Jews in the News: Nobel #3

Looks like Economy laureate Richard Thaler is Jewish as well! Not a bad haul this year: 3 Nobels, 4 Jews...

Jews in the News: Nobel #2

Rainer Weiss, whose family fled Nazi Germany, and Barry Barish won for Physics, sharing with goy Kip Thorne.

(edited to fix Barish: Jew!)

Jews in the News: Nobel #1

It's Nobel week, and there is a Jew among the Medicine laureates: Michael Rosbash, who won alongside goyim Jeffrey Hall and Michael Young.

Jews in the News: Another Nobel

Looks like we missed one: Economics laureate Oliver Hart, despite a rather goyishe name, is a British-born Jew. So, 3 this year. Not bad...

Jews in the News: Literature Nobel

Bob Dylan wins a Nobel?

Bob Dylan wins a Nobel!

Jews in the News: Finally, a Jewish Nobel!

Has it really been three years? Jews usually clean up at scientific Nobels, but last year, we were shutout, and the year before, the sole winner was in Literature, Patrick Modiano.

Today, Scottish-born Jew J. Michael Kosterlitz won in Physics, sharing it with goyim David J. Thouless and F. Duncan M. Haldane.

Jews in the News: A Nobel in Literature

After being uncharacteristically shutout of the year's first three Nobels, we got one on our scorecard for literature. France's Patrick Modiano is a son of a French-born Jew of Italian origin.

Jews in the News: Ausmus Gets His Aliyah on the Major League Bima

It was announced over the weekend that the Detroit Tigers, former home of Hank Greenberg, decided to up their JQ and hire former bat-less wonder Brad Ausmus as their new manager.

And what were Ausmus qualifications to be the new Tiger top man?

Well....he, ummm, played baseball. And he managed the Israeli National Baseball team for a few months. And people tend to think of him as a good catcher (which, per Bill James, only proves that Ausmus could not hit).

And that's about it, actually.

Thus continues a long baseball tradition of hiring people based on a sole qualification (a professional playing career) that only reinforces the candidates lack of quantifiable qualities.

In the NFL, the currently most respected head coach is Bill Belichick. He never played professionally. The head coach of the (at this writing) undefeated NFL Chiefs is Andy Reid. He never played in the NFL, either.

In the NBA, the two managers from last year's finals were Erik Spoelstra and Greg Popovich. Number of professional basketball games between them? Zero.

And while there are certainly plenty of former pros managing teams (the Super Harbaugh Bros, recent Stanley Cup winning coach Joel Quenneville, zen master Phil Jackson) all of them spent time in the ranks as either assistants or college coaches (or both) before being brought up to manage the major league club.

In MLB? Nah. That guy's got grit.

So are we happy that a Jewish guy (and a proud one at that) got hired to manage the Tigers? Sure.

But as baseball fans, honestly, we'd rather they'd have picked another goy who actually might be able to do the job competently (unlike, say, Robin Ventura, Ron Washington, Joe Girardi, Dusty Baker...)

Jews in the News: One Nobel, THREE Jews

Wow. This one will be hard to top. The Chemistry Nobel is out today, and all three winners are Jewish: Israeli Arieh Warshel, Austrian / American Martin Karplus, and South African / British / Israeli Michael Levitt.

Jews in the News: Another Nobel, another Jew

The Physics Nobel is announced... once again, a Jew gets it, Belgium's Francois Englert, shared with England's Peter Higgs. Englert is a Holocaust survivor and "has had close research ties with Tel Aviv University".

Jews In the News: The Historical Accuracy of Shiksappeal

[I was gonna put a pic here of a clearly goyishe woman but—wow—holy NSFW, Internet]

From the old grey mamaleh comes a story about the origins of Ashkenazic Jews. Long thought to be emigres from the near east, new data suggests that this group was actually probably descended directly from the Jews in the Roman Empire.

Now here's the fun part: The genetic record suggests these Jews were single men (who probably came to Eastern Europe to trade) and settled down there, marrying the local women and then converting them to Judaism. 

