(ANALYSIS) Living in a culture that largely closes down each Dec. 25, many Jews have found ways of making meaning in the day — be that sharing family time over beef and broccoli, followed by a holiday blockbuster, or working to make sure that more of their colleagues can have a family day. And those, too, are Christmas traditions.
Read MoreHolocaust denier Nick Fuentes appeared to acknowledge that “at least” 6 million Jews were killed in Nazi Germany, in a tense interview with broadcaster Piers Morgan on Monday. Yet, he doubled down on his past statement that Adolf Hitler was “f—ing cool” and claimed that the true “genocide” is against white Christians.
Read MoreWhen Julian Voloj heard about the first Jewish Comic Con, he had to meet its creator, Fabrice Sapolsky. Voloj had authored a number of graphic novels, including “Ghetto Brother,” the story of former gang leader Benji Melendez. Voloj and Sapolsky connected at the 2016 convention and realized they shared a vision: A comic recounting diverse Jewish stories.
Read More(ANALYSIS) These films give us hints as to potential “whys” behind rising Western antisemitism. When you look at the lessons the historical dramas teach, and the movies made about their legacy today, you see deep tensions. These tensions suggest that some of the popular secular lessons our culture has derived from the Holocaust are also planting the seeds of its rejection.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Unfortunately, the current Israeli government seems uninterested in repairing what they have broken. The Jewish state will not crumble overnight if they remain indifferent to these needs. The country’s morale will weaken. And everything that has kept it strong and surviving — its defenses, its international supporters, its belief in its own mission — will do the same.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Israel’s chief rabbis — known as the Rabbinate and the top authority for the country’s Orthodox institutions — do not recognize women as rabbis or permit their ordination. A big change came this year when Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled women must be allowed to take the exams.
Read More(REVIEW) This makes film’s presentation feel extremely — for lack of a better word — basic. The movie, however, never figures out exactly which of these threads it wants to follow. Is it about the trials? The nature of evil and whether the Nazis were unique or not? Is it trying to educate viewers about Holocaust history, or say something new about it?
Read MoreThe heads of OU Kosher, Star-K and OK Kosher — three of the five major certification agencies — announced this month that all beer will soon require certification to be considered kosher, attributing the change to the increased use of flavoring and other additives in craft beers.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Mamdani is America’s first high-profile Muslim office-holder. The campaign’s competing accusations of “antisemitism” versus “Islamophobia” raise obvious concerns for Muslims, and for Jews, for whom New York has long been the most important town west of Tel Aviv. Signals are mixed on whether the Mamdani era will improve, or worsen, relations between these communities.
Read MoreHis comedic DNA is everywhere. His writers included Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Neil Simon and Woody Allen. Even so, when author David Margolick interviewed him for his new biography of Sid Caesar, Brooks told him, “People are going to say, ‘Gee, this is really good and really interesting. Just one question, David: Who’s Sid Caesar?’”
Read More(ANALYSIS) In the most talked-about film from the final year of the 20th century, “The Matrix,” a computer hacker named Neo finds that the world he lives and works in isn’t real. It’s a virtual reality, created by artificial intelligence.
Read MoreThe uproar over Tucker Carlson’s decision to host Nick Fuentes, a notorious Holocaust denier and white nationalist, for a friendly chat on his popular online talk show last week focused on the need to maintain a firewall between mainstream conservatives and antisemites such as Fuentes.
Read MoreZohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist whose campaign was powered by youthful energy, a surge of new voters and a promise of unconventional change, completed his yearlong journey with a decisive victory — to be elected mayor of New York City and the first Muslim to hold the office.
Read MoreThough his name is virtually unknown today, Isaacs went on to play a pivotal role during the period of first contact between the Zulu and Europeans. His widely reviewed 1836 memoir, “Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa,” offers an eyewitness account of the Zulu under the indomitable King Shaka, who reigned from the 1810s to 1828.
Read MoreAn intrepid puppy who marches for labor rights. A 6-year-old girl who sews herself a locomotive to carry her away from her daily chores. A Jewish boy who would be pope. These stories — written in Yiddish — are all entertaining and whimsical, and like so much writing for young people, may be seen as less than serious.
Read MoreWhile Vance emphasized “partnership” with Israel and pushed back on the notion that the Jewish state had become a “protectorate” of the United States, the underlying tensions in this evolving post-Gaza war framework reveals that the alliance has entered a new phase.
Read More(ANALYSIS) With its pending case of Christian psychological counselor Kaley Chiles, the U.S. Supreme Court faces a potentially momentous choice between her claim of free speech during therapy, over against Colorado’s professional licensing standards that forbid so-called “conversion therapy” regarding homosexual orientation and transgender transitions.
Read MoreWhen fans of the soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv were assaulted in the streets of Amsterdam after a game last November, the violence drew comparisons to pogroms. It even prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to dispatch rescue planes to evacuate Israeli citizens. Once again there are fears of a repeat outbreak of violence, this time over a match in Birmingham, England.
Read MoreIn 2006, I was able to travel to Israel for the first time. Even as a child, I had learned from my father about the spiritual legacy of the Jewish people, the land God had given them, and how He had protected them. And, best of all, during that amazing year, I was able to set foot on the land myself. There I began to meet and come to know Israelis as friends and allies, and to see with my own eyes the biblical heritage I had inherited as a Christian believer.
Read MoreZohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo clashed sharply over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Thursday night, in the first televised debate for New York City mayor, their first major showdown since the young democratic socialist stunned the former governor in the Democratic primary.
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