First off, I’m very pleased that Youngsters of Zion, our monthly column highlighting awesome young local Jews (which made a brief appearance last summer and them…ummm…well, okay I got lazy and stopped writing it) has returned under the direction of longtime Jew-ish writer Laurie Benson. If any of you out there in blog-reading-land know someone whom you would like to nominate for Laurie to write about in a future YOZ column, by all means, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Past YOZ columns can be found here and here.

This month’s Youngsters of note are media mogul Sasha Pasulka, filmmaker Terry Kegel and musician Eli Rosenblatt. Fun Fact: Kegel and Rosenblatt were in the same 7th grade class at the Lakeside School way back in the day. And good Jews that they are, apparently they used to stop and get bagels together every morning before school started.

More photos:

Eli Rosenblatt

Sasha Pasulka

Terry Kegel and some soccer players

Last week, Simcha Weinstein offered up a very favorable review of Year One, selling it as a playful romp through biblical times with the winning comedic duo of Jack Black and honorary MOT Michael Cera. It sounds like a good idea, in theory, but after having seen the film over the weekend, I must regretfully disagree with Rabbi Simcha. Year One is actually not very good. There are some funny moments, sure, but not nearly enough to keep what is actually a pretty boring plot afloat. Mostly, it’s just a lot of boner jokes and Michael Cera looking frightened*. Maybe save your $10. 50 for Bruno?

*Interestingly enough, I absolutely loved Superbad, which was 100% boner jokes and Michael Cera looking frightened, so go figure. 

I have spent too much time working for the Jewish media. How do I know this? Sure, I was excited to see that the Ravenna Kibbutz had won the attention of the Seattle Times last week. That was big for the little kibbutz. But I was REALLY REALLY excited to see them getting ink in the Forward. Because I think the Forward is way more relevant to my life than the Times. I think I may need to get out more.

But that’s neither here nor there. The point here is that everyone everywhere is suddenly paying attention to the Ravenna Kibbutz. As well they should. Because the Ravenna Kibbutz is awesome.

From the Forward story:

In contrast to their early forebears in Israel, the young singles of the Seattle kibbutz are not trying to make the desert bloom, nor do they plan to raise their children collectively. Instead, resident Neal Schindler told The Seattle Times, “We’re about having fun” — with recent activities including a bagel bake, a coffeehouse night and the observance of Jewish holidays. Each home in the kibbutz is equipped with a kosher-dairy section in its kitchen, and residents devote part of their leisure time to “civic projects” and Seattle not-for-profit organizations, the article said. The kibbutz’s motto is, “Would it kill you to find a nice Jewish commune?”

From the Washington Post:

Bernard Madoff was sentenced Monday morning to 150 years in prison for conducting Wall Street’s biggest Ponzi scheme, whose victims numbered in the thousands and spanned the globe.

The term is the maximum allowed under federal guidelines and is in essence a life sentence for the 71-year-old Madoff. When U.S. District Judge Denny Chin announced his decision inside a packed federal courtroom in lower Manhattan, some of the victims let out a loud cheer.

A lot of my friends are getting married this summer too…of course, unlike Malkie, I didn’t grow up in the Orthodox community and my marryin’ pals range in age from 25 to 35 and are from a variety of religious backgrounds (read: Protestants and atheists), so no grand cultural observations to be made here. But! The other day I received what I think is potentially the coolest wedding invitation of all time, and I wanted to share it with you. This comes from my friends Debi and Bryan who are getting hitched in Vermont in August. Promptly following the wedding, D & B are embarking on a bicycle trip across the U.S. and down to South America. Accordingly, the invitations are made from “parts of maps that we aspire to visit and we also used a chain ring from a bicycle as a stencil to spray paint. These two elements combined symbolize what we’ll be doing for the next couple of years,” writes Debi.

The result is a really neat piece of art, and even cooler, on the one I got is a map of Israel. And even cooler than that, it’s a map of Israel with pre-1967 boarders. The moral of the story: If you send me an invitation that causes me to have a bike/Jew/history/art geek-out all at once, you are getting a damn cool wedding present.

Here’s the invite: