Alexandra Levine
By Alexandra Levine
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Music The Amy Winehouse We Never Knew
“It’s Amy, your favorite Jewish girl!” Amy Winehouse exclaimed after the beep — she was leaving a voicemail for her friend and former manager, Nick Shymansky. I didn’t even know Amy Winehouse was Jewish. There are lots of things I didn’t know about the late jazz-pop singer. Until I saw “Amy,” the new documentary about…
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News After Charleston, Houses of Worship Debate Saving Souls vs. Saving Lives
On a recent Sunday morning, a white Jewish guy wearing a backpack entered the First African Methodist Episcopal Church: Bethel in Harlem, without a problem. A black usher wearing white gloves greeted him warmly at the door and gave him a service pamphlet. The young man found a seat on a plush green bench and,…
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Culture Will a Selfie at Auschwitz Make You Free?
A couple of weeks ago, I stood before a crematorium at Auschwitz-Birkenau and listened to the tour guide talk about the sonderkommandos. The sonderkommandos, he explained quietly, were the prisoners tasked with removing dead corpses from the gas chambers – after the victims had been showered with cyanide and choked to death – and then…
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News A Nice Jewish Guy Built A Booming Fireworks Business. Then the Tsarnaev Brothers Walked In.
The fireworks industry in America is dominated almost entirely by big-name, old-time Italian families whose grandfathers and great-grandfathers mastered the craft in Italy and brought that knowledge to the United States. There are the Zambellis of New Castle, Pennsylvania; the Rozzis of Cincinnati, and the Cartolanos of Chicago. The Grucci family, based in New York…
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Culture Of American Pharaoh, Louis Brandeis and 10 Other Things About (Jewish) Kentucky
1 11,300 Jews live in Kentucky. 2 Henry Hyman was reportedly the first Jew to settle in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1826, he opened a tavern called the Western Coffeehouse, where he sold delicious, non-kosher food and the finest liquor in town. 3 Jewish communal life began in Kentucky in the 1830s. 4 The first Jewish…
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News Jury Decides Against JONAH in Landmark ‘Gay Conversion’ Therapy Case
A jury decided against a Jewish group that promotes so-called ‘gay conversion therapy’ in a landmark fraud case that could have a wide-ranging impact on the controversial anti-gay practice. In a first-of-its-kind decision, the jury awarded $72,000 to several mostly Jewish victims who said Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing and co-founder Arthur Goldberg made…
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News Landmark JONAH ‘Gay Conversion’ Therapy Case Goes to Jury
Jurors began deliberations Wednesday afternoon on whether gay conversion therapy constitutes fraud. The verdict comes after the close of a three-week trial that has drawn national attention to so-called “ex-gay” or “gay conversion” therapy, which aims to turn gay people straight using some highly controversial techniques. Although gay-to-straight conversion therapy was most prevalent in evangelical…
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Culture Of Goldie Hawn, Theater J and 8 Other Things About (Jewish) Washington D.C.
1 28,000 Jews live in Washington, D.C. 2 In 1847, there were roughly 25 Jews in all of Washington. 3 Washington’s first Jewish congregation, which came to be known as the Washington Hebrew Congregation, first convened in 1852. But when a melodeon, an organ-like instrument, was introduced at the shul shortly thereafter, a number of…
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