When you think about it, the brave new world of online Jewish dating is the perfect setting for a reality show. Between the anxious chatter of the first meeting to the nervous wait for a post-date phone call (which, if it comes, only does after the requisite three-day delay), the lives of single Jews seem…
American Jewish organizations that fought to establish the jurisdiction of U.S. courts for suits against terrorist groups are taking an opposite tack in suits involving human rights abuses. Jewish groups have filed briefs siding with a former Somali official now living in Virginia who is alleged to bear responsibility for atrocities committed during his tenure….
It’s a Friday afternoon in December, and history professor John Fout is leading the students in his course, “Nazi Germany and the Holocaust,” in a spirited discussion. Every time he has taught this class, Fout says from behind his desk in Room 7, students always ask: “If the Germans were losing the war, why didn’t…
For participants in the Yeshiva University schools’ newest exchange program, the last month has been one of slumber parties, shopping trips, Hebrew-language immersion and settler ideology. In early December the Queens, N.Y.-based Samuel H. Wang Yeshiva University High School for Girls became the first American girls’ school on record to immerse its students in West…
Jews are the People of the Book, but it has to be the right book: inspiring, life defining, readable on a plane. Sometimes it’s not even the book everybody else is reading. Best-seller lists, and even Jewish best-seller lists, like the one in Hadassah magazine, are great for driving the book-reading herd. But what if…
Last November, I koshered my kitchen for the first time. I did so with the full understanding that my decision came with certain compromises, like giving up my favorite cheeses and my delicious but uncertified collection of vinegars. While a bit heartbreaking, these were sacrifices I was willing to make as I welcomed in my…
FRENCH CONSUL GENERAL LIGHTS L’ HANOUKA CANDLES AND QUOTES THE RAMBAM “I could pass for a Santa,” a jolly, white-bearded Rabbi Mikhael Cohen, of the Centre Communautaire Juif Francophone de New York, joshed as we chatted at the December 17 Hanukkah reception held at the French Consulate. With a yarmulke atop his head, France’s consul…
My 5-year-old son, Jeremy, likes to watch cartoons on television each morning as he gets ready for school. This month, I noticed that most of the programs seemed to revolve around Christmas, and were particularly focused on presents. For example, on “Jungle Junction,” the blue Elephant, Elizam, was searching for a gift for his friend…
Christmas is the one time of year that I culinarily lament not being Catholic. It’s the holiday when Roman Catholics traditionally eat a feast of seven different types of fish — often each has its own course. While many Jews chow down on a feast of lo mein and spring rolls on Christmas, my family…
The numbers speak for themselves: There are now 16 Holocaust museums in the United States, from Albuquerque, N.M., to Houston, to Richmond, Va. And these are just the biggest of nearly 150 Holocaust centers all over the country. The proliferation of museums detailing the story of what happened to European Jewry during World War II…
A key proponent of the successful campaign for stricter conversions in Israel and around the world has resigned from a senior post, and has not denied rumors of a conversion scandal of his own. Rabbi Leib Tropper, a founder of the hard-line conversion group Eternal Jewish Family (EJF), announced that he had stepped down as…
