Kind of like Oyprah or Martha Jewart Living*
A new Jewish magazine is available at your local magazine rack. Called Jewish Living it sells on newstands for $4.95 or you can shell out $19.95 for an annual subscription. This is a serious effort by Torontonians Daniel Zimerman and his wife Carol Moskot who have over $4 million in investments behind them. Also supporting this venture are a number of Federations who are giving away the magazine to 40,000 young families. The Federations are paying between 50% to 70% of the subscription price and in exchange they get eight-page inserts in Jewish Living to promote their efforts. Wow. These people have some serious shlepp. Imagine what would happen to ventures like Heeb or PresenTense if they received such support, but I digress.
In this month’s issue, you’ll find an article, cutely illustrated above, that’s kind of like an Idiot’s Guide to Circumcision. I’m not making fun of it, it’s a handy primer representing what to expect when organizing a circumcision and how to make informed choices. This is all a very good thing, and along with the article on Mezuzahs, represents a lovely effort to promote Jewish literacy to a generation of young couples who have for the most part been woefully ill-prepared for these sorts of things by their parents and communities. Now, I photoshopped the photo above so that the child actually looks like he’s urinating yellow urine and not a stream of white diamonds. Young couples reading Jewish living, please note: Your baby is not abnormal if his urine is not crystal clear. Also, your baby does not need to look Aryan. He may have dark curly brown or black hair and that’s ok! Of course there’s no mention of the Morrocan pre-bris Tahdid sword ceremony – but I guess the guide is not meant to be exhaustive. For that you have Jewlicious.
As befits any lifestyle magazine, Jewish Life also contains recipes – which is good because that’s the one place Sephardic Jews, with their exotic spices and wily ways, get somewhat acknowledged.
Well, good luck and all. I’ll be checking out the Web site periodically and will gladly pony over $4.95 next time I am stateside. Frankly they’ve actually done a pretty good job given that my usual cynical self didn’t have much to latch on to here. In fact, I practically lifted this entire post from Gawker*. And the NYC Daily News. See how desperate I am? I even have these fantasies of calling Zimerman and having the following conversation:
ck: So Zimerman? You’re in the magazine racket now? And how are you doing?
Zimerman: Eh, it’s a living… A Jewish Living!!!
ck: Kill me now.
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