Johnna Kaplan
By Johnna Kaplan
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Life I Decided To Buy A Tanakh
This is the fourth post in a series by Johnna Kaplan exploring aspects of Jewish life outside of her own experience. Last week I opened an Amazon box containing a Stone Edition Tanach. It is the first tanach, or tanakh (or Bible, or Old Testament, or whatever you want to call it), I have ever…
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Life My Kind Of, Sort Of Yom Kippur Fast
This is the third post in a series by Johnna Kaplan exploring aspects of Jewish life outside of her own experience. I have always felt compelled to fast on Yom Kippur — just not compelled enough. Usually I either forget what day it is until it’s too late or simply give up at the first…
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News New York State’s Oldest Landsmanschaften Celebrates 100th Anniversary
When Mikhail Kivovich came to America from Belorussia in 1991, he knew he had relatives who had arrived here many decades earlier. But until he attended the recent reunion of the Israel Cantor Family Society, he had no idea how many. Or how far back they went. It was the print-out of the family tree…
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Life My Gefilte Fish Adventure
This is the second post in a series by Johnna Kaplan exploring aspects of Jewish life outside of her own experience. I have always been wary of Gefilte fish. It’s fish, but not quite. It lurks in jars in the supermarket, looking deceptively like delicious matzoh balls, only it isn’t. I have seen it defined…
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Life Making Jewish Traditions My Own
This is the first post in a series by Johnna Kaplan exploring aspects of Jewish life outside of her own experience. Although I am proud to define myself as Jewish, that definition centers on what I care about and how I think, not so much what I do. There are many traditionally Jewish things, like,…
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Culture Have Judaica Will Travel — Through Dixie
When Rachel Jarman Myers, a Jewish educator, works with children in Jackson, Miss., she typically asks the students if they know any Jewish people. Sometimes, one child raises a hand. But when she specifies that the person cannot be Myers herself, the child’s hand almost always goes back down. The Jewish population in Mississippi has…
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Opinion Newtown Gets Some Advice From Israel
The people of Newtown have received plenty of advice on keeping children safe since their town was plunged into the national spotlight last December. Now, Israel is offering its best words of wisdom. “Awareness has become part of our DNA,” said David Rubin, a former Israeli government official. Rubin and a group of Israeli experts…
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Life Do We Really Need A JILF List?
For good or for evil, like it or not, Jews seem to be stuck with Jewish lists. The newest one is Shalom Life’s Top 50 Hottest Jewish Women of 2013, a.k.a “The JILF List.” (If you don’t know what JILF means, watch this scene from the movie “American Pie.”) The expression is “two Jews, three…
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