Новости за 21.06.2017

Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban, one of the most significant donors in Democratic politics, is backing a law aimed at preventing the Palestinian Authority from paying terrorists and their families. According to JTA, Saban will help push for the passage of the Taylor Force Act, supporting the efforts of the American Israeli Coalition for Action, an advocacy group affiliated with the Israeli American Council.

Given that June is both Gay Pride and Immigrant Heritage Month, it’s fitting that the Tenement Museum last week announced the appointment of Kevin Jennings—a former history teacher who became a nationally recognized advocate for LGBT youth—as its new president.

Now that Otto Warmbier is dead, it’s time to ask what, if anything, might’ve been done to save the innocent young American from being detained and tortured by North Korea’s genocidal regime. To answer that question, it’s instructive to compare Warmbier’s case to those of two other Americans similarly seized and imprisoned by our enemies—Steven Sotloff and Jason Rezaian.

Growing up is an art form at which very few rappers excel. Like ballers, boxers, or ballerinas, they start young, burn bright, and bow out in the midday of their lives, duller and dimmer than before. A young artist’s howl about violence and poverty and insecurity is exhilarating; a middle-aged musing about success and its trappings is not. Defying this trajectory isn’t easy; doing it while producing a minor-key masterpiece that meditates on technology, religion, and relationships is even harder.

When Brad Leaf went all the way from Indiana to Northern Israel in 1982 to play professional basketball, he came equipped with a Jewish certificate, granting him Israeli citizenship. This enabled him to play as a nationalized player for Hapoel Galil Elyon and later Maccabi. Seventeen years (and one Israeli MVP Award) later, Leaf left Israel as a basketball legend—and in retrospect nobody cares that he wasn’t actually Jewish and that the source of his papers was questionable (those were the wild ’80s and he played for a kibbutz team anyway). Читать дальше...

OPH (Other People’s Homework): Is there anything better? Or am I the only weirdo who could spend hours looking at historical homework? My own career as a student was, shall we say, undistinguished, hampered as it was by my disdain for doing what people told me to. But as an adult, I find something incredibly compelling about historical homework and other types of school work. Lucky for me (and you), there’s a compact but fascinating new exhibit at YIVO titled Yidishe Kinder: Jewish Children and Their World Before the Holocaust. Читать дальше...

I have always had a crush on rabbis.

The first time, it was my own father. As a little boy, I used to lovingly stroke his round face, his beard. I wanted to be like him in ways both ordinary and sublime. If he liked mustard, I liked mustard. If he liked Chevrolets and baseball, I liked them, too. But it extended to his culture and religion: If he spoke Yiddish, then so would I. If he loved the Talmud and the synagogue, I would, too.

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Eyal Shani arrived at Sumud Freedom Camp at midday, just as Fadhel Aamar was waking up, emerging from the shadowy cave he now inhabits. It was a hot and dusty Ramadan day, and Aamar had been up all night, chatting and eating with the Jewish American volunteers.