January 18, 2013

It’s been a hectic week for Lena Dunham, the writer, director and star of the HBO hit “Girls.” On Sunday night, the show’s second season premiered to critical acclaim while Dunham claimed two Golden Globes, one for best comedy and one for acting. The triumph was nearly overshadowed by Howard Stern’s calling Dunham a “little fat chick” on the air last week. But the two appear to have patched things up: Stern apologized, and Dunham called into the show Wednesday to seal the deal. “I’m not that fat, Howard,” she said. “I’m not super thin, but I’m thin for, like, Detroit.”

According to the readers of Playboy, a Ukrainian-Jewish emigree is the sexiest politician in Germany. Marina Weisband, 25, the leader of Germany’s Pirate Party until April, took 29 percent of the vote in an online poll of 1,000 readers. Weisband, who left Ukraine in 1994 as part of a wave of emigration from the former Soviet Union, joined the party promoting Internet freedom in 2009 and reportedly took on anti-Semitism among some party members. She edged Sahra Wagenknecht of the Left Party by a single percentage point. Angela Merkel, Germany’s 58-year-old chancellor, was back in the pack with 3 percent.

Thanks to Dutch linguist Marc van Oostendorp, the world now knows that teenagers in the Netherlands have taken to using the word “Jew” to mean “cool” or “awesome.” In a blog post this week, Van Oostendorp wrote that he had heard the Dutch word for Jew, “jood,” used that way at a high school in Leiden. He notes that Dutch already has a word to express teenage enthusiasm but it tends to evoke parental suspicion. “The word ‘Jew’ is apparently suitable in that regard,” van Oostendorp wrote.

In an effort to improve their pigskin prowess, the Chicago Bears have hired the only Jewish head coach in the NFL. Marc Trestman, 57, a longtime assistant and the current coach of the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League, was named this week to his first NFL head coaching spot. The Bears have been a disappointment of late, failing to make the playoffs in five of the last six years, and Trestman reportedly beat out at least 12 other candidates for the job. He will be the 14th coach in the club’s history.

It took more than two years for the world to notice, and then another week before there was general outrage, but Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has finally caught flak for comments he made in 2010 calling Zionists “bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs.” The comments were published in early January by the Middle East Media and Research Institute and reported by The New York Times a full 10 days later. The White House has condemned Morsi, and he was challenged directly this week by a visiting congressional delegation. A Morsi spokesman said the comments were taken out of context.

Help us tell the Jewish story with reporting from around the world. Please donate to JTA.

Click to write a letter to the editor.

This article was made possible by the support of readers like you. Donate to JTA now.