Monday, 19 June, 2006
Lindsay Lohan is Not Jewish
Lindsay Lohan bugs me. I don't care if she drinks underage, does drugs, or screws every guy she meets. That stuff is par for the course. What does bug me is that she thinks turning a five-thousand-year-old religion into her latest fashion trend is a cool thing to do.
No, I'm not talking about Lindsay's hideous leggings/bike shorts. I'm talking about her necklace, which bears the Hebrew word "Chai," meaning "life" (the "Ch" is pronounced as in German or Scottish, a throat clearing noise, not as the "ch" in "chair"). The "Chai" is a traditional Jewish good luck charm, and wearing one is the equivalent of wearing a Cross.
I'm not religious, nor am I practicing, but I am Jewish, and I reserve the right to be offended. But the point is not that I'm offended. The point is it's offensive. Co-opting traditional Jewish iconography into your wardrobe, simply because it's a trendy thing to do, is really disrespectful, and just because Madonna is trying to recruit you into her little cult, does not make wearing it cool.
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oh god, that's soo lame!! why does that bug you?! I'm juwish too, and I just think it's great for Lindsay to wear it. I don't think her intention was to let everybody think she is a jewish, she just liked the neckless and what it stands for. why is that sush a fuss??
Posted by: hannah at June 19, 2006 04:21 AM
Get off your high-holy days horse and leave Lohan alone. Slebs have been using christian iconography for years as fashion accessories. Chai is a Hebrew word (I'm guessing you only know a handful more Hebrew words than Lohan does) with no specific religious connotations. Wearing a chai is NOT the equivalent of wearing a cross. The crucifix is a reminder of the Christian messiah's fatal sacrifice. Through the suffering and death of Christ, Christian's believe they are redeemed. Chai means life. It's the very opposite of a crucifix. If you spent more time involving yourself in your religion and less time looking for ways to be offended, you would be more at peace with yourself. Chai is life. Start living, stop hating. L'chaim.
Posted by: Judah the Prince at June 19, 2006 04:40 AM
Is 12 years of Jewish education enough for you? The Chai is the equivalent to the Cross in that it represents Judaism, in the same way that Star of David does.
Posted by: Egotastic! at June 19, 2006 05:06 AM
why can't Lindsay be jewish? if you can be one, she certainly has the rights to be one too. so stop slamming her.
Posted by: Jermanie at June 19, 2006 05:35 AM
Non-Christians wear crosses all the time. Get over yourself.
Posted by: turn left where? at June 19, 2006 05:48 AM
Lindsay,
If you are reading these comments (although you maybe are not) PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE STOP DOING THE WHOLE KATE MOSS THING WITH THE POSES AND STUFF, YOU ARE LINDSAY SHE IS KATE.
BE YOURSELF, THAT IS ALOUD
Posted by: sally at June 19, 2006 07:31 AM
what a goya!! i don't like her hahaha I think egotasMic has a point. i think it's absurd when celebs like paris and LL "try out" religions like it's a trend. religion is serious and sacred! should stay that way. of course if lindsay actually stays with kabblalah and practices it, good for her. but i have my doubts...
Posted by: psh! at June 19, 2006 07:32 AM
just a correction: 'chai' does not mean life, it means 'alive'. life is chaim, like in 'lehaim!' which is like cheers but it means 'to life!'.
and lindsay is an asshole.
Posted by: eehhh.. at June 19, 2006 08:09 AM
I thought the symbol of the Jews was the dollar sign?
Posted by: Moon at June 19, 2006 08:20 AM
i'd rather give her a pearl necklace to wear
Posted by: josh at June 19, 2006 08:25 AM
Lindsay knows to be big in Hollywood you have to be a jew.
Hollywood is controlled by jews.
Posted by: Moon at June 19, 2006 08:32 AM
she's offended me before too when it comes to religion. se was brought up a catholic, and should know not to wear a rosary around her neck, yet she has. she and madonna are beyond idiotic and need to relax with using religion as fashion, it's not cool.
