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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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Film & TV The new ‘Superman’ is being called anti-Israel, but does that make it pro-Palestine?
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Fast Forward Tucker Carlson calls for stripping citizenship from Americans who served in the Israeli army
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Music ‘No matter what, I will always be a Jew.’ Billy Joel opens up about his family’s Holocaust history
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Opinion This German word explains Trump’s authoritarian impulses — and Hitler’s rise to power
In Case You Missed It
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Opinion What Democrats fighting Trump should learn from Germany’s failure to stop Hitler
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Fast Forward 31st anniversary of AMIA bombing marked by ceremonies in Argentina, Israel and, for the first time, Congress
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Fast Forward Mike Huckabee to Israel: End hostile treatment of Christian allies
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Fast Forward Connie Francis, 20th-century star turned TikTok sensation, recorded an album of Jewish songs in 1960
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