Category Archives: holiday

Happy Good Friday

For Catholics around the world Ash Wednesday kicked off the Easter Season. Forty days of abstinence from a favorite pleasure was a token of sacrifice for the crucified Messiah. On Palm Sunday the faithful brandished palm fronds to celebrate the Son of God entering Jerusalem. Each and every Good Friday of my childhood the priests […]

Dinner For Thirteen

The Synoptic Gospels recount Jesus Christ’s Palm Sunday entry into Jerusalem on a donkey. Seven days later the preacher had been betrayed by Judas, arrested by the authorities, tried by the Romans, crucified on the order of Pontius Pilate, buried in a cave, and rose from a deathlike coma a week later. Over the centuries […]

Why Men Come To Pattaya – 2012

I received this email from my friend Paul Brissman When girls don’t put out!! This was written by a guy … it’s pretty damn smart. Girls — Please have a sense of humor! I never quite figured out why the sexual urge of men and women differ so much. And I never have figured out […]

THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL OF PASSAICH by Peter Nolan Smith

When Cecil B. DeMille released THE TEN COMMANDMENTS in 1956 and it was an immediate box office success, earning the cinematic retelling of Exodus over $180 million dollars. In 1962 Paramount Pictures re-released the film for screenings at drive-ins across the nation and my father loaded my five brothers and sisters into our Ford station […]

Happy Purim

Five years ago I wandered through West 47th Street looking for a job. No one was interested in hiring a goy on Purim and my Hassidic friends cajoled me into having a drink with them. “Whiskey is kosher.” They poured a good measure of Scotch into a glass. “Shalom.” I clinked glass with the religious […]