The Beholder’s Eye by Doug Brook
A sip of gossip by L. Shaun Harrah Almost every household has embraced the tablets craze, so it’s time to put our ear to the ground in this Biblical era and satisfy your cravings for dirt with our latest carvings. Fashion News: Coat of many blunders Jacob, who you remember changed his stage name to Israel a while back, recently had a special coat made for one of his 12 sons. Allegedly it’s for his favorite son — let’s face it, we all know that’s little Joseph — but if he’s really his favorite, he’ll spare him the rod AND this coat. By one account, the colors merely begin with red, and yellow, and green, and brown, and scarlet, and black, and ochre, and peach. ForJoseph has to get about the ruby, and olive, and wear that fashion violet, and fawn — these colors haven’t gone together in any seatrainwreck of a son, and this year will be no excepcoat? That ought to tion. humble him… Whether those colors go left to right or right to left, this coat is best left in the closet. If he wears it in public, his own brothers will beat him up. Rumor is there was a prophecy that his family would be enslaved for four hundred years. Obviously not as slaves to fashion, because after just four hundred seconds this little frock should be thrown to a hungry flock. Twelve against one – an unfair fight? Speaking of Jacob, it’s well known that he has 12 sons from four women. This correspondent paid for both his kids to go to Memphis by writing about Jacob marrying two women — sisters, no less — and about the ultimately true rumors that he also had kids with each of their handmaidens. But what about the lost 13th child? Jacob had a daughter, Dina. People forget she exists; it’s so easy to get lost in the mix with 12 boys around. Word on the dirt path is that she got out of all the work her brothers have to do by besting them in competition. We don’t yet know what their throwdown was, but she’s quoted as saying to them, “come back with a 13th and 14th guy, then it’ll be a fair fight.” Dissent in the ranks File this rank one under dissent in the rank and file. For everyone who thought that Jacob is a good guy and therefore his sons must be, too, think again. These boys, who at first seemed decent, have descended into dissent over one of their own. Nobody dreamed this could happen, but dreams have made it so. Joseph is rumored to be well aware that he’s Jacob’s favorite son. He knows it. His brothers know it. We know it. Apparently that’s not enough for Joseph. He’s allegedly making up dreams to use as metaphors to rub his apparent parental priority in the face of his brothers.
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January 2013
Southern Jewish Life