Does Birthright Really Fail Young Jews?
“Birthright’s main problem… isn’t in how it treats the occupation, but what it’s done to Judaism back home, here in the U.S.”
How A #MeToo Scandal Proved What We Already Know: ‘Jewish Continuity’ Is Sexist.
How surprised can we be that a man whose worldview hinged on women having more babies turned out to have no respect for them?
Intermarriage Fear-Mongering Hides The Real Threat To Jews
The Conservative movement has suffered devastating loss of membership. How better to create a feeling of in-group cohesion than a crisis?
Yiddish Theater Takes on Capitalism
Since 2005, the New Worlds Theatre Project has been presenting classic Yiddish drama in English translation. This season they’re presenting a new English translation of H. Leivick’s 1921 play “Shmates,” here called “Welcome to America,” a naturalistic drama about the corrosive effects of American capitalism on a traditional Jewish immigrant family.
Why Yiddish Matters
On May 15, Speakers’ Lab and the Forward will present a moderated town hall-style event called “Now What? The Future of New Jewish Culture” at the 14th Street Y in downtown New York City. In preparation for the event, each panelist was asked to respond to a question related to his or her work. The Forward will publish one panelist’s response every Tuesday leading up to the event, and a second panelist’s response will be published on Speakers’ Lab’s website that same day.
Welcome to the Dybbuk Revival
The Dibbuk Box
By Jason Haxton
Truman State University Press, 192 pages, $19.95
Psoy Korolenko's 21st Century Humor
Shaman-journalist is still a microniche compared to singer-songwriter. That may explain why Psoy Korolenko is something of an enigma to English-speaking audiences.
With 'Jews on Vinyl' You Can Have Your Kitsch and Eat It, Too
“Jews on Vinyl,” an unusual museum exhibit focused on the recent Jewish past, has arrived at the Yeshiva University Museum after touring the West Coast for two years. The exhibit is a project of the Reboot Stereophonic non-profit record label, and is based on the 2008 book “And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We Have Loved and Lost,” a glossy collection of over 500 vintage record covers collected over 15 years by guest curators (and Stereophonic Reboot founders) Josh Kun and Roger Bennett.
Jewish Identity at the Crossroads of Race, Religion and Revolution
Trish McCall, Dan Bielinski and Marcus Naylor in ‘Under the Cross.’ Photo by Louis Zweibel.
A Picture Out of Focus
Is Broadway ready for dancing girls in the Warsaw ghetto? Can an American musical high kick through the darkest moments of Jewish history and still avoid giving offense, or worse, falling into kitsch?