Archive
I’ve spent this summer interning at two very different locations. The first is the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, where, among other duties, I compiled a dense history of my father’s family. My other job is at Archaeology Magazine, writing articles for their website. To my surprise, as I dug deeper (pardon the archaeological […]
Elle Weiss reviews Michelle Lang’s “Lady Lazarus,” which features a title character who leaves pre-war Budapest to fight a Nazi army of imps, demons and werewolves–all to save Eurpoe’s Jews
Recently, Eden Abergil, an Israeli and former IDF soldier (discharged last year) posted some “controversial†photos of herself and Palestinians on her facebook page. In an album labeled, “IDF- the most beautiful time of my life,†Abergil, in IDF uniform, is posing with Palestinian prisoners while they are blindfolded and handcuffed. The comment under the […]
I am about to tell you a dramatic tale about the internecine conflicts of the Jewish philanthropic world. Here are your characters: First, there’s the Jewish Federation–in this case the Houston branch–an umbrella Jewish fundraising organization in Israel and abroad that donates to the full gamut of Jewish causes locally, nationally, internationally and–of course–in Israel. […]
I grew up big-C Conservative in a small-l liberal household and got confused when I read in the New York Times on Saturday, May 30, 1998 that Barry Goldwater, leader of the conservative movement, had died. Because I was 12, and because the New York Times capitalizes most words in its headlines, I didn’t pick […]
Crossposted to The Reform Shuckle I received an email today asking about siddurim for Hillels. I’ve anonymous-ized the email here: “I’ve followed your blog for a while–love it, by the way!–and read your post about Mishkan T’filah for Travelers. Right now, I’m working for the Hillel at the [University of XYZ], and this is one […]
The new Reform Judaism Magazine just arrived and it’s got a big section called the Insider’s Guide to College Life. Let’s parse some of it! The first section, a Q&A with Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro, is about the economics of financing college. Their first question is, “Why is college tuition so expensive–up to $50,000 […]
As a follow-up to our link yesterday to the story of the Israeli solider posing on Facebook with prisoners, Breaking the Silence points out that photos like that are not only commonplace, but far from the worst they’ve seen. [Haaretz] Here’s a novel idea: Israel wants the US to sell weapons Arabs, because everyone in […]
It’s a funny world we live in when reviews get reviewed by the creators of that which they review. Which is not a criticism of anyone. It’s just an observation. Yesterday, New Voices published three reviews of the revised edition of “Jewish U,” a book for Jews about to enter college about what to expect from […]
In this take on “Jewish U,” the reviewer–a student at the small Drew University in New Jersey–takes the author to task for focusing too much on Hillel and talking down to students.