Officials from all sides are striving to keep expectations low for the new direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, a reflection of the disillusioned mood the parties bring to the table. But the instinct to minimize the significance of the upcoming talks masks what some see as a dramatic reality at this point in…
Peter Beinart’s essay in The New York Review of Books last spring painted a picture of young American Jews as alienated, increasingly disengaged from the Jewish state and what he called the “illiberal” policies of its current government, and “less willing to grant Israel an exemption because its survival seems in peril.” Beinart briefly backed…
“Kosher” and “barbecue” are two words that don’t normally fit together in one sentence, but the oldest Orthodox synagogue in Memphis has found a way to make it work by focusing on beef and beans. No pork permitted. On a Sunday in late August, the shul known as Anshei Sphard-Beth El Emeth (ASBEE) hosted its…
This weekend, my husband and I went away for a night to celebrate our ten year anniversary. I was initially apprehensive about going. It would be our first overnight outing away from the kids since our first child was born six years ago. My son had been on sleepovers before, but my three-year-old daughter had…
Bel Kaufman: Still Tangoing at 99 — in Stiletto Heels! “On May 10, 2011, I will be 100!” Bel Kaufman said in amazement during our August 26 lunch at Shun Lee West. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel. I have never been 100.” The Berlin-born, Russian-speaking granddaughter of Yiddish humorist writer Sholom Aleichem,…
‘Honey cake is not so much loved as revered,” Arthur Schwartz writes in “Arthur Schwartz’s Jewish Home Cooking: Yiddish Recipes Revisited” (Ten Speed Press, 2008). Truer culinary words have never been written. Honey cake is a symbolic super food and an undisputed fixture on many Rosh Hashanah tables. But just as with fruitcake, which routinely…
On an August weekend blissfully free of this summer’s scorching heat, I attended a wedding in Manhattan, the marriage of a childhood friend. The event was beautiful. My sister, her husband and my parents were all there, and while my parents played a role in the ceremony, my partner, Ian, and I were asked to…
Every revolution has its Jewish moment, and Glenn Beck’s call to “restore honor” is no exception. Beck, who with Sarah Palin on Saturday drew a huge crowd to the Lincoln Memorial in the National Mall in Washington, focused his revival call on bringing back faith to America, and nothing says faith more than having a…
Princeton University’s Mark R. Cohen, the Khedouri A. Zilkha Professor of Jewish Civilization in the Near East, spoke recently with the Forward’s news editor Larry Cohler-Esses about the history of Muslim anti-Semitism. They discuss the debate over whether Islam is innately unfriendly to Jews, or whether Muslim anti-Semitism is a newer phenomenon imported from Christianity…
In this week?s Forward Reporters? Roundtable, host Josh Nathan-Kazis speaks with staff writer Gal Beckerman about the life and worldview of the late revisionist Zionist Ze?ev Jabotinsky, and about those who consider themselves Jabotinsky?s ideological heirs. Then Arty Semite blog co-editor Ezra Glinter discusses an exhibit about the Jews of Argentina, now on view at…
Three years ago, professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer packaged their critique of the pro-Israel lobby into a 400-plus page tome that has become a bible for critics of Israel?s influence in Washington. Now, a new book, nearly as thick and just as detailed, turns the tables on the two academics. ?The Arab Lobby? by…
