Category: Culture

(New York Jewish Week) — James McBride’s latest novel began as a book about a Jewish camp, and “ended up being a book about equality.” Set in the small town of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” opens in 1972 when construction workers discover a body and a mezuzah at the bottom of […]

((JR)) — As only the third Israeli to compete in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC, Natan Levy is not afraid to showcase his Jewish identity in and out of the ring. He gave himself the chance to do just that as he invited a follower of white supremacist provocateur Nick Fuentes to a fight that […]

(New York Jewish Week) — Just a few minutes after entering The Ripped Bodice, a new romance bookstore in Park Slope, Rose Cohen, a woman in her early 20s, already had two books in hand.  Armed with a list of coveted romance books on her iPhone notes app, Cohen, who lives an hour outside the […]

((JR)) — Bella Abzug, the feminist who burst into Congress battling for equal rights in 1970, was often caricatured in the media of her time. She was labeled “belligerent” and “bellicose Bella” in newspapers, parodied on television and shamed for everything from her body to her Jewishness to her signature wide-brimmed hats. In just six […]

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. ((JR)) — On a recent morning at Sandbridge Beach, about six miles down the coast from Virginia Beach’s famous boardwalk, an unexpected fog disrupted beachgoers’ otherwise picturesque summer setting. The fog was so thick that even the water became invisible, and everyone was forced out of the water. Most swimmers and surfers […]

((JR)) — There’s no way to win “The Light in the Darkness,” a new video game where the characters are members of a French-Jewish family in the years before and during the Holocaust. No matter what choices the player makes, they will be murdered by Nazis — a dark end that the game’s creator says is […]

((JR)) — Super Bowl champion Leonard Fournette paid a surprise visit to a Jewish overnight camp for children with cancer, blood disorders and other chronic illnesses. Fournette, who won a Super Bowl in 2021 with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, ran football drills, signed autographs and danced with campers during his visit on Sunday to Camp […]

((JR)) — Soon after Netflix dropped the first official trailer for its upcoming Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro” on Tuesday, one aspect of the film footage sparked a flurry of conversation online — and it wasn’t the preeminent Jewish conductor’s music, or star Bradley Cooper’s acting. Instead, the prosthetic nose supposedly used by the Oscar-nominated Cooper, […]

(New York Jewish Week) – Growing up in Brooklyn, Dylan Mars Greenberg went to Hebrew school and celebrated Shabbat and holidays with her family. But she never celebrated a bar or bat mitzvah — “it wasn’t something my dad really wanted me to do,” she said.  Instead, the 26-year-old filmmaker, musician, actor and writer began […]

((JR)) – The next director of New York’s Jewish Museum will be James Snyder, the former director of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem who is known as a prolific fundraiser for Jewish causes. Snyder, 71, will assume the role in September after serving for the past four years as the executive chairman of the Jerusalem […]