Category: Culture

(New York Jewish Week) — On a recent Sunday in Brooklyn, some 100 people, mostly families, gathered for a Hanukkah party that offered something a bit different than the typical latkes and games of dreidel. Instead, there was a factory tour, instructions on how to manufacture a classic seltzer bottle and freshly-made egg creams. That’s […]

((JR)) — Ferne Pearlstein re-watched “Life is Beautiful,” Roberto Benigni’s Oscar-winning Holocaust film, around 2015. She was working on her documentary “The Last Laugh,” which focused on the possibilities — and limits — of Holocaust humor. Pearlstein was struck not by how subversive Benigni’s film felt, but how tame it seemed. In the 2000s, she […]

((JR)) — For years, the Hanukkah llama has been a corny cliche that skeptics of the big-box Hanukkah industrial complex love to hate. What does a South American animal have to do with a holiday commemorating a Jewish miracle in the Middle East? Is a not-quite rhyme enough to justify “Happy Llamakah” sweaters and socks? […]

((JR)) — Soon after news broke Wednesday morning of Jewish TV pioneer Norman Lear’s death at 101 years old, actors and comedians quickly took to social media to remember the titan of comedy. Tributes poured in from a who’s-who of Jewish celebrities — from Barbra Streisand and Jon Stewart to Alex Edelman and Billy Crystal. […]

((JR)) — The “H” in NHL may as well stand for Hughes. Jewish brothers Jack, Luke and Quinn Hughes made hockey history on Tuesday night when they became the first trio of Jewish brothers to play in the same NHL game. Jack and Luke’s New Jersey Devils faced Quinn’s Vancouver Canucks in a night dubbed […]

(New York Jewish Week) — In 1970, New York State passed one of the most expansive abortion rights laws in the country, its legislation putting into motion the eventual adoption of Roe v. Wade in 1973. But the legislation almost didn’t pass. It was only thanks to George Michaels, a Jewish Democrat in the New […]

((JR)) — Norman Lear, the Jewish TV pioneer behind iconic comedies of the 1970s and 1980s that helped bring social commentary and Black characters into the mainstream, has died at 101. Lear’s death was announced by a spokesperson for his family, according to The New York Times. The decorated creator of “All In The Family,” […]

(New York Jewish Week) — In March 2022, Jack Waksal thought he recognized Sam Ron, the keynote speaker at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual South Florida dinner in Boca Raton. But he couldn’t quite place him — after all, at 97, Waksal had met thousands of people during his lifetime. But when Ron said the […]

(New York Jewish Week) — First things first: Despite its name, there is no erotica and sometimes no Hanukkah in the Hanukkah Erotica Book Club. Instead, the “book club” is actually a biweekly podcast about Jewish romance novels. Hosted by close friends and stepsisters Malya Levin and Rachel Mintz — who goes by her “Hebrew” […]

((JR)) — An Israeli reservist on leave from the war in Gaza sneaks back into his house in the middle of the night to surprise his wife and sons. Another opens the door of his daughter’s preschool classroom and steps inside. Another stands behind his mother’s desk at work, waiting for her to turn and […]