Devra Ferst
By Devra Ferst
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Israel News Dashing an Olympic Hopeful’s Dreams
This year, Israel achieved a tremendous athletic feat: One of its athletes, 20-year-old Tamar Katz, became the first Israeli to qualify for the women’s figure skating competition in the Olympics. But Katz — a three-time national champion in Israel — won’t compete this February at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. While she does meet…
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Israel News Kirshtein Serves Up a New Kind of Kosher
It sounds like a Jewish “Top Chef” challenge: Prepare a five-course kosher tasting menu using cutting-edge cooking techniques, pair with kosher wines and serve to 135 diners ranging from 20-something New York hipsters to 60-year-old women wearing sheitels. That was former “Top Chef” contestant Eli Kirshtein’s task January 23 at New York’s Solo Restaurant —…
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Israel News A Knish Giant Celebrates 100 Years
‘Rivington Street [on the Lower East Side] is the latest scene of war. It is a knish war,” — or at least that’s what the New York Times reported in 1916, in an article titled “Rivington St. Sees War: Rival Restaurant Men Cut Prices on the Succulent Knish,” which highlighted competing knish shops in the…
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Culture ‘Scientists on Trains’ Leaves the Station in Israel
The morning oration is like a normal university class: a professor, an engaging intellectual lecture and questions at the end. But the similarities between a regular college class and the new Hebrew University “Scientists on Trains” program pretty much stop there. The program, which was launched in November, has brought a number of the Hebrew…
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Israel News Five Questions for HaBanot Nechama
The Israeli female band HaBanot Nechama (Comfort Girls) became a household name in Israel with its first, self-titled album, which went platinum within a month of its release. The trio’s music blends folk, reggae and soul music; three solo careers; two languages, and a variety of instruments to create a unique sound that has garnered…
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Israel News Birthright by the Numbers
As most of the world celebrated the New Year, TAGLIT-Birthright Israel, the Jewish organization that provides free trips to Israel for young adults in the Diaspora, celebrated its 10th anniversary. Kicking off the celebration was a ceremony for a plane filled with 400 participants, alumni and donors that landed in Israel on December 29. At…
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Israel News Q&A: Four Questions for the Wandering Jew
Ben Harris, JTA’s Wandering Jew, is exactly like wandering Jews of centuries past: He carries his belongings, and searches for Jewish communities the world over. But instead using the stars for navigation, Harris has Google Maps. Since last August, Harris, 33, has been on the road almost continuously, visiting Jewish communities as close as Helena,…
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News A Very Salty (Yiddishe) Christmas
Christmas is the one time of year that I culinarily lament not being Catholic. It’s the holiday when Roman Catholics traditionally eat a feast of seven different types of fish — often each has its own course. While many Jews chow down on a feast of lo mein and spring rolls on Christmas, my family…
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Fast Forward Helen Mirren criticizes Israel at film festival after being called ‘evil Zionist’ in viral video
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Fast Forward After dozens of Jewish girls get lost in NY creek tunnel, antisemitic comments follow online
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Yiddish דער קאַמף צװישן טראַדיציע און רעװאָלוציע אין סאָװעטיש־ייִדישער קולטור The battle between tradition and revolution in Soviet-Yiddish culture
סאָװעטיש־ייִדיש איז געװען אַ ראַדיקאַלער עקספּערימענט, װאָס פֿאַרנעמט אַ װיכטיקן פּלאַץ אױף דער װעלטמאַפּע פֿון ייִדישער קולטור
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News A Jewish nonprofit was training men to prevent sexual abuse. Then the funding disappeared