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Life A Game of Borscht-22
The expectations Russian mothers have of their daughters are tough to live up to. The biggest one is that Russian women should know how to cook. And since we have the double privilege of being Jewish, we are expected to know how to make both borscht and latkes, often at the same time as having…
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Life On Purim, It’s the Thought That Counts
Growing up, Purim was my absolute favorite holiday. I went to a yeshiva for elementary school, and Purim was always a big hit there. The school put on a quasi-carnival with raffles and games, leaving me covered in shaving cream after attempts to shave a balloon without popping it. Everyone dressed up in lavish costumes…
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Life Celebrating International Women’s Day
On March 8th, mothers, daughters, wives, and girlfriends around the world will be showered with tokens of adoration in celebration of International Women’s Day. Although this holiday has become something of a Valentine’s/Mother’s Day hybrid in many regions, it originated as a Socialist political event in countries of the former Soviet bloc. In honor of…
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Life Why Are We Afraid of Being Too Religious?
Recently, I have been thinking a lot about what makes some people uncomfortable with varying degrees of belief within their own religion. Certainly even within the Russian-Jewish community, there are misunderstandings about what Jews of a stronger religious lifestyle represent. I wanted to know what creates a divide between being Jewish by blood and stringently…
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Life Iran Must Be Taken Seriously
The past few weeks have been filled with events that pushed the limits of diplomacy with the Islamic Republic of Iran, including attacks on Israeli diplomats in Georgia, India and Thailand. No one was killed in any of the attacks, but the secretive operations point to the tension between Iran and Israel. Another bomb plot…
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Life Russia and the Jewish Penicillin
For some American children, the world loses its natural order when they find out that Santa Claus isn’t real or when the tooth fairy is revealed to be their very own large, mustachioed father creeping toward their bed with a dollar bill in his hand, while quietly trying to avoid stepping on Barbie. While I’ve…
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Life My Russian Girl Problems
Russian Jewish girl problems: We have many problems that American Jewish girls just don’t understand — so many, that there’s even a website devoted to them. There are the health ones: “If you sit on something cold, you risk infertility!” If you are Eastern European, your mom yelled at you every time you sat on…
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Life You’re Majoring in What?!
In an earlier post I touched upon the subject of education, writing that Russian Jews of a certain age often view college as a pressure cooker for liberal propaganda. I find that, in addition to this one-sided view, many Russian Jews both old and young approach the term “liberal arts” with general skepticism, if not…
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Culture ‘My mayor Muslim, my bagel Jewish’ — the Knicks chant capturing New York’s soul
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Opinion Cultural boycotts of Israel just reached peak absurdity
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Opinion The Iran war ended terribly for the US, and even worse for Israel
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Theater ‘Dirty Dancing’ be damned. A new musical shows another side of the Borscht Belt
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