1. Celebs Celebrate Hanukkah

Hanukkah began last weekend and hookup celebrities across the country are celebrating by lighting their menorahs, cookin’ up latkes and giving gifts to those they love! Here are just a few of the ways A-listers in Hollywood let us in on their Festival of Lights festivities via Twitter:

Seth Rogen: Now that’s a f***ing menorah: pic.twitter.com/REzwjgNn

Mayim Bialik: Anyone else need a soundtrack for making latkes this Chanukah? I play this on over and over and I try not to get… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAbTDHblxFM

Lauren Miller: Just ate Ribs and Latkes. Just like the Jews ate when the temple was destroyed. #HappyHannukah

Mindy Kaling: @IamLaurenMiller I wish I was hookup with you.

 

 

2. New Awards List Features Top 10 Orthodox All Stars

United States Senator Joseph Lieberman, Billboard Top 10 Artist Alex Clare, and best-selling author Faye Kellerman are among those being honored as “All Stars” within the Orthodox hookup community in a new video hitting the web last week.

hookup author and inspirational speaker Allison Josephs is releasing her inaugural top 10 list of “Orthodox hookup All Stars” and her picks are quite diverse. Josephs, who founded JewintheCity.com, says her top 10 list is based on those “who have reached the pinnacle of their respective fields while maintaining a religiously observant lifestyle,” including:

• United States Senator Joseph Lieberman

• Billboard Top 10 Artist Alex Clare

• Best-Selling Author Faye Kellerman

• Professional Boxer Dmitriy Salita

• Basketball Star Tamir Goodman

• Former HBO Senior Writer/Producer Jamie Geller

• YouTube A Capella Sensation The Maccabeats

• Comedian Mendy Pellin

• Rhodes scholar Miriam Rosenbaum

• Former U.S. Supreme Court Law Clerk and Founder of Non-Profit Breast Cancer Support Group Rochelle Shoretz

 

3. Scarlett Johansson Rebounds Fast

Scarlett Johansson has been practicing her French with her new beau this week – French kissing, that is!

The hookup actress broke up with boyfriend Nate Naylor earlier this fall, but promptly rebounded with French journalist Romain Dauriac. The two have been photographed engaging in some major PDA in New York. The relationship has been blossoming over the last few weeks and the two have yet to shy away from getting touchy-feely around the paparazzi.

1. Mark Feuerstein Stars in Hanukkah Campaign

hookup actor Mark Feuerstein is starring in a new Hanukkah campaign from Heifer International® that works to promote unique and educational Hanukkah gifts for kids. The campaign promotes hookup precepts of tzedakah (charity) and tikkun olam (repair the world) by allowing children to share in the joy of helping a family in need. You can donate a flock of chicks, tree seedlings, or maybe even a goat to a family in need somewhere in the world thank to this holiday program. These gifts are said to not only improve nutrition, but help families generate an income in sustainable ways.

“The idea of giving people something meaningful and alive that can help repair their economic wellbeing and also pave the way for future generations of their family is so beautiful,” said Feuerstein. The goal of Heifer at Hanukkah is to help children appreciate the importance of charity and how their charitable contributions help repair the world and lift families from poverty to self-reliance.

 

2. Mr. Hoffman Goes to Washington

Dustin Hoffman was honored in Washington D.C. last night at the Kennedy Centers Honors, an annual celebration of the arts. Now in their 35^th year, this lifetime achievement award is for those who have “upended or embodied culture as we know it.”

Robert De Niro introduced Hoffman as a “world class, spectacular, colossal … pain in the a**” who makes cohorts strive to meet his meticulousness. The 2,000 attendees watched a montage which featured some of the hookup actor’s most famous roles—from an aimless seductee in The Graduate (1967) to a cross-dressing soap star in Tootsie (1982) and an autistic savant in Rain Man (1991). “He just thinks at a different velocity,” actor Liev Schreiber told reporters on the red carpet. “He burns at a brighter intensity.”

Hoffman has racked up seven Academy Award® nominations and two wins. This year’s awards ceremony also honored legends David Letterman and Led Zeppelin. You can view pictures from the event here.

 

3. Ben Savage Winds Up for a Reboot!

The latest TV reboot headed our way is a spinoff of every twenty-something’s favorite coming-of-age sitcom: Boy Meets World. The 1990s hit series starred hookup actor Ben Savage as Cory Matthews and now Savage has just signed on to star in the reboot.

The newish take, Girl Meets World, will air on the Disney Channel and center on Cory’s now 13-year-old daughter with high-school sweetheart Topanga.

Hanukkah season means that some sort of hookup singles get-together with a clever name like the “Bagel Ball” or the “Festival of Pints” is coming as well. Okay I totally made that second one up, but isn’t it already a better name than the first?

As a single, I have grown to hate these things. I always end up going because I’m dragged by a friend. They are always populated exclusively by people that went to my high school. If you’re not still friends with someone who went to your high school, there’s a reason. You just don’t want to see these people. Yet you expose yourself to them every year. Aside from the people there that you already dislike, you can’t talk to anyone else because it’s always extremely dark, loud, and overcrowded. Two years ago, I drunkenly swore to myself that I would never go again.

