Ted Merwin (above) writes that the roots of secular Jewish culture in America were, to a large extent, in the deli. The title of Ted Merwin’s new book isn’t completely accurate. is billed as “An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli.” But the book’s so packed with insights on American Jewish identity, assimilation and mobility…
If you’ve dined out recently, you’ve probably encountered fancy toast — the du jour of piling artisanal ingredients (think house made ricotta and seasonal jam or poached eggs and shaved truffles) on top of warmed bread. Or perhaps you, like just about everyone else in America, have made some version of avocado toast at home….
Anton Yelchin is on a roll. His film, “5 to 7,” opened April 3, and another, “Broken Horses,” opened April 10. The 26-year-old started acting when he was just 9 years old. He’s appeared in over 40 films plus assorted TV shows since then. But stardom — at least in the traditional sense — has…
Harold Holzer’s having a big year. “Lincoln and the Jews,” a new exhibition he helped assemble, is on through June 7 at the New York Historical Society in Manhattan. His book “Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion” (Simon & Schuster) just won the $50,000 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, awarded…
Photograph by Zivar Amrami In her new cookbook, “Modern Jewish Cooking,” Leah Koenig keeps one foot planted in the traditional Jewish canon while confidently guiding her reader into new territory — a place where seasonality, inter-cultural fusion and creativity reign. Like an abstact painter who learned the rules of classical drawing and painting before breaking…
Miss Lasko-Gross’s shrewd, poignant “Henni” (Z2 Comics) arrives at a charged moment for cartoons and religion. In the graphic novel — a marked departure from Lasko-Gross’ acclaimed autobiographical comics “Escape from ‘Special’” and “A Mess of Everything” — the female lead abandons her village in a quest for knowledge. The blind followers, cynical leaders, and…
In Quebec, the term “two solitudes” once described icy/cozy relations between the English and French. But in Maxime Giroux’s sublime “Felix and Meira,” which closes out this year’s New York Jewish Film Festival, the phrase seems apt for the Hasidim and hipsters of Montreal’s happening Mile End neighborhood, coexisting without actually engaging. The film’s title…
Prominent U.S. criminal defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz has filed a sworn statement denying he had sex with an underage girl on financier Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane and island. Dershowitz filed the statement in Florida federal court on Monday night, along with a motion to join in a lawsuit brought against the U.S. government by Dershowitz’s…
