SHARP: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion By Michelle Dean New York: Grove Press. 362 pages, $26.00 Atop the Acropolis in Athens is the Erechtheion, where six caryatids — pillars in the form of female figures — support the structure sacred to Athena. Michelle Dean’s “Sharp,” the incisive and engaging stories…
“This Siddur seeks to reflect a sensitivity to women’s prayer experiences.” That understated line is nestled in the editor’s introduction to a Modern Orthodox group’s new siddur, or prayer book. It’s part of a short, scholarly bullet point outlining how the siddur accommodates women through its textual and grammatical updates. Many of those updates, however,…
Hundreds of people holding purple placards with messages including “This is what ‘Never Again’ looks like,” gathered outside the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in lower Manhattan Thursday evening to protest President Donald Trump’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy. The protest — organized by T’ruah and co-sponsored by groups including J Street NYC and Bend the…
Joshua Haruni spent years documenting life in Israel’s Hasidic communities — from the Rebbe’s office to the tisch’s with thousands gathered to sing, from cheder graduations to the moments in the kitchen on Friday afternoon. Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt, life editor, spoke to Haruni about his forays into this community. This interview has been edited and condensed…
She crossed so many borders I started to lose track: Poland into Germany via cattle car; Germany into Czechoslovakia on foot; Czechoslovakia into Germany when she and her parents fell asleep in a (supposedly) broken-down train car that inched back into service while they slept; Germany into Canada on a steamer, loaded down with a…
When President Trump characterized immigrants as “animals,” some people waved it away, claiming he was only referring to gang members. But his use of “infest” in connection to human beings is impossible to ignore. The president’s tweet that immigrants will “infest our Country” includes an alarming verb choice for anyone with knowledge of history. Characterizing…
A developer’s plan to erect two luxury buildings in a low-slung residential part of Brooklyn with large Hasidic and black communities sparked the latest wave of concern over skyrocketing rents in the neighborhood, which threatens the two groups who had a history of tension, culminating in the Crown Heights riots of the earl ’90s. Cornell…
Should the American Jewish community disown Stephen Miller? What would that mean? Would it make a difference? Would he even notice? The 32-year-old White House senior policy adviser is in the news once again, this time offering a full-throated endorsement of the Trump administration’s decision to separate families seeking refuge on our southern border. The…
צוליב דעם וואָס ס׳רובֿ פּאַריזער אַשכּנזים שטאַמען פֿון פּוילן, קומט די ליטוויש־ייִדישע קולטור נישט אָפֿט צו רייד
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