JTA’s Marcy Oster, who is stationed in Jerusalem, occasionally sends in some tidbits from Israel that aren’t exactly news but are interesting nonetheless. We at N&S, never one to look a gift horse in the mouth (what exactly does that mean, who gets a gift horse and why would you look him in the mouth?), are happy to turn this week’s column to Ms. Oster’s fine reporting and writing. As noted, Oster credits other news outlets in Israel as the original source when appropriate. (And because  we at N&S can’t help ourselves, the parenthetical asides are our gift horse to you):

BYOP* (*popcorn)

Israeli moviegoers can soon show their own Junior Mints rather than sneak them into the theater like their American counterparts.

The Knesset Finance Committee approved an amendment recently to the Consumer Protection Law that allow Israelis to bring their own snacks to the movies. Under the amendment, which Ynet reports is being called the Popcorn Law, movie theaters that sell food and drink cannot limit customers to buying only what they sell. It also limits the price of movie concessions.

The committee passed the amendment unanimously, and it is expected to sail through the full Knesset and go into effect in January. (Like this would ever have a chance of passing muster [or ketchup or Junior Mints or any other snack food] at theaters in the U.S.)

Bill would bar baring it all

A Haredi Orthodox Shas lawmaker wants to make it illegal to bare it all, especially for art’s sake.

Nissim Zeev tried and failed late last year to prevent American artist Spencer Tunick’s nude photo shoot at the Dead Sea, where more than 1,000 Israelis modeled nude for the installation initiated in Israel to draw attention to the environmental plight of the Dead Sea. The volunteers modeled in the sea, on the shore and covered in Dead Sea mud.

Now Zeev has submitted a bill that would send to jail for at least one year anyone who gets naked for artistic or commercial purposes.

“The determination that pornographic expression (including public nudity for art or advertising) is protected by freedom of expression and is an expression of human creation in the modern era and promotes public discourse is contrary to the basic principle mentioned in the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights,” the explanatory notes to the bill said, specifically a violation of the religious sentiments of religious Jewish, Muslim and Christian citizens.

Tunick said at the time of the photo shoot that “Israel is not a theocracy, it is a democracy and the only place in the Middle East that I could create this art. Thanks to the participants’ efforts, the world has a new image of Israel as an open and vibrant democracy.”

A honeymoon in the dump(s)

A newly married Israeli couple spent the day after their wedding combing a local garbage dump for checks, cash and cards.

The couple accidentally left a bag full of paper wedding gifts behind in a hotel room the morning after their wedding night. Realizing their mistake they contacted the hotel, which said the room had already been cleaned and the plastic bag was gone, Yediot Achronot reported.

The couple and a group of hotel workers spent the entire day searching the city dump for the bag — in vain.

The amount of money in checks and cash contained in the bag reportedly was “generous.”

Dump employees pledged to continue searching for the bag of gifts (but never said whether they would actually give them back if they find them).

No more marijuana high

Israeli scientists have developed a strain of marijuana that does not make you high.

The cannabis, which already is in use by people who are undergoing medical marijuana treatment, was developed by Hebrew University’s department of immunology and grown in the medical cannabis company Tikun Olam.

The new marijuana strain also does not give users the munchies, according to Ynet.

Meanwhile, police in the largely Haredi Orthodox populated city of Elad arrested a yeshiva student and his wife for growing 210 potted marijuana plants in one of their children’s bedrooms, Ynet reported.

The wife told police she tried to break her husband of his habit, and even brought a rabbit into the house to eat the plants. The rabbit did manage to destroy some of the plants. (No word yet if eating the plants also cured the rabbit of its munchies.)