Sigal Samuel is the former Opinion Editor at the Forward. When she’s not tackling race or identity politics, she’s hunting down her Indian Jewish family’s Kabbalistic secret society. Her novel THE MYSTICS OF MILE END tells the story of a dysfunctional family with a dangerous mystical obsession. Her writing has also appeared in The Daily Beast, The Rumpus, and BuzzFeed. Follow Sigal on Twitter.
What do American students hate more: ISIS or Israel? Media personality Ami Horowitz took to the University of California, Berkeley campus to find out — by way of a strange experiment. Hint: It involves flags. The students’ vitriolic reaction to the Israeli flag, as compared to the ISIS flag, is striking. A few caveats, though: First,…
The Israeli Google homepage pays tribute to Ofra Haza Israelis visiting the Google homepage today got a fun surprise, in the form of a Google Doodle dedicated to the one and only Ofra Haza. Haza, a famous Israeli singer of Yemenite Jewish heritage, died in 2000 of AIDS-related pneumonia. She was 42. Today would have…
Well, here’s something you don’t see every day. The Israeli Embassy in Tokyo has launched an anime web series to encourage Japanese tourists to visit the Holy Land — and it’s kind of amazing. “Israel, Like!” is an unusual blend of hasbara and manga — I hereby dub it “hasbaranga” — featuring two Japanese sisters,…
An Israeli soldier walks past a bus on which suspected Jewish vandals painted graffiti reading ‘Gentiles in the land are enemies’ / Getty Images Young Israelis don’t want separate bus lines for Palestinians — and they’re asking American Jews to ensure segregation never becomes a reality. That’s the nutshelled version of a letter sent today…
Just a couple of months after the Gaza war, Israel has found a new way “to show the world the beauty of Israel and its people” — via the power of a pin-up calendar featuring real IDF soldiers. Or, as the creators of the MTKL Israeli Army Women Calendar like to call them, “the chosen amongst…
Drek’s ISIS-inspired party poster / Facebook Advertising is a tough business. People are busy. Getting them to come out to your event can be hard. But does that justify using ISIS imagery to gain publicity for your party? Tel Aviv’s popular gay party organizers, Drek, apparently think so. In recent advertising, they used imagery from…
A still from the Iranian version of Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” music video / YouTube It’s a weird aftereffect of a Jewish day school education that, when I see a headline like “Iran Court Sentences ‘Happy’ Dancers to 6 Months and 91 Lashes,” I immediately ask myself: WWTDD? Or: what would the Talmud do? You might…
A health worker administers a polio vaccination to a child / Getty Images If you had to guess which neighborhood — Boro Park or Beverly Hills — the following quote applies to, which would you pick? Parents in these schools are submitting a form called a “personal belief exemption,” which states that they are not…
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