No joke. Heeb magazine’s humor editor David Deutsch takes on Brandeis professor Jonathan Sarna in an op-ed in this week’s Forward.
And Deutsch seriously hold his own, taking on Sarna’s recent assertion that Heeb is part of a secularist movement.
Heeb’s editors represent a broad spectrum of Jewish thought. Some of us are shomer Shabbat, some are post-Orthodox, some are irreligious, some may be antireligious and most are some combination of all of the above. Individually, we have our own ideas about Judaism and what we’d like expressed in the magazine, but collectively, when we put an issue together, I can honestly say that the impact it has on the religious life of the Jewish people is not at all a concern of ours.
That may sound like secularism, but let’s place it in a larger historical context. When the Workmen’s Circle held a party on Yom Kippur, they were making a statement. When Heeb throws a party, it’s just a party. If there are people out there who confuse Heeb for Judaism, that’s kind of pathetic — though, as a quarterly, it does require twice as much devotion as going to temple two times a year.
shomer
Pronounced: sho-MARE, Origin: Hebrew, a guard, usually referring to someone who sits with a dead body before the funeral.
