Of course, many frothing anti-academia nutcases are also anti-Semites, so they work well together.

I appreciate anti-semitism as much as the next man, but I'm way more concerned about gypsies polluting the gene pool with their unibrows and their hereditary love of accordian music.

Off topic, but can someone explain what in fuck a "Jew Harp" is and why it got that name?

I thought that gentiles in the Hamptons were outnumbered by Jews? Didn't Nazism start this way?

They are worried about Orthodox Jews?? Damn, I am Jewish and the majority of Orthodox Jews think I am a fake Jew as it is.

People are misinformed...or just stupid.

@CaptainHangNail: and their nomadic nature is not good for the housing crisis...

Sigh.

**Unpacks suitcase**

no way- i just finished a 7 page paper about anti-semitism and e-mailed to my teacher literally 20 minutes ago. it was from the class this semester "modern jewish history." it was great. we watched yiddish theatre. like this:

+ Watch video

also, new yorkers that don't like jews should get over themselves.

@sassypants: Can't help you out there, but have you ever heard someone who really knows what they're doing play a Zoroastrian's Bassoon? Beguiling.

There could be some First Amendment issues there if this involves telephone poles on public property

"i told those fucks down at the league office a thousand times that i don't roll on shabbos!"

And by the way, I love Jews! Let them put up their meshugeh wire! It's not hurting anyone! (That was right, wasn't it?)

Well, it was fun while it lasted. Thanks for the brief respite of genocide, America. (**whistling while quickly packing up her things...**)

Well they already control Hollywood so if you let them into the Hamptons then they will have taken over the bastions of American Culture.

That I.U.D. looks painful.

@Chaim Gnadelstein: haha.

First it's the wire thing-ies, then with the muslims and their loud speakers spieling that call to prayer five times a day, then it's the Catholics and their mafias and before you know it the Presbyterians have moved in and it's cocktail hour everyday at five o'clock sharp. It has to stop somewhere, people.

@Mediahohoho: I live about 2 blocks from a synagogue, a mosque and a catholic church. All I can tell you is that religious people are fucking noisy.

Linen shops in the Hamptons probably don't sell sheets with strategically placed holes in them, either. (Yes, I know it's a myth, but it still makes me laugh.)

@lawyergay: Nope can't say I have, but it sounds like you've got a story there, fella. Spill.....

@Mediahohoho: Us Jews have ritualized drinking too! A mandatory 4 glasses on Passover plus Manischewitz every Friday and Saturday! And ritualized dancing! But whatever, America, if you don't want another culture's holiday to reappropriate as your own for the sole purpose of drinking (see: St. Patrick's Day, Cinco de Mayo), then we'll get out and take Purim (which also has costumes AND drinking, your favorite!) with us.

Does Ralph Lauren hating himself enough to become a pseudo-WASP count? He's got his fingers crossed.

The only threat from Jews in the Hamptons comes when you get on the road at the same as Lizzie Grubman and Billy Joel.

@sassypants: Scholars are divided but I think it's a coincidence. If it has anything to do with Judaism it's probably not insulting. To be filed alongside "niggardly."

@lawyergay: Dude, I live next to a Tower of Silence and I am sick and tired of my cat dragging in assorted parts of dentists and civil engineers.

The bastion of self-loathing Jews? Frank E. Campbell funeral home. Where Ralph Lauren Jews go to die.

In any event, I want no part of this silly discussion about the erev. I only control the weather. Nothing more, nothing less.

Most of the summer people are Jewish in the Hamptons.

Great. Just as I was finalizing my planning application to build a Mikvah in Quogue

Can you bowl in an eruv during Shabbos?

At the risk of sounding insensitive, isn't the whole premise of the eruv based on finding one of God's little loopholes? "Well, we're not technically supposed to engage in physical activity outside the home, but if we put this little plastic wire up over a 10 mile radius, let's call that our 'home' and go about our daily business." It's 2008, people. Just dispense with the fucking wire and leave your house, already.

I'm not anti-Semitic. I think fundamentalists of all religions are insane.

Double great. I move in next door to a bigot

@stevenash'ssexynose: If only you had put it off somehow, for 25 minutes, you could have totally cited Gawker!

And that is the best feeling ever. And helps you forget that you totally went crazy and turned a paper for a business class about making the internet accessible to blind people into a weirdly pro-pornography tirade, totally unintentionally. 'Cause that's not the best feeling.

@sassypants: Yeah. Us seculars should broadcast our sex noises.

@EleanorRigby: Hey, I'll take me some purim. Sounds fun the way my friends describe it. Can I be a pirate?

@sassypants: Maybe the Jew's Harp Guild can help you out.

Always the deal with an eruv is that not everyone holds by it.

The Jewish law defining how an eruv is made is just the right amount of vague so that if one group's in charge of making the eruv, another group inevitably comes up with reasons why it isn't kosher.

To non-Jews and non-Orthodox Jews this may sound insignificant. But the way this plays out is that those Jews who don't hold by the eruv generally feign mistrust of the dietary kashrus, or kosherness, of those who do.

This feigned mistrust is a convenient weapon for most of the year, but it becomes particularly nasty during Pesach when the anti-eruv folks make a big deal out of categorically refusing to eat anything whatsoever that comes out of pro-eruv household's kitchen.

@kokotaylor:

There's an enourmous eruv in Manhattan that extends from the East River to the Hudson, and roughly from E/W 57th to E/W 112th.

@procrastinator, esq.: Loopholes are great. Like when the bill collector calls I take one step out of the house so that my wife can truthfully say 'He's not in now'.

