Jewlicious

Completely Senseless

17 years ago
65 Comments
by ck
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I was walking on Aggripas street in Jerusalem, on the pedestrian part on the corner of King George when I saw what looked like construction going on at a basement pool hall I used to frequent when I was a student at Hebrew University. The pool tables were shit so I never used them but they did have an Asteroids machine. I remember one memorable day when I had played one game that lasted over 13 hours. The game only ended because of a power failure. I was certain at the time that I was without a doubt, the best Asteroids player in the Middle East, at the very least. Well the Asteroids machine is long gone and now the pool hall is going to be turned into probably yet another bakery or Felafel joint or something equally useless. And of course wasting 13 hours on a video game was a stupid waste of time, but one can’t help but wax nostalgic. So here for your time wasting pleasure, is a Flash version of Asteroids. Enjoy! And if it helps, while you’re at it, feel free to pretend you’re a footloose and fancy free ck let loose upon Jerusalem. Sigh… we’ll always have Asteroids…


Sorry dumbass, you will need the <a href=”http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer/” target=”_blank”>Flash Player</a> to play Asteroids.

Oh hey, wanna have some fun? Note your high score in the comments section and email me a screen cap and the winner gets a free cool Jewish t-shirt of his or her choice. I’ll accept entries till March 31st and announce the winner on April 1st.

Use the arrows to turn left and right, the up arrow to thrust and the space bar to shoot.

ck
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ck

Founder and Publisher of Jewlicious, David Abitbol lives in Jerusalem with his wife, newborn daughter and toddler son. Blogging as "ck" he's been blocked on twitter by the right and the left, so he's doing something right.

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65 Comments

  • Ok, while you all figure out the archaeology, Muffti and I will work on the themes, layout and nudity of the 2009 “Where’s Muffti?” Jewlicious calendar.

    It’s a team effort, after all…

  • Middle, get the books I referred you to. Those are my sources. And they are free of kitschy histography. As for Cambridge University Press, a little while ago I received a Klett catalogue (a publisher that co-operates with CUP here), which offered various EFL works by CUP. The English descriptions provided by CUP contained punctuation mistakes I wouldn’t let my students get away with, and a few descriptions were pretty awkward stylistically. I’m not saying that all CUP stuff is bad, but it still rang a bell.

    Also, I stated that messianism is a Jewish concept but has been heavily influenced by the Christian take on messianism. (If not for the Qumran and Cairo genizot, which provided us with contemporary fragments of the Torah, we’d have no older text sources to go by than those dating from the sixth century CE.) Again, private Ancient baths were different from public ones (unless somebody was extraordinarily rich); I’ll get you a reading list on Roman architecture and archaeology. The Greek influence on Judaism went as far that at the period preceding the destruction of the Second Temple, the common language spoken in Judea and its surroundings was Greek; that’s why the gospels were written in Greek (except John, which was written in Latin) as it was the language of the common people.

  • Froylein, you haven’t provided an ounce of evidence to support your position. I have provided ample evidence to support mine. The information I provided “from the Internet” actually came from books like The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature which came up on my searches and which you can read in detail “on the Internet.” The photographs I provided and encouraged you to explore speak for themselves.

    Your ideas about Messianism are also incorrect. Before Christianity came along, Messianism was an existing concept among the Jews/Judeans who lived in the Land of Israel.

    That’s not to say that Judaism hasn’t been influenced heavily by other cultures, of course it has.

    That, however, is irrelevant here. Mikva’ot existed long before the Middle Ages; they existed among the people of Israel; they were (apparently) not influenced or caused by Greek or Roman traditions; they were very different in use than those used by Greeks and Romans; and they look very similar to the mikva’ot that existed in Europe’s Middle Ages.

    I’ll wait for your evidence that I am wrong. 😉

  • BTW, Judaism at large has been influenced by surrounding religions; the thoughts on messianism, while the original idea of physical divine revelation and salvation are Jewish ones, developed in detail in the rabbinical era in response to Christian messianism. European Jews would start using candles instead of oil flasks as candles were what the Christian majority used – ironically enough, lighting candles in Christianity symbolizes spreading the message of Jesus as the Christ (that’s why I was so thrilled to see ck’s chanukia- it’s old school 🙂 ). The wearing of wigs started in the 18th century CE, copying a fashion wealthier Christian wives started in the 16th century CE (with the Renaissance, that originally Ancient Roman fashion was brought back into fashion). Initially, rabbis spoke out against the wigs, particularly those that were better than a woman’s original hair was irksome to them, but they could not stop that fashion. Both Judaism and Christianity copied using wedding rings from Ancient Romans, but the symbolic value is different as in Jewish weddings only the bride gets a ring (on her forefinger; presumably that’s one reason why in contrast to Christianity, Jewish brides stand on the right-hand-side of the groom, so turning around for the ring will be easier), which denotes a “proof of purchase”, while in Christianity the exchanging of rings symbolizes eternity. In Ancient Rome, it was more than less a name tag of the owner as men could divorce as easily as repeating “abi” (= go away) three times (pretty similar to Muslim divorces, isn’t it?). Anyhow, I’ve found the internet to be full of wrong, kitschy histography. The only reliable source on Jewish history online unfortunately has only got information about the propeties of the water and the meta-aspect of ritual Jewish baths online; I’ve noticed though that the more the profound information there clashes with people’s traditionalism, the worse their articles get rated. Suppose when what one’s grown up with to be true gets thrown over, it’s like learning the earth isn’t a disc. 😉

  • You do realize how retarded you guys are right? This was a post about a friggin 1980’s era video game and somehow it morphed into ritual baths? *Sigh* You just never know what’s gonna happen at Jewlicious.

