Sam Sussman’s debut novel, “Boy from the North Country,” revolves around a mystery: Was Bob Dylan, the singer and Nobel laureate, the narrator’s father? Sussman could have written this tale as a memoir, an expansion perhaps of the 2021 essay he wrote for Harper’s Magazine: “The Silent Type: On (Possibly) Being Bob Dylan’s Son.” His […]
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By the time the playwright Liba Vaynberg and I manage to steal a few minutes on Zoom, it’s already midday on a Friday, which means I’m running late from an appointment at a wig maker and frantically marinating a chicken for Shabbat dinner. I wouldn’t normally describe the circumstances of an interview in an article, […]
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The last thing one might expect from Jeff Ross — the perennially raunchy, abrasive insult comedian known as a “one-man verbal assault unit” — is a poignant and hilarious Broadway show that, at times, feels like the most Jewish production on the Great White Way since “Fiddler on the Roof.” Ross is best known as […]
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Shavuot came early — or late, to be precise — this year for the lily pads at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden But on Thursday, the lily pads got their fill of the food mostly closely associated with the Jewish holiday. In fact, they were positively straining under the weight of cheesecakes from Junior’s, the Downtown […]
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Sasha Vasilyuk was surprised to be named a finalist for the 2025 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, wondering if the judges were going to honor an author whose “last name isn’t Jewish, and whose main character avoided being Jewish.” Nevertheless, her debut novel, “Your Presence Is Mandatory,” won the $100,000 prize for a story […]
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Zabar’s, New York’s iconic grocery and appetizing shop, sells everything from smoked fish, gourmet cheese and rugelach to pots, pans and high-end baking supplies. And now, the 91-year-old Upper West Side grocery — a staple among New York City Jews — is joining the sneaker game to celebrate the U.S. Open, the tennis tournament that […]
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When Liangda Hu first tried doing Daf Yomi, the practice of studying a page of Talmud per day, he struggled to read it. Hu found the language of English Talmud translations uniquely archaic and, as someone who speaks English as a second language, difficult to understand. So he turned to artificial intelligence. Now, Hu uses […]
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Loehmann’s, the New York City-based discount department store that had a devoted — and deeply Jewish — fan base, is set to make a return later this month. Now under new ownership after closing for good in 2014, Loehmann’s will relaunch as a series of pop-up stores, beginning with a warehouse sale at Tanger Outlets […]
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For those who miss the very funny, very Jewish presence of the late comedy icons Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner, a new off-Broadway play that tells the story of their eight-year relationship practically brings the legends back to life. “Gene & Gilda,” written by Cary Gitter and directed by Joe Brancato, is playing at 59E59 […]
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“Blacklisted: An American Story,” a new exhibit at New York Historical, explores a dark chapter of the 1940s and ’50s, when fears of communism led to government investigations of Hollywood and industry-imposed blacklists that silenced many entertainment professionals. Using a rich display of artifacts —such as telegrams, costumes, movie posters and archival video — the […]
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