Gefilte Fish

Gefilte Fish.
There's something very appalling in this culinary abnormality. a few shapeless fishcakes, resting in a pile of slimy jello, must be an invention of someone polish (or at least had a polish great-grandma on his mom's side).
Somehow, my beloved husband, who is not Polish nor Jewish, found out that he actually likes this thing. It reminds him of Canada. hmm. i wonder. I happened to be in one or two surf-N-turfs, led by genuine canadians, and there was NOTHING there that even remotely resembled this wobbly goo.
what shall i do now?!?

to understand the idea behind the gefilte, you must know something about jewish laws, and something about the jewish mind. it seems like for every law out there, the jewish mind found a bypass. here are a few examples.
starting with the gefilte, according to wikipedia, and i quote -

According to the traditions of Judaism, one reason that has been given for the eating of gefilte fish on Shabbat is to avoid the picking of bones when eating the fully prepared fish balls, thus avoiding borer ("selection/choosing"), one of the 39 categories of activity prohibited on Shabbat derived from the Torah as outlined in the Mishnah. Were fishbones to be present they would pose the problem of doing Borer.

so eat fish, not bones.

moving on.

pork.
it's a well known fact, that jews don't eat pork. well, that's somewhat incorrect. jews eat pork, KOSHER jews don't. it's against the jewish law to eat pork, and ridiculously, it's against the state law to grow pork on israeli land. why? well, a few years ago, an ultra religious party was a minority in the government, but someone needed their vote for passing some military related legislation, so in return they got to pass this no-pigs-on-holy-land legislation.
what does the jewish brain do?
bypass the law. we can't have a pig farm on the land of israel? we will have it ABOVE the land. there's nothing against that! (wish i could find a picture that demonstrates that... maybe it's an urban legend ?!?)


sabbatical.
just like men have the obligation (!!!) to rest one day every seven days, the land does too. so every seventh year is declared as "shnat shmita", or a sabbatical year. during "shnat shmita", it is forbidden to eat any fruit, vegetable, or plant product that grew on the holy soil.
and again, come the jewish farmers (who are probably not religious, only rely on religious people for their livelihood - they still control a large enough portion of the economy, with no correlation to their ratio in the population).
i recently read on ynet, that some farmers will grow their produce on special composite, made of coco-nut skins that are imported from Sri-Lanka, separated from the ground with a plastic sheet. genius. and it's even better for the environment, since the pesticides don't leak to the underground reservoirs.


there are many other examples of jewish inventions that go around the rules, but don't follow its spirit: like Shabbat elevators (that stop on every floor, so that you don't have to push a button and disobey the tora), kosher toilet paper, shabbat powder makeup, wigs, and kosher cellphones. and of course the ultimate exemption of being lawful to your wife as long as you cheat in another city.
but enough with that. i need to keep my strength for seder stories.


for dessert, here's a picture i particularly like -- this one is for you, Matt!

(and for those of you who need further explanations as to why this is funny, read here and then here about jesus fish in wikipedia.

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late addition, i jsut read this article, Yair Lapid explains his views of Jewdism in a most enlightened way. i agree with most of what he says.