The Wildlife Conservation Society’s Central Park Zoo is flapping over a clutch of 8 baby penguins, now on full display on a new blog, "The Real Chicks of Central Park."
The JTA Archive blog desperately wants to love these birds, but are deeply torn by our longtime allegiances to an old Central Park legend:
Akhbar, the Nazi-hunting lion.
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We didn’t know JTA was in the business of satire, but in 1934, the editor of our Jewish Daily Bulletin’s Day Book contemplated an office pet for JTA:
If the Central Park Zoo can guarantee me satisfaction in several important respects, I will float a loan and purchase that there lion Akhbar they’ve just put on the auction block…
The Central Park Leo must have excellent molars—and Abhkar will have to submit to a full series of X-rays in my brother’s dental office before I accept him…
Which brings me to another all-important requirement that any lion that is to become a pet of mine must fulfill.
Akhbar must be able to detect a Nazi at 100 paces.
The writers in the JTA peanut gallery have a special place in our hearts for penguins. (Spoiler alert: especially the ones in our recent fundraising video.) Our hearts were all aflutter when we confirmed that none of the baby penguins have names yet.
Since we can’t rightly relinquish our fondess for Akhbar the lion, we’ve decided to launch a campaign to name one of the baby penguins "Akhbar the Lion" — it’s a more palatable shortform version of "Akhbar the Nazi-hunting Lion." We’re looking at you, baby penguin formerly identified as "Pink Dot" — you are fuzzy AND ferocious.
Readers who support this elegant solution are invited to take to Twitter using the hashtag #akhbarthepenguin (Attn: @TheWCS)
In other bird-naming news, Jewish Tweets is soliciting suggestions for their Twitter mascot who promises to teach you Hebrew. The Archive Blog submits "Tweetdore" — as in Herzl.
Akh-upy the Zoo!
