Новости за 27.06.2018

Earlier this week, a religious group in Israel decided to hold a rally in Rabin Square, Tel Aviv’s central hub. Invitations were sent, posters were printed, and speakers booked. Then, however, a few of the city’s enlightened residents noticed one troubling detail: This being a religious event, it would feature a mechitzah creating separate sections for men and for women.

Last night, congressman Keith Ellison, the Deputy Chair of the Democratic National Committee, went on CNN to talk about the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Trump’s administration travel ban. A few minutes into the conversation, the interviewer, Jake Tapper, asked Ellison a pointed question.

The Supreme Court’s decision yesterday to uphold the travel ban is complex and fraught. So is travel, especially if you’re a bearded Jew who wears a yarmulke and your destination is a Muslim country that bans Israelis from entering and just voted for a leader who prides himself on being openly anti-Semitic.

After much anticipation, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Trump v. Hawaii yesterday, upholding the Trump administration’s so-called travel ban—a culmination, in many ways of, of two years of legal machinations and litigation around the United States. The ban itself—stripped away of all context—is relatively innocuous; it represents the considered judgment of various government agencies that the United States restrict entry to individuals from countries that provide inadequate or inaccurate information about travelers. Читать дальше...

After much anticipation, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Trump v. Hawaii yesterday, upholding the Trump administration’s so-called “travel ban”—a culmination, in many ways of, of two years of legal machinations and litigation around the United States. The ban itself—stripped away of all context—is relatively innocuous; it represents the considered judgment of various government agencies that the United States restrict entry to individuals from countries that provide inadequate or inaccurate information about travelers. Читать дальше...

There is the history of textbooks and academic tomes. There is the history of witness testimony. And then there is the history, conveyed through art, suspended between truth-telling and imagination, which is the beginning of myth. Watching a rehearsal of Alon Nechushtan’s new jazz-opera Survival Codes, I thought about the relationship between history and mythology. The play is about the world of Soviet Jewish refuseniks—a slice of recent Jewish narrative familiar to me through family stories, books, and films. Читать дальше...

Helen Epstein began her career as a journalist with the publication of an article in the Jerusalem Post describing Soviet tanks rolling into Prague. It was 1968 and she was 20 years old. Since then she has become well known and greatly respected not only as a journalist but as a biographer, editor, and Czech translator with a wide range of interests: music and theater, psychoanalysis, and Czech history and culture. Among her writings are also three works that form a unique autobiographical trilogy... Читать дальше...

Honoris causa…

These Latin words inevitably remind me of my years in France’s preparatory classes, in Paris, when I was studying for the entrance exam for the École normale supérieure and I was devouring Latin as the Jews of Netanya and Jerusalem, faithful to the lesson of Ezekiel, nourished themselves with the Hebrew square letters.

Continue reading "BHL: The Honor of Israel" at...

Mourning is a subject frequently featured in Israeli cinema partly due to the number of Jews in the country and the way in which even those who are secular are familiar with the basics of what happens ritually after a person’s death. The period of mourning allows for transition from an unthinkable loss to a new reality, providing a system of healing that isn’t offered in the same way in other religions. Recent films like Longing, Foxtrot, and One Week and a Day have dealt with complicated instances... Читать дальше...