Comedian and inclusion advocate Pamela Schuller (Courtesy of Pamela Schuller)
(JTA) — I have Tourette syndrome, a neurological disorder characterized by involuntary movements and noises called “tics.” My Tourette’s is relatively mild at this point, but I went through a turbulent adolescence when Tourette’s was the most defining thing about me. Between the constant movements and the loud, uncontrollable… Read more »
Leora Eisenberg (Courtesy of Eisenberg)
(Kveller via JTA) — I looked at myself in the mirror and I liked the way I looked – no easy feat for a 17-year-old girl. My long skirt dangled around my ankles, and my turtleneck sweater coiled itself around my arms and neck. The provocation and sexual charge… Read more »
David Bak, alongside the 1932 Chevrolet Model A he restored, reconnected with a friend he worked with at a Haifa auto repair shop in the late 1960s. (Courtesy of David Bak)
SEEKING KIN The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. (JTA) – As a librarian, Oren Kaplan researches obscure facts and utilizes databases to track down information. So when the Haifa resident read a recent “Seeking Kin” column about someone in his city, Menahem Orenstein,… Read more »
Women of the Wall praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Jan. 2, 2014. (Miriam Alster/Flash 90)
(JTA) – On the morning of Dec. 1, 1988, a group of about 70 Jewish women entered the sacred space of the Western Wall. The women represented all the major streams of Judaism. Some wore prayer shawls or kippahs. Some did not. One woman cradled a Torah in her… Read more »
Bernie Sanders making his victory speech in Concord after winning the New Hampshire Democratic primary, Feb. 9, 2016. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Bernie Sanders is having a month of historic firsts. In New Hampshire on Tuesday night, he handily won the Democratic Party contest, becoming the first Jew to win a presidential primary. In Iowa, he became the first Jewish presidential candidate — the first non-Christian, even… Read more »
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., speaking at a Get Out the Vote rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, Feb. 8, 2016. (Meredith Dake-O'Connor/CQ Roll Call)
(JTA) – Bernie Sanders made history Tuesday night when he became the first Jewish candidate in U.S. history to win a presidential primary election. With the vote results in New Hampshire still trickling in, the Independent senator from Vermont was projected to handily defeat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in… Read more »
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., waving on election day in Concord, New Hampshire, Feb. 9, 2016. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Maybe now that Bernie Sanders has become the first Jewish candidate to win a presidential primary he’ll start getting the Joe Lieberman treatment. Back in 2000, Al Gore’s decision to tap Lieberman as his running mate set off what felt like a months-long national bar mitzvah… Read more »
A photo of Kibbutz Shaar Haamakim as it was in 1963, when Bernie Sanders volunteered there for several months. (Ben Sales)
SHAAR HAAMAKIM, Israel (JTA) — Every morning, Bernie Sanders would wake up at 4:10 a.m. to pick apples and pears. Leaving the cabin he shared with a few other American college student volunteers, Sanders would have a quick bite of bread before heading out to the orchard. After 2… Read more »
A Hanukkah celebration at the Kitchen in San Francisco on Dec. 9, 2015. (Q Lam)
NEW YORK (JTA) – In the summer of 2011, Lizzi Heydemann returned to her native Chicago to establish a Jewish community loosely modeled on Ikar, the Los Angeles congregation where she had spent two years as a rabbinic intern. She set about harvesting email addresses and putting out the… Read more »
This kippah will be distributed at the wedding of Lena Silver and Aaron Wolfson. (Courtesy of Silver and Wolfson)
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — In December, around the time my wife and I were celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary, we received an invitation to an outdoor Jewish wedding to be held on Valentine’s Day 2016. Printed on a red postcard affixed with a heart postage stamp, the couple, Lena Silver… Read more »
Dafina, a slow-cooked Moroccan stew (Sabrina Ovadia)
(The Nosher via JTA) — Dafina is an iconic, slow-cooked Moroccan stew served especially on Shabbat. It has a long history and no two are the same. For centuries, Jewish women around the world have prepared some kind of similar dish each week, usually prepping the ingredients Friday to be served for lunch the… Read more »
Jonathan Greenblatt, left, with the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, at the U.S. Embassy in Israel, October 2015. (Courtesy of the Anti-Defamation League)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Framed by a slide of two young guys in jeans and tees playing ping-pong on the Facebook campus, Jonathan Greenblatt described an event hosted by the social media behemoth in Palo Alto, California, the week before. “Some of the stuff we’ve done has been really exciting, like… Read more »
Cuban-Style Arroz Con Pollo (Jennifer Stempel
)
(The Nosher via JTA) — Much as every culture showcases its individual form of the dumpling (um, matzah balls), arroz con pollo, or chicken and rice, is a dish for which every Latin country has its own unique spin. Some use beer vs. wine, or crushed annatto rather than saffron,… Read more »
Restaurants at Disney World in Orlando serve kosher meals by special request, but 48-hour advance notice is required. (Uriel Heilman)
ORLANDO, Fla. (JTA) – As any religiously observant Jew knows, going on vacation can take a lot of work. Aside from the customary preparations, there are the added complications of organizing kosher food and Shabbat logistics. Many kosher tourists spend days before trips precooking meals to freeze and bring… Read more »
(Shutterstock)
(Kveller via JTA) — I took my first baby steps into bat mitzvah planning this week, and I had a lot of feelings — but mostly a twinge of nostalgia. Somehow a girl who was once a toddler with a furrowed brow, a desperate love of Little Bear, and… Read more »
Isaac Newton (Wikimedia Commons)
(Jewniverse via JTA) — After Sir Isaac Newton died in 1727, his papers were given to the University of Cambridge. Valuing his scientific manuscripts most, the university eventually decided to auction off what was left — Newton’s manuscripts on alchemy and theology. In 1936, on what was probably a rainy… Read more »
Shye Ben-Tzur, right, playing with Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood at the Sacred Jerusalem Festival, Sept. 1, 2015. (Noam Chojnowski)
(JTA) — For most musicians working in the underappreciated genre of world music, recording an album with Jonny Greenwood, the guitarist of the famed English rock band Radiohead, would be something of a pipe dream. And what about having that experience filmed by acclaimed director Paul Thomas Anderson (“There… Read more »
Mayim Bialik at the 21st Annual Critics' Choice Awards in Santa Monica, California, Jan. 17, 2016. (Jason Merritt/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Pity Jennifer Lopez. As far as memorable red carpet moments go, she set such a high bar at the 2000 Grammys with her now-legendary plunging green Versace dress that she seemed destined to never top it. But many fashion insiders (and followers) have been buzzing about the actress-singer’s… Read more »
Muslim students at an anti-Israel protest at the University of California, Irvine in 2006. (Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
NEW YORK – If you want to understand why the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, or BDS, has gained so much ground in the past two years, look no further than intersectionality, the study of related systems of oppression. Intersectionality holds that various forms of oppression — racism, sexism,… Read more »
Temple Emanu-El’s Greatest Hanukkah on Earth! XVII Some 450 people attended Temple Emanu-El’s “Greatest Hanukkah on Earth!XVII — Making Miracles” celebration on Sunday, Dec. 13. The event included songs, stories, parodies, drama, dance and a menorah lighting. LEGO Chanukah at Chabad Mikaela Perry, Jonathan… Read more »
