S atire / F ake N ews / P urim
Local Father Apparently
Unbridled Freedom
Eating Herring Straight From of Driver’s License
the Jar Now
Allows Teenager
to Go to Wawa
Unaccompanied FAKE N EWS
Lena_Zajchikova / iStock / Getty Images Plus
MATT Z. O’BALL | JE STAFF
LOCAL BUSINESSMAN Eric
Goldman apparently eats pick-
led herring straight from the jar,
according to his wife and daugh-
ter. “Just, like, with the tips of his
fingers,” said his daughter Sarah
Goldman, 16. “He … dangles it
over his mouth.”
Goldman’s behavior, though
not technically wrong or legally
actionable, is “unsettling,” his
daughter said.

Each evening, said Beth
Goldman, Eric’s wife of 18
years, Goldman rises from the
couch, walks over the fridge
and selects the jar out of the
wide array of foods that are
FA K E N E WS
STEPHEN GLASS | JE STAFF
not pickled fish. He taps on
the jar, as if to say, ‘Yes, this is
precisely what I needed to sati-
ate myself,’ and then picks the
herring out of the jar.

“He does this on purpose,” his
wife stressed. “No one is making
him do this.” He then proceeds
to throw back a bit of the vin-
egary mush, making satisfied
grunts as he finishes chewing.

Goldman, for his part, offers
the herring to any and all mem-
bers of his family or close circle
of friends when they happen to
be in the vicinity.

“I don’t really see what the
big deal is,” he said, wiping a bit
of the pickle juice off the cor-
ner of his mouth. “You did this
story last month on the way I
eat beets straight out of the can.

What’s the issue here?” l
FOP Defends Officer Whose Mother
“Decluttered” Evidence Room
FAKE N EWS
ELIOT NESS | JE STAFF
FRATERNAL ORDER of
Police spokesman John McNesby
is fighting back on behalf of a
Jewish police officer who’s been
reprimanded by his superiors.

Officer Lev Mandelbaum,
who’s been on the force for two
years, has been indefinitely sus-
pended with pay as the depart-
ment tries to figure out how to
punish Mandelbaum for letting
his mother, Linda Mandelbaum,
into an evidence storage room
without supervision.

Apparently, it all started when
Linda Mandelbaum got irritated
that her son had lost a Chanukah
card his younger sister made for
him when they were children.

“That was a precious keep-
sake!” she said to him. “Where
did it go?”
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM “I took it to work with me
and was going to hang it up near
my desk but it must have gotten
lost in the papers and stuff. The
station house is a mess, Mom.”
That was all Linda — who
runs the organizing business
Living Lighter With Linda —
needed to hear. Using the pre-
text of bringing Lev a surprise
lunch one day, Linda disap-
peared “to the ladies room,”
she said, and didn’t return for
five hours. Her son, who was
abruptly called out on police
business, forgot she was there.

But when the officers went
to look for something in the
evidence room the next day,
they found everything had
been entirely rearranged and
smelled strongly of Febreeze.

Their cardboard boxes had
been replaced by multicolored
plastic bins, each with distinctly
colored and patterned contact
paper on the exterior. A small
vase with a fresh spray of flow-
ers sat on a small circular table
that was wedged inside the door
and overhead fluorescents had
been pulled out and smashed
and replaced by two floor lamps.

It was unclear where she’d so
quickly procured the transfor-
mative items.

Though no evidence was
thrown out, the organiza-
tional system in the room was
destroyed, replaced by col-
or-coordination. The young officer was
embarrassed and apologetic,
but was suspended anyway,
which McNesby felt was unfair.

“Do you realize how much
razzing this guy is going to get
about his Jewish mother for the
rest of his life on the force?”
McNesby said to a reporter.

“Man, that’s punishment
enough.” l
JEWISH EXPONENT
AFTER 16 YEARS of being
beholden to the schedule of
his parents, Matthew Shapiro,
newly licensed driver, is now
free to unshackle himself from
the irons of childhood, to
throw off the yoke of adoles-
cence, to seize the open road as
so many teens before him have
done and to procure fast food
for himself slightly faster than
he could before.

“It’s amazing,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro, who lives within
biking distance — if not walk-
ing, on a nice day — of a
Wawa, a Wendy’s, a Chipotle
and a McDonald’s, took driv-
ing lessons for months in order
to speed up the journey of a
Shorti hoagie from an employee
to his mouth by about four min-
utes. Dozens of precious photos
of Shapiro driving around an
empty parking lot for the first
time were taken in the service of
Shapiro’s desire to get a Big Mac,
hold the tomato, slightly faster.

“At first we were worried,”
said his mother, Lori Shapiro.

“How was he going to use
this newfound responsibility?
Would he take around too
many friends, and get dis-
tracted? Would he play music
loudly and take his focus off
the road? Would he be gone
every weekend?
“Luckily, none of that has come
to pass,” she added, happily. l
Christmastime Chinese Pop-Up
Restaurant Opens
FA K E N E WS
IMA FOODIE | JE STAFF
SHANGHAI DYNASTY
is opening a Christmastime
pop-up restaurant in a Jewish
community center parking lot
to better engage its customers,
a spokesperson for the restau-
rant said last week.

Shanghai Dynasty’s
Chinatown location is already
open on Dec. 25, but this pop-up
restaurant will bring favorites
like sweet and sour chicken, beef
and broccoli and chow mein to a
more convenient location.

The pop-up will be in the
parking lot and not the build-
ing itself because the JCC is
closed on Christmas, JCC CEO
Rachel Berger said, noting the
JCC’s many non-Jewish staff,
as well as the staff who cele-
brate the holiday with inter-
faith families.

Multiple financial planners
who stopped by the pop-up restau-
rant on their way to the gym —
before they realized it was closed
for Christmas — assessed that the
pop-up would be a success.

Shanghai Dynasty declined
to comment on whether the
offerings would be kosher. l
MARCH 14, 2019
13