Eric Schulmiller is the cantor at Reconstructionist Synagogue of the North Shore in Plandome, New York. Follow him on Twitter @ericbop.
Eric Schulmiller
By Eric Schulmiller
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Culture Why Our Greatest Jewish Athlete Is a Wrestler Named Goldberg
Quick — who is the greatest Jewish athlete of the past 25 years? Stanley Cup winner and two-time NHL All-Star Mathieu Schneider, the all-time career points leader among Jewish hockey players? Or maybe current NHL mainstay Michael Cammalleri, whose 277 goals are the most by any Jewish player? They are both excellent athletes (and nice…
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Culture These 3 Jewish Inventions Are Tailor-Made For Celebrating Rosh Hashanah
Written more than 1,000 years ago, one prayer lies in wait at the heart of every High Holiday service: U’ntane Tokef (translation: “We Give This Day Its Power”). It reads like the voiceover from a trailer for a new season of “Game of Thrones”: “On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is…
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Culture The Talmud of a Cracked IPhone Screen
It happened in dribs and drabs over the course of an entire summer, right down the street from my house. First the brick facade was repainted from a garish neon salmon to a depressing stucco beige. Then the faded awning was replaced. The out-of-date posters for local high school plays, blood drives and block parties…
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Food Vegetables Are the New Bacon at Dirt Candy
At popular vegetarian restaurant Dirt Candy, veggies may just be the new bacon. Amanda Cohen is the visionary chef and owner of Dirt Candy — of one of the most highly-regarded vegetarian restaurants in New York City. Cohen opened Dirt Candy seven years ago to critical acclaim, and has recently relocated to spacious new digs…
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Culture The Secret Jewish History of the Coffee Cup (Starbucks and Otherwise)
In the Talmud (Eruvin 65b), Rabbi Ilai cleverly opines: “A person is recognized by three things: their cup, their pocket, and their anger.” In other words, how they handle their liquor (self control), their money (generosity), and their temper (patience). It’s a lot more poetic in the Hebrew, where the three characteristics are, “koso, kiso,…
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The Schmooze Justin Bieber and the Most Jewish Drag Race
Unless you lost power during the recent snowstorm, there was no escaping the recent story of Justin Bieber’s arrest, which flooded the airwaves with a barrage of breaking updates and speculation about the troubled (and possible retired) pop star. An MSNBC anchor even preempted an interview with a California congresswoman about NSA domestic spying to…
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Culture Apple’s Jewish History — 30 Years After Iconic Super Bowl Ad
Thirty years ago, a revolutionary Super Bowl commercial by Apple boldly proclaimed that “1984 won’t be like 1984” because of the imminent arrival of the Macintosh computer. Two days later, on January 24, a young Steve Jobs officially introduced the computer that would change the history of personal computing. But behind the charismatic, bow-tied genius…
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Culture When George Washington Celebrated Thanksgivukkah
If you’re one of the 9 million American adults who in any way identifies as Jewish (according to the recent Pew survey this includes anyone who has laughed at an episode of “Seinfeld” or sent back a meal at a restaurant), then you’ve undoubtedly heard of the Halley’s comet of holidays, the Y2K of yuletides:…
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News Dutch Jews grapple with ‘weaponization’ of their fear following attack on Israelis
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News What a Secretary of State Marco Rubio would mean for American Jews and Israel
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Fast Forward ‘Antisemitic hit-and-run squads’: Amsterdam temporarily bans demonstrations after Israeli soccer fans attacked by street mobs
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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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