This is part 1 in a series of articles examining the Bar and Bat Mitzvah ritual in America. Few institutions represent the American Jewish community like the bar and bat mitzvah. It would be surprising, given this cultural emphasis, if this ritual turned out to be almost as modern as the elaborate parties that surround…
The long-awaited sequel to the 1982 sci-fi classic “Blade Runner” opens in theaters October 6. “Blade Runner 2049” picks up the original story 30 years after the events recounted in the original, which was set in 2019. For those who don’t remember, and for the very few who never saw it, “Blade Runner” was a…
As Roz Chast informs readers in her new book, “Going Into Town: A Love Letter To New York,” from Bloomsbury USA, grilled cheese is a blissfully safe food to eat in the gustatory wilds of Manhattan. That, and eggs: “YOU CANNOT GO TOO WRONG,” she writes. The instruction’s uncontained maternal anxiety is charming; “Going Into…
For Jayna Zweiman, the Pussyhat Project was always going to be tough to top. With the global women’s march on January 21st, the ubiquitous hand-knit pink hat achieved unique cultural significance and has since been featured on the cover of Time Magazine, acquired by the V&A Museum in London and adorned the heads of many…
In the first room of the Jewish Museum’s new exhibit “Modigliani Unmasked,” a case displays two issues of La Libre Parole, the early-20th century French anti-Semitic newspaper founded by Édouard Drumont. The covers of both feature caricatures of Jewish men, their features overblown and bulbous. Hung on a nearby wall is Modigliani’s 1908 painting “The…
A Pulitzer Prize-winning author and academic turned diplomat, Samantha Power is best known for her efforts to bring her work highlighting genocide prevention onto the national and global stage. Power is now writing about her experiences from a perch at Harvard University, after concluding in January a tumultuous four years as the United States ambassador…
Words tend to fail us most in two circumstances — in the face of profound evil and of transcendent decency. When Elie Wiesel first tried to describe his experience in the camps, he later wrote, “I watched helplessly as language became an obstacle.” We who have the honor to speak about Elie have the opposite…
Tour guides leading thousands of visitors to Masada each year follow a similar routine: Where Roman troops breached the walls, they retell Josephus Flavius’s account of how a group of obsessive, fanatical Jewish rebels refused to concede to servitude or slaughter, and committed suicide instead. For decades, archaeology at the site has been calling the…
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