Meet the Maharats: Questions for Ruth Balinsky Friedman
In June the inaugural class of Yeshivat Maharat, the first institution to train Orthodox women as spiritual leaders and halakhic authorities, will graduate. The three...
Book Review | Franz Kafka: The Poet of Shame and Guilt
Saul Friedländer
Yale University Press
2013, $25.00, pp. 200
“Dearest Max, my last request: everything I leave behind me…in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and...
Jewish Word | Ghetto
Venice, Harlem and Beyond
There are few words that so acutely symbolize discrimination as “ghetto.” It was coined in Venice in 1516 to refer to a...
Children’s Book Author Interview: Jane Yolen
Jane Yolen, author of the classic The Devil’s Arithmetic, is the renowned author of more than 300 books. Her books, poems and stories have won...
Jews and the San Francisco Gold Rush
In the early 1850s, Adolph Sutro, a cocky young man with a thick walrus moustache, headed west to make his fortune. Originally from Prussia, Sutro...
A Kosher Tea Party
“There’s a notion out there that the Tea Party is racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim,” says David Spielman, the Campaign Coordinator for the Tea Party organization FreedomWorks....
Moment Mythbusters: Jews and Pets
Today, the question of whether Jews dislike domestic pets may seem preposterous.
Jews and Psychiatry?
The fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's "bible of psychiatry," the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is coming out on May 18....
Lebanon vs. Israel: A Delicious Culinary War
The Lebanese counterattack on Israel was carefully planned, precisely organized and ruthlessly executed by an army of 300. The mission: Unseat Israel as the hummus...
The Film that Launched a Thousand Court Cases
Few films have packed as much punch for American political culture as Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 The Ten Commandments. With the Cold War shifting into...
Poem | Erica Jong
Not With a Bang but
With a Whimper
(My mother died & the world did not end)
How I wish it were
apocalyptically dramatic—
the end of the world
Armageddon,
burning books...
Jewish Routes | Washington, DC
In Celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month
Jews have had a major presence in Washington, DC, ever since young land speculator Isaac Polock arrived in 1795...