Posted by: Nicole at June 19, 2006 10:20 AM
i agree with nicole. the point here is not that she's wearing a Hebrew word around her neck, it's that she's making a statement: i'm trying out a new religion, aren't i so deep? it's like when celebrities attach themselves to humanitarian aid efforts, yet do very little of the work themselves. they're just trying to make statements, because they all think that what they're doing with their lives isn't "worthwhile" enough. i think what they're doing is fine. sure, your paychecks are ridiculously high for the amount of work you're doing, but you don't need to go around making ridiculous statements like this to "make up for it". just act in the damn movies and shut the hell up.
Posted by: dirtdessert at June 19, 2006 10:50 AM
As a fellow tribe member I don't want the like of Brit-tits, Madgeina, Ho han or any of the other talentless sluts using our symbols for their crappy styles.
Posted by: Flori at June 19, 2006 10:57 AM
If it makes you feel better at all, she still has cankles. She's lost weight, but she will always have cankles. No amount of Chai will help her there.
Posted by: Lola at June 19, 2006 11:13 AM
Amazing !! To be offended by that !?! What are you talking about ?
This community thing is really turning people upside down. What the hell you care about her wearing that ?? If she had had a cross, you wouldn't have say anything.
Ok, Lindsay is kind of stupid, but this post is a little bit stupid too !!!
What is so offendent ??? It's a good advertising and PR for Jewish, no ???? (well, it would have been better with somebody smarter... you're wright)
Posted by: Jay at June 19, 2006 11:26 AM
Posted by: JJ at June 19, 2006 11:26 AM
if its the equivalent to wearing a cross, then wouldn't it be offensive to catholics for all the people who wear crosses and aren't practising catholics? if she wants to wear it then let her wear it there's no law against it. and it looks like the symbol for 'Pi' to me.....
Posted by: corey at June 19, 2006 11:47 AM
I really thought all those goth chicks wearing Ankhs were egyptians...
Posted by: whatever at June 19, 2006 11:57 AM
What about the fact that she's wearing something that looks a lot like homemade "Friendship Bracelets" on her wrist? Those were popular back in 1983.
Also, what about the hole in her lovely spandex pants...looks like she needs to go back to Wal-Mart and get another pair of shorts!
Posted by: Kbaby at June 19, 2006 12:37 PM
not sure why this is such a big deal...she probably doesn't even know what it means and thought it looked cool.
besides, the west has been appropriating elements of eastern cultures and religions, like buddhism and hinduism, for decades now. i'm surprised it took judaism this long to become cool!
Posted by: tre at June 19, 2006 01:40 PM
Just to clarify - wearing a CROSS is not a strictly catholic thing, it is a Christian thing. Wearing a CRUCIFIX is a Catholic thing. And it shouldn't just be worn as an accessory by non-catholics, or catholics, because it is a sacred thing. Personally I think it's so lame & try hard to wear a religious symbol of a religion you are not. Not only may it insult people but it makes you look totally lost. I'd feel like a tool.
Posted by: Linds at June 19, 2006 02:14 PM
Hmmm....The writer is objecting to Lindsey Lohan wearing the symbol, explaining that it's like a "christian wearing a cross". Yet in the entry below it, Denise Richards is pictured wearing a cross around her neck and a cross on a bracelet, with no objections. I find this curious.
Posted by: just curious at June 19, 2006 02:50 PM
Maybe it's a present from a Jewish friend of hers, who knows?
Posted by: Olive at June 19, 2006 03:03 PM
Well if it stands for good luck then I would wear it to and I am not jewish, but in this day and age, I need all the luck I can get and I will take it from whereever. You should be happy that she is drawing attention to your religion and maybe more of her fans would read up on it and may decide that is the religion for them. And from the post, you can't be to much of a Jew when you don't even know what right word is. And how would your religion feel about the filth you print on here? So before you cast stones maybe you need to look in the mirror.
Posted by: PleaseThink at June 19, 2006 03:09 PM
Cankles?!?!?!?!!? Hardly. Fake tits, yes, cankles, no.
Posted by: Fabiola at June 19, 2006 03:55 PM
Jermaine asks "Why can't Lindsay be Jewish?" Well, she wasn't born a Jew nor has she converted so she isn't Jewish. Duh.
Posted by: Sookie at June 19, 2006 04:06 PM
whatever the reason she's wearing it, she makes me sick and needs the crap beat out of her. Once, just once, so she knows how really insignificant she is...
