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Reeling in New York
For New York moviegoers shrinking at the prospect of Tom Cruise goose-stepping through a Nazi-era spy thriller, the 18th annual New York Jewish Film Festival arrives this month with an eclectic roster of Jewish-oriented films. This year’s edition includes 32 features and shorts — 28 of which are making their world, American or New York…
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Fact or Fiction?
Josie loved the book “Angel Girl,” by Laurie Friedman. She was a fan of Friedman’s Mallory books, chapter books about the travails of a modern-day third grader: friendships, pets, moving, having her mom begin teaching music at the school she attends (mortifying!). But “Angel Girl” was very different — a non-fiction picture book filled with…
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Rockets From Lebanon Hit Israeli Border Town
Haifa, Israel — Israelis started the day with news that three Katyusha rockets had been fired over the Israel-Lebanon border, landing in the coastal town of Nahariya. One of the rockets hit a nursing home, leaving one resident with a broken leg, one with bruises, and others in shock. The IDF responded with artillery fire…
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Yid.Dish: New Year Brownies
Like a lot of other people at Hazon’s third annual food conference, I found myself shopping at the Farmers’ Market on Sunday morning. I hadn’t really planned to do this, but when someone asked me to meet there – I can’t even remember for what – I had difficulty resisting the urge to pick up…
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Celebrating a Holy Space
AN ECUMENICAL HAPPENING AT THE CATHEDRAL OF SAINT JOHN THE DIVINE My observant grandfather, Shmuel-Yankl Goldin, murdered by the Nazis in 1942, was a carpenter in Byten (now Belarus) who helped build synagogues and churches. My first school in Warsaw, Poland, was a Yiddish school on Krochmalne, Isaac Bashevis Singer’s favorite street. My first English…
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Israel’s Stark Choice in Gaza: Cease-Fire or Regime Change?
It was on the third and fourth days of its retaliatory air offensive in Gaza that the fork in the road for Israel became clear: another cease-fire agreement, or regime change. On December 29, after days of circumspect public statements, the rhetoric of some of Israel’s most visible officials changed markedly. “The goal of the…
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As Bush Exits, Four High-Profile Felons Hope For Pardons
Even the naughtiest Jews know the commandments against breaking the law. But for those who just couldn’t help themselves, the road to redemption — for the next three weeks, anyway — leads straight through the Oval Office. The pardon season was kicked off with a high-profile Jewish story: President Bush’s pardon of a deceased non-Jewish…
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Transgender Jews Now Out of Closet, Seeking Communal Recognition
Los Angeles — When Elliot Kukla, a Reform rabbi, came out as transgender six months before his ordination in 2006, he never imagined how openly the Jewish community would be addressing transgender issues just three years later. This month, he is poised to address a West Coast regional conference of Reform rabbis on the subject,…
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A Murder in Yemen Stirs a Tiny Remnant
Unlike many of his more isolated countrymen, Moshe Yaish Nahari, a Yemeni Jew, spent years studying abroad, then returned to act as a leader of Yemen’s ancient but tiny Jewish community. Now, however, the recent murder of Nahari has thrown the fate of Yemen’s Jewish population into doubt. Nahari, a 35-year-old teacher and religious leader…
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Israeli Martial Arts Gurus Duke It Out For Real
When grandmaster Haim Gidon, a top-ranking practitioner of the Israeli martial art of Krav Maga, entered a studio in New Jersey on a recent Monday, the 20-odd people in the room stopped pummeling each other and lined up like soldiers standing at attention. Gidon was visiting from Israel to give them advanced training, and the…
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Charities Change Course After Madoff
Los Angeles — In the wake of the ever-widening Madoff scandal, prominent Jewish fundraising experts are calling for a return to the days when Jewish charities engaged the entire community — not just an elite group of mega-donors. “The glass is both half empty and half full,” said David Mersky, a Boston-based fundraising consultant who…
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