By Howard Shapiro
What would
bubbe do? Infuse her matzo-ball soup with truffles and leeks? Prepare her brisket in red wine, then serve it on a puree of sweet potatoes, topped with pickled pearl onions and accompanied with a dollop of tzimmes?
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By Howard Shapiro
The humble bagel is a staple of Western Jewish culture, but what most of us know about it amounts to little more than a
shmear. After all, bagels are generally something we buy, not bake.
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By Howard Shapiro
Many small American cities once had thriving Jewish communities. Now, populations are dwindling and congregations are in danger of dying.
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By Howard Shapiro
Michael Tilson Thomas’s grandmom had trunks in her basement. A lot of our grandmothers had stuff stacked away. But our grandmoms were not Bessie Thomashefsky. “When I used to go visit my grandmother at her apartment in Hollywood, she had trunks in her basement and that was a special treat,” said Tilson Thomas, music director of the San Francisco Symphony and artistic director of Miami Beach’s New World Symphony, which he founded. In her basement, his grandmother “would open up these trunks, and inside them there were various costumes and scripts and photos and all these things that had been part of her life.”
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By Howard Shapiro
Barbra Streisand had come to Philadelphia for a November 13 gala, marking the opening of the new National Museum of American Jewish History on Philadelphia’s Independence Mall. The songstress was among the 18 Jews selected for the museum’s “Only in America” hall of fame. She was modest in that role — standing in a spotlight at her table and smiling to the 1,500-plus celebrating donors.
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Cigarette Smugglers Tied to Notorious Jewish Murder on Brooklyn Bridge 
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