Category: Culture

(New York Jewish Week) — Anyone can pray in a synagogue. But have you ever fantasized about living in one? Well, if you will it — and you happen to have $2.3 million handy — it is no dream: An East Village penthouse is on the market in a building that was constructed in 1908 as […]

((JR)) – The year’s biggest movie phenomenon was a one-two punch of blockbusters with Jewish roots — and they both came up big at Tuesday’s Oscar nominations. “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s biopic of the Jewish “father of the atomic bomb,” led the year’s nominations with 13, including best picture and director, and is favored by many […]

((JR)) – Fewer than 250,000 Holocaust survivors remain alive today, according to an unprecedented new report by the organization that has sought to ensure that they are compensated for their suffering. The oldest known survivor, according to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, is New Yorker Rose Girone, who turned 112 last week. […]

KRAKOW, Poland ((JR)) — Elon Musk said that X, his social media platform, could have saved Jews from the Holocaust after visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp on Monday. Musk made the comment during a conversation with Jewish right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro during a forum of senior politicians and Jewish leaders from 25 European countries hosted […]

(New York Jewish Week) — New York City kitchens are notoriously small. Nonetheless, on Friday Congregation Rodeph Sholom on the Upper West Side unveiled a 35-foot-long challah that they and their partners hope will break a world record.  The gargantuan loaf was made in collaboration with the Jewish Federations of North America and the Orthodox […]

((JR)) – In a 2022 documentary on the making of the 1971 film “Fiddler on the Roof,” Norman Jewison relayed a by-now familiar anecdote: When producers of the Broadway musical approached him for the directing job, he had to sheepishly inform them that he wasn’t actually Jewish. He got the job anyway, leading generations of […]

((JR)) — A lavishly illustrated children’s book about a Chinese Jewish family who celebrate both Rosh Hashanah and Lunar New Year is among the top winners of this year’s Sydney Taylor Book Awards for Jewish children’s books. Meanwhile, the publisher of the imprint behind the popular Sammy Spider Jewish holiday books won an award for her […]

(New York Jewish Week) — Picture a group of children having fun at summer camp, learning archery, swimming and playing tug of war, all while the Nazi flag flies next to the American flag. Or a packed crowd at Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden, where men and women of all ages give the Hitler salute.  These […]

((JR)) — Early in the new drama “Origin,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning Black author Isabel Wilkerson (played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) calls her cousin from Berlin to share that, as part of her research into American racism, she intends to learn more about the Nazis’ treatment of Jews.  Her cousin is unimpressed. “Leave Jewish folks alone,” Marion […]

((JR)) — Any Jewish baseball fan knows the names of the two Jews in MLB’s Hall of Fame: Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg. But since Koufax got his Hall call 52 years ago to the day — when he became the youngest player ever elected, at 36 — exactly zero Jewish players have made it […]