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Hanukkah in Bentonville
From “Boom Town: How Wal-Mart Transformed an All-American Town Into an International Community” (Chicago Review Press, 2009) On a balmy Tuesday evening in December 2006, Sheldon Hirsch and his wife, Nicole, brought a menorah to the Christmas concert of their three-year-old son, Justin, at his preschool, the Helen R. Walton Children’s Enrichment Center. And a…
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Credit Where Credit Is Jew
The movie credits were rolling, and so were my eyes. “See?” my mom was saying to me and my sister and to my dad, who was nodding distractedly as he tried to pick out the popcorn kernel from between his teeth. That “See?” referred to another one. Of us, that is. Jews. In the credits….
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A Class of Their Own
In bold letters, I write the word nakhes on the board. “How’s it pronounced again?” asks one of the five male students in the class. I say the word again, emphasizing the guttural sound in the middle of it. “Now you try it.” Amid much laughter and throat clearing, 22 African-American adults try coughing out…
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Latkes for the Second Half of Hanukkah
By mid-way through Hanukkah, I’ve had my fill of oil-soaked, floppy, even rubbery latkes that seem to grace — a generous word — the plates of many Hanukkah parties. They’re a far cry from a food that is meant to celebrate the miracle of oil, a cook’s gold. A latke should be crisp and golden…
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Coming to Terms With Our Dreams
When my son Jeremy was 4, I took him to the Zimmer Children’s Museum, near my home in Los Angeles. The exhibit includes a replica of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, with paper for children to write their prayers and insert them between the stones of the wall. I explained this idea to Jeremy, and…
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YID.DISH: Homemade Pizza
I’m sure that like me, many of you cannot get Hanukkah cooking and baking out of your minds! I will be making potato leek latkes, homemade apple sauce and some chewy ginger cookies tonight. As you can tell, I’m in full holiday mode! Anyway, if you are looking for a break from the holiday food…
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Challah as Hanukkiah
This year Hanukkah starts and ends on a Friday night. This happy happenstance gives me two opportunities to create one of my favorite holiday treats — the challah hanukkiah, literally a menorah made of challah. For the most part Jews today associate the bread eaten Friday night with the braided form in which it is…
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A Mega-Bash With a Mission
Lighthouse Shines Spotlight on Honorees That Include a Composer, Movie Star, Interior Designer and Cosmetics Packager Supreme “It’s a good news story… a change from cheating and scandal,” said WNYW FOX 5 news anchor Ernie Anastos, host of “Lightyears,” the November 10 Lighthouse International Salutes the Arts gala, held at the Plaza. The honorees were…
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Dispelling 4%: Survey Finds Plurality of Israelis Views Obama Favorably
An August 2009 survey that found only 4% of Israelis believe President Barack Obama supports Israel has been haunting the White House and supporters of the president. The 4% figure became a symbol of Obama’s inability to communicate with the Israeli people and fostered the notion that the U.S. president is biased toward the Arab…
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A Senator at Odds With His Constituents — And, Some Say, His Faith
On a recent Saturday afternoon, after completing his Sabbath morning prayers, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut braved a four-mile, snowy walk to the Capitol building from his Georgetown synagogue. “I have a responsibility to my constituents, really to my conscience, to be here on something as important as health care reform,” Lieberman told the congressional…
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Russians Now Big Players in American Jewish Philanthropy
When hundreds of thousands of Jews began leaving the Soviet Union 20 years ago, American Jews looked at them the way a father beams at his children. Here was a large part of the tribe, almost lost to forced assimilation, now taking their first steps into a Jewish future. That paternalistic feeling only grew, as…
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