BHIF: The Great Israeli Spy…
Single Jewess of the week. Uranium froths. The Knicks are in Hot Water. No more Costco card sharing. Rip that skin tag. It's time to complain.
Welcome to BHIF for Friday January 19, 2024. Baruch Hashem (Thank God) It’s Friday is The Old Jewish Men weekly roundup where we get to all the crap that actually matters in the world. Obituary winners. Shidduchs. Market watch. You get the picture.
** NOTE FROM THE EDITOR ** The OJM Complaint Board has brought it to our attention that this newsletter is too “New York specific”. Well, there’s a case to be made that OJM HQ is in fact located in New York…HOWEVER, given our wide range of correspondents throughout the world, if there is information that you would like to see in BHIF (ridiculous black and white cookie price fluctuations, local shidduchs, relevant sports news/scandals) send it our way and our secretary will either promptly ignore it, or if you’re lucky… slot it right in.
→ Obit of the Week:
Say what you want about Israeli intelligence, but no one can deny the Mossad agency's post-World War-brass balls (and patience) when it came to nabbing Nazis in agrarian, Spanish speaking towns thousands of miles from the Middle East. Zvi Zamir, who died on Jan 2nd at the age of 98 (two years too soon), was the director of Israel’s Mossad spy agency. Zamir worked tirelessly to crush anyone associated with the Munich attacks. Perhaps more importantly, Zamir, in 1973, was one of a few members to heed the call of Egyptian subterfuge (the Israelis had a semi-reliable mole) to warn Golda Meir about the impending Yom Kippur attack.
Zamir, portrayed in Spielberg’s adaptation of the events, famously said of Spielberg’s interpretation: “The ‘sages’ behind the film do not explain the blow, the shock that Munich delivered to all our conceptions,” he said. “Those things were pushed out of the film in order to make room for operational depictions based on the director’s fertile imagination.”
Click here to read Richard Sandomir’s full obit.
→ Ask the (Eastern Standard Time) Rabbi:
Fri Jan 19
4:57pm: Shabbos Begins
8:44pm: Double Mitzvah Time
Sat Jan 20
2:11pm: Post Lunch Double Mitzvah Round 2 (lucky her!)
5:42pm: Shabbat ends
→ Market Roundup:
S&P 500: $4780.94 (up .70 from $4780.24 for the week)
Beef Brisket (average cost in the US): $6.76 ($4.98 at Sam’s Club) (no change)
NIS/USD: 3.74 (down from 3.75)
Gas: $3.09 (up from $3.08)
Zabar’s Bagel: $1.75 (no change)
Gold: $2030.68 (down from $2038.00)
Uranium (insert chart): $106 (up big recently)
→ OJM Shidduch Spotlight: Meet Ayala. A local New York broad with an overpriced college degree and a decent job.
Here’s what Ayala had to say about herself:
Gentlemen and schmendricks-- I'm cutting right to it. I need a match like a Jew needs a trustworthy gastroenterologist. I'm 37 BUT as a 5'7 blonde haired blue eyed Jewess, I think my exceptional shiksappeal counts for something, no? If you agree, here's a little about me:
Ashkenazi Jew, New York. I have a Master's degree from Columbia which I use by telling people I went to Columbia. I work in television so I have the best Aetna coverage a union can buy. I like putzing around the city, sitting down, and laughing at my own jokes. I'm generally happy except for when I'm a little depressed. A recent milestone in my life is that I switched to sesame bagels after a decade of exclusively everythings--I really am capable of change. I'm looking for a chivalrous, smart man with a reasonable amount of generational trauma (I need someone funny) to enjoy life with. If we're not making one another's lives better, what are we doing?
Contact: @aywitnessnews
→ Sports: Things just got a lot worse for the Knicks. James Dolan, the authoritarian owner of the New York Knicks has been accused of “pressuring women to sleep with him.” Sounds like Jimmy can identify with the famous business adage: “it’s easy to screw 'em, the hard part is getting ‘em into bed.” If Dolan is forced to sell the Knicks it might make sense for an OJM like Steve Cohen, the owner of the Mets, to take over the team. Steve’s got the cash, the experience, and the commute couldn't be better. To read more about Dolan’s schmuckery click here.
→ News Item of the Week #1: For those gleeful shoppers reaping the benefits of bulk almonds with their mistress’s-dead-uncle’s-Costco-Card (conveniently stuck on auto-renew), they’re not gonna like this news item. Costco finance chief Richard Galanti told CNN that “more people have been sharing memberships since the pandemic in 2020. Costco is testing the scanners at a handful of stores to see if they help. The scanners also mean employees don’t need to ask customers for their membership cards at cash registers and self-checkout.” That’s right, Costco is cracking down on card sharing. It’s time to pony up if you want those cheap, thick Kirkland socks. The OJM offices are in for a rude awakening that could cost as much as $60 bucks a year. Gevalt.
→ News Item of the Week #2: What exactly qualifies as a skin tag? Is an internal hemorrhoid a skin tag? What if it's on the outside? What about the cyst that popped up (and continues to expand) the same day you met your girlfriend exactly two years ago? A freckle is not a skin tag, but is the mysterious sperm-shaped growth on your left eyelid that’s expanding thirty times faster than your retirement portfolio? Just so we’re clear, the 120 pound nag that follows you around everywhere and wants those curtains hung up tout de suite is NOT a skin tag…even if she feels like one. More on the tags here.
→ Classifieds: Need more customers? Need a shidduch? We don’t care what it is! Reach over 6000 subscribers (a few even open the emails!). Email info@oldjewishmen.net.
→ Future OJM Bargain of the Week: Screw paying retail for a Starbucks coffee. Buy local or grind at home. However, for pragmatic, gainfully employed, future Old Jewish Men, the BOGO Weekend special appears to be decent value, even if the name is nothing short of repellent. How does BOGO work? Well, you have to download an app and all that crap, and then from 12-6pm on January 20 and 21, you can buy a handcrafted drink and get one of equal or lesser value free ($10 max value). Unfortunately this excludes delivery, so you will have to step foot in one of these miserable places. Have fun!
→ Value Getaway: It’s not exactly a getaway, but LaGuardia Airport is working hard to give travelers a better place to kill time. That’s right…a new Chase Sapphire Lounge opened on January 16 in Terminal B next to the AMEX lounge. Can you believe it? Oof, life is futile. Anyways, another lounge will be opening on the 23rd in JFK in Terminal 4. We’ll head over there one of these days to review the seat cushions.
The benefits: like most lounges, there is free food and drinks, including the “Sapphire Signature Cocktail”, but this lounge includes free Face Haus facials and (for a limited time) a free luggage tag for Sapphire Reserve cardholders— just what we need, another tag…
→ Complaint of the Week ( submission from Mark Zobernof, 73, New Jersey): Online shopping is for morons who want their packages stolen. Unless you have a doorman you will lose packages. And good luck filing a complaint about it. The hours of emailing and paperwork to get a refund? Forget it. Screw them. Sometimes your package says delivered because it WAS delivered – the problem? It was delivered, photographed and THEN stolen five minutes later from inside, or if the drivers a REAL jackass, it was lifted from the outside door. Also, you can’t account for the stupidity of drivers who photograph the delivered package in a public place. How about not delivering the package if it’s gonna get jacked five minutes later? Better yet, stop ordering things online! Go in person.
→ Joke of the Week: “The guy who invented the first was an idiot. The guy who invented the other three, he was a genius.” - Sid Caesar
@Jewdicious with a great article today about Feb. 1, 1948. Courtesy of @DUSTANDSTARS! https://jewdicious.substack.com/p/survival-of-the-storytellers