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Books
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Culture In Praise of Giving Offense: A Review Of Eli Valley’s Diaspora Boy
There’s a concept in the early Zionist writings that still haunts contemporary Jewish life. It’s the belief that the Diaspora Jew is an outmoded kind of Jew. Weak and effeminate from too much studying, he is submissive and abject, always apologizing to the gentiles who hate him. As opposed to this Diaspora Jew, the early…
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Food I’m Black, Jewish And Gay — And Food Is My Weapon Against Bigotry
I am going back to the mountaintop. In three weeks, I will return to Charlottesville, Virginia. It is not because last Saturday it became the site of an American pogrom. Last weekend dozens of people were injured during violence sparked by the Unite the Right rally and counter-protests. Two law enforcement officers were killed in…
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Fast Forward German Project Reunites Books Stolen During Holocaust With Rightful Heirs
BERLIN (JTA) — A new search in Germany for books stolen from Jews during the Third Reich is beginning to bear fruit. Recently, a man in California who was the only survivor of the Holocaust in his family received a book from Germany that had been dedicated to him by a teacher. The only other…
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Fast Forward Milo Yiannapoulos Hires Dwarfs Wearing Yarmulkes To Mock Rival
Disgraced ‘alt-right’ provocateur Milo Yiannapoulos hired dwarfs wearing yarmulkes to perform at a New York book launch party as part of an elaborate stunt to mock an observant Jewish rival. Yiannapoulos used the dwarfs to ridicule Ben Shapiro, the editor of the conservative website The Daily Wire, at a Thursday night shindig for his new…
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Fast Forward In The Age Of Trump, Hannah Arendt’s 66-Year-Old Philosophy Tome Is Selling Bigly
In 1951, the Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt published “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” her 600-page twin study of Nazism and Stalinism. The book received rave reviews; Norman Podhoretz, the Jewish New York intellectual, compared it to an epic poem. Then, 66 years later, in December of last year, Arendt’s book began selling at 16 times its…
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Culture Yankel and Leah (Chapter 2): Awkward First Date
This originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. To read the previous chapter. And so after some perfunctory small talk, an appointment was arranged. Yankel would meet with someone called Leah Spielman (he scribbled this into his small appointment book), daughter of Abe and Helen Spielman, refugees from the Old World, now living in Flatbush. “Appointment”…
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Fast Forward Messianic Jewish Publisher Sparks Ultra-Orthodox Anger at Israeli Book Week
An ultra-Orthodox group filed a complaint with Jerusalem police after HaGefen, a Messianic Jewish publisher, offered a new translation of the Bible to teenagers at Israel’s annual Hebrew Book Week. Yad L’Achim, a prominent activist group that has been known for harassing Christian missionaries to Israel and voicing opposition to Arab-Israeli marriages, complained that the…
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Forverts in English Jewish Converts in the Russian Empire
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Ellie R. Schainker, “Confessions of the Shtetl: Converts from Judaism in Imperial Russia, 1817-1906” (Stanford University Press) In Sholem Asch’s novel “Petersburg,” Madam Kvasnetsova, an interesting Jewish woman who has converted to Christianity, owns a house in St. Petersburg and an inn for Jews who come to…
Most Popular
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Culture Why saying ‘L’shana Tova’ on Rosh Hashanah may not be the correct phrase
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Culture A Jewish prophet of the 1980s would be horrified to see that we didn’t heed his warnings
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Opinion This is the most disorienting Rosh Hashanah in memory
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Fast Forward Meet Lev Kreitman, who brought down Tel Aviv shooter and survived Nova music festival on Oct. 7
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward Suspect arrested in U of Michigan rabbi’s home robbery, with no evidence of antisemitic intent
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Opinion A year after Oct. 7, will Israel choose the way of peace, or that of religious nationalism?
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Fast Forward The pope declared a fast on Oct. 7 — but Catholics can still eat
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Fast Forward Hostage father Jonathan Dekel-Chen lambastes Netanyahu at American Jewish Committee Oct. 7 event
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