Summer's basically over, which means Christmas is right around the corner. That is, according to the folks at Bronner's: This catalog arrived in the mail right before the Labor Day weekend.

Whatever you think of Helen Thomas's comments about the Jews and Israel, it's clear that her status as a pioneering icon for outspoken women in public life will forever be colored by this controversy. And maybe that's okay.

In this week's compilation of pop culture crap, Willie Nelson admits to Larry King that he's stoned on TV, Niecy Nash has a distracting booger, and someone invents porn for blind people, much to blind people's chagrin.

It may be "one of the hottest holiday events for the nation's Jewish elite," but the December 16th menorah-fest has been called a half-assed exercise in "studied callousness." Others have just invoked latkes. A lot.

"A new study found that rates of marriage outside the faith were sharply curbed among young Jews who have taken "birthright" trips to Israel, a development that could hearten Jewish leaders worried about assimilation." [WSJ]

["Ljubelj South", Slovenia; June 5. Image via Getty]

• In her book My Name is Anne, She Said, Anne Frank Jacqueline Van Maarsen, Anne Frank's best friend, claims that the noted diarist and Holocaust victim was an extroverted girl who made bossy demands on their friendship. • The Iranian government will set up marriage bureaus to help Iranians find suitable husbands and…

In the 30s, when Dorothy Parker got a tattoo of a small star on the inside of her upper arm after a drunken night carousing in the Bowery, it was a transgressive, racy act. Now, even the wives of conservative British politicians have dolphins tatted on their ankles, and nice Jewish girls (like Amy Winehouse??) are…

When learning about the most Orthodox sects within any religion, it's very easy to judge their more extreme rituals as freakish. I think I was a little guilty of painting the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints with the freak brush, and I will consciously try not to do that with the Satmar Hasidim from Kiryas Joel, a…

Thai officals approve a "human zoo" with the famed long-necked women, many of whom are refugees from Myanmar. • Indian sex workers can now get life insurance, but their profession remains illegal. • Snickers, Doritos, and Peanut M&Ms are the most popular vending machine snacks. • A child who formed in her mother's …

Radar is declaring, in its typically amusing and tongue-in-cheek fashion, that this year's hottest accessory for shiksas is a Jewish husband. You know what? Tongue-in-cheek or not, I'm over Jewish dudes getting all the love. You never hear about Jewish women being the hottest, well, anything; while Woody Allen is off…

The "Love Issue" of Oprah Magazine — 22 days until Valentine's, ladies — has several essays under the heading "Love, the Great Adventure" about lasting romance. In one, O Henry prize winner Sheila Kohler, an Anglican, writes about her mostly-happy interfaith marriage to a Jewish man (the lovebirds are pictured at…

Tomorrow's Christmas, or, as I knew it throughout my childhood, that day when I'm bored and nothing is open. I'm 100% Heeb, and my mother was so anti-Christmas that we didn't even do the stereotypical Jew things like eat Chinese food and go to the movies. Doing those things would be a tacit acknowledgment that…

• Donna Karan: Celebrating Rosh Hashanah in the Holy Land! For the first time! We hope she fits in some time for Buddhist meditation. [NY Mag]
  
• Bindi Irwin is designing a children's clothing line to honor her deceased father, the Crocodile Hunter. We think a Danielynn Birkhead line to honor her deceased mother might be…

We were beginning to worry about the editors of DailyCandy. There were mentions of bacterial infections. Black Croc spats. Had they abandoned their Cosmopolitan-swilling ways, we wondered? But today's editions of the cloying, consumption-promoting newsletter illustrate that the girls may have their mojo back: There's…

So now that Barneys New York is owned by a Dubai-based investment firm, some (er, Lauren Goldstein Crowe of Portfolio's 'Fashion, Inc'. blog) are convinced that luxury-minded Jews are going to take their business to other luxury department stores because no way in hell will they fund something owned by, you know, Arabs

• The long-anticipated sale of luxury department store Barneys New York finally went down this weekend, going to a Dubai-based investment firm for $832 million and making for what was probably the smoothest Middle Eastern negotiation in modern history. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Now that Barneys is owned by Arabs, however, does…