Author: Jesse Orine

(New York Jewish Week) — I’ve known Hanna Slome for my entire life: She and her husband Henry Slome were close friends of my parents. I knew that in the 1930s, Henry fled Nazi Germany and Hanna had somehow gotten out of Czechoslovakia, but I didn’t know the details of her escape. Neither, it turned out, […]

((JR)) — Taylor Swift has (unofficially) entered her Exodus era. Swifties can now express their love for the pop icon while celebrating Passover, thanks to the “Unofficial Taylor Swift Haggadah,” written by author Na’ama Ben-David. Ben-David says the idea came from her teenage daughter, a big fan of Swift. “She loves talking about Taylor Swift,” […]

(New York Jewish Week) – Two folk music traditions that developed on opposite sides of the world from one another will come together for a one-night-only performance in New York City.  The Brooklyn Fiddle Summit, which will take place on Thursday at Brooklyn venue Littlefield, will showcase violinist Zoë Aqua’s klezmer virtuosity as well as […]

((JR)) — Those who might have described “Curb Your Enthusiasm” as a kind of “Seinfeld” on steroids got a fitting conclusion on Sunday, as the last episode of Larry David’s landmark 12-season sitcom was essentially a reprise of the much-maligned “Seinfeld” finale 26 years ago. Except one thing. (Spoilers follow.) In the finale, which aired […]

((JR)) — Joan Nathan had just settled in for a conversation about her most recent book, “My Life in Recipes,” when the food writer became distracted. A media personality was coming for lunch the next day, she said, but she realized she was missing two of the ingredients for the matzo balls she planned on […]

((JR)) — The rabbis of the Talmud are famous for their disagreements. But they presented a united front on eclipses, calling the celestial event “a bad omen for the whole world.” The attitude was common across the ancient world, when eclipses could not be predicted and were experienced as frightening, though astronomy was more developed […]

((JR)) – The editor-in-chief of the prestigious literary magazine Guernica whose decision to publish an Israeli writer’s essay about the war in Gaza last month led to the mass resignation of the magazine’s staff has herself resigned from the publication, saying she disagreed with the decision to retract the essay. Jina Moore announced her resignation […]

((JR)) — Alex Edelman’s acclaimed comedy special “Just For Us,” about his experience as a Jew attending a white supremacist meeting in New York City, first premiered at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in the summer of 2018. Months later, the worst antisemitic attack in American history occurred when a white supremacist killed 11 worshippers […]