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Ahava Leibtag

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WWF star Chyna, Frum?
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"It" Girl
Miriam Abramowitz

Foot-IN-Mouth Epidemic
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Jaded by Zemiroth
Lon Smolensky

Purim Special Report
Judah Levine

Press Your Luck
Danny Fax

Upper West Side Story
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Guta Neshama Hunting
Arye Dworken

Casting Calls to Conference Calls
Isaac Galena

Purim in the Holy Land

Traditional Costumes take on Different Element in Israel: "Mom, I want to be a slut"

a special report from international correspondent Judah Levine

Jerusalem - Today is the Jewish Holiday of Purim. The Holiday commemorates God's promise of fighting His people's battles for them even in a manner hidden from obvious detection; It is celebrated by wearing costumes and masks signifying the transparence of appearances.

I submit that the custom of dressing up for Purim be re-examined, at least in light of my eye witness experience today. Purim for Jerusalem's youths seems to have lost its unique role as an opportunity to dress up in absurd get-ups representing the absurdity of everyday reality. In its place Purim has become the opportunity to go to school dressed the way they would like to dress everyday- if the Board of Education did not have any say in the matter.

Let's take some examples to illustrate my point: This morning I saw several ingenious concoctions by some of Jerusalem's finest teenage women. I saw young cowgirls, nurses, pirates, hippies, and even a Pippi Longstocking. All these seem innocent enough at first glance. But with a closer look, to all these traditional costumes was added a certain crucial element which is the crux of my critique: slutiness (notice the clever tie-in for the Bangitout, slut-conscious community).

In my younger days when, for ten years, I alternated dressing up as a pirate or a cowboy (the same exact costume every other year getting smaller with each subsequent growth spurt) I took a certain amount of pride in producing a relatively historically accurate outfit. I wouldn't carry a semiautomatic weapon with my cowboy hat and leather holster,-because even as a 10 year old I knew that semi-automatic weapons weren't introduced until way after the west was already won. (and Rambo hadn't come out yet)

Why then, I wonder out loud, do the Israeli cowgirls sport neon leapordskin hats?
I mean that kind of accessory is not going to help you when you're out on the range trying to bring in the herd, or certainly it would be a major cowboy faux pas to wear anything neon when you're trying to surprise some ruthless cattle hustlers.

Let's talk practicality.

No cowboy would be caught dead wearing a sort of belly necklace attached to a navel ring (of which I saw two) First of all, everyone knows the importance of a well covered midriff when you are out in the prairie, and the dangers associated with having a navel piecing attached to a loose chain while riding on horseback through forests ripe with branches on which said belly chain could get caught are too much for even the bravest cowboy to gamble with.

What exactly does a black feathered boa have to do with the wild west?

It's a damn good way to attract attention from angry displaced Native-Americans.

That is just one example of those who attempt to mask the slutiness through the pretense of an actual costume. More intriguing to me are those who simply slut it up plain and simple. I had to resist the urge of asking one of the young ladies what they were dressed as (it wasn't so hard to resist the urge being that I haven't learned how to say "what are you dressed up as" in hebrew yet). But I'm sorry, wearing a tube top, hotpants and shtup-me boots isn't going to win the cleverest Purim costume award where I come from.
It seems to me that today's Israeli youth use Purim as a shout for attention, slut style; an opportunity to dress as they wish they could dress everyday. Instead of hiding reality they are displaying their ideal reality, how they actually want to be seen.
There are of course exceptions to this rule, not everyone dresses as they wish they could everyday, I don't mean to generalize.

This year I'll be dressing up as Smurfett.

Happy Purim to you and yours.

Judah Levine

-Judah is senior Bangitout international correspondent

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