  • The mishna discussed the properties of the water for ritual bathing. Greek and Roman private homes did indeed have baths that could be like a mikva; those baths best-known today consisting of caldarium, frigidarium and tepidarium were public.
    I’d be wary of using the internet as a source; there’s not much quality info on Jewish history to be found there, but if you want to treat yourself to some quality Jewish history and archaelogy reading, I suggest you get the Monumenta Judaica, The Christian effects on Jewish culture by Rabbi Dr Michael Hilton, Atlas of the Jewish World by Nicholas DeLange, and about anything written or edited by Julius H. Schoeps.

  • Froylein, the Greek and Roman baths were the opposite of Israel or Jewish mikva’ot which were about purity and ritual. As far as I know, these mikvaot already existed in the time the Greeks conquered Israel, although the Internet isn’t giving me any primary sources on this.

    In any case, if you google or image google Roman baths, Greek baths, ancient greek baths or ancient Roman baths, you don’t see anything resembling the images I gave you above. Even when you use ritual baths as your search term, you get nothing. Since we know that the mishna already discusses mikvaot at length and there are discovered mikvaot all over Israel from the Second Century BCE and certainly until the destruction of the Second Temple, we can assume that this is not some rabbinic invention to mimic the non-Jews.

    Better yet, however, Froylein, is this idea. The non-Jews copied the Jews with respect to the mikvaot. Hence the baptism.

  • Then again, Middle, baths as such were not uncommon among Greeks and Romans. And the Medieval rabbis clearly “had to” think of something new going by the sources we’ve got. Problem is that they also often declared matters Jewish in retrospective
    (like the breaking of the glass at weddings; actually a Heathen-influenced Christian tradition only linked in retrospective to a passage of the Talmud once the trend had caught on so much it couldn’t be stopped anymore), and the Medieval understanding of authenticity was decidedly different from ours, the most recent document was considered most genuine.

    Lawrence, congratulations. That’s a pretty impressive score, particularly compared to my 90 (while really trying).

    ck, I’ve put the pics from Antwerp up on Facebook.

  • All this discussion and it seems no one gives a rat’s ass about the underlying post. Well… first of all, happy birthday froylein, again. And the winner of our contest with a confirmed score of 80080 points is Lawrence G. of Philadelphia, who does not, for obvious reasons, want to use his real name. A swank new Ché Herzl t-shirt has already been sent to him. Mazel Tov Lawrence!

  • Muffti likes it Giyroet. Sort of like ‘where’s waldo’ but with Muffti inp lace of waldo and nudity inp lace of,w ell, wahtever else waldo was hiding in!

  • Thanks, Tom & Middle. Just returned from a Catholic cousin’s wedding.

    Tom, you read Mann? I’m impressed..

    Middle, I’m aware of those findings, but they are somewhat speculative. The invention of mikvot of the current type, so to speak, is well-documented in Medieval manuscripts.

  • Another source is this Gordon Moyes site. This is a Christian site and he’s quoting an Israeli archaeologist, Meir Ben Dov. A quick search of this archaeologist’s Amazon.com offerings shows he’s the author of “The Jerusalem Atlas.”

    He’s discussing Second Temple period in Jerusalem:

    “One of the hallmarks of these buildings – an element found in almost every one of them – is the mikveh or ritual bath. Since they were carved out of bedrock, these baths survived almost intact despite the subsequent destruction inflicted on other parts of the houses.”

  • Also,

    …in a separate major archaeological development in Jerusalem, a Jewish ritual bath, or mikva, dating back to the Second Temple period, and a First Temple Wall have been found in an underground chamber adjacent to the Western Wall tunnels, the Antiquities Authority’s Jerusalem regional archaeologist Jon Seligman said during a tour.

  • Froylein, I think there were mikvaot in Israel in ancient times.

    For example, archaeologists recently discovered that the Siloam Pool is lower, larger, and stepped. It is the largest known ancient mikvah (Jewish ritual bath) ever, and there was a street leading from it up to the Temple Mount.

  • btw, without any prior warning froylein has a birthday?

    Cyberhugs and kisses!….

