Should Jewish parents let their kids watch Christmas television specials? Maybe, writes Slate senior editor Dahlia Lithwick in a column yesterday. On the one hand, “one needn’t be virulently anti-Christmas to experience the seasonal anxiety felt by parents who want their children to enjoy the winter holidays while avoiding religious indoctrination,” she contends. And characters…
Going to be in New York on Christmas and looking for a break from Chinese food? Eater NY gives us a list of 22 restaurants where you can enjoy a delectable meal. If you’re afraid to stray too far from the classic Chinese feast, they recommend trying Brooklyn’s Mile End Deli’s interpretation. [Eater] ‘Tis the…
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree Those who, for one reason or another, stand outside the frame of Yuletide cheer often find their voices muted come Christmas. The singing of “Silent Night” leaves us, well, silent. Not so for the protagonist of “The Loudest Voice,” one of the most celebrated of Grace Paley’s many singular…
How did a Sephardic dish cross the oceans and establish itself firmly as a Christmas staple?
In what’s become a beloved Christmas tradition, listeners are getting treated to a new song sharing the spirit of the season… by a Jewish pop star. Paul Simon’s the latest Semite to jump on the Yuletide bandwagon with “Getting Ready for Christmas Day,” a thumping, blues-tinged tune “with no mention of Jesus, Mary, Joseph or…
When the Chilean miners surfaced, Israel’s tourism minister, Stas Misezhnikov, invited them on an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel over Christmas. “Your bravery and strength of spirit, your great faith that helped you survive so long in the bowels of the earth, was an inspiration to us all,” he wrote, before inviting them to the “Land…
As might be expected of an Upper West Side girl who demanded a bat mitzvah, Elena Kagan seems pretty comfortable with her roots. “As you know, I don’t think it’s a secret I am Jewish,” she said yesterday, during the second day of her confirmation hearings in front of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee. But the…
A post-Hanukkah, pre-Christmas epiphany has guided me to a new understanding about Jews and gentiles: While we both love a deal, there’s a difference in how we snag it. I arrived at this inter-religious realization at the tailend of this holiday shopping season, when newspaper circulars, emailed promotions and Facebook ads tell us to buy,…
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