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Articles by Jesse Bernstein
Jewish theater sets the stage for exploring Jewish identity
The most recent Pew research study on Jewish life in the United States found that 50% of Jewish Americans engage with their Judaism through arts and culture. A recent AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research study found that 30% of U.S. Jews engage culturally with their Judaism while describing themselves as “being agnostic, atheist, or unaffiliated when asked about their religion.
QUNO Geneva seeks a Human Rights & Refugees Representative | Laurel Townhead
We are recruiting for a new Human Rights and Refugees Representative at the Quaker UN Office Geneva. Must haves: commitment to dialogue, belief that multilateralism can help uphold the dignity of all, close sympathy with Quaker values, knowledge and experience of the UN human rights system... At this time I would also say: ability to draw strength and hope from collaboration and connections. https://lnkd.in/ef9pCe2s
A Call to Action: Global Momentum on Access to Justice Drives Progress in the United States
In 2023, global actions have spurred progress in advancing access to justice, with an emphasis on placing communities and people at the center of justice reforms. The United Nations and the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development are taking new and robust steps that provide a strong foundation for action in 2024 in the United States and beyond.
Bibi as fiction
“The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family” Joshua Cohen New York Review Books It appears, for now, to be over. Though the howling of a few MKs may have drowned out Naftali Bennett’s first speech as prime minister before the Knesset, the reign of Benjamin Netanyahu — Bibi, Melech Yisroel — has come to an end. No one ever spent as much time as the established Israeli state’s chief representative to the world as he did.
New Children's Media This Summer
Photo By Marta Wave From Pexels Summertime in Philadelphia can be a wonderful experience, and there are no shortage of entertainment options for families who want to hit the town for fun, age-appropriate and COVID-safe activities. But for those days when it’s too darn hot or you’ve just got too much to do, it can be hard to find quality entertainment options for kids.
Book review: ‘Secrets of Happiness’
(Courtesy of Counterpoint) Great premise falls short “Secrets of Happiness” Joan Silber Counterpoint The deception that sets up the story of “Secrets of Happiness” is revealed on page 10. The premise — after 32 years of conventional marriage and a comfortable Upper West Side existence, a father reveals that he has a second family in Queens — is so juicy, so ripe for exploration, that one appreciates Joan Silber’s to-the-point-ness here. But the focus falls away shortly afterward.
‘Final Account’ visits an uncomfortable place
“Final Account,” a new documentary from recently deceased English director Luke Holland, is as straightforward in its presentation as it is complicated in its subject matter. For 90 minutes, elderly Germans look into director Luke Holland’s camera and describe their former lives as Nazis.
St. Louis Jewish folklorist's tales adapted by Philly theater
In a year marked by upheaval, Deborah Baer Mozes and the artistic team at Theatre Ariel turned to tradition for inspiration. The result is “Leaves from the Garden,” a collection of nine classic Jewish folk tales that were adapted for Zoom performances. Working with stories collected in the past by storyteller and folklorist Howard Schwartz, Mozes and Theatre Ariel associate artistic director Jesse Bernstein created a show for audiences 12 and up.
Book review: The biographer in Philip Roth’s corner
(Courtesy of W.W. Norton & Co) ‘Philip Roth: The Biography’ By Blake Bailey W.W. Norton & Co. Philip Roth was born March 19, 1933 in Newark, N.J., and, until his death in 2018, he was still trying to figure out what that meant. In the ethnic patchwork of the city, Roth saw middle-class strivers and upper-class anxieties, sexual opportunities and his community’s social and religious pieties.
The biographer in Philip Roth’s corner
Review ‘Philip Roth: The Biography’ By Blake Bailey W.W. Norton & Co. Philip Roth was born March 19, 1933 in Newark, N.J., and, until his death in 2018, he was still trying to figure out what that meant. In the ethnic patchwork of the city, Roth saw middle-class strivers and upper-class anxieties, sexual opportunities and his community’s social and religious pieties.
‘Maus’ creator Art Spiegelman talks at Holocaust teach-in
More than 400 students, educators and community members tuned in from around the world on March 7 to attend Philadelphia’s Gratz College Zoom event with cartoonist Art Spiegelman. As part of the biennial Arnold and Esther Tuzman Memorial Holocaust Teach-In, Spiegelman, creator of “Maus” and the first cartoonist to ever win the Pulitzer Prize, gave several talks to different groups over the course of the afternoon.
Reviews: New books by Marc Lamont Hill, Mitchill Plitnick, Menachem Kaiser
“Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics” Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick The New Press “Except for Palestine” is a muddled, confusing book. Marc Lamont Hill, a professor at Temple University, and Mitchell Plitnick, co-director of Jewish Voice for Peace, seem to have written the book before they knew exactly what they wanted to accomplish.
Israeli TV show ‘The Attaché’ excels at misdirection
Chief among the many odd choices made by the creators of “The Attaché,” an Israeli dramatic series from the producers of “Shtisel,” is the show’s title. “The Attaché,” available now with English subtitles on Acorn TV, is not a political drama, nor a diplomatic farce. The title might suggest a workplace comedy-drama or an action-packed spy show. At the very least, it would suggest that the attaché herself would be the main character. Even the title sequence suggests a fast-paced thriller.
Jewish judge runs for state Supreme Court
The travel. That’s what Pennsylvania Superior Court Judge Maria McLaughlin remembers from her last bid for statewide office, almost more than anything else: the interminable drives. In her last campaign, McLaughlin left straight from work on a Friday and didn’t return home to Philadelphia until Sunday night, driving for hours to every corner of the state. Lackawanna County, Luzerne County, wherever, if you had an audience for her speak to, she’d give them their hour.
Married woman seeks get at knifepoint
“The Slaughterman’s Daughter” Yaniv Iczkovits, translated by Orr Scharf Schocken The year is 5654 in the Pale of Settlement (1894 to you Gregorians out there). Mende Speismann’s holy fool of a husband has run off some time ago, leaving her an impoverished agunah dependent on the generosity of her sister Fanny’s comparatively wealthy husband.
Jewish books bonanza in February
Maybe it’s the fact that the wave of insider accounts of the Trump administration seems to have finally crested. Maybe everyone had a lot of time for high-yield contemplation during 2020. Maybe the entire publishing industry wanted to create some difficult choices for me, personally. Whatever the reason may be, February has proven to be a particularly exciting month for new releases in Jewish book publishing. Here are a few books that would have merited a full review if not for time considerations.
Married woman seeks get at knifepoint
Review “The Slaughterman’s Daughter,” by Yaniv Iczkovits, translated by Orr Scharf The year is 5654 in the Pale of Settlement (1894 to you Gregorians out there). Mende Speismann’s holy fool of a husband has run off some time ago, leaving her an impoverished agunah dependent on the generosity of her sister Fanny’s comparatively wealthy husband.
Book review: Too many stories, not enough time
Courtesy of Europa Editions “Tonight is Already Tomorrow” Lia Levi; translated by Clarissa Botsford Europa Editions “Tonight is Already Tomorrow” is written by a prominent Italian novelist about a mid-century child prodigy. If that sounds a bit like one of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, I’ll admit that my interest in Ferrante led me to this new