In 1949 my father first began to play Santa Claus for the kindergarten class at Mason School in St. Louis. My dad, Paul Blumenthal, owned a nearby neighborhood pharmacy, Paul’s Drug Store, and he soon became well-known in South St. Louis for his animated Santa portrayals. Perhaps part of the allure was the fact that…
If you drive around my neighborhood in the Northern suburbs of Chicago, you can probably count on your two hands the number of homes with Christmas lights. I guess that’s my way of admitting I’m raising my kids in a bubble. My oldest son even acknowledged to me that he doesn’t have any Christian friends,…
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. pic.twitter.com/iLjpDQmDvA — Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) December 12, 2016 The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, tweeted its holiday well-wishes, and by “holiday well-wishes” I mean Christmastime message of exclusion. “We’re going to start saying ‘Merry Christmas again,’” the message reads, with a photo of a camouflage MAGA-hat-wearing…
Natalie Portman made headlines this month when she told the host of “The Tonight Show,” Jimmy Fallon, that she would be decorating her home with a Christmas tree for the first time this year, thus fulfilling “every Jew’s secret wish.” But Portman is far from the first high-profile Jew to deck the halls. In fact,…
(JTA) — All I want for Hanukkah is Christmas. I grew up in suburban Chicago surrounded by my fellow Jews — at school, at camp, on the weekends, at my parents’ friends’ houses, in the streets and parks of my neighborhood. Even then, I knew that Jews made up less than 2 percent of America’s…
East Asian civilizations identify themselves through their use of chopsticks, European ones have universally adopted the knife and fork, but not one significant civilization has ever embraced the spork. The reason that this highly practical spoon-shaped eating utensil with short tines at the tip has not become a favorite is because it’s a compromise. Neither…
It’s an annual holiday tradition to circulate and mock outrageously expensive gift guides. (Goop’s being the prime example.) But there’s a new contender: the rock-in-a-pouch. Why was Nordstrom selling a rock in a leather pouch for $85 and more to the point, why is it sold out? (Limited supply, possibly. A good rock is hard…
‘Tis the season — for presents, caroling and the anti-Christmas billboard campaign run by David Silverman, head of the American Atheists group that every year urges Americans to avoid religious celebrations of Christmas. “Make Christmas Great Again. Skip Church!” reads one of the signs, which are running in Colorado, South Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana. Another features…
איידל מלובֿיצקי איז געבוירן און דערצויגן געוואָרן בײַ אַ חסידישער סלאָנימער משפּחה אין ווין, עסטרײַך.
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