Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the robust lives of American Jews. Here there’s a little of everything about the multifaceted world of Jewish life. There are light-hearted Jewish celebrity stories and shocking Jewish celebrity news. Food is also plentiful,…
Life
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Yid Vid: I Like Chinese Food on Christmas — the Video, Not So Much
Brandon Walker’s “Chinese Food for Christmas” is the big Christmas-season Jewish Internet video hit. It’s been viewed more than a million times on YouTube. There’s even a stripped-down, acoustic version (which has been watched more than 500,000 times!). The question is: Why? Personally, I prefer this one: My favorite line: “You see all Jewish people…
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A Chief Rabbi Who Deserves the Title
Ha’aretz has a nice profile of British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, a real treasure for British Jewry and Britain as a whole. He is, as the Ha’aretz article demonstrates, a rare figure, an Orthodox leader who speaks and writes on issues of universal import — and has garnered the admiration of his non-Jewish countrymen. (One…
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Who Is Morris B. Squire?
Nextbook tracks down the eccentric 84-year-old millionaire behind one of today’s most exciting Jewish engagement initiatives aimed at 20-somethings: a worldwide system of Moishe Houses, located in some 20 cities around the world. Philanthropist Morris “Moishe” Squire subsidizes rent on the houses, and in exchange the residents turn them into community hubs where young Jews…
The Latest
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Jews Against Jumbotrons
The Reform movement’s exploration of Protestant mega-churches as a potential model for reinvigorating Jewish worship doesn’t have everyone kvelling. The problem, as some see it, is that the mega-church model just isn’t, well, very Jewish. Blogger Daniel Burstyn comments on the use of “jumbo-trons” at the Union for Reform Judaism’s recent biennial follow this line…
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In Other Jewish Newspapers: ‘Operation Nazi Kicker,’ Mega-Shuls Aren’t Us, Church Stands By Its Rabbi
SHUL BURNS: Temple Ahavat Achim of Gloucester, Mass., has burned to the ground, Boston’s Jewish Advocate reports. The fire was accidental, and the Conservative synagogue’s congregants have found temporary sanctuary at a nearby Unitarian Universalist church. RABBI KOPPELL GOES TO WASHINGTON: Writing in the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, Rabbi Bonnie Koppell of Arizona tells…
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The Snack Food That’s Seen Israel Through Trying Times
The Jerusalem Post tells the story of a typically Israeli munchie: The year was 2003, and in Israel, the Homefront Command worked to prepare Israelis for Iraqi missiles. Gas masks were issued, and all over the country, people bought heavy plastic sheeting to seal up a room. Everyone shopped for emergency supplies – flashlights, bottled…
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Yid Vid: Adam Sandler as Mossad-Agent-Turned-Hairdresser
So Sandler has made a film in which he plays a crack Mossad agent who decides to move to New York to be a hairdresser. Weird? Yes. Profound? Maybe. Sandler, in my humble opinion, perfectly captured the zeitgeist of American Jewry in “50 First Dates,” the film in which he wooed an amnesiac Drew Barrymore….
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Cooking Up a Clever Protest Strategy
The headline from Ha’aretz says it all: “Falafel recipe painted on West Bank fence as part of protest.” The Jerusalem Post, it so happens, has an equally odd story today: “Sisters stumble upon remains of Roman soldier on beach.”
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Adlerstein vs. Angel on Conversion
Last month, Rabbi Marc Angel, rabbi emeritus of New York’s historic Congregation Shearith Israel, penned an impassioned critique of the adoption of new — and, he argued, needlessly restrictive — conversion policies by the Rabbinical Council of America, an organization he once served as its president. The article generated plenty of discussion in the Orthodox…
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Loving Israel’s ‘Bazaar of the Bizarre’
Jacob Savage has penned a colorful love letter to Israel’s most maligned building: Tel Aviv’s Central Bus Station. He writes: Subcultures have embraced various corners of the building. Some storefronts are exclusively in Thai, some in Russian, some in English. Of course there is Hebrew, which in much of the station seems almost like an…
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Yoffie on Shabbat, Muslim-Jewish Dialogue, Health Care and Israel
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, had an ambitious agenda for his synagogue movement’s biennial meeting. In his speech to the gathering, he urged a renewed commitment to Shabbat observance among Reform Jews, called for a deepening of dialogue with North American Muslims, pushed universal health care and issued an impassioned…
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