Culture -

Ireland, Spain, Netherlands announce boycott of Eurovision following failed effort to oust Israel

December 4, 2025December 4, 2025Jesse Orine

Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands and Slovenia’s public broadcasters said they will boycott this year’s Eurovision Song Contest after a Thursday meeting of the European Broadcasting Union confirmed Israel’s participation. The Thursday General Assembly meeting in Switzerland of the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the annual song competition, was convened to discuss some members’ calls to […]

Carrie Soloway, inspiration for trailblazing trans Jewish protagonist of ‘Transparent,’ dies at 88

December 3, 2025December 3, 2025Jesse Orine

Carrie Soloway, a Jewish psychiatrist in Chicago whose late-in-life coming out as a transgender woman formed the basis for her children’s hit Amazon TV series “Transparent,” died Nov. 21 at the age of 88. Her death was announced this week on social media by Soloway’s children, Joey and Faith, who wrote she passed from natural […]

Rare 14th-century Hebrew Bible will hit the auction block at Sotheby’s

December 1, 2025December 1, 2025Jesse Orine

A rare, 14th-century handwritten Hebrew Bible from Spain will hit the auction block at Sotheby’s New York this month. The medieval work, adorned with calligraphic art, is a Tanakh, or Five Books of Moses plus the Book of Prophets and Writings. It is estimated to fetch between $1.5 and $2.5 million when it is up […]

Cory Booker has long embraced Jewish tradition. Now he has married a Jewish woman.

December 1, 2025December 1, 2025Jesse Orine

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker has long been known for his affinity for Judaism. On Saturday, he took that closeness to a new level when he married a Jewish woman in an interfaith ceremony that featured a chuppah and a rabbi. A senator since 2013, Booker, 56, has been called the “the Senate’s most Jewish […]

What Philip Roth taught me about my life as a Jewish man, despite his own imperfections

December 1, 2025December 2, 2025Jesse Orine

Sometime in 2011 or 2012, racing in a cab to pick up my kids from school, I passed Philip Roth on the corner of West 79th Street and Central Park West. At the edge of the urban paradise where I ran each morning to keep my sanity — just as I had heard daily swims […]

I planned the first Guinness record-breaking Shabbat dinner. I promise I’m not too bitter about being beaten.

November 28, 2025November 28, 2025Jesse Orine

Here’s me not feeling even remotely bitter that the Guinness World Record for the largest Shabbat dinner — the one my friends and I set in Tel Aviv in 2014 — has just been broken again. Absolutely not bitter. Totally fine over here. No, truly, I’m not at all dwelling on the fact that this […]

Palestinian restaurant Ayat, opening near Columbia, names location ‘Hind’s Hall’ to honor campus protesters

November 28, 2025November 28, 2025Jesse Orine

A Palestinian restaurant in New York City has named its new location “Hinds Hall” after the moniker pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University gave to a campus building they occupied last spring. In a post on Instagram on Thursday, the restaurant, Ayat NYC, which has eight locations, announced that its new storefront in Morningside Heights would […]

From golems to Horton to banana menorahs: This year’s Hanukkah kids’ books light up the imagination

November 28, 2025November 29, 2025Jesse Orine

From Who-ville to Schmoozeville, and from island getaways to cozy homes, this year’s crop of Hanukkah books for kids of all ages take families on journeys to imaginative settings, some familiar from the pantheon of children’s literature and Jewish ideas. Families from across the diverse Jewish spectrum will enjoy the new titles that celebrate the […]

Eurovision announces new voting measures following last year’s allegations of Israeli interference

November 24, 2025November 24, 2025Jesse Orine

The organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest have revised this year’s voting rules after broadcasters from several countries accused Israel of interfering in last year’s audience poll. The new guidelines, which were announced Friday, reduce the number of votes allotted to each fan from 20 to 10, split fan votes with input from a professional […]

New York City sets Guinness record for largest-ever Shabbat dinner, with 2,800 at the table

November 23, 2025November 23, 2025Jesse Orine

Eight hundred and eleven pounds of potatoes, 402 challahs, 68 chefs, 59 people named David and 27 people named Rachel. It all adds up to the world’s largest Shabbat dinner, which was organized by Temple Emanuel’s Streicker Center and held at the Javits Center on Friday night. Some 2,800 Jewish New Yorkers packed the top […]