What would happen if Martha Stewart were abducted by a tribe of trailer park rabbis? Judaikitsch! Filled to the brim with crafts, collectibles, and creative cooking, heres the ultimate guide to a funky, festive Jewish lifestyle. From everyday kitsch to holiday entertaining-and loads of mishegoss in between-Judaikitsch asks the all-important question: Why eat sushi when theres Jewshi? Put away that mizrach and hang up the Miz-Rock. Host a Sukkot Luau featuring a Poi Vey Pineapple Mold, and celebrate Rosh Mexicana with a heaping helping of Hava Tequila Pie. Guaranteed to amuse, Judaikitsch encourages readers to don their Starlet of David Sunglasses, buckle their Borscht Belts, and enjoy a ride through a world where Elvis sports sidelocks and cats and dogs wear yarmulkes. At last, essential reading for the Divine Miss Martha in us all.

Jewish history has been extensively studied from social, political, religious, and intellectual perspectives, but the history of Jewish consumption and leisure has largely been ignored. The hitherto neglect of scholarship on Jewish consumer culture arises from the tendency within Jewish studies to chronicle the production of high culture and entrepreneurship. Yet consumerism played a central role in Jewish life. This volume is the first of its kind to deal with the topic of Jewish consumer culture. It gives new insights on Jewish belongings and longings and provides multiple readings of Jewish consumer culture as a vehicle of integration and identity in modern times. "Overall Reuveni and Roemer offer a rich volume that will provoke thought and discussion in a variety of venues. It is an important work and I look forward to reading more from the contributing authors." Jeffrey Podoshen, Franklin & Marshall College

Discusses how media technology impacts the Jewish experience. This title explores mid-twentieth-century ecumenical radio and television broadcasting, video documentation of life cycle rituals, and museum displays and tourist practices as means for engaging the Holocaust as a moral touchstone

Oy veh! If this book chronicles Julietta's Appleton's first 50 years, one can only imagine the sequel! Julietta's mother died when she was nine. Her father, a blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter, sent his daughter to 17 different schools in the U.S. and Europe, including Catholic boarding schools. Julietta has lived in 36 different homes in 6 different countries, and developed a witty and keen sense of observation along the way. She survived her mother's peculiar health practices, grooved through the '60s without any permanent damage, raised and sent kids off to college, lived through the detonation of her marriage, and endured life in the suburbs as a single woman. A car accident in 1996 left her with a mild but permanent brain injury and chronic pain. And as if that were not enough, her fiancé of two months died suddenly of a heart attack just as the two were beginning a new life together. And yet, Julietta manages to find humor in everyday life-sex toys, hurricanes, chocolate, dating, and senile dementia are just some of her targets. She is wickedly funny, naughty, and provocative. Clothing Optional will make you laugh through your tears and cry through your laughter.

A guidebook to the most current trends in contemporary Jewish art and design, Reinventing Ritual provides an unprecedented look at the work and thought of contemporary artists as they respond to the needs and practices of traditional culture. Beautifully illustrated with new art from Israel, Europe, and the Americas, this publication features both traditional and avant-garde sculpture, textiles, architecture, metalwork, and ceramics by forty leading artists. Author Daniel Belasco surveys current trends in Jewish ritual art and the influences of feminism, environmentalism, multiculturalism, and new media; Julie Lasky provides a groundbreaking discussion of the role of recycling and social consciousness in contemporary Jewish design; Danya Ruttenberg, a recently ordained rabbi, offers a lively perspective on the constantly evolving Jewish impulse "to concretize the encounter with the Divine"; Arnold M. Eisen writes an absorbing and personal commentary on the role of ritual in Jewish life today; and Tamar Rubin contributes an illustrated timeline covering key Jewish cultural and historical events from 1994 to 2008. Published in association with The Jewish Museum Exhibition Schedule: The Jewish Museum, New York (September 13, 2009-February 7, 2010) Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco (April 22 - September 28, 2010)

Written by authors born into the so-called “dilemma of intermarriage,” the stories in Half/Life explore the experience of being raised in a half-Jewish home. Though each essay is distinct, and the experiences are vastly different, each describes growing up without a streamlined identity, unsure of community or religious direction. From Jenny Traig, whose experiences led her to extreme devotion in the form of religious-obsessive compulsion (scrupulosity) to Thisbe Nissen, who finally felt Jewish after discovering a rosary in her boyfriend’s sock drawer, these authors examine the complicated relationships they felt with the Jewish community and the world at large. By turns tragic and funny, religious and heartbreaking, angry and surprisingly familiar, Half/Life represents the altogether diverse memories and reflections of a handful of men and women who have spent a lifetime grappling with how to define themselves, or not. Resulting from that struggle is a complex exploration, and some truly brilliant prose.

Jennifer Traig's memoir Devil in the Details paints a portrait of a well-meaning Jewish girl and her good-natured parents, and takes a very funny, very sharp look back at growing up with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Recalling the agony of growing up an obsessive-compulsive religious fanatic, Traig fearlessly confesses the most peculiar behavior like tirelessly scrubbing her hands for a full half hour before dinner, feeding her stuffed animals before herself, and washing everything she owned because she thought it was contaminated by pork fumes. Jennifer's childhood mania was the result of her then undiagnosed OCD joining forces with her Hebrew studies-what psychiatrists call scrupulosity While preparing for her bat mitzvah, she was introduced to an entire set of arcane laws and quickly made it her mission to follow them perfectly. Her parents nipped her religious obsession in the bud early on, but as her teen years went by, her natural tendency toward the extreme led her down different paths of adolescent agony and mortification. Years later, Jennifer remembers these scenes with candor and humor. In the bestselling tradition of Running with Scissors and A Girl Named Zippy, Jennifer Traig tells an unforgettable story of youthful obsession.

So long, South Beach. Farewell, fat-free. Adieu, tofu. Retox is here to help bring back the good times and friends that fell by the wayside on that mind-numbing path to health and well-being. Putting the fun back in dysfunction, this antidote to detoxification calls out soul-searching, colon-cleansing, fasting, and fish oil. Broken down into informative chapters on all aspects of lifefrom Diet to Grooming to Relationships to CareerRetox goes where no book has gone before. It asks the tough questions such as: "When did irrigating one's bowels become a pastime of the rich and neurotic?" It offers tips on better loving while under the influence. It reveals exclusive Pretty Mess Makeover tips and much, much more! Far more effective than acupuncture, and not a total crock like reiki, Retox is designed to produce real change.