Gabrielle Birkner
By Gabrielle Birkner
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Israel News Story of Leah, With a Twist
In a new television movie, Hasidic Brooklyn gets the Hollywood treatment. “Loving Leah,” filmed on location in New York, centers on a young widow whose life is forever changed by an obscure biblical law that requires her to wed her brother-in-law. Ultra-Orthodox Leah (Lauren Ambrose) and her secular brother-in-law, Jake (Adam Kaufman), agree to take…
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News Yid Vid: Michelle Obama’s Rabbi Cousin Has Some Advice for the President
Rabbi Capers Funnye, Jr., a cousin of First Lady Michelle Obama, is calling on President Obama to make Middle East peace “a top priority” of his administration. Funnye appears with a handful of other rabbis in a five-minute video, created before the inauguration by the organization Brit Tzedek v’Shalom – Jewish Alliance for Justice &…
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Life The Israeli Behind Mrs. Obama’s Wardrobe
On the morning after the swearing in, fashion blogs are drooling over Michelle Obama’s inauguration-day wardrobe: a glittery yellow suit by Isabel Toledo for the oath-taking, and an ethereal, single-strapped ivory gown by Jason Wu for the galas. The woman behind the First Lady’s sartorial choices is said to be the Israeli-born Ikram Goldman, 41….
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Israel News The L Word: ‘Miss Yeshiva Girl’ Gets the Ax
‘The L Word” — the Showtime drama about a tight-knit group of lesbian, bisexual and transgender women living in West Hollywood, Calif. — kills off its resident Jewess in the January premiere of its sixth and final season. Jenny Schecter’s suspicious death will be the springboard for a whodunit plotline à la the famous “Who…
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Life Mrs. Madoff’s Kitchen Controversy
Move over Jessica Seinfeld and Cindy McCain. There’s a new recipe-centric controversy making headlines. Remember that kosher cookbook Ruth Madoff — the wife of disgraced Wall Street trader Bernard Madoff — supposedly co-edited? Well, now another one of the book’s editors, Karen MacNeil, is telling The New York Times that “… in point of fact,…
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Life Helen Suzman, Barack Obama, and 100 Years of Black-Jewish Relations
Helen Suzman, the Jewish anti-apartheid activist who died earlier this month, was long critical of South Africa’s organized Jewish community for its policy of political non-involvement during the apartheid years. When the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) gave her a humanitarian award in 2007, she accepted the honor with the words, “It’s about…
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Life In Real Estate Dispute, Leviev and Mann Seek a Beit Din
In what the New York Post has deemed a “Trial by Jewry” the two wealthy owners of the Apthorp apartment house, Lev Leviev and Maurice Mann, have agreed to settle their dispute over the building in a beit din, or Jewish court. The problem is that they can’t agree on a rabbi to oversee the…
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Life ‘Joe the Plumber’ Puts Down the Plunger, Heads to Israel
“Joe the Plumber” won’t be unclogging any toilets, at least not while war is raging in Gaza. Samuel J. Wurzelbacher — the Ohio plumber and would-be country music star who became a fixture of John McCain’s presidential campaign — is heading to Israel for 10 days as a war reporter for the conservative Web site…
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