Posted by: conrad at June 19, 2006 04:22 PM
Pleasethink is an idiot. As a Jew, I laugh at all goyim who think our religion is like theirs and we want good PR so we can convert more people. Jews don't care about getting people to join our religion. We aren't crazy ass Pat Robertson evangelists. Lindsay Lohan doesn't deserve to wear that necklace. It is a sign of Jewish identity and she is not one of the tribe. Thats all there is to it.
Posted by: Chava at June 19, 2006 04:55 PM
Uhhh! She anoys me too.. I don't like people trying to turn our religion into a trend. It's sacret to us and the whole kabbalah thing totally got out of hand too.. It's not made for teenange sluts to walk around "cause it's so cool"... typical shiksah...
Posted by: Ilanit at June 19, 2006 05:11 PM
I find it interesting that people are using the word "shiksah" frequently in these posts and no-one has commented upon it. I find it extremely derogatory towards non-Jewish women. I don't think it would go over so well if this post was filled with references to the "k-word" (I won't even write it because I don't believe in using language like that).
Posted by: WatchYour Mouth at June 19, 2006 05:49 PM
First of all, "shiksah" is not really a derogatory term like the "k" word, you dumbass. But I guess being a shiksah you wouldn't know that! Secondly, let the dumbass look like the fool she is wearing her necklace in her efforts to emulate Madonna or whomever. I think maybe it's like in "Cruel Intentions" and she hides her powdery stuff in it...
Posted by: jewess at June 19, 2006 07:01 PM
Wow, I'm disgusted by the racist comments by Jewish people on here. As a non-Jew, I find terms like 'shiksah' and 'goyim' to be rude and offensive, regardless of what you say. Good to know ignorant, discriminatory attitudes are prevalent among Jews, too, and not just everybody else. How ironic.
Posted by: N at June 19, 2006 07:52 PM
As a non-Jew, I find terms like 'shiksah' and 'goyim' to be rude and offensive, regardless of what you say. Good to know ignorant, discriminatory attitudes are prevalent among Jews, too, and not just everybody else.
You're going to have to learn how to deal with that. Neither word is very offensive. Both are really just used to describe someone who 'isn't part of our community.' And yeah, we have a community, and a community identity. We HAVE to, in a country where anyone who isn't Christian is obviously against the USA. If you're in the majority, you can't begin to imagine what that's like.
As for the comment regarding the dollar sign as a Jewish symbol? Good lord, not only is that ignorant and stupid, but it's completely uncreative. If you're going to be an idiotic bigot, at least try to inject a little ingenuity into your injective. At least impress us.
As for Lindsay, she should re-think wearing the chai. It's a sacred symbol, and co-opting it without any serious understanding of its meaning is disrespectful. Crosses are ubiquitous to American culture; the chai belongs to a small minority, and we choose to keep it in our community. If Lindsay were to take a few years of Hebrew school and Jewish theory classes, and then had a Bat Mitzvah, I'd say she can wear the chai without impunity. But she's doing it as part of this stupid corrupt-Kabbalah thing, which really is just the dumbest thing I've ever seen.
Seriously, have a little respect for a religion that's been struggling just to stick around for the last couple years, k?
Posted by: Chava at June 19, 2006 08:52 PM
Don’t be so precious- non religious people wear crosses all the time. As if anyone is offended by that... what a joke.
Posted by: s at June 19, 2006 10:02 PM
No, Chava, I don't have to 'learn how to deal with it'. Shiksah has traditionally been a derogatory term for a non-Jewish female, period. Check a dictionary. I somehow doubt that you'd use that word in the workplace or in the company of non-Jews, like, say a female non-Jewish boss. Racism goes both ways and people like you and the others who use these terms are just as guilty of perpetuating it. Make all the excuses you want to.
Posted by: N at June 19, 2006 10:04 PM
*No, Chava, I don't have to 'learn how to deal with it'. Shiksah has traditionally been a derogatory term for a non-Jewish female, period. Check a dictionary. I somehow doubt that you'd use that word in the workplace or in the company of non-Jews, like, say a female non-Jewish boss. Racism goes both ways and people like you and the others who use these terms are just as guilty of perpetuating it. Make all the excuses you want to.*
Aha. Look man, I'm just telling you that IN THE CULTURE IN WHICH I GREW UP, "shiksa" wasn't a derogatory term necessarily. Maybe you took it as so, but eh, that's your issue. The words that many Jews use to define non-Jews are mostly Yiddish-based. They may *sound* scary, unfamilliar, and intimidating, but really, they are just remnants of a culture that (sadly) too many of us (including myself) have left behind.
