Video: Nate Lavey After years of decay and neglect, the Jewish cemetery in Tunis is overgrown, unkempt and could be declared ‘abandoned’ by the Tunisian government a status that could result in its redevelopment. The fate of the cemetery rests on a few caretakers like Joseph Krief, a native-born Tunisian Jew, who has tried for…
I came to Odessa chasing a myth. I found it around midnight in a hookah bar on Sobornaya Square, where the music segued effortlessly from trip-hop to a medley of Hebrew songs, “Siman Tov U’Mazal Tov,” “Hava Nagila,” and then back to an electronic beat. Several days earlier and 300 miles north, in the Ukrainian…
Kidnapped American Warren Weinstein pleaded with President Barack Obama to meet his Al Qaeda captors’ demands in a new video, saying ‘my life is in your hands,’ CNN reported. The Jewish development consultant, who was snatched from outside his home in Lahore, Pakistan, last August, suggested the radical group would execute him unless the U.S….
Matzo ball soup at Nolita’s most au courant café? Kreplach at Tribeca’s latest New York Times-reviewed eatery? Kasha varnishkes by iconic New York chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten in Union Square? You can stop rubbing your eyes: Jewish food is indeed having its New York makeover moment. After years of watching other iconic immigrant cuisines burnished for…
The comedian Myron Cohen once said of slivovitz that it makes Canadian Club taste like vanilla soda. It’s been compared to paint thinner, lighter fluid and jet fuel, and has been pressed into service as a home cough remedy. In an air disaster scenario it might serve to disinfect a wound, or sterilize makeshift surgical…
While reporting ?If the Slivovitz Hasn?t Killed You Yet, Have Another Shot,? for the Forward?s food and drink section, I talked to a lot of serious slivophiles. Some of them discovered the super-potent plum brandy later in life, but for many the appeal went back to childhood, growing up in families who drank slivovitz in…
In this week’s podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis talks with Forward artist in residence Eli Valley about his newest comic in which a sea monster visits the AIPAC conference. Then, staff writer Paul Berger talks about the ongoing saga of Alan Gross, a Jewish American aid worker who is serving a 15-year prison sentence in Cuba….
With nods to Stanley Kubrick and Cecil B. DeMille, the Forward’s artist in residence Eli Valley makes a choose-your-own adventure comic for Iran pundits. Video: Nate Lavey Eli Valley is the Forward’s artist in residence for 2011–2012. His website is www.evcomics.com and you can follow him at twitter.com/elivalley.
