Heeb
Heeb is a Jewish magazine aimed at young intellectual Jews, following in the footsteps of Barbara Kligman's Plotz, the hipster Jewish 'zine. The name of the magazine is a variation of the anti-Semitic ethnic slur hebe. However, in this case, the word "heeb," functions as empowerment for the Jewish community, thus eliminating the hatred associated with the word. The magazine was founded by activist Jennifer Bleyer, then a graduate student at the Columbia University School of Journalism, and backed financially by Steven Spielberg and Charles Bronfman. Bleyer, who now writes for the New York Times, ended her association with the magazine after she graduated. Taking over for her as editor and publisher was Harvard Divinity School graduate Joshua Neuman. Neuman's goal was to spread the idea of Heeb as a "lifestyle magazine," incorporating events like a traveling Heeb Storytelling show in order to reach an underserved Jewish progressive market around the country.
The magazine is decidedly anti-establishment and left-wing. It often voices support for an Israeli pullout of the Palestinian Territories and frequently criticizes mainstream American Jewish culture, most famously in an article entitled "Joe Lieberman is a Dickhead." The author of the piece took Lieberman to task for favoring an increase in military spending.
In March of 2004, in its fifth issue, Heeb featured the photo spread entitled Crimes of Passion that spoofed Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. The spread included a half naked Virgin Mary (with pierced nipples) and a Jesus with his genitals wrapped in a tallit. Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published a letter to Heeb decrying the spread as "blasphemous to both Christians and Jews."
Mission statement:
- Heeb is the roiling product of so many drunken postmillennial nights on the mean streets of the Lower East Side. It is an ambitious antitrust investigation into the monopoly on God. It is a sweaty prizefight between hip hop and sushi in this corner and klezmer and kugel in the other. It is the bastard love child of Emma Goldman and Lenny Bruce. It is a plague on modern-day pharaohs replete with miraculous jailbreaks and a nice little riot or two. It is a Carnival cruise to the Garden of Eden with all-you-can-eat cheesecake and Parliament as the house band. Hallelujah.