Alexandra Levine
By Alexandra Levine
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Music The Amy Winehouse We Never Knew
“It’s Amy, your favorite Jewish girl!” Amy Winehouse exclaimed after the beep — she was leaving a voicemail for her friend and former manager, Nick Shymansky. I didn’t even know Amy Winehouse was Jewish. There are lots of things I didn’t know about the late jazz-pop singer. Until I saw “Amy,” the new documentary about…
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News After Charleston, Houses of Worship Debate Saving Souls vs. Saving Lives
On a recent Sunday morning, a white Jewish guy wearing a backpack entered the First African Methodist Episcopal Church: Bethel in Harlem, without a problem. A black usher wearing white gloves greeted him warmly at the door and gave him a service pamphlet. The young man found a seat on a plush green bench and,…
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Culture Will a Selfie at Auschwitz Make You Free?
A couple of weeks ago, I stood before a crematorium at Auschwitz-Birkenau and listened to the tour guide talk about the sonderkommandos. The sonderkommandos, he explained quietly, were the prisoners tasked with removing dead corpses from the gas chambers – after the victims had been showered with cyanide and choked to death – and then…
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News A Nice Jewish Guy Built A Booming Fireworks Business. Then the Tsarnaev Brothers Walked In.
The fireworks industry in America is dominated almost entirely by big-name, old-time Italian families whose grandfathers and great-grandfathers mastered the craft in Italy and brought that knowledge to the United States. There are the Zambellis of New Castle, Pennsylvania; the Rozzis of Cincinnati, and the Cartolanos of Chicago. The Grucci family, based in New York…
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Culture Of American Pharaoh, Louis Brandeis and 10 Other Things About (Jewish) Kentucky
1 11,300 Jews live in Kentucky. 2 Henry Hyman was reportedly the first Jew to settle in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1826, he opened a tavern called the Western Coffeehouse, where he sold delicious, non-kosher food and the finest liquor in town. 3 Jewish communal life began in Kentucky in the 1830s. 4 The first Jewish…
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News Jury Decides Against JONAH in Landmark ‘Gay Conversion’ Therapy Case
A jury decided against a Jewish group that promotes so-called ‘gay conversion therapy’ in a landmark fraud case that could have a wide-ranging impact on the controversial anti-gay practice. In a first-of-its-kind decision, the jury awarded $72,000 to several mostly Jewish victims who said Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing and co-founder Arthur Goldberg made…
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News Landmark JONAH ‘Gay Conversion’ Therapy Case Goes to Jury
Jurors began deliberations Wednesday afternoon on whether gay conversion therapy constitutes fraud. The verdict comes after the close of a three-week trial that has drawn national attention to so-called “ex-gay” or “gay conversion” therapy, which aims to turn gay people straight using some highly controversial techniques. Although gay-to-straight conversion therapy was most prevalent in evangelical…
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Culture Of Goldie Hawn, Theater J and 8 Other Things About (Jewish) Washington D.C.
1 28,000 Jews live in Washington, D.C. 2 In 1847, there were roughly 25 Jews in all of Washington. 3 Washington’s first Jewish congregation, which came to be known as the Washington Hebrew Congregation, first convened in 1852. But when a melodeon, an organ-like instrument, was introduced at the shul shortly thereafter, a number of…
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Fast Forward Steve Witkoff, Trump’s golf buddy, appointed special envoy to the Middle East
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Yiddish וואָס איז געווען דאָס ערשטע לשון אויף דער גאָרער וועלט?What was the first language on earth?
דער רוימישער אימפּעראַטאָר פֿרעדעריק דער צווייטער האָט געזוכט אַן ענטפֿער צו דער פֿראַגע אויף אַ וויסנשאַפֿטלעכן אופֿן.
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Fast Forward Federal judge temporarily blocks Louisiana’s law requiring classrooms to display Ten Commandments
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Theater They created a musical about the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Today’s activists are listening
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