Three thoughts:

1. Shiksappeal for the win!

2. Big boost for that whole Judaism is a race, not just a religion.

3. Ummmm, doesn't that screw up CENTURIES of arguments (ones we've railed against) that the mother is the only determinant of a child's Judaism at birth? 

This one is especially tasty considering it suggests that the people who have been the most vehement defenders of matrilineal inheritance would not actually be Jewish themselves by the same law.

Anyway, good article. Highly recommend.

Jews in the News: One Nobel, two Jews

It's Nobel time, which means... Jews! Americans James Rothman and Randy Schekman shared the Medicine Nobel with a goyishe German, Thomas Sudhof.

Jews in the News: Cochran wins Survivor

We're a little late on this one, but we really had no idea until reading Nate Bloom's always-informative column. Turns out last season's Survivor winner, the uber-nerdy John Cochran, is (half) Jewish. Hooray!

Super Bowl Sunday: The Jewish Choice

As of Sunday, the Super Bowl teams are set, leaving us with just one question before the big game: Who to root for?

Obviously, if you're a Ravens or 49ers fan, the choice has been made for you. But what about the rest of us? Who should we as Jews put our significant psychological strength behind? Well don't worry, your football friends at JONJ have you well shmeared.

Let's break it down:

Category	Ravens	Niners	Verdict
Jew-iest City	Baltimore, with 95,000 Jews, is tied with Montreal for the 20th-most Jewish city in the world. Not bad.	San Francisco? 13th. 210,000 resident Hebrews—more than some cities in Israel.	Niners in a landslide.
Players	Their starting LB was Jewish for a weekend, once.	Nothing, nada, zip, zipperoonio.	Look, if you’re rooting for teams based on the number of Jewish players you’ve got bigger issues.
Owner	Art Modell, now deceased, was Jewish. He was also a despicable slime bag, unable to even fly over the state of Ohio	At least the Ravens have a Jewish, despicable, slime bag.	Ravens
Signature Food	Crab. Not Kosher	Rice-a…Just kidding. Probably sourdough bread. Either that or Dim Sum.	If you think it’s sourdough, SF wins by a little, just because at least a good Jew can eat it. If you think it’s Dim Sum, SF wins by a lot.
Celebrity Fan	Michael Phelps, Not a Jew	Robin Williams, Not a Jew	Push. Basically at this point we just thank Hashem Atlanta didn’t win because then we’d be stuck with, ugh, Justin Bieber.
Bias	The last time the Ravens made the Super Bowl, they crushed my beloved Giants, starting a tailspin year where my Devils AND my Yankees also lost in their respective league finals. My totally objective opinion on the Ravens franchise? They can go fuck themselves.	Waaaaaay back on 12/3, I predicted SF to win the Super Bowl in this very blog. And if you don’t think I wrote this whole post just to point that out, you don’t know me all that well.	You’re kidding, right?

So there ya have it. We've determined that if you're Jewish, you should be rooting for the San Francisco 49ers to win the Super Bowl. And we did it in a totally rational, scientific way.

So let's go Niners! Once you have the Jews on your side, you can't lose! (now that we think about this maybe we should have pushed for the Ravens....)

Jews in the News: A Jewish NFL coach

The Chicago Bears have the first Jewish NFL coach since... well, who was the last one? Marv Levy for the Bills?

The Bears hired Marc Trestman, last with Montreal of the CFL.

Jews in the News: RIP Jack Klugman

The actor, best known for "The Odd Couple", passed away today. He was 90.

Jews in the News: Aaron Liberman

ESPN has a nice article about Northwestern's basketball center Aaron Liberman, who's planning to wear a yarmulke on the court.

Jews in the News: Nobel #3

Economist Alvin Roth makes it three Nobels for Jews, as he shares the Economics Prize with fellow American Lloyd Shapley.

Jews in the News: Nobel #2

American Jew Robert Lefkowitz shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Brian Kobilka.

Jews in the News: Nobel #1

Serge Haroche, a Moroccan/French Jew, shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with American David Wineland.