And antidentites got to West Virginia.
*that's for you Scroll

@procrastinator, esq.:
An eruv extends the space within which pushing and carrying is permitted on the Sabbath beyond the boundaries of the home, thereby enabling, for example, to push baby strollers and wheelchairs, and carry canes and walkers, when traveling between home and synagogue. Without an eruv Orthodox Jews who have small children or are disabled typically cannot attend synagogue on the Sabbath.

What's more, Many major cities across the United States--such as Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Atlanta, and Cincinnati--have one or more eruvs. Both the White House and the United States Supreme Court are within the boundaries of an eruv.

Westhampton really stepped in shit on this one. Mr. Esq., you should know this - the same basic case went up to the 3rd Circuit a few years ago. The Jews won.

@Bell County: No. Fucking. Way. There's a guild????

Thank you, though.

@Mediahohoho: indeed! you can even be a slutty pirate/nurse/kitty/Queen Esther/ninja/etc., Halloween-style.

what they're really worried about is the larry david's of the world moving in and worried about being accused of stealing shrimp.

@Hortense de Beauharnais: those are woody allen jews like myself. the people of the hamptons are worried about the other jews. not to get all jewcist up in here.

@procrastinator, esq.: You're back on Gawker!!! YAY!!

Wait, I thought we went to the Vineyard to get away from the Jews? Dammit! My Anti-Semite Singles group is really going to get it from me.

They've obviously never met any Orthodox Jews. They are people who know how to party.

@procrastinator, esq.:

At the risk of sounding insensitive, isn't the whole Christian premise of reconciliation and absolution based on finding one of God's little loopholes?

"Well, we're not technically supposed to engage in mortal or venial sins, but if we tattletale on ourselves to this 'magical' person called a 'priest,' he -- and it's inevitably he --
says some 'magical formula' and poof! Our sins disappear, except not some of the mortal ones completely."

It's 2008, people. Just dispense with the fucking drama about right and wrong, sin and forgiveness, and just sit where you are watch some more television already!

I'm not anti-religious. I'm not really educated enough on the subject of religion to have any sort of reasoned opinion about it anyway. I think agnostics and atheists are pretty much the only people on earth who are at all times rational and reasonable.

At least they have an ethos.

If God didn't want us to eat pork, he won't have made bacon tastes so good.

@Pussy Galore: Dang, did I also offend the Muslims and Buddhists with that comment?

@Pussy Galore: I am an atheist, but that is a statement I could get behind if I were religious.

There's also a big eruv in Chelsea, along 6th Ave.

But how does today's anti-Semitism work when there are so many half-Jews and quarter-Jews: Simon Cowell, Gwyneth Paltrow, Dixon Boardman, Larry Ellison, Steve Ballmer, Kyra Sedgwick, to name just a few. Even Uma Thurman's latest boyfriend -- Arky Busson -- who's supposedly a very religious Catholic, would be considered a Jew by Jewish law. His mother's first cousin was the father of the Hydrogen Bomb -- Stan Ulam.

@Tweezergal: Same as it ever was. I would point you to the case of Wittgenstein's sisters. And hundreds of thousands of others but their story is quite interesting.

Also, they killed Santa Claus.

The Kevin MacDonald of this article is so much less fun than the Kevin MacDonald of Kids in the Hall. However, I can't help but imagine this academic as an evil version of the KITH Kevin MacDonald and it makes me giggle.

If you want to put a small wire, go for it. Who cares?! If you can afford to live in the Hamptons, then go for it. Who cares? Get over yourself, Hamptonites, as if your zip code itself wasn't exclusive enough.

Michael Chabon has a great subplot of an eruv-maker in the Yiddish Policeman's Union, btw.

Knock knock
Who's there?
Eruv
Eruv who?
Eruv gold, eyes of blue, lips like cherry wine ...

I agree that fundamentalism is dangerous. However, does it not seem that almost all other religions are given more leeway concerning their respective quirks? If Catholicism called for something similar would their be citizen outcry? I don't think anti-semitism ever really died. It is just well hidden. Would the people against the synogoge's wishes be so vocal if it was a mosque asking for something. It is not ok to criticize religion unless of course it is towards Jews. I refer to criticism by the left, and those who think of themselves as liberals.

@SlickaNicka: [uk]

+ Watch video

Conservatives don't like @procrastinator, esq.: Is atheism any better when said atheists attempt to push their views on others. On Bill Maher the other week there was an author of an anti-religion book who criticized the spreading of religion through missions, then proudly bragged about the testimonial board of his website where readers told of their new conversion to atheism .

@notthatpopular: Ignore "Conservatives don't like"

@notthatpopular: I actually think it's the opposite. The religious right and Muslim fundamentalists are not given a lot of leeway concerning their respective quirks. With Judaism, however, one has to walk on egg shells or the ADL will be on you before you can even finish your sentence.

@Priam: That is true in some cases, but I am referring to the general public, and not a pulic figure or organization. Furthermore, a rather significant number of people believe everything the ADL concerns itself with is nonsense. Would you say the same of the NAACP or the ACLU? People tend to trivialize any descrimintation against Jews under the guise of the statement you just made. Oh those Jews complain about everything.

I agree that the ultra conservative movement tends to give Islam very little leeway. However, the left and liberalism does the same with Judaism. If it was a mosque being allegedly discriminated against liberal activists would be the first to object.

Pehaps it is due to this group's view of Israel's treatment of Palestinian refugees. Being unable or unwilling to separate American Jews from the soverign nation of Israel is ignorant in itslef.

Thanks, Priam, the video made my day!

I also think it i