Новости за 11.09.2015

I created this recipe for my cooking class as an example of braising, the process of slowly cooking meat until it is so tender that it can be cut with a fork. I wanted the flavors to evoke the road trip I took from Marrakech to Essaouira in my twenties while also capturing the many decadent Shabbat dinners I shared with Moroccan families in Sderot, where rocket fire hit the southern Israeli town daily as I worked on a documentary film about frequent barrages there.

Last year, when Jewish students at Dartmouth looked ahead to the fall’s academic calendar, they noticed something was awry: the school year was scheduled to begin on Rosh Hashanah. They quickly alerted the administration, and the oversight was corrected, with class postponed until Sept. 16. But then what should have been a story about the college’s constructive response to student concerns took an odd turn. Dartmouth’s administration decided to make up the cancelled Rosh Hashanah classes–by scheduling new ones on Shabbat. Читать дальше...

It’s Rosh Hashanah, folks, and as usual I am blithely unaware of this fact until I got the traditional pre-holiday email from my mother, reminding me a) that there is a ritual aspect to Judaism apart from writing snide blog posts about reality television shows, and b) do I want her to send cake? My mother wrote that she’s making it like she does every year, but that she won’t send it unless she’s sure I want it, because what kind of a monster foists unsolicited homemade cake on somebody without their express permission? Читать дальше...

Ora pro nobis

— A church chant, meaning “Pray for us”

Continue reading "The British Rescued Hundreds of Jews via Kindertransport during WWII. But Who Will Help the Syrian Refugees?" at...

Just in time for the annual season of Jewish introspection, Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of the UK, has gotten the self-questioning ball rolling with a new whiteboard animation characteristically titled “Why I am a Jew.”

“Don’t break the law and you can breathe easy.”­

“Keep your hands where police can see them and you’ll have no problem.”

Continue reading "High Holiday Safety for Jews of Color: Why non-White Jews Should Attend Shul With Their Eyes Wide Open" at...

As the Jewish New Year approaches, .

Close out 5775 with a new medium for your : emojis.

Continue reading "Tablet's High Holiday Emoji Guide" at...

Once again this year, the public schools in New Haven, Connecticut, will be closed for the first day of Rosh Hashanah and for Yom Kippur. My children can go to synagogue secure in the knowledge that they won’t need to explain their absences, won’t need to make up work, and won’t miss out on key note-passing, lunch-table gossip, and impromptu schoolyard jams to Silentó’s “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae).” The schools have done the multicultural, pluralist thing and, like numerous other American school districts, accommodated my minority group. Читать дальше...

In a few days, many of us, even those not ordinarily given to excessive piety, will cower before the ark on Yom Kippur and take our best shot at penitence. My favorite bit of prayer has always been the Al Chet, in which we confess a whole litany of transgressions, some substantial and others, like foolish talk and proud looks, endearingly minute. This year, however, we may need to add another line to the timeless prayer: Forgive us, O Lord, for the sins we have committed before You with the best of intentions. Читать дальше...

Every year as the High Holidays approach, I visit the family plot in Cedar Park Cemetery in Paramus, New Jersey. Remembering, honoring, and celebrating loved ones before Rosh Hashanah is a tradition for many Jews, as old as the Talmud. But for me, the visit isn’t exactly “traditional,” because of who’s at the cemetery. My mother is buried there. So is my father. And so is my father’s second wife, Jean, the woman responsible for the breakup of my family.

“Your father is the only one who ever succeeded in taking advantage of the Jews. I don’t know how he did it.” So Pascal Bruckner’s father René said one day to his grandson. The father remained a fanatical follower of Hitler even 60 years after the Nazi downfall. The son went in the opposite direction, toward friendship with French Jewish intellectuals like Alain Finkielkraut, and a partnership with Roman Polanski (Bruckner wrote the novel on which Polanski based his movie Bitter Moon). Bruckner’s first marriage was to a Jewish woman... Читать дальше...

The Iran nuclear deal.

Senselessly delayed in Congress.

Continue reading "Iran Deal—Yay or Nay? And Are You Jewish? The New York Times Makes a List." at...