Focus Features

In A Serious Man, the Coen brothers return to their Jewish and Minnesotan roots. And while the two have lots of fun with the trappings of growing up Jewish, they do it with loving care. After all the credits come with a disclaimer “No Jews were harmed in the making of this motion picture.” In recent years, a wave of new media (both print and online) that looks to have fun with (while not actually hurting) Jewish identity has appeared. We take a gander.

In many ways, Heeb spearheaded the new Jewish media movement. The magazine was founded by Jenifer Bleyer in 2002 with a grant from the Joshua Venture Fellowship and was intended to be, as the current publisher Josh Neuman states, “a take-no-prisoners zine for the plugged-in and preached-out.” Its in-your-face tone spoke, according to Neuman, to “those who felt little connection to organized Jewish life, but deep affection for a Jewish cultural perspective.” As such their pieces tend to be lovingly satirical and very hip. Last year they posted “The Ladies of '69: The First Ever Jewish Swimsuit Calendar" only to be followed up with its male version "Das Dreamboats: The Strapping Men of the Rhine.” [Heeb]

Put together by a wide-ranging group of bloggers, Jewlicious championed a hip, engaged Jewish identity. While it covers the Middle East crises, it often does so with a hipster wit, as, for example, in the recent “Lebanon Launches Latest Offensive in Hummus War Against Israel” or “Bernie Madoff: Striking Down the Myth That Bald Old Jews Can’t Party Like Rockstars.” But their tongue-in-chic approach has not always been met with a warm embrace. Asked what has gotten them in hot water, the editors respond: “Oh golly. Posts where we had blog wars with Jewschool.com, posts that were critical of Birthright Israel, the aforementioned Conservative Judaism post... we get into hot water quite a bit I'm afraid.” [Jewlicious]

If Heeb thrives on its own whimsy and wit , Zeek lives for sincerity and spirituality. Founded in 2002, it pushes for a new definition of Jewish culture. The site claims, “We believe that Judaism is undergoing a paradigm shift that we must not ignore if we want Judaism to be a vibrant religion and culture generations from now.” Its editorial staff, like many other sites, is made up entirely of volunteers, but its content is exceptionally professional and wide-ranging. For example, recent posts include Aeyal Gross’ “Harvey Milk Was Here,” a report on anti-gay violence in Israel and Charlie Betsch’s smart music article “Days of Future Past: Iranian Garage Rock of the 1960s.” [Zeek]

Guilt & Pleasure, as its title might imply, marries off-the-cuff hipness with sturdy intellectual yearnings. One gets the idea that smart is the new hip. The magazine/website is produced by New York’s non-profit group Reboot and includes figures like Jonathan Safran Foer and Gary Shteyngart as part of their editorial board. The recent Death Issue included such pieces as David Rakoff’s “All The Time We Have,” about dealing with death of a therapist, and Nathaniel Deutsch’s “Herring in Heaven,” humorous bit about an afterlife for Jews. [Guilt and Pleasure]

While many sites center themselves in Israel or the US (often Brooklyn), Habitus tries to keep things off center. Its creator/editor, Joshua Ellison, told The Jewish Week, “There’s a misperception that New York and Jerusalem are the only permanent Jewish addresses…[this] project started as a way to understand Israel, and Israel’s a more complicated society than people think; there’s a multiplicity of places Israelis come from." Each issue picks a particular spot to explore. Former issues have focused on Budapest, Sarajevo, Buenos Aires, and now New Orleans. Only a few pieces from each issue go up online. From the latest, Rodger Kamenetz’s “Slate on Slat, ” a meditation on home and restoration, and “Maelstrom,” a poem by Andrei Codrescu. [Habitus]

Like many of the other sites, Jewcy wants to expand, even explode, the concepts of Jewish identity. Many times they find themselves pushing buttons when they push the limits of what it means to be a Jew. Editor Lilit Marcus explains that “anytime I write about my own Jewish identity––I’m half Jewish–– I don’t think that of it as a big idea. But then I get a new wave of people, who are “whoa you are not Jewish” “But in expanding Jewish identity, Jewcy also stand up for those who’ve experience similar histories. Marcus says, “I am most proud about a piece our founder Joey Kurzman did on the Armenian Genocide.” The article “Acknowledge the Armenian Genocide Now” distributed a petition online and the organizers worked with the Armenian embassy to form a peace march. Of course, there are also the more prosaic pieces like, “The Goyls Next Door,” Jessica Pauline’s answer to “Where have all the Jewish Playmates Gone?” [Jewcy]

Tablet, the newest site, is an online magazine with ties to earlier sites. The creator, Alana Newhouse, formerly served as the culture editor of the Jewish Daily Forward. And the site, whose writers also pop up on many of the other sites, seems to embody not only the diversity of the Jewish experience, but political spectrum as well, with opinions from both the left and right. But not all is serious. Recent pieces include Liel Leibovitz’s “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: Why Jewish producers kept Jewish women off stage and screen” and a podcast with David Lehman, author of A Fine Romance, about the American songbook. [Tablet]