When I hear words like "goy," I only think of someone who is outside my religious community. There's no negative connotation, except the idea that the subject of the sentence is not part of my religious community (and trust me, there is also a lot of idiotic prejudice *within* the Jewish community). Perhaps at one point (like, say, decades ago), it did mean something offensive, but not so much anymore. When I hear Goy or Goyim, I associate it on the same level as when I hear someone saying they're shiftzing, or tuchas, or vo den, or even zetz. Really, it's just the use of Yiddish. To an outsider (and even Jews who haven't learned much Yiddish), it can sound intimidating and alien.
Of course I wouldn't use the word goy in the workplace - no one would understand what it meant! I do not know the community in which you associate, but as a Jew in a very Jewish section of the country, I still am a minority and cannot expect people to grasp an understanding of Yiddish (and that's ok, because I'm not so educated in the ways of Christ).
If most of us (Jews) were "racist" (which doesn't even make sense, since Judaism is a religion, not a race), we would *never* fit in with modern society. There are too few of us. Most of us have tried to assimilate to American (mostly Christian) culture. We inter-marry. We stay silent in a world where we are barely tolerated. We do what we can to get by.
I'll be honest and say that Jews often, but not always, try to preserve their culture by keeping the old world alive. And that means language, too. Please understand that the Yiddish we used when we were persecuted has taken on a different meaning during modern times.
PS. Just to be fair, I'm not the "Chava" who first posted here. I'm the second.
Posted by: Chava at June 19, 2006 11:08 PM
Wow!! Amazing.
We go all out when it comes to christians and towelheads but when it comes to the jewish piece of fiction...THAT is the truth!!
Is it years of brainwashing by professional jews like Spielberg who managed to get the teaching of the Holocaust mandatory in US states (really funny since most high schoolers could name you one axis country) or is it the rabid lawyers that has go people so scared?
Im supposed to laugh at some Kansas creationist but take Shlomo seriously when he says you should cut a boys weewee off because god told him too.
THAT kind of BS deserves the scorn it gets when referring to the nitwits who cut the clits of women and not revered because a cult has managed to push their fantasies and mythologies on a pedestal.
Its amazing to someone who is part black like myself that jewish racism is considered acceptable. When a jewish chick goes home with a black boyfriend and the open hostility is only topped by the excuse that its NOT the skin color that is the problem and that JAP should be with 'one of her kind' to preserve the race. Go to a WASP house and get the same treatment and people would have no fear to call this racism.
Yo,,,, BACON is good. It is not a 'sin' to eat the stuff.
So once again, jews are as retarded as all other mental midgets who believe inthe bogeyman and feel free to laugh at any moron who tells you about Moses, Genesis and other tall tales and tell them about Winnie the Pooh, Tigger and Piglet too.
Posted by: rob at June 19, 2006 11:53 PM
Rob, what exactly is your point, other then stating that you're an idiot and a bigot. Firstly, male circumcision is much different from female genital mutilation. Male circumcision cuts off the foreskin, which lessens sensation in men, but does not take away the ability to enjoy sex. Circumcision only started turning up among non-Jews once doctors started seeing that circumcised men had lower frequencies of both STIs and UTIs. Female genital mutilation is done to remove partially or all of the clitoris in girl, so girls don’t enjoy sex and are less likely to have pre-marital sex. So your equation of the two is wrong, and you’re an idiot for doing so. As to the rest of your article, you’re still an idiot, racism is not acceptable under any circumstance, no one was defending it. They were discussing the meaning of the words. Skiksa is offensive, it’s like bitch, but with a little more contempt. Goy and goyim aren’t offensive words; they purely mean non-Jew.
Posted by: jane at June 20, 2006 12:37 AM
Alright. Thanks everybody for all the comments, but I'm gonna close them now before this really goes way off track.
I'm leaving all the comments up, even those comments which are blatantly anti-semitic, because why should I hide the fact that you're a fucking racist.
In the end, everybody is free to have their own opinion, but since this is my blog, my opinion is the only one that matters.
Posted by: Egotastic! at June 20, 2006 12:58 AM
