The British government reportedly is planning to exclude Hebrew from a list of recognized foreign languages in the national education system. Board of Deputies of British Jews warned last week that the exclusion of Hebrew could damage Jewish education in the country, the Jewish Chronicle reported. Education Minister Elizabeth Truss announced plans last month to…
Sombreros, kegs, and teddy bears surround the gleaming Hanukkah lights, on display in a album on Shmaltz Brewing Company’s Facebook page. But what distinguish these holiday scenes are not accessories but rather the very menorahs themselves — they’re made out of beer bottles. They are all entries in Shmaltz’s annual Beer Bottle Menorah Contest, an…
With dancing rabbis, clowns, and unicorns adorning their bottles, and names like Genesis Ale and Funky Jewbelation, Shmaltz Brewing Company’s He’Brew beer commands the attention of the liquor store browser — myself included. The little-engine-that-could brewing company has made big waves over the past 16 years. Starting as an inside joke between Southern Californian friends,…
The Jewish Press set off a firestorm last week when it published An Open Letter to Sarah Silverman by Rabbi Yaakov Rosenblatt. The Orthodox author criticized the comedian’s politics, vulgar presentation style, and the fact that she remains childless. As a linguist, what I found most interesting about this article was the language. By looking…
Isaac Pollak of New York City has sent me a photograph from his private Judaica collection of a late 18th-century engraving by an Italian artist named Giovanni del Pian. Part of it, showing several men emerging from a house to lower a wooden coffin with Hebrew lettering into a gondola, appears alongside this column. At…
Everyone knows when it’s New Year’s Day — and everyone knows what new year it’s the first day of. After 2012 comes 2013. But although nearly all American Jews know it’s Rosh Hashanah this week, not all of them could tell you that the new Jewish year is 5773. After all, once the holiday is…
The first Hebrew printing of the popular novel “Fifty Shades of Grey” sold out in a day. The 50,000 copies of the book by British author E.L. James, which went on sale Sunday, were sold out by Monday morning, the Israeli business daily Globes reported. The book, the first of a trilogy and initially published…
There was an unusual event in Haifa the other day. Muhammad Sharif Odeh, the leader of the Israeli community of the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam, announced the 25th anniversary of an Ahmadiyya-sponsored translation into Yiddish of selections from the Quran. Called by Haifa’s Jewish mayor, Yona Yahav, the “Reform Jews of Islam,” the Ahmadiyyas, who…
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