...AND, WHAT'S NEW WITH YOU?

1. The ad that popped up on one of the digital newspapers I read daily. It offered a link to (drums roll): "Compare statistics for all hot dog eating contests." Do people do that -- not the hot dog volume eating but the comparative stats? Is there, like, the hot dog equivalent of ERA or WAR? I didn't go there. But I have learned that there is, in fact, a Professional League of Eating Contests -- I am not making this up.

2. And, is Hummus that popular? A few weeks ago JTA reported "Thief tries to steal half a ton of chickpeas from kibbutz in southern Israel. After police discovered found an abandoned car "loaded with chickpeas," they arrested a 30 year-old Bedouin man. Now I too love hummus as much as the next guy -- and in Chicago we have had an outbreak of high end restaurants focused on Israeli cuisine that may soon exceed our Chicago hot dog joints (well, not really, we have over 1500 hot dog stores here -- all selling the same thing) -- but is there a market for contraband chickpeas? Guess one Bedouin man thinks/thought so.

3. On a federation-related note -- the collapse of the East Bay Federation reached its climax in May with, as ejewishphilanthropy reported, the decision "East Bay Federation to Close, S.F. Federation to Take Over." I hope that the leaders, lay and professional, in both communities can figure out how one struggling federation can affirmatively absorb a failed federation and a community of strength can emerge. While such an aggregation rarely if ever works in the for-profit sector let alone in the complex Jewish organizational world, both of these communities have great, engaged business persons who can make this work if they give the time and leadership. A very...big...IF.

Rwexler