Category: Culture

((JR)) — According to the Jewish Virtual Library, 550,000 Jews served in the United States armed forces during World War II. There were 38,338 Jewish casualties, while 26,000 Jewish soldiers “received citations for valor and merit.” But in high-profile TV and film, identifiably Jewish soldiers have been a rare sight. One exception came 25 years ago […]

(New York Jewish Week) — Award-winning Jewish actress, comedian and writer Rachel Bloom, star and co-creator of the CW hit “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” will bring a one-woman musical comedy to an off-Broadway theater this fall for a four-week run. “Death, Let Me Do My Show,” written by and starring Bloom, will begin previews at the Lucille […]

(New York Jewish Week) — Imagine an Upper West Side seder like any other: adults praying, haggadahs dappled with brisket juice, matzah ball soup a little too salty. Only that’s not a Manischewitz bottle on the table. That’s a magnum of Cru Beaujolais. For this type of epicurean refinement, it helps to have someone in […]

(New York Jewish Week) – A woman dressed as Fanny Brice from “Funny Girl” and another dressed as Fruma Sarah from “Fiddler on the Roof” were among the 100-plus people who filed into a Midtown conference room on Friday morning to discuss Jewish identity on Broadway.   The Jewish fans — whose real names were […]

ELKO NEW MARKET, Minn. ((JR) via TC Jewfolk) — Thomas Poretsky is six years away from being behind the wheel of a street-legal car and is too young to drive bumper cars at the State Fair. This is ironic as he stands in the shadow of Elko Speedway in a firesuit and holds his racing […]

((JR)) — The most prominent American Jewish history museum is extending a free admission program that began when it reopened following the pandemic.  The elimination of ticket fees through at least the end of 2023 reflects a vote of confidence in Philadelphia’s  Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, which was fighting to survive three […]

(New York Jewish Week) — In the industrial Port Morris neighborhood in the Bronx, a 10-block stretch of Walnut Avenue bears the name Rose Feiss Boulevard, honoring the Jewish immigrant woman who lived, worked and touched the lives of many in the borough. Rose Feiss was born in Minsk, Russia in 1901. She immigrated to […]

(New York Jewish Week) — The competition started in the elevator. On Wednesday night, around 5:40 p.m., a woman lugging an empty suitcase across the ground floor of the nondescript 520 8th Avenue office building in Manhattan yelled, “Hold that door!” She was hoping to get a prime spot in line at the event happening […]

This story originally appeared on My Jewish Learning. ((JR)) — Next Thursday is Tisha B’Av, the day on which Jews traditionally commemorate the destruction of the two ancient Temples with fasting and other modes of self-denial. The goal of these rituals is to induce a mindset of mourning in an attempt to appreciate what was lost with the […]

((JR)) — Friday is not just “Barbie” release day — moviegoers are also planning to fill theaters across the United States to see Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” biopic. Many hope it will answer a question that has long divided Americans and the country’s understanding of its history: Who exactly was J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of […]