Shabbat Sha-Lohan!

Lindsay Lohan even tried converting to Judaism to save her relationship with Samantha Ronson. No surprise, says Andy Borowitz: Her movies are filled with subtle but rich Talmudic themes.

Just when we were getting used to the idea that Lindsay Lohan was a lesbian, now comes word that she may become a Jew. According to Page Six (דף שש in Hebrew), Lindsay has considered converting to Judaism to show her commitment to her beloved, DJ Samantha Ronson. If Lindsay had announced her lesbianism without announcing her Judaism, it would have been enough—or as members of Lindsay’s new tribe like to say, “Dayenu.” But with the big Lindsay shocker dropping just before Passover, the youngest child at the Seder table may be tempted to ditch the traditional Haggadah and ask a new version of the Four Questions: 1) Will Lindsay change her name to Lohanstein?; 2) On Passover, does Lindsay smoke a different herb than she usually smokes?;3) Do Lindsay and Sam play “Hide the matzoh”?; and, most crucially, 4) Why is this lesbian different from all other lesbians?

Georgia Rule, pulled from theaters after one week, represents darkness, while the Volkswagen or “bug” in Herbie Fully Loaded represents either locusts or gnats.

Even as reports swirl that the two Jewesses' love might head for the exodus, Lindsay's relationship with the Torah is likely to endure. This is the opinion of Talmudic scholars, who are among the staunchest admirers of her cinematic oeuvre.

Enjoy.

Freaky Friday (2003)

Interestingly, Lohan’s breakthrough film was titled Freaky Saturday before the teenage actress signed on. After reading the script, however, Lohan insisted on the change, telling one studio executive, “I don’t mean to kvetch, but my character would never be freaky on a Saturday.” One thing she did not ask to be changed was the film’s plotline, which subtly evokes the story of Pesach. In the film, Jamie Lee Curtis switches bodies with Lohan—her firstborn—and thus her daughter is “passed over” by the torments of adolescence. The film garnered raves from such Hebraic movie magazines as Reel Jewish, which gushed, “Freaky Friday makes Yentl look goyische.”

Mean Girls (2004)

At the time of its release, most critics saw Mean Girls as a lighthearted satire of the world of high-school cliques. Many Jewish scholars, however, maintain that the film is a complex allegory for the Jews’ enslavement under Pharaoh, a theme that was first touched on in Freaky Friday. Upon closer examination, clues to the film’s real meaning abound, such as the cafeteria scene in which Lohan’s tray inexplicably carries a bowl of saltwater and a lamb bone.

Herbie Fully Loaded (2005), Georgia Rule (2007), I Know Who Killed Me (2007), etc.

On first glance, Lohan’s most recent movies do not appear to be as overtly Jewish as her earlier work. But not so, according to Yeshiva University professor Shlomo Sitowitz, a leading Lohan film scholar and the only person known to have seen all of her films, including the little-known Confessions of a Teenage Shmata Queen (2002). Sitowitz’s theory, which has gained traction in Jewish cinema circles of late, is that Lohan’s later films are meant to symbolize the Ten Plagues of Egypt. For example, Georgia Rule, pulled from theaters after one week, represents darkness, while the Volkswagen or “bug” in Herbie Fully Loaded represents either locusts or gnats. Scholars may quibble as to which film corresponds to which plague, especially because any number them seem like incurable boils. But one thing is certain, in the words of Professor Sitowitz: “Taken as a whole, Lindsay Lohan’s body of work cements her status as the greatest Jewish film actress since Madonna.”

Andy Borowitz is a comedian and satirist whose work appears in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and at his Web site www.borowitzreport.com. He is appearing live in New York  on April 30; tickets are available here.