In a recent piece in these pages, I addressed a popular myth: that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Khazar pagans who converted to Judaism. Though this idea gets a lot of attention, it is fully based on bunk science. Genetics, linguistics and onomastics — the study of names — all disprove the Khazarian hypothesis. But…
A group of Moroccan Berbers launched an organization dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism and to strengthening cultural ties with Israel. The Moroccan Observatory for the Fight against Anti-Semitism founded last week is headed by Berber minority rights activist Omar Louzi, according to a report Thursday on the online edition of the Ya Biladi daily. “We are…
Eclecticism is a virtue too often touted by musicians and critics. Reviews and press releases formulaically repeat the cliché that “artist x blends elements of genre y with style z.” While this may be relevant to the archivists amongst us, such statements really say very little about the quality or authenticity of the music in…
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