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Israel News Refusenik Returns To Plead With Jews to Emigrate
(JTA) — Through the backseat window of a black KGB car, Yosef Mendelevitch could see university students his age hurrying to take their finals. It was June 15, 1970, and the 23-year-old Mendelevitch had just been arrested along with 11 accomplices for trying to hijack a plane to escape the Soviet Union. On the tarmac of…
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Culture How ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ Shattered My Dreams
When “Fiddler on the Roof” opened on Broadway in the fall of 1964, I was singing in the chorus in “Ben Franklin In Paris,” another Broadway show, which starred Robert Preston. I also performed in the ballroom scene whenever one of the dancers wasn’t feeling well, because I was the only singer who could also…
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Fast Forward Russian Jews Push Back at Campaign Against Ukraine Oligarch
A senior Russian rabbi accused the country’s communist party of “vulgar and primitive anti-Semitism” after it demanded Russian Jews condemn a Ukrainian Jewish oligarch. The condemnation Wednesday by Rabbi Boruch Gorin, an advisor to Chief Russian Rabbi Berel Lazar and Lazar’s spokesperson, followed a letter that two communist lawmakers sent last week to Lazar and…
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Forward 50 2014 Berel Lazar
In a year where the conflict between Ukraine and Russia was fought not only with weapons but also with rhetoric about opposing anti-Semitism, Berel Lazar has been Vladimir Putin’s Jewish point man in the propaganda war. Following a spate of anti-Semitic incidents that accompanied Ukraine’s February revolution, the Russian president smeared Ukraine’s revolutionaries as “anti-Semites…
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Books What Should We Call Gary Shteyngart’s Next Book?
Gary Shteyngart from Jewish Daily Forward on Vimeo. Calling Gary Shteyngart fans! This is your chance to leave your imprint on American Russian Jewish literature. The author just celebrated a big success with his latest memoir “Little Failure,” which won him a Top 5 spot in this year’s Forward 50 list. But this is also…
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Forward 50 2014 Gary Shteyngart
“What’s funny is that I’m not self-hating at all. I like myself quite a bit,” Gary Shteyngart, 42, told the Forward’s Yevgeniya Traps earlier this year. Luckily, despite the self-loathing that the author, humorist and star of book trailers (featuring his former student James Franco) affects in his comic persona, Shteyngart is not alone in…
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Fast Forward 2 Ancient Russian Synagogues Are Rededicated
Two ancient synagogues that Soviet authorities confiscated in Russia were rededicated as Jewish houses of worship. The first rededication happened last week in the Black Sea city of Krasnodar at a ceremony led by Rabbi Berel Lazar, a chief rabbi of Russia, and Rabbi Avraam Ilyaguyev, who is in charge of religious services for Mountain…
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Fast Forward Quarter of Russia’s 200 Top Billionaires Are Jews
A member of Russia’s Human Rights Council condemned a news website that said that nearly a quarter of Russia’s top billionaires are Jews. Nikolai Svanidze of the council – a Kremlin-affiliated body with no executive powers –- made the condemnation last week against Lenta.ru, which analyzed according to faith and ethnicity the Forbes Magazine list…
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Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
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Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
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Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
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Opinion Itamar Ben-Gvir’s visit to a Jewish society at Yale exposed deep rifts between US Jews
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