Call it Sochifreude. For the past two years, human rights activists have decried the conditions of the Sochi Olympic games, which wrap up this week, often to deaf ears. They’ve reported accounts of migrant workers being abused, environmental laws being trashed, billions of dollars being embezzled, and, of course, the ban on gay “propaganda” which…
A sultry performance that lasted four spellbinding minutes, but was 17 years in the making, propelled Meryl Davis and Charlie White to become the first Americans to win the Olympic ice dance title at the Sochi Games on Monday. **UPDATE: Charlie White raised as Christian in family with Jewish members. In a showdown with rivals…
Soshi Games Tumblr (JTA) — How would Shoshanna Shapiro, Zosia Mamet’s Jewish American Princess on crack (literally, sometimes) from “Girls,” fare at the Olympics? “Shoshi Games 2014” helps get your imagination going. The anonymously created Tumblr superimposes Mamet’s face onto shots of different athletes, complete with Shosh-esque quotes as captions. Think lines like “Curling? I’ve been…
Members of the Jewish community of Sochi and Israeli delegates to the Olympics held a memorial for the 11 Israelis killed by terrorists in Munich at the Summer Games in 1972. About 200 people took part in Sunday’s memorial at a hotel near the Games’ venue in Russia, Reuters reported. A Sochi youth group sang…
Just three weeks before the start of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, two dozen Russian reporters, photographers and cameramen squeezed into the spartan first-floor office of the Independent Press Center in Moscow, a five-minute walk from the capital’s main Orthodox church, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The journalists were there to see Ilya…
An activist wearing a mask of Russian President Vladimir Putin joins protesters on the opening day of the Sochi Winter Olympic Games. / Getty Images As the winter Olympics open today, there has been a crescendo of condemnation in the West of Russia’s many human rights violations. Sadly, in spite of all the attention Vladimir…
Who are you cheering for at the Winter Olympics? The pickings might seem pretty slim for Jewish athletes in Sochi. The Israeli delegation is only sending a five-member team and few Jewish athletes from around the world have surfaced at the top just yet. But the American team does have some young Jewish stars worth…
As with most sports, competitive figure skating at the Olympic level demands a single-minded focus and devotion that are all-consuming for most of the young men and women who attempt it. But 19-year-old Jason Brown has another life, within the Jewish community of his hometown of Highland Park, Ill., that complements this. In fact, noted…
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