Win a Night Out with One of these Handsome Jewlicious Bloggers!

OK, maybe “handsome” is a stretch, at least as far as I am concerned… but you get the point. See, the Sisterhood Blog over at the Forward, didn’t take too kindly to our “Win a Night Out with One of these Gorgeous Jewlicious Bloggers!” post. Mind you neither did Jewschool (rachmones link), but does anyone still read that? Anyhow, what started off as a lark to help kickstart our first ever online fundraiser to benefit the Jewlicious Festival got us off to a rocky start as I was accused of being a misogynist and our bloggers Jessica and Michelle got likened to prostitutes as a result of my Win a Night Out with One of these Gorgeous Jewlicious Bloggers! post:

The campaign brings to mind an early Mad Men episode, when Pete Campbell, an account executive, charms and eventually clinches a client by bringing his female “cousins” to the bar. The episode, like so much of the series, demonstrates the outrageous sexism of the 1960s, making us realize just how much has changed in the ensuing decades for women in the workplace. But then again, as the Jewlicious campaign seems to indicate, maybe wooing dollars with women’s bodies never goes out of style.

Naomi Zeveloff, who wrote the Forward post, sure seems nice. She included half of my explanation behind the post (after having already published her post), although she did not contact Jessica and Michelle – apparently there was a breaking story that needed to be dealt with and I believe her. You still have their email addresses Naomi. I’m sure they’d love to chat with you! Jewschool never even bothered to send an email before they unleashed the big boy words like “misogynistic” and “patriarchy.” I am however glad that we managed to inspire “renaissanceboy” to blog again for the first time in 8 months as clearly this was an issue of extremely pressing importance. The patriarchy is pernicious and must be pummeled at every opportunity. Oh and my response got blocked on top of it all! Oh well.

But I digress. The point of this post is to address concerns that the previous post was patently sexist because no men were included. Jessica and Michelle weren’t chosen because they were women. They were chosen because they volunteered, because they were available, and because after hearing various experts and consultants speak (inaccurately) on their behalf at the Presidential Conference, they relished the opportunity to speak to a Jewish Philanthropist and give him or her or them a genuine opinion by a real live young Jew. But still, I guess if you’re pretty and you’re female, you are easily dismissed and easily objectified. Of course this was nothing more than sexist exploitation because, where are the men?

Well, the men have stepped up! Regular readers of the blog need no introduction to me and to muffti. But here are the basics: muffti is a tenured Philosophy professor at a West Coast University. He plays guitar and enjoys heavy metal. Muffti also enjoys exotic travel and fine dining and, much to my surprise, he actually likes long walks on moonlit beaches. As for me, what is there to say? I left the legal profession and have been working in Web design and digital content since 1994. Both of us have been involved in Jewlicious for nearly 9 years. Prior to that we achieved a small measure of notoriety for making fun of Nazis in the early days of the Web.

While we can’t speak for young, college and post college aged Jews, we can speak about numerous other topics. Muffti has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of all things having to do with the Simpsons. I can spout off numerous humorous lines from South Park. OK that sounds really stupid. The truth is we’re really lots of fun. And super interesting. Really.

So now here’s the deal. You may hang out with any one blogger – that would be either me or muffti or Jessica or Michelle – for $5000. Hanging out can mean a nice meal or drinks in a public location, or you can have us talk to your synagogue or JCC or whatever, about anything having to do with Jewlicious and the topics covered by our blog. For $7500 you can have any two of us show up. Ok? See none of this is seedy. Not only that, the donation – all tax deductible – is a bargain compared to how much philanthropic organizations spend on trying to get the low down on Jewish youth engagement. We know. We do it every day.

Hope that clears the air a bit and lays to rest all the erroneous accusations. Please think seriously about making any donation to help out the Jewlicious Festival. Every little bit helps and while I personally may be a bit of a dick sometimes, the Festival itself is an amazing project that really deserves the support of everyone who cares about an inclusive, fun and sincere expression of Jewish unity and love. Amen! Click here to make any donation at all!

Finally, please accept our sincerest apologies to those of you who may have taken offense. It was not our intention to do so and we trust we can all now move forward!

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ck

Publisher at Jewlicious

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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