Julie Wiener
By Julie Wiener
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The Schmooze Garry Shandling To Have Buddhist Funeral
(JTA) — Garry Shandling, the award-winning American Jewish comedian who at 66, will have a Buddhist funeral. The service, which Shandling had arranged secretly, will take place next month, TMZ reported. The cause of his March 24 death is still unknown. According to the celebrity gossip site, “He was never very vocal about it, but…
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Life Was Eve Created From a Very Different Bone of Adam?
(JTA) — Bible scholars are not generally known for producing viral or sexy content. But American Jewish University professor Ziony Zevit is causing a stir with a new book suggesting that in Genesis, Eve was made from a bone in Adam’s penis — not his rib, as we have all been taught. In “What Really…
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Fast Forward ‘Rabbi for Trump’ Gets Behind The Donald on Facebook
On Facebook, there are “Rabbis for Human Rights,” “Rabbis for Bernie” and, until recently, “Rabbis for Hillary.” Now, these groups are joined by a rabbinical flag-bearer for Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump. The controversial GOP front-runner’s fiery rhetoric about Muslims may have drawn condemnation from American rabbis and other Jewish leaders across the denominational spectrum,…
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The Schmooze Luxury Hotel Built By Mufti (Yes, That One) Named Best in Middle East
This week we learned that the grand mufti of Jerusalem gave Hitler the idea for the Final Solution — or at least that Israel’s prime minister believes that. But it turns out that Palestinian nationalist Haj Amin al-Husseini was not merely a notorious anti-Zionist and anti-Semite: He was also a talented hotel builder responsible in…
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Fast Forward One-Third of Americans Wouldn’t Hide Jews During Holocaust, Poll Says
(JTA) — Is the glass one-third empty or two-thirds full? A poll commissioned by distributors of Holocaust film “Return to the Hiding Place” asked 1,000 Americans a question many Jews have pondered: “If you were living during World War II, would you have risked the imprisonment and death of yourself and your family to hide…
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Fast Forward Legal Feuds Swirl Over Yom Kippur Chicken-Swinging Rite
(JTA) — Kapparot, the pre-Yom Kippur folk custom of swinging a chicken around one’s head as a way of purging sin, is one of those Jewish practices that doesn’t always, ahem, dovetail with 21st-century mores. The ritual has often encountered clucks of disapproval, and this High Holiday season is no different. In the United States…
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The Schmooze Shulem Deen On Leaving Hasidism — And His Children
Shulem Deen // Photo by Pearl Gabel (JTA) — Shulem Deen, the former Skverer Hasid who for years blogged under the pseudonym “Hasidic Rebel,” has just published a memoir, “All Who Go Do Not Return” (Graywolf Press). Deen, now 40, describes his sheltered life in New Square, the virtually all-Hasidic village an hour north of New…
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The Schmooze Who Buys All That Hametz?
(JTA) — Ever wonder how the Israeli government gets rid of its chametz, or leavened foods, at Passover? For the past 15 years it has been symbolically selling all the chametz from state-owned companies, the prison service and Israel’s national emergency supply to Hussein Jabar, an Arab-Israeli resident of Abu Ghosh. It then buys it all…
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