By Enu [redacted] • Vol 3, Issue 5 • March 14, 2025

Although it's been nearly a year since that Seder, I am still in fear for my life. The incident started as a simple invitation. Several of my jewish friends invited me to a Passover seder. “You get four glasses of wine,” they said. “It’s like Thanksgiving with three hours of prayers and none of the traditional food,” they said. “It will be fun,” they said. I was naive enough to accept the invitation.

A few days later, I donned a formal dress shirt, combed my hair, and made my way over to my friend’s house. Although I was fifteen …

By Tali Kirschenbaum • Vol 3, Issue 5 • March 14, 2025

First of all, if you’ve ever heard of the Four Questions, chag sameach. If you haven’t, be grateful you won’t have to do them when you’re forced into joining your hypothetical Jewish friends (who are all older than you, obviously) at their several-hour-long celebration of a liberation they claim they all were at even though it was 4,000 years ago and also probably never happened at all (I can say that; most Jews don’t punish atheists for blasphemy these days). But before they get to telling you the story, the youngest person who knows Hebrew just well enough to do …

By Benner Rogers • Vol 3, Issue 5 • March 14, 2025

As someone who isn’t Jewish, I have not been involved in the production of the ReadMe Passover Issue. But even if it’s not my place, I would just like to say something. And I swear, it isn’t because it’s written by Jewish people. I have nothing against the Jewish people. In fact, a lot of my friends are Jewish! Well, not that having Jewish friends precludes me from being antisemitic, but that — I mean, I’m not friends with them because they’re Jewish, they just happen to be both Jewish and my friends. So I’m definitely cool with the Jews.

By Tali Kirschenbaum • Vol 3, Issue 5 • March 14, 2025

Freshman Ari Steinberg has spent every summer at Camp Ramah in New England since he was 9 years old, so he thought living in a traditional triple on the third floor of Mudge would be easy as alef, bet, gimel. And he was ready to survive a few weeks of 80-degree weather with no air conditioning. But as it turned out, being in the dorm was more like being in the bunk with the other friend group. “My roommates don’t want to play ultimate frisbee or Magic: The Gathering with me,” he complained. “But on the bright side, at least …

By README • Vol 3, Issue 5 • March 14, 2025

Afikoman: Christians celebrating Easter wish they could be us. Oh you search for colorful eggs? Try a part of a large cracker. Your seven year old cousin will become a feral Sherlock Holmes and it will become everyone's problem.

Bar/Bat mitzvah: The service in which a 13 year old Jewish boy/girl becomes a Jewish adult. Your parents will not treat you as an adult though. (They never will.)

Birkat Hamazon: The set of prayers said after meals which at camp is accompanied by a near-canonical set of hand motions and sayings, among the more dubious of which is …

By J. P. Crawfish & Your Mother • Vol 3, Issue 5 • March 14, 2025

1) You won’t let me set you up with Rachel Cohen

Rachel is such a nice girl. I’m sure you two would have a lot in common. I saw her mother at Barbara’s shiva last week. Do you remember Barbara? Such a shame! And you know what her mother said? Rachel is moving to Philly for her residency. A doctor! Can you believe that? It would work out so well and you won’t even let me set you guys up. Fine, fine, I won’t. You know I do so much for you and this is all I get in …

By Jimothy Yachtsson • Vol 3, Issue 5 • March 14, 2025

Groundbreaking new research has revealed the single strongest childhood predictor of adult success in Jewish youth. Second grade students who in their Hebrew school Purim plays played Esther were found to be happier, more confident, and more employed than their less fortunate peers who played Vashti. Vashti was the Persian king Ahasuerus’s wife, at least until Ahasuerus got so royally drunk that he banished Vashti for refusing to appear naked in front of all the partying men for his seven-day-long party. This is widely considered to be within the top three least normal things Ahasuerus did. This required him to …

By J. P. Crawfish • Vol 3, Issue 5 • March 14, 2025

Noah’s Ark
🔯🔯
Great ocean scenery but they put me with the only other human and he keeps looking at me weird.

Tower of Babel
🔯🔯🔯
Gribbledorf zanks flomptiously squibberwump’s jibbleflop.

Cain and Abel
🔯🔯🔯🔯
If my dad named me Cain, I’d also be pissed off.

Joseph’s Coat of Many Colors
🔯🔯🔯
A bit too much if you ask me.

Passover Story
🔯🔯
Can’t believe they plagiarized from the iconic 1998 American animated musical drama film The Prince of Egypt. Is nothing original these days?

