“Berlin wears a yarmulke,” the popular BZ local newspaper declared to its readers on Saturday. The reason: the front page presented a photo of five Berlin celebrities posing with skullcaps – including Mayor Klaus Wowereit, one of the best known gay politicians in Europe. The city’s residents decided to show their solidarity with the city’s…
Prosecutors in Berlin dismissed a criminal complaint lodged against a rabbi for performing circumcisions. The Jerusalem Post reported on Thursday that the complaint for “causing bodily harm” against Rabbi Yitshak Ehrenberg was dropped on August 15 as “unfounded.” An opponent of circumcision lodged the complaint last month after Ehrenberg defended the practice on a television…
“Lulu,” the unlikely collaboration between Lou Reed and Metallica, rapidly went from being one of the year’s most anticipated releases to being the most reviled album of 2011. USA Today called it “arty sludge” and gave it one star. Writing in Grantland, Chuck Klosterman lambasted it as “a successful simulation of how it feels to…
As World War I neared its end, Germany turned its focus to internal security. Serious unrest in Berlin during the summer of 1918 led the Prussian Ministry of the Interior to make a surprising decision. Bernhard Weiss, a little-known Jewish war hero and recipient of the Iron Cross First Class, was ordered to leave the…
This week we bring you two stories about hummus around the globe. Tell us about your favorite hummus in the comments. In just over a year, Ze’ev Avrahami, an Israeli reporter living in Berlin, turned a passionate quest for the perfect hummus into a thriving underground food business. This month, he’ll open Sababa, an Israeli…
Funny how things turn out. In last month’s column, where I discussed my trip to the Stanton Street Shul, I made much of the fact that I did not have to resort to 3-D goggles to be transported back in time to the Lower East Side of the early 1900s. But, as luck would have…
Photo by Kenneth Locke Orit Shimoni is a singer-songwriter in perpetual motion, with little slowing her down as she travels from city to city, gig to gig. But it was a 2008 first-time visit to Berlin that gave her uncharacteristic pause. She had gone to the German capital to check out the music scene, where,…
Crossposted from Haaretz When Mary Ocher participated in a singing competition at 14, Idan Reichel, who was working as a music arranger in the same competition, told her she would never be a singer. At 20, after hearing the same thing from a few other Israeli teachers, Ocher packed her bags and moved with her…
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