Olympic Culture Hacking

Meredith pointed out that Jews and Israelis are winning Olympic medals all over the place, and then asked, “Why do we care so much about whether Jews win in the Olympics?” I posited that it was because it overturns the assumption that all Jews are bookish and dorky and unfit…but then I noted that, if a hacker who happened to be Jewish hacked into the Olympic website and replaced it with something cool (a picture of the Cloverfield monster, f’rinstance) I would think it was even more impressive.

Whereupon Meredith pointed out that, if Mah-Jongg were an Olympic event, virtually every winner ever would be Jewish.

Which reminded me of the above menorah, which was conceived & designed by Jennifer Traig and merchandised by the fine folks at PopJudaica.com. But then Shoshanna said, “But mah-jongg is originally a Chinese game; how did the Jews get so good at it?”

We’re stumped. Any ideas, anyone?

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