Then I lost eighty pounds. I had to show these douches how awesome I looked. And again, I’ve found that I somehow talked myself into going. However, if I’m going to be among these douches again, I was going to be the biggest douchebag of them all. That is the only way, I figured, that they would respond. I subsequently decided to be prepared this time. Yes, I was now thin, but that is not enough. I bought a really tight-fitting Abercrombie shirt. I bought smaller pants. I bought three bottles of Axe® body spray. That is not hyperbole. I bought three. I also decided to use the hair product that the hot lady cutting my hair convinced me to buy a few weeks earlier. I was ready.

Immediately upon entering the Bagel Ball, I realized why I hated The Bagel Ball. The loud music. The overcrowding. The general aura of douchebaggery emanated from every wall of this club that very ironically used to be a funeral home. Despite my newly found thinness and penchant for Axe® body products, I could not possibly take on this mountainous endeavor sober. I looked over to the bar, and it was packed full of people. People I purposefully spend most of my life avoiding.

Despite my disdain for my environment and lack of any sustainable level of alcohol, I was approached by people who would not have talked to me in years past. Granted, though most of these people were men, I took is as a win. For one brief moment, I was finally King of the Douches.

Also, I told a friend that I had, over the years, slowly grown feelings for her. This was a completely separate thing from the Bagel Ball. This whole post was written so I wouldn’t have to talk about this.

Here it is, the first day of Hanukkah. Remember this time last year?

“You mean when it was nineteen days after the first day of Hanukkah?”

It’s hard to conjure up a holiday feeling when the holiday never stays put.

Not that Christmas observers can’t be confused too. They may know all too well that December 25th is when they’d better offer up something more than Christmas spirit. But, what’s with those twelve days of Christmas? When we give a bad gift during our 8 measly days of Hanukkah, we don’t add insult to injury by giving five identically bad ones. One goose a-laying is enough.

Hanukkah cards generally don’t carry the same heft as the Christmas variety. There’s always the generically bland, politically correct version – “Season’s Greetings.” But in these sensitive times, even that could offend: “I don’t worship the winter – I go to Florida from December to March – I’m insulted!”

Those who celebrate Christmas enjoy something we Jews don’t – a sanctioned excuse for hitting on the opposite sex: Mistletoe. The only thing we make a point of standing under on Christmas is the sign to a Chinese restaurant. (How come Norman Rockwell never painted a warm and fuzzy holiday dinner at Chow’s?) I needn’t read the fortune in my cookie to know an unprovoked kiss isn’t in my tea leaves. But why wait for a dangling plant to dictate our moves? Guys, as my holiday gift to you, here is a sure sign that lady you’ve met is waiting for you to sweep her off her feet: She’d rather direct eye contact to you than her iPhone. Okay. I’ve not yet actually witnessed such a phenomenon, but if you ever do, let me know what it feels like.

Could the holidays have come at a worse time this year?

I don’t know about all of you out there but this year is just awful to me.  With Hanukkah starting so early this year, us long suffering Jews can add another notch to  his endless belt.  Why?  Because there is almost zero time to buy presents if we want to cash in on the holiday sales.

Option 1 – Shop before Black Friday.  Completely ridiculous.  It goes against my stereotype.

Option 2 – Shop the weekend of Black Friday; something that my God-given temper unfortunately does not permit.   In fact, I have been self-restrained from standing in lines by 15 public activist groups.

Option 3 – Going after work on the week days right before Hanukah.  Yay! Holiday shopping after a long day of work!   Can you feel the sarcasm oozing out of this page?

Option 3 is the unfortunate winner.  Note to the hookup calendar: Please start Hanukkah later next year.

Dear Tamar,

I’ve been seeing a man who’s not hookup that I met on a dating site 7 months ago.  We’ve said we love each other, however when we first met, it was Hanukkah and he bought me a huge number of gifts and it felt uncomfortable and overwhelming.  He also bought a menorah and a book about Judaism. It felt like too much for me and he felt rejected by the way I felt. Since then, I thought we had moved on and have spent almost every day together. Recently, he was reading my e-mail and saw a letter I had written to my Rabbi back in January where I had doubts about the relationship because of the fact he wasn’t hookup. He broke my trust and has apologized but feels hurt I felt that way when we had already been dating for a few months and wants to take a break for a month. I want to respect his wishes but I miss him and know he misses me as he did write me yesterday. I’m just trying to understand whether we have broken up or not and if I should move on or if we are truly taking time to figure out what we want with the intention of possibly getting back together. I don’t understand how you can work something out without talking about it. Can you provide some input and help me to understand? Thank you!

Dear Dazed & Confused,

My initial impulse is to ask: why are you on 100hookup asking for advice about a relationship with a non-Jew? But the answer doesn’t matter, I’m happy to help as long as you answer a question for yourself first: how important is it to you to marry a Jew? This answer does matter. When you first had doubts, you went to your Rabbi. Now you have doubts again and you’re coming to 100hookup, so my inclination is to believe that religion is important to you and while you’re on this break you should really think deeply about it. It sounds like this guy might be willing to convert, have you discussed it? If you want to be with this guy – hookup or not – you need to get him on the phone and then in person to talk. A few days apart to think things through is understandable, each of you needs to put things in perspective and decide what you want from each other, if anything. But now it’s time to get talking because you’re right – you can’t work on a relationship without both parties being present. Good luck!