Новости за 20.04.2016

Jewish tradition famously demands that the participants at the Passover seder bemoan the depredations of slavery and celebrate the salvation of freedom as if they themselves had escaped Egypt. For our generation, sitting in the comfort of our dining rooms, this can feel like an exercise in absurdity. Such hardship seems incredibly remote. But for my family, this recollection of suffering and redemption has served as our seder’s most moving moment, thanks to my grandmother and her remarkable story. Читать дальше...

This past Thursday, Harvard Law School hosted a panel discussion on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, featuring longtime U.S. diplomat Dennis Ross and longtime Israeli politician and former foreign minister Tzipi Livni. In the Q&A portion of the event, something transpired that shocked many present: a student publicly asked Livni why she was “so smelly.”

AMEN

The betrayer who is betrayed.

Continue reading "'Amen,' A Passover Poem" at...

Entrepreneur-turned-Knesset member Erel Margalit appears to have unofficially launched a bid for the leadership of the center-left Labor party. His announcement came in the form of an unusually aggressive attack ad aimed at both the Israeli Right, for destroying the country, and the Left, for failing to stop this from happening.

I never paid much attention to my mother’s cookbook collection as a kid. And yet, thinking back to my childhood home, I can clearly envision a copy of The Settlement Cook Book. I can see its spine, faded and tattered, the way a well-loved book should be. And I remember thinking its cover—a simple drawing of apron and chef’s toque-wearing women bustling toward a large heart—was at once odd, dated, and hopelessly charming. What I did not realize at the time was that the unassuming community cookbook... Читать дальше...

Passover is known as a holiday of liberation, salvation, even constipation, but to me, it was always a holiday of sanitation.

“In 1933, I was approached by someone respectable, a Jew not involved in any criminal activity, and asked for my help. He wanted me to contact some of my underworld pals in a plan to kill Hitler.” I stared at the man sitting across from me. I was incredulous. A plan to kill Hitler in 1933? Involving Jewish American mobsters? Was he serious? The story seemed far-fetched, a bube meyseh (old wives’ tale). I was skeptical.