Shavuot gets no respect. Lacking the colorful observances of Passover and Sukkot, and the gravitas of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, it’s probably the least observed of the major Jewish holidays. Nota bene to atheists who think that religion is about ideas and beliefs rather than myth, culture, ritual and community. In a certain way,…
This is an occasional column in which the writer evaluates a cookbook by making some of its recipes, sharing the dishes with friends and asking her guests what they think of the results. For Shavuot, she cooked her way through “Yogurt Culture: A Global Look at How to Make, Bake, Sip, and Chill the World’s…
From the new cookbook “Yogurt Culture.” . My inspiration for this recipe comes from a dip I enjoyed at the boisterous Jerusalem restaurant Machneyuda. There, Chef Uri Navon serves several colorful spreads in a single bowl, and the result, which resembles a painter’s palette, is both playful and renegade. I start with a base of…
It’s been many years since I wrote my last , not since my Orthodox days when I sat behind the mechitzah with the other women during shul. On Shavuot, we read the Book of Ruth and learned how she left her culture and people to follow her mother-in-law back to Israel. Ruth sacrificed everything she…
The Sabbath fire that killed seven children in an Orthodox Jewish family in Brooklyn on Saturday was at least the fourth deadly blaze in the borough resulting from Sabbath and holiday observance in the past 15 years. In all 11 people have been killed in the four fires, all but one of them children. At…
Russia’s education ministry has agreed to provide Jewish students an alternative date for a matriculation exam which took place on the Shavuot holiday. The concession was announced last week in a letter addressed to Berel Lazar, a chief rabbi of Russia. “Students and graduates unable to take the Unified State Exam for religious reasons may…
Two Jewish teenagers told police they narrowly escaped an attack near Paris by a hatchet-wielding man and three others. The attack occurred late at night on June 4 in Romainville, a northeastern suburb of the French capital, according to a report by the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA. The teens, aged 14…
The 2013 Pew Research Center report underscored the fragility of the Jewish future in North America and has led to anguished discussions and debates about how to reduce the number of Jews relinquishing Judaism and Jewish identification in favor of other options. But as dramatic as the 2013 Pew report was, it may be that…
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