IT WOULD BE FUNNY IF IT WEREN'T SO SAD

South Florida has a paper called ENTERTAINMENT NEWS AND VIEWS. The sub heading is that they are “dedicated to the good life.” Inside this paper are all the usual ads for movies, restaurants, plays, performances, etc. But it was the cover story of the September 2006 issue (vol 26 no. 8) that really caught our eye.

Oh, the unconscious irony of it all! But, dear reader, you will have to read on to see what set us off………..

The large headline reads: “Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center Welcomes Special High Holidays Guests”

Written by Dr. Amir Baron, the Exec VP of the shul, the piece is clearly a puff piece (oops, we meant to say PR piece) meant to show off what is clearly a shul with money and a sense of self importance.

We have no problem with sending puff pieces to the newspaper. Shuls do it all the time. This piece came with a photo of the rabbi holding a Torah scroll in front of the open ark and another photo of the Cantor in full cantorial mufti. Down below were photos of this year’s special guests Alon Pinkas and Dennis prager. Along side of that was a photo of the former president of the shul and his entire family (you know, the kind that people send at “that” time of year in a greeting card).

The article mentions that Bill Clinton spoke at the shul as well as seven other bold face names.

There are two kinds of shuls in this world: the haves and the have nots. This one is clearly a have.

Now there is nothing wrong about any of this except for one thing. The entertainment newspaper??? Not the religion section. Not the living section. Not the family section. Nope. They went for the entertainment section.

We wonder, did they realize the subtle under context of that placement? We know two people who actually go to that shul. They refer to it as the big show. Hmmm, maybe they were right. As we said before, if it weren’t so sad, it would be funny.