“Matthew died last night. I’m shocked and sorry to tell you-it’s suicide. Hannah is a wreck.” I kept rereading the text as though the words would make sense if I inspected them more closely. I grew up with Hannah (For reasons of privacy, I’m not using the family’s real names here.) She and Matthew had…
Appropriately appearing just before the harvest festival of Sukkot, this column marks the beginning of a series on farming and food from Remi and Gavi Welbel, who run Zumwalt Acres, a sustainable Jewish farm in Illinois. Growing up, my sister and I often joked that our father thought asparagus could save the world. Driving along…
Author’s Note: After being pardoned by Trump for alleged cyberstalking, Jared Kushner’s longtime chum Ken Kurson is now facing similar charges. In light of this news, we are revisiting this article from October of last year, which plumbs Kurson’s musical oeuvre, a canon of paranoia and jealousy that gels quite well with the allegations. Ken…
The job market is booming across the country, and Lavie Margolin is here to help you navigate it. A career expert and author, Margolin has written a dozen books about job searching, including Can I Wear my Kippah on Job Interviews which he co-wrote with his spouse Rachel. His insights could not be more timely:…
Judy Chicago, whose immense body of work draws on overlooked women’s history, the tragedy of the recent Jewish past and features no small amount of literal fireworks, is having yet another moment. Born Judith Sylvia Cohen in (naturally) Chicago, the artist, whose name is regularly appended with words like “controversial,” will receive her first-ever retrospective…
The Jewish day of mourning, Tisha B’av, will be especially solemn— and relevant— this year in Chicago. On the traditional fast day, which takes place July 17 this year, University of Chicago’s Hillel will not just mark the destruction of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, but the loss of two young lives over the last…
CHICAGO (JTA) — Perched along a quiet, tree-lined street on this city’s South Side, the worn brick and concrete building on South Champlain Avenue is hard to miss. The tall structure stands out among newer construction, a huge cross embedded in its front and wrought-iron Star of David window frames visible from the sidewalk. Casual…
Steven Sheffey was annoyed, deeply annoyed. The annoyance oozed out from the newsletter he sent in late May, a newsletter that is, arguably, the most widely shared local Jewish media in Chicago. Republicans in Congress had spent the prior days claiming Democrats in the U.S. House had voted against funding a refresh of Israel’s Iron…
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