Call me a humorless feminist, but I’ve always thought certain subjects were beyond the realm of comedy: Helen Keller, rape, the Holocaust. But then last week I caught a clip of Joan Rivers’ E! show “Fashion Police.” While critiquing a photo of Heidi Klum wearing this dress, Rivers quipped, “The last time a German looked this hot was when they were pushing Jews into the ovens.” And then something odd happened. I laughed.

I’m Jewish. So is Joan Rivers. Does being in “the club” mean that it’s okay to laugh at jokes about our own people? One of the reasons I don’t think Holocaust jokes are funny is that they poke fun at people who are victims, and it’s much funnier to laugh at the bullies. Did I laugh because Rivers was making fun of a German person in relation to the Holocaust, instead of a Jewish one?

I’m not the most devout Jew. Obviously, if I were, I’d be sitting in temple right now listening to the rabbi blow a shofar until I was half-deaf. But instead, I’m here reflecting on what I’ll need to ask forgiveness for. I figure, at least attempting to self-reflect, whether I do it in a house of worship or not, is enough to keep me cool with God. Or at least to keep me cool with myself, which I personally find more important.

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, is a supposed to be a day of judgement, where you stand before God and yourself and allow an honest assessment of how you’ve behaved in the previous year to take place. From now until Yom Kippur (which falls about 10 days after Rosh Hashanah), all Jews are meant to engage in a process of repentance for the sins of the previous year. That’s just a little light Judaism lesson for you. My thought is that you don’t need to be Jewish, or a religious Jew, or believe in the concept of sin (I don’t), to take some time to reflect on your year. After the jump, what I’m atoning for.

What’s in a nose? A Miami plastic surgeon doesn’t want a big schnoz to get in the way of true love, so he’s decided to offer members of his local Orthodox Jewish community free or greatly reduced nose jobs in order to increase their chances at finding a mate.

Dr. Michael Salzhauer is an Orthodox Jew, and a father of five, so he feels it’s perfectly reasonable and respectable to offer the service to bad-nose-having members of his community. But others say it’s rather tacky and controversial.

Big noses in the Jewish world are nothing new (um, hello!). So it stands to reason that an Orthodox Jew seeking to marry another Orthodox Jew would be well familiar with big proboscises.

Us secular folks have sex shops like Toys In Babeland and sex toy vendors like Jimmyjane and Booty Parlor to stock our goodie drawer. But religious sex toy websites for Christians, Jews and Muslims have filled a gap in the market for people who find such sites “offensive.” As writer Allison Yarrow notes, all the products stocked on religious sex toy websites like Book 22, Kosher Sex Toys, and El Asira are exactly the same. The only difference is that the packaging has been replaced and there are no saucy images or sexually explicit language on the websites. The sites also cater to different teachings about sex as they vary by religion, such as the sites for Christians not including any products for anal play. A Jewish web site called Kosher Sex Toys even has a rabbi in Israel on hand to answer questions like whether it’s moral to spank a partner. (If you’re curious, it’s a mitzvah!)