Sunday's Times had a nice piece about how Scarsdale schools are trying to teach empathy to all the little rich bitches who take their pre-pubescent cues from Blair Waldorf and Regina George. And that's a good thing, right? Except hiding below the "teaching tolerance" aspect of this new system is a vaguely anti-Semitic message, which defeats the whole point of teaching tolerance and empathy. So, whoops on that.

And to combat feelings of exclusion, the Parent Teacher Association is trying to curtail a longstanding tradition of seventh graders and eighth graders showing up en masse Monday morning wearing the personalized sweatshirts handed out to the popular crowd at the weekend’s bar or bat mitzvahs…
Bar mitzvah sweatshirts emblazoned with the name of the honoree, the date and occasionally even the guest list are still commonly worn, if not on the Monday after, then on a Tuesday or Wednesday a month later.
Otherwise, “what’s the point in getting them?” asked Jess Calamari, 13, an eighth grader who gave out blue hooded sweatshirts to more than 150 guests at her bat mitzvah last year. “I don’t want to offend people, but I like sweatshirts.”

Seriously, lets just ban everything bar and bat mitzvah related because it excludes the WASPY Scarsdale kids. What? That doesn't even make sense. When was the last time you met a really popular jock/cheerleader Jewish kid? Hate to stereotype here, but I really feel like these schools are picking the wrong batch of kids to target.