Aviya Kushner is the Forward’s language columnist and the author of Wolf Lamb Bomb and The Grammar of God.
Aviya Kushner
By Aviya Kushner
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Culture The Word ‘Hanukkah’ Means A Lot More Than You Think It Does
What does the word “Hanukkah” mean? For children, it often means the holiday of presents. For Tel Aviv doughnut obsessives, it means congregating on all eight days at bakeries with the most elaborate sufganiyot. For many around the world, it’s “the Festival of Lights,” when seeing menorahs in the windows of neighbors’ homes illuminates the…
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Culture How To See The Vatican’s Hebrew Manuscripts Without Leaving Home
My first-ever trip to the Vatican took place after an exhausting overnight train ride to Rome from Paris with two friends — one deeply Catholic, the other Buddhist — when we were all 20 years old. We were exchange students with little cash but plenty of curiosity; we knew nothing about Rome and nothing about…
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Culture How Trump Team Twists The Torah In War On Knowledge
It was strange to hear the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday, October 31, quote the Book of Joshua as justification for taking scientific experts off of a committee — but it’s also dangerous. And it has deep implications. Here is Scott Pruitt, the EPA administrator, said when he invoked the Bible: “Joshua…
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Culture Every Word Nerd Is Looking Up ‘Indictment’ — But Why Is It Spelled That Way?
For word nerds, checking up on what’s hot in dictionary look-ups can be an addictive form of procrastination. As of noon today, these were the top five on Merriam-Webster, along with their super-quick definitions: conspiracy: An agreement to commit an illegal act collusion, indictment: Two Latin-based legal terms dossier: a file containing detailed records debase:…
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Culture Does Russian Studies Have An ‘Alt-Right’ Problem?
A searing essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education calls on the field of Russian Studies to acknowledge the tie between Russia and white supremacy. “David Duke, Richard Spencer, and other white-supremacist leaders have longstanding ties to Russia and Ukraine,” writes Sarah Valentine, who has a PhD in Russian literature from Princeton, and is the…
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Culture Why Peggy Noonan’s Use Of ‘Shonda’ Is A Shonda
Peggy Noonan, the Wall Street Journal columnist who won a 2017 Pulitzer Prize for commentary — and who was, of course, President Reagan’s main speechwriter — sparked a social-media firestorm when she used the Yiddish word “shonda” to describe her reaction to the decision to remove Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee from the stained-glass…
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Culture How A Tel Aviv Café Is Helping The Needy With Free Challah
A Tel Aviv coffee shop is offering free challahs for those who need them in a novel way — by leaving challahs on café tables for an hour each Friday afternoon. Coffee Station at 152 Ibn Gabirol Street, the street Israelis pronounce as Even Gvirol, will have challahs on tables from 3:30-4:30 p.m each Friday,…
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Culture So, Is ‘Cosmopolitan’ An Anti-Semitic Slur Or Not?
Russian scholars remain aghast at Donald Trump’s senior policy adviser Stephen Miller’s use of the word “cosmopolitan,” and some warn that it is a very important signal. “Stephen Miller’s references to “cosmopolitan bias” in the media are so transparently anti-Semitic that it is hard to believe people are not seeing it,” said Russell Valentino, Professor…
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