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Albom Makes Rabbis Look Good, Again
Have A Little Faith: A True Story By Mitch Albom Hyperion, 272 pages, $24.00. There was a time when our parents and grandparents regarded the rabbi as wise and his role as indispensable. Unfortunately, much popular culture has downgraded that image. Recent depictions of rabbis peg them as religious bureaucrats or buffoons — demoralized and…
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Tu B’Shvat: The Paris Hilton of Jewish Holidays
“Tu B’Shvat?” Jenny Block repeats, entranced. The very mention of the holiday is swirling the rabbi’s daughter back to her youth. “For whatever reason, it was always a very sensory thing for me as a kid. I can still remember the sound of the lulav shaking, and the smell of the etrog and…” “Jenny!” I…
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What’s in a Name?
My mother always regretted my middle name — Amy. She rues not giving me Lewis, her maiden name, which, to be honest, would have been cool, a wink at masculinity; meaningful. Sarah was a given, she’d known from childhood she would have a girl named Sarah. Sarah was for her mother who died, too young,…
The Latest
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Israel’s Relief Effort in Haiti Saves Lives, Boosts Image
The crowd broke out in cheers as an ambulance pulled out of what was once Haiti’s main tax administration office, carrying a survivor rescued from the wreckage by an Israeli team four days after this city’s devastating earthquake. “Bravo!” the onlookers shouted. “We love you, Israel.” It was a picture-perfect moment for Israeli public diplomacy….
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Rabbinic Text or Call to Terror?
The marble-patterned, hardcover book embossed with gold Hebrew letters looks like any other religious commentary you’d find in an Orthodox Judaica bookstore — but reads like a rabbinic instruction manual outlining acceptable scenarios for killing non-Jewish babies, children and adults. “The prohibition ‘Thou Shalt Not Murder’” applies only “to a Jew who kills a Jew,”…
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Hold the Presses: Newspapers Are Competing for Orthodox Readers
The newspaper business has been in a tailspin for a long time now — everywhere, it seems, except among Orthodox Jews. The staying power of the Orthodox press can, of course, be reduced to one simple reason: the Sabbath. “On Shabbes there is no Internet, no BlackBerry, no electronics, and people have time,” said Yitzchok…
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The Butcher, the Baker, the Juice Bar Keep Market Alive
A decade ago, a customer visiting Rainbo’s Fish in Manhattan’s Essex Street Market could pick a live carp from Rainbo’s tank and see it slaughtered on the spot. “You take a mallet and you hit the carp over the head,” said owner Ira Stolzenberg, a grizzled cigarette smoker with a shaved head. The mallet didn’t…
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Mondrowitz Escapes Another Trial
For several dozen Americans who say they were sexually abused as children, news from Israel on January 14 ripped the scab off a still unhealed wound. Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that Avrohom Mondrowitz, their alleged abuser, will not be extradited to stand trial in America. But that is not the only recent decision regarding Mondrowitz….
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Poet and Partisan Avrom Sutzkever Dies
Avrom Sutzkever, who died January 20 at the age of 96, was not only a great Yiddish poet but is acknowledged as being one of the great poets of the 20th century. For several years he had been ailing and living in a nursing home in Tel Aviv. It was a city upon which he’d…
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Haiti’s Jewish Remnant Keeps the Faith and Lends a Hand Amid the Crisis
Each year on Yom Kippur, Rudolph Dana locks himself in his Pétionville, Haiti, home — protected by guard dogs and security personnel — and passes the Day of Atonement fasting, praying and reciting the traditional liturgy of repentance and forgiveness. Up until about 10 years ago, Haiti’s tiny Jewish community would gather in a home…
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Yid.Dish: Jerusalem artichoke soup for 700 (or 6)
People love to cook for intimate gatherings, but they also have a fascination with mass-producing food. I, for one, am guilty of an obsession with the Food Network show Unwrapped and immediately join the line for any tour of a cheese-, chocolate-, or bourbon-making operation. I’ll also tune into any show that gives chefs a…
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Yiddish אַ בריוועלע דער מאַמען (אַ דערציילונג) A letter to my mother (story)
בעת אַ ייִדישער סאָלדאַט ליגט אין אַ סאָוועטישן מיליטערישן שפּיטאָל פֿאַרמעסט זיך זײַן מאַמע קעגן דעם ייִדישן הויפּט־דאָקטער
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Fast Forward 2 men found guilty in UK of plotting Islamic State-inspired antisemitic terror attack
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Fast Forward Self-appointed chief rabbi of Saudi Arabia says he was denied entry at border
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