Article Archive

The Jewish world has so many layers beyond its pain, but tales of Jewish identity too often recount suffering with an almost liturgical precision – to the exclusion of its triumphs. Evelyn Toynton’s second novel, “The Oriental Wife,” is the tale of young Jews who flee Hitler’s pogroms for America, exploring the effects of culture clash without miring itself in that inescapable identity pity that asserts itself in similar works. As they struggle to eke out a life of substance in a strange country, these young people must deal with their shattered expectations and a new tragedy that will shake and redefine their relationships permanently.

Amy Winehouse’s “Frank” took its fast-and-easy hold on audiences with opening track “Stronger than Me,” a bouncing number that made sweet love to Winehouse’s knowing voice, while pushing the track’s subject away for not being man enough for her. Perhaps it was telling that Winehouse began her mainstream career with a hefty world-weariness that the greats of jazz and blues take a lifetime to cultivate. When she came on the scene, Winehouse – almost immediately the darling of music critics who praised her raspy cynicism and jazz roots – seemed somehow already old.


For the many who would not discover her until ‘Rehab’ became a pop culture staple (and something of a mean-spirited soundtrack for tabloid readers who followed her drug and alcohol problems), Winehouse’s fatigue was something of an absolute, a perpetual state of personal angst. This clouded Winehouse’s lighter material, her playful sense of self on tracks like “Fuck Me Pumps” and “Moody’s Mood for Love,” and made her a public punch line for many.

With pretzels and cold beers waiting on a fold-up table, guests were greeted upon arrival at DeLeon’s rooftop release party with a warm welcome and the and a copy of the band’s new CD. But behind the excitement and rush of energy were the frowns and blank stares that gave away that last night’s event wasn’t just a concert–it was the beginning of a sad goodbye.
JDub Records announced last week that the Jewish record label will “wind down,” eventually closing its doors for financial reasons. For one year short of a decade, JDub’s mission was to “discover, curate, and promote unique, proud Jewish voices and role models in the mainstream,” according to the July 13 press release that first revealed the bad news.

In the world of fiction, from “Hellboy” to “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Adolf Hitler and the Nazis are often given to fantastical machinations. In the world of Scott Kenemore’s new work of not-at-all historical fiction, “Zombies vs. Nazis: A Lost History of the Walking Dead,” the Third Reich sends three of their best agents to Port-au-Prince, Haiti to uncover the mysteries of the undead.
Kenemore is the author of five other semi-historical zombies novels, including “The Art of Zombie Warfare” and “The Zombie Pirate Code.” “Zombies vs. Nazis” is a short series of letters between the Nazi agents and their superior, known as Obergruppenfuhrer (a high paramilitary Nazi rank of the SS). The letters tell the story of how these agents discover successful Voodoo zombie rituals in Haiti. The agents’ leader, Gunter Knecht is both arrogant and sadistic, having proudly strangled a cat during SS training. With him are the more human, curious Inspector Gehrin, and the incompetent and fearful Inspector Baedecker. Together they pose as Jesuit lepidopterists from The University of Bonn.

Somewhere in her flight from New York to Los Angeles, Fran Drescher forgot her Yiddishkeit. When Fran flew from Flushing to LA, she left behind New York Jewish humor in favor for a lighter, gayer, less cynical brand of humor. Is it possible that Fran Drescher is becoming a shiksa? Or is she merely adjusting to new expectations for Jewish television stars? The star of the hit 90s comedy “The Nanny” has to adjust to retain her composure as a Jewish icon, while appealing to a much broader audience. To do this, Fran takes a lesson from her younger Jewish counterparts.
The occasion is her new sitcom, “Happily Divorced.” A show based on her life, its premise is simple: One night Drescher’s husband comes out as gay. She plays herself, with John Michael Higgins as her husband Peter. While the plot is gay-friendly, its dialogue is decidedly “feh.”

Soul Khan, an up-and-coming secular Jewish hip-hop artist, infuses his rhymes with Jewish values and–when necessary–becomes a defender of the faith. Here, Max Elstein Keisler talks with him about Jewish music, the rap scene and the difference between slavery and the Holocaust.

The sights and sounds of Jewlicious Judah Ari Gross is a senior at the University of Maryland and the editor in chief of the Maryland Mitzpeh.

The Goldstone Report, which sought to analyze the 2009 Gaza War, has become one of the most controversial documents of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But those who want a less polemicized debate over the Report’s findings should not look to Nation Books, which published a biased analysis of the document this year.

David Grossman was in the middle of writing a book about Israeli parents coping with their child’s military service. Then his son was killed in the 2006 Lebanon War. What followed was “To the End of the Land,” Grossman’s most powerful novel yet.

American Jews love controversy. So why did the National Museum of American Jewish History exclude it? Judah Gross spends a day at the museum, checking out its impressive collection and wishing there were more conversation.

Josh Freed’s “Five Weddings and a Felony” chronicles one summer in the filmmaker’s life, a few months of weddings, hookups, apologies, neuroses and irresponsibility. And it’s also about my family.

Duke University sophomore Samantha Tropper interviews Matisyahu as he prepares for a concert on campus, Here are the Hasidic beat-boxer’s thoughts on Jewish identity, aliyah and writing lyrics by the grave of a rabbi.

In the Mexican film “Nora’s Will,” suicide and religion strain a family’s bonds. With a protagonist who’s a mix of Tevye and Nietzsche, the movie uses discussions of love and God to explore how a family deals with death

Gary Shteyngart’s third novel, “Super Sad True Love Story,” depicts a future that is superficial, anti-literate and dystopian. In other words, our lives in 20 years.

In 1948, “Nuremberg,” a documentary on the Nazi war crimes trials, showed in Berlin. 62 years later, it’s finally playing for American audiences, and the film has lost none of its relevance.