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The Schmooze Meet the Mets’ Rookie Mensch
Jewish Mets fans across the city are abuzz over news of this season’s first-baseman, 23-year-old Ike Davis (actually, Isaac Benjamin Davis), the first Jewish kid to ever come up solely through the Mets farm system and make the big league team. Davis, who’s batting an impressive .355 in his first 10 games, is being hyped…
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The Schmooze When Bad Hebrew Happens to Good People
Getting inked isn’t abhorrent behavior for Jews these days. There’s HebrewTattoo.net, a translation service that generates thousands of hits each month, and celebrity tattooists like Ami James, the Israeli-born former star of TLC’s “Miami Ink.” But Jews looking to inscribe their bodies with the language of prayer might be wise to ignore the cautionary (and…
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The Schmooze The Kosher Toothpaste Debate
The Orthodox Union, which certifies as Kosher more than 400,000 products, includes a long discourse on toothpaste on its web site. Though most dentifrices contain glycerin, an animal product that is “unquestionably” non-kosher, it’s not completely clear whether they’re treyf; the OU quotes some complicated rabbinical rulings involving flavor and usage of the product. “If…
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The Schmooze The Puzzle of Moroccan Jewish Identity in Israel
Tuesday was Mimouna, the annual festival of the Moroccan Jewish community, and there were lively parties across Israel. But while the Moroccan community tends to come out in force for Mimouna, it seems that as a whole it is losing connection with its traditions. A new poll published by Maariv reported that only 51% of…
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The Schmooze Tweeting Anne Frank
‘Tis the season to tweet, pray and memorialize Jewish thoughts online. In the past year, we’ve seen the Western Wall get a twitter account and Auschwitz develop its own Facebook page. This past week, the Anne Frank Center USA along with the U.N. Holocaust Program launched a twitter account for Anne Frank, asking students who…
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The Schmooze How Do You Keep, and Break, Passover?
In the past few years, I’ve struggled to reconcile being a non-believer with my love of Jewish culture and traditions. So I’ve wavered back and forth on keeping Passover and fasting on Yom Kippur, the two most intrinsic rituals of self-deprivation for the sake of enlightenment on the Jewish calendar. This year, after a few…
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The Schmooze Have you Jew-Googled Today?
Who’s Jewish? According to Google (and Gawker ) nearly everyone in Hollywood, from Meryl Streep to Morgan Freeman, and even Mel Gibson. Well, sort of. A post late Tuesday on media news and gossip Web site Gawker revealed that the top search suggestions on Google for various celebrity names (when preceded by the word is)…
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The Schmooze Palin’s Apocalypse Hastened by Jewish Settlements
The Discovery channel is poised to scoop up a reality series starring Sarah Palin at home in Alaska, to be based on the 1970 fundamentalist text “The Late, Great Planet Earth,” which foretells the end of time. (Before the world ends, Palin will reportedly receive $1 million per episode.) More horrifying than the prospect of…
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News Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s selection as JTS commencement speaker roils graduating class
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Sports NBA coach Steve Kerr: ‘Israel sought revenge for Oct. 7 and now 72,000 Palestinians have been killed’
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Film & TV A new documentary challenges stereotypes about Orthodox Jewish women — and their wigs
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News Analysis: As Democrats unite behind Platner, Schumer’s future as leader faces tests
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward A new Hebrew press in Berlin argues that Israel doesn’t own the language
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Fast Forward Jewish library and Chabad near Buenos Aires attacked, Argentine Jewish advocates say
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Fast Forward Cornell’s Jewish president clashes with students following on-campus debate about Israel
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Fast Forward U of Michigan apologizes after faculty chair praises pro-Palestinian students during commencement speech