Culture -

Sarah Aroeste uses the power of Sephardic music to revitalize a lost Jewish community

July 1, 2021Sara Wood

This article originally appeared on Alma. At the turn of the 20th century, the city of Monastir, present-day Bitola in North Macedonia, was home to the country’s largest Jewish community, 11,000 people. That’s about half of the current Jewish population of Turkey, most of whom share the Ladino language and its music with Balkan Jewish […]

For 35 years, this mother-daughter duo has run a radio show on Ladino and Sephardic Jewish culture from Madrid

July 1, 2021Jesse Orine

MADRID (JTA) — Matilde Gini de Barnatán and her daughter Viviana Rajel Barnatán didn’t set out to make Jewish history in Spain. In the 1960s and ’70s, Matilde, now 85, established herself in Argentina as a prominent researcher, teacher and scholar of the history of Sephardic culture and the Spanish Inquisition in Ibero-America. Her extensive […]

Adam Fox named hockey’s top defenseman, first Jewish player to win a major NHL award

June 30, 2021Sara Wood

Adam Fox named hockey’s top defenseman, first Jewish player to win a major NHL award – Jewish Telegraphic Agency Skip to content Advertisement Advertisement

A haredi Orthodox ‘City of Torah’ is planned in Mexico, first in Latin America

June 28, 2021Jesse Orine

A haredi Orthodox ‘City of Torah’ is planned in Mexico, first in Latin America – Jewish Telegraphic Agency Skip to content Advertisement Advertisement

Social media companies say they ban Holocaust denial. Are they also blocking education?

June 28, 2021Mark Hershlag

(JTA) — In October, one day after Facebook announced that it would ban Holocaust denial, Izabella Tabarovsky received an unexpected message from the platform. A 2019 post of hers promoting an article she had written on Holocaust remembrance was being removed for violating Facebook’s “Community Standards on hate speech.” No further information was provided, and […]

Jews need to do better if they’re to get serious about fighting racism, activists say

June 28, 2021Sara Wood

The conversation below was adapted from a recent online panel, “The Jewish Imperative to Pursue Racial and Economic Justice,” sponsored by The Genesis Prize and hosted by 70 Faces Media, JTA’s parent organization. The discussion featured leaders of three of the 10 grantees of the initiative for racial and economic justice launched by the 2021 […]

In ‘Lansky,’ Harvey Keitel puts the legendary gangster’s Jewishness front and center

June 25, 2021Sara Wood

(JTA) — Perhaps no American Jewish actor has been so closely associated with crime films as Harvey Keitel. During a career now in its sixth decade, the 82-year-old Keitel has appeared in “Mean Streets,” “Taxi Driver,” “Wise Guys,” “Bugsy,” “The Two Jakes,” “Reservoir Dogs” and “The Irishman,” among numerous other films. Now he’s adding to […]

Quentin Tarantino opens up about learning Hebrew, his life in Tel Aviv and being an ‘abba’

June 24, 2021Arsen Mayer

Quentin Tarantino opens up about learning Hebrew, his life in Tel Aviv and being an ‘abba’ – Jewish Telegraphic Agency Skip to content Advertisement Advertisement

‘Tevye in New York’ imagines the famous ‘Fiddler’ hero’s life beyond Anatevka

June 23, 2021Sara Wood

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — The last time we saw Tevye the Milkman on Broadway in “Fiddler on the Roof” was in 2016, escaping Anatevka as a pogrom swept the shtetl. Now, almost five years later, he is resurfacing in a one-man play titled “Tevye in New York,” opening in its world premiere — in Beverly […]

How a non-Jewish Swiss baker’s challah wowed the internet

June 22, 2021Jesse Orine

This article originally appeared on The Nosher. Challah baker Katharina Arrigoni lives in a town in northern Switzerland with 3,000 residents, none of whom — including Arrigoni – are Jewish. Entirely self-taught, Arrigoni has never tasted a challah other than her own creations. Yet thanks to the power of the internet and Instagram, Arrigoni has […]