carey said. Sixteen large posters are now hanging at bus stops and high-density shopping areas. Previous ad campaigns have focused on Israel as a diverse, open and democratic country where gays serve openly in the military and Arab women have the right to vote, among other things.

‹ compiled with reports from JTA News and Features, The Jerusalem Post and other sources