Liberal Talk Radio

As kooky Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad resurrects the tried-and-true tactic of boosting lagging popularity by scapegoating Jews (”President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stepped up his anti-Israeli comments on Wednesday, calling the Holocaust a myth used by Europeans to create a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamic world.”), thousands of miles away in New York, hundreds of Jewish hipsters seem not to notice or care:

HELLOOOOOOOO Jews!” the M.C. shouted to the 1,000 or so people sipping drinks and jostling elbows in the hazy purple light of Crobar, the Chelsea club, on Sunday evening. Disco balls twinkled. Electric menorahs glowed. In the candlelighted V.I.P. area, people bit into chocolate Hanukkah gelt. From a stage on the dance floor Rachel Dratch of “Saturday Night Live” bemoaned being Jewish at Christmastime, and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, the foul-mouthed puppet, belted out a joyous rendition of “Shalom Aleichem.” It was not long before people were waving their arms above their heads and lobbing inflatable dreidels through the air like beach balls.

. . .

Over the last three years more and more young Jews have been flaunting their heritage, donning T-shirts that proclaim their Semitic roots, listening to the Hasidic reggae singer Matisyahu and climbing onto the celebrity-driven kabbalah bandwagon. And though many occupy the same Lower East Side walk-ups that their grandparents once did, they are not interested in quietly assimilating.

Then again, former Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell performing Hebrew prayers in a Chelsea club might be part of the reason Why They Hate Us:

After two hours of music and comedy, Perry Farrell mixed the sacred and secular by singing “Avenu Malkenu” and “Jane Says.” Then he curled his string bean body over a microphone and cried, “Happy Hanukkah!” in a voice so joyful, he might as well have shouted, “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”