Haim Watzman According to disturbing report in the latest issue of the British scientific journal Nature, a team of geneticists based at pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. has discovered that a strange set of markers shared by 90 percent of all Jews indicates widespread intermarriage with the Amalekite nation in the Middle Bronze Age. The [...]

[Read more →]

Haim Watzman ”Humor in the Tanakh”, Daniel Saunders promises us on Jewcy. And what a relief to find some lighthearted biblical exegesis amidst the posts like Jamie Sneider’s account of interfaith sex with her not yet ex-husband, Mia Rut’s three-way date with a Jewish guy and a Russian cat (sorry I keep picking on you, [...]

[Read more →]

Haim Watzman Q: Why Magnus Arbuthnot! How unexpected to see you in South Jerusalem! What brings you here? A: I have been sent by a respected and impartial NGO to investigate the carnage inflicted by Israel in the Gaza Strip. Q: Which NGO would that be? A: An NGO that uses an ostensible human-rights agenda [...]

[Read more →]

Haim Watzman “Why so somber?” laughed my eldest son, as he settled onto the couch. But his face fell when I shook my head sadly. We were sitting in the spacious living room of the Jerusalem apartment that I had purchased when times were better, before the crash. I remember when I first brought my [...]

[Read more →]

Haim Watzman I am standing on the edge of the pool, in my Speedo swimsuit, feeling like a Second Aliya pioneer determined to speak only the language of their forefathers. It’s Sunday night, Masters Swim Group, Jerusalem Pool. I’m about to swim three kilometers. My swimming is as bad as the typical pioneer’s Hebrew was, [...]

[Read more →]

Haim Watzman I have been following with amusement and bemusement the courtship ritual of Hebrewzzi in the comments to Mia Rut’s post To Date a Jew. But not with wistfulness. It’s been a quarter century since I had to play the dating game and thank God for that. I was never good at it (or [...]

[Read more →]