  • The oldest mikvot proven to have been mikvot are medieval; before that, people would use rivers etc. as the water to emerge in may not stand still. (In contrast to popular belief, that thing on Masada was a cistern, not a mikva, and the whole fortress was built by non-Jews. I highly doubt the Zealots used it as a mikva lest they’d ruin their water supplies.) Medieval European rabbis ruled a way must be found to emerge in flowing water without offending the Christian majority’s views on public nudity, so mikvot in the form known to this day came into being. The oldest are in Cologne, Speyer, Worms and Andernach (which is about six miles from my place). There are ruins of large Roman baths though in Trier (three huge ones; Trier’s definitely worth seeing) and in Baden-Baden and there are smaller ruins in other places as well, e.g. they found the foundations of a Roman bath in Andernach two years ago while doing construction. Trier would be a good choice though as it has also got an old “Judengasse” and likely was home to the first Jews in Central Europe; also, a museum there currently features an exhibition on 100,000 years of sex. And shoe and book shopping is usually great there.

  • You could don a skimpy dirndl and have some traditional-looking dudes surrounding you, blowing shofars up your skirt so it flies up like Marilyn Monroe as you “try” to hold it down. With Muffti at the bottom, trying to look underneath..

    Are there any crumbly old Roman-ruin-looking mikvahs around, like with a missing roof, so one of us could emerge dripping and do the old Venus covering/drawing attention to the stuff that’s usually covered? And we can have Muffti peeking over the wall with a glint in his eye…

    And as we know my candlelit sukkah is clothing optional, so I’ll be doing a Venus of Urbino kinda pose with strategically placed fruit. With Muffti peeking around the curtain..

    Oh, and we should also have a shot of ck, uh… picking onions.

    Now to find the sponsors who will pay for us to go to Israel for the photo shoot….

  • Sounds good to Muffti. He’s not sure just how sexy bagel and cream cheese proses are (especialy if you start including lox…)

  • Or to go in line with the pic ck has chosen for my profile, I could don a dirndl. There are pretty skimpy ones available. 🙂

  • A German dominitrix–now that’s new….

    🙂

    We’ll have to think of this. Jewy, bagel-y, Froyleinish. Hmm..

  • Since I ride motorbikes, I could do the semi-dominatrix thing. Though if it’s got to be a Jewy motif, I’ve got to be more creative, but I think I could pose with a bagel and some creamcheese.

  • That is a fabulous idea, Froylein. And then for my individual month, I think I’ll propose me lounging in a sukkah, surrounded by the harvest and lots of wine jugs. What are you going to do?

  • Thanks, Giyoret. 🙂 I didn’t celebrate though (meaning it was my b’day, but I didn’t celebrate it). Just hoped to guilt ck into giving me a profile, and I succeeded.

    Shall we do a cover with Muffti?

  • There you go! Count me in and Froylein in her undies.

    Does JM get a month, too?

    Froylein HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Hope it was super, super happy, and I hope you got lots of good presents. Have a wonderful year to come and many more!

  • Lingerie shots? Booby prizes?

    Hell, why don’t we just go ahead and make a ‘hot chicks of jewlicious’ calendar!

  • Indeed, it was my b’day yesterday, and I feel entitled to something – particularly since I haven’t got a profile yet. 😉 Maybe I should really provide some lingerie shot….

    Giyoret, apparently I missed all the fun fun on this thread while I was away on holiday. As far as I’m concerned, I wouldn’t take MUL as an expert on females of any provenance whatsoever even though I’m European.

  • Was a winner announced? What about my and Froylein’s “booby” prize?

    Don’t miss an awesome opportunity………

  • M_U_L, I am not sure what prompted that bit of hostility directed at me, a complete stranger, but in fact I was joking, and precisely about the story that you referenced.

    Shabbat shalom.

  • Well, whichever ones don’t mind the “e” and the “o” openings. Preferably Jewish.

  • You’ve got to be kidding. Why Philly? They’ve got all the grungy attitude and none of the confidence. They can be nice, and even attractive – at times – but nowhere near as comfortable in their own skin and sexuality as European women. Not even close. You’d think anyone insecure enough to pass on IP addresses should know that! But I guess that would be like the blind identifying the blind.

  • That’s a great score JimmyT but we have an 80080 score that has been confirmed. March 31st is rapidly approaching! Get on it!!

  • And v-necks are more flattering. Or actually scoop necks.

    better for those boobies!

  • I only wear v-necks though. Crew necks don’t go well with necklaces. 🙂

    I’d also wear a Jewlicious nipple shield.

  • The shirts should have openings at the “e” and the “o”.

  • I WANT TO WIN SOMETHING!!

    Men look at my boobs all the time, so we might as well slap “Jewlicious” on there and you’d get some free advertising while we’re at it. You know how people rent out their cars for to various companies? There you go.

    Between me and Froylein, you’d get quite a bang for your buck. you should think about it, ck, and waive any actual requirements for us wimmenfolk.

    boobies, boobies, boobies…..

  • First attempt the ever lame 18480.

    Maybe I should actually try.

  • Crikey, can you please give us a “spoiler!” type warning so those we can be warned against huge time wasters, err, “spenders”? Twenty minutes later… Memories of early 80s Atari….good times, good times.

    Now I have to go look for Space Invaders.

  • Well I already scored over 30,000 points, and that’s while on the phone. But I don’t count of course so for now Jack’s winning and froylein is the presumptive winner of the unnanounced booby prize for worst score while really trying category.