The Desert
🔯🔯🔯🔯🔯
t’s …

By John Jahanian • Vol 3, Issue 5 • March 14, 2025

On Shabbat, Jews are not to parttake in physical activity, work, or use contraptions that use electricity voluntarily – which means one cannot press the buttons of an elevator. Many institutions use what are known as “shabbat elevators”, which are elevators that stop and open at every floor, such that observant jews could go onto a different floor while still obeying G-d. One example of such an institution that uses this technology is Wean Hall at Carnegie Mellon University, a prestigious T5 tech school nestled in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains. The way these elevators are shabbat compliant is …

By Gavin Radford • Vol 3, Issue 4 • Feb. 26, 2025

By Dr. Johnathan Speed • Vol 3, Issue 4 • Feb. 26, 2025

It is a melancholy object to those who walk though this great campus, when they see the streets and roads crowded with loud-mouthed hooligans. Studious learners must keep their windows boarded, and their doors shut to keep the noise from irresponsible teenagers who, as they grow up, either turn to business majors, or leave their dear native campus to party at Pitt. They take up spots in CIT and SCS, while forcing innocent students to live in cramped chambers, originally meant for two, in groups of three.

I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number …

By Jimothy Yachtsson • Vol 3, Issue 4 • Feb. 26, 2025

This past summer, Carnegie Mellon ran its annual language immersion program in Italy. For the first time, the program was held in the small Italian town of Cappuccinovecchio, right between that place you forgot from tenth grade history class and that place you forgot from eleventh grade history class. In the past, the program has garnered rave reviews.

“This program got me away from Pittsburgh, as advertised. I hate Pittsburgh, so I’m happy,” said one student. “I learned a lot of Italian words, like pizza, pasta, espresso, and merda,” reported another. “I love how many naked people there are …

By "Tyan Rosh" • Vol 3, Issue 4 • Feb. 26, 2025

Recently, a mixup occurred on CMU's campus at a recruiting event for the Transportation Security Administration, the agency responsible for securing air travel to, from, and within the United States. The event was booked for the Danforth Lounge, for 6 PM on Sunday. But in the neighboring Danforth Conference Room, another TSA was setting up for a GBM: CMU's own Taiwanese Students Association.

Due to the ensuing confusion, the entirety of the bodies of the two organizations were swapped overnight. Pittsburgh's hotels are swamped as over 60,000 former airport security officers are celebrating Taiwanese heritage, while the nation's airports …

By Robin Notin • Vol 3, Issue 4 • Feb. 26, 2025

While the majority of students at CMU register for classes at CMU’s Pittsburgh campus, every year, several students accidently register for classes in CMU-Africa’s Rwanda campus without fail. Scotty’s Market and Entropy report a sunscreen shortage as students rush to buy sunscreen after being advised to prepare for a “warmer climate than Pittsburgh” in an email sent by The University Register’s Office.

ReadMe spoke to several of the students cross registered between continents. “I am functionally illiterate,” said a student who is registered for ICI in Africa Seminar. Another student reported being unable to register for 122 in Pittsburgh, …

By Gilgamesh Ichthyomorphosis • Vol 3, Issue 4 • Feb. 26, 2025

With spring break rapidly approaching, CMU has put out a travel advisory against countries that are deemed “unsafe for Tartans”. If you have booked a trip to any of these countries, please reconsider your plans.

Ukraine

Why did you even book a flight to Kyiv?

Spain

If you are going to España over break, please do not come back with an accent. You did not gain your “authentic” accent in 7 days, and we all hate you. No one cares that you were in “Barrrrrttttthelona”.

Antarctica

The ice caps are melting, it will make …

By Alex Werth • Vol 3, Issue 4 • Feb. 26, 2025

I used to hate French people. As a young denizen of the internet, I spent time in circles that enjoyed ragging on the country and its citizens, and those sentiments festered into my own twisted anger at people I’d never even met. I jeered in history classes, bullied internet strangers, hell, once I bought a $6.95 flag just to burn it in my yard and spit on the ashes. You’d be forgiven for thinking a Frenchman baguette-shanked my childhood dog, the way I spoke of these people.

One family trip showed me otherwise. The moment I stepped off the …

By "Save-a-tree" Bhat • Vol 3, Issue 4 • Feb. 26, 2025

CMU students in exchange programs throughout Europe have made a shocking discovery. The great American pastime of manifesting destiny is, while not unheard of, frowned upon by most of Europe. Pioneering American students tried many popular manifest destiny strategies, but none of them seemed to work.

Manifest destiny has come a long way in recent years. Gone are the days of dysentery, cholera, cannibalism, and people saying “hey stop taking my homeland!”. But the essence of the doctrine remains: this land is our land, and anyone who isn’t American, doesn’t speak English, eats with their hands, or worships idols …

By "Save-a-tree" Bhat • Vol 3, Issue 4 • Feb. 26, 2025

If the news here in the US of A is starting to get to you, don’t fear. CMU has announced two new exchange programs so you can get the hell out of here, at least for a year.

By popular demand, the CMU-CMU program will be opening next year, allowing students to visit Central Martian University, which boasts similarly rigorous coursework, groundbreaking research labs, and even the opportunity to participate in a few research studies yourself. CMU students will be able to participate in many exciting activities on the CMU campus such as sticking electrodes to yourself and letting …