Allison Kaplan Sommer is a journalist at Haaretz, host of Haaretz Weekend podcast and co-host of The Promised Podcast.
Allison Kaplan Sommer
By Allison Kaplan Sommer
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Life Increasingly, the Remaining Shoah Witnesses Are Women
It sounds terrible to say that you have a Holocaust Remembrance Day routine, but in Israel, it’s generally true. Normally, if one of my children is part of a school ceremony, I’ll go watch it. (For a few years, one of the kids had a terrible fear of the loud noise of the siren that…
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Music Hip-Hop Violinist Miri Ben-Ari: A Role Model for Our Daughters
Miri Ben-Ari, the Israeli “hip-hop violinist” who has played with Jay-Z and Alicia Keys and who recently was honored by Michelle Obama at the White House this week, has single-handedly turned the violin into a cool instrument. It’s wonderful to have a glamorous female role model who has mastered music. While “Tiger Mother” Amy Chua…
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Life On Giving and Accepting the Compliment ‘You Look Great’
Over the past 24 hours, I have been conducting an unintentional experiment in the “you look great” debate between Sisterhood contributors Elana Maryles Sztokman and Elissa Strauss. Elana’s post begins with the declaration: You look great” is one of the conversation starters that I most despise. When someone says that to me, it always feels…
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Life On Comparing the Mommy Wars to the Middle East Conflict
Since motherhood and the Middle East are what I’m all about these days, the first paragraph of a recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal jumped out and bit me. Virginia Postrel writes, “Motherhood, it seems, is the Middle East of social controversy. Alliances may shift, new dogmas and leaders may arise, tactics may…
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Life ‘What Not To Wear’ — In Case of a Rocket Attack
Like many close girlfriends, my best pal Faye and I check in with each other every day and, even in the age of Facebook, we do it the old-fashioned way, on the phone. Our morning call usually takes place car-to-car, while she is commuting to work from the southern suburb of Meitar to her job…
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Food Shabbat Meals: A Recipe Travels From Tunisia to Israel by Way of Paris
The delicious cuisine that normally graces my husband’s family’s Shabbat table can be described as classic Ashkenazi Jewish with French sophistication. My mother-in-law Helene Sommer can produce a heavenly French fruit tart and a mean kosher version of Alsatian choucroute. Little of the Middle East has made it into the Sommer family repertoire, despite the…
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Life Moshe Katsav’s Sentence
It seemed as if all Israelis were glued to their televisions or radios this morning to hear the prison sentence handed down to former President Moshe Katsav, who was convicted of charges of rape, sexual harassment, indecent behavior and obstructing justice in December. At home, in stores, offices, or in my case, at the gym…
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The Schmooze The Diva Sings Once More: Dana International Returns to Eurovision
It’s a bit ironic that it happened on International Women’s Day. Israel’s most prominent female-by-choice, Dana International, scored a big victory last night when her song “Ding Dong” was chosen to represent the country at the glitzy annual Eurovision Song Contest, the kitchy and politicized competition that, ironically, spawned international stars like Abba and Celine…
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