S'mores Babka (Shannon Sarna)
(The Nosher via JTA) – Babka is an Eastern European yeasted cake with deep Jewish roots and also great American popularity. One of babka’s most notorious moments was in an episode of “Seinfeld”: Jerry and Elaine head to Royal Bakery to pick up babka for a dinner party, and… Read more »
A New Jersey bill seeks to outlaw marriage for teenagers under 18. (Justin Oberman/Creative Commons)
(JTA) — A bill that would ban teenagers under 18 from marrying in New Jersey has been stalled because of opposition from the state’s haredi Orthodox community. Agudath Israel of America, the national haredi organization, says it supports the bill but that its provisions are too strict. Citing child… Read more »
Jamila Humphries, left, and Emily Schorr Lesnick are an interfaith couple that is taking part in an aufruf ceremony in a Conservative synagogue. (Courtesy of Humphries and Schorr Lesnick)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Emily Schorr Lesnick and Jamila Humphrie always knew that Judaism would play a part in the life they wanted to build together. But experiences with Conservative Jewish institutions had made the couple feel less than welcome. Schorr Lesnick, 28, remembers encountering homophobia at her Jewish… Read more »
Rabbi Aaron Panken teaching a Talmud class to Hebrew Union College students. (Courtesy of HUC)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Rabbi Andrea Weiss, an associate professor of Bible at the New York campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and its incoming provost, remembered the joy that Rabbi Aaron Panken brought to his work. Weiss recalled how Panken would pop into his colleagues’ offices asking if… Read more »
The Giro d’Italia bike race is moving from Israel to Italy but this story lives on — about the heroic sports hero Gino Bartali, the Tour de France and Giro champ who saved 800 Jews from the Holocaust by teaming up with a convent of singing nuns and document-forging… Read more »
Students at the King David Elementary School in Birmingham celebrate Israel's 70th anniversary, April 19, 2018. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
BIRMINGHAM, United Kingdom (JTA) — Like hundreds of Jewish institutions in the Diaspora, the King David School celebrated Israel’s 70th Independence Day with blue-and-white flags and group singing of the “Hatikvah” national anthem. But the King David is not like most other Jewish schools. Most of the dozens of… Read more »
Alex Bregman's manager expects the young slugger to get even better. (Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (JTA) – Sitting on a couch near his locker at the Houston Astros’ spring training facility here in mid-March, Alex Bregman is reflecting about an encounter his father had at the World Series last fall. It was in Los Angeles, between innings of the opening… Read more »
Etty Ausch said her sexuality was cut from Netflix's "One of Us." (Courtesy of Ausch)
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NEW YORK (JTA) — A woman who was featured in a hit Netflix documentary about former Orthodox Jews says the fact that she was openly lesbian was cut from the film. Etty Ausch, 33, is one of three people who tell their stories of leaving the Brooklyn Hasidic… Read more »
The U.S. Capitol building shown on Feb. 9, 2018. (Zach Gibson/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Jews in and around the nation’s capital do plenty of Jewish things. Many of them just don’t do those things as members of Jewish institutions. That’s one of the main takeaways from a wide-ranging survey of Washington, D.C.-area Jews published this week by the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington.… Read more »
Eva Lavi, who was 2 years old when the Nazis invaded Poland, addressing the United Nations last week. (Courtesy of the Israeli mission to the U.N.)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Eva Lavi’s earliest memories are of the Holocaust. She remembers how her mother made her hide outside in below-zero weather, clutching a standing pipe, as Nazis searched her home in Poland. She remembers her father telling her to swallow a spoonful of cyanide — better… Read more »
David Wain, director of "Wet Hot American Summer," in January 2018. (Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for Entertaiment Weekly)
(JTA) — Many Jews attend overnight camp. But growing up, Micah Hart was so Jewish that he attended two every summer. Hart was the son of the director of Jacobs Camp, a Reform Jewish camp in western Mississippi. He went there every year, but to give him some independence, his… Read more »
Short track speed skater Vladislav Bykanov, lower left, leading the Israeli Olympic team at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, Feb. 7, 2014. (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
(JTA) — The world is about to revolve around Pyeongchang, a mountainous county in the northern half of South Korea, for the upcoming Winter Olympics. Jewish fans won’t have quite as many standout athletes to cheer for this year as they did in 2016, when multiple American members of the… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — When Rabbi Angela Buchdahl announced how her synagogue would respond to the #MeToo moment, she singled out a man. But he wasn’t one of her congregants, synagogue clergy or staff members. He was Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, perhaps the most prominent 20th-century composer of American Jewish… Read more »
The main gate of the former Auschwitz extermination camp in Oswiecim, Poland. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
(JTA) — The Polish parliament’s bill to criminalize the use of the term “Polish death camps” prompted an avalanche of criticism in Israel by officials and individuals who warned that it is excessive and risks stifling research on the Holocaust. Following the bill’s passing Friday in the Sejm, or the lower… Read more »
Lorenzo Romar. The University of Arizona Hillel Foundation will host its annual alumni and friends basketball event on Thursday, Feb. 8 at 5:15 p.m. The pre-game dinner will feature Lorenzo Romar, UA associate head basketball coach under Coach Sean Miller, who will brief attendees on this year’s Wildcat team. A silent… Read more »
Figs ripen slowly over many weeks, so there is not a mad scramble to harvest and eat them all at once.
Tu B’Shevat is almost here, the “Jewish New Year for the Trees,” also called “Jewish Arbor Day.” Last year I discussed planting almond trees, and this year I’d like to suggest a fig tree. Figs are one of the easiest fruit trees to grow in our area (far easier… Read more »
Congregants from Temple Hadar Israel in New Castle, Pa., gather at the local Tifereth Israel cemetery to bury ritual objects from their defunct synagogue, Dec. 31, 2017. (Alanna E. Cooper)
NEW CASTLE, Pa. (JTA) — It was a frigid 10 degrees on Sunday, the last day of 2017, but some 20 people gathered at Congregation Tifereth Israel’s cemetery in this city of 22,000 on the Ohio border. A blue tent and folding chairs had been set up for… Read more »
Gal Gadot was the sixth most searched person on Google in 2017. Here, the actress attends an event at the 92nd Street Y on October 1, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Is Gal Gadot the most famous Israeli ever? Judging by 2017’s top Google searches, the answer might be yes. Gadot was the sixth-most searched person worldwide, and the third-most searched actor. The 32-year-old, who was born and raised in Israel and served in the Israel Defense Forces, starred… Read more »
(Shannon Sarna)
(The Nosher via JTA) — The crockpot has never been my favorite kitchen gadget. I know people love their crockpots and their instant pots, but there have been limited things I have made in a crockpot that I loved, or actually found more convenient. When I am dinner prepping for busy… Read more »
Elhanan Miller, a journalist and rabbinical student who speaks fluent Arabic, sees his videos as a way to bridge a religious divide. (Bruria Hammer)
(JTA) — Is it true that Judaism doesn’t accept converts? Is it true that Jews have to wash their hands before they pray? Is it true that Jews have historically killed their prophets? These are just a few of the questions Elhanan Miller has heard over the years. A… Read more »
