Article Archive

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.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s “Future Tense: Jews, Judaism and Israel in the Twenty-First Century” tells Jews to go universalist, then falls short when it comes to Israel.

“Abraham’s Daughters,” a play now showing in New York City, explores the complicated social dynamics between a group of four freshman friends–a Jew, a Muslim, a Christian and an atheist. If you think that sounds complicated, wait until they start dating.

Two new machzors, one from the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and the other from a professor at Rutgers University, have come out just in time for the High Holy Days. New Voices Editor at Large David AM Wilensky reviews them both,

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