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Culture Benjamin Netanyahu Says Packing Israel Prize Needed To Weed Out ‘Extremist’ Writers
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday addressed the clash over the Israel Prize for Literature and the makeup of the panel that awards it by saying that more extremist, anti-Zionist judges have been appointed in recent years. “The composition of the panel that selects Israel Prize laureates must be balanced and faithfully reflect the…
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Culture Why People Leave Orthodoxy — and How
Becoming Un-Orthodox By Lynn Davidman Oxford University Press, 272 pages, $27.95 In “Becoming Un-Orthodox,” a study of ex-Orthodox Jews by University of Kansas professor Lynn Davidman, a woman identified only as “Leah” describes Friday night meals in her parents’ home. “Shabbes was kind of a wash,” she says. “My father was always tired and so…
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Food Greener Pastures for Treasured Cookbook Shop
Bookshop owner Bonnie Slotnick took a quick break from packing to have her picture taken outside the 10th Street store. Photographs by Liza Schoenfein I was happy to read at the end of last week that Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks, the beloved little shop on West 10th Street that recently lost its lease, had found new…
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The Schmooze Book Critics Nods to Roz Chast, Gary Shteyngart
Photo: Martyna Starosta Forward 50 members Roz Chast and Gary Shteyngart are among the 30 nominees for the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Awards. The award, given to books in the areas of autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, nonfiction and poetry, is given by the book critics and book review editors of the National Book Critics…
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The Schmooze ‘I Think You’re Totally Wrong’ Goes to Hollywood
Photo courtesy Rabbit Bandini Productions Capital punishment. Bungee jumping. Cormac McCarthy. Waterboarding. Jackson Pollock. “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Abortion. Rupert Murdoch. The Seattle Mariners. The war in Iraq. The “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.” Disneyland. Balding. These are just few of the subjects David Shields and Caleb Powell cover in their new book, “I…
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The Schmooze National Jewish Book Award Winners Are Here
The Jewish Book Council has announced the recipients of the 2015 National Jewish Book Awards. The council began giving out this award — the most prestigious of its kind — in 1948. Past winners include Philip Roth, Chaim Potok and Cynthia Ozick. It’s a pretty important way of giving recognition to the year’s most outstanding…
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Culture 12 Books We’re Looking Forward To in 2015
In 2015, Jewish stories will come in diverse guises — from flights of magical realism to groundbreaking history and biography. Assimilation and tradition assert their warring claims. While memoirist Judy Brown chronicles her escape from a suffocating religious upbringing, Bosnian immigrant and literary prodigy Aleksandar Hemon continues his embrace of Jewish characters and themes. Anniversaries…
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Opinion Let’s Make 2015 the Year of the Arab Jew
Call it a confirmation bias. Everywhere I turned this year, I saw a new expression of Arab Jewish identity. The revival seems to be happening across all fields — literature, food, music — yet somehow nobody’s talking about it. As an Arab Jewish writer (my family hails from Morocco, India and Iraq), I couldn’t be…
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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 Trump AG nominee Matt Gaetz has left a trail of antisemitic comments
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Opinion Trump’s first picks are die-hard Israel supporters, mocking the pro-Palestinian protest vote
In Case You Missed It
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Opinion Will Trump’s efforts to fight antisemitism help degrade democracy?
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Culture A Jewish snowman movie would have made a lot more sense than Netflix’s ‘Hot Frosty’
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Fast Forward Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Jewish Democrat, launches bid for New Jersey governor
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Fast Forward Pete Hegseth, Trump’s defense secretary nominee, has multiple Christian and Crusades-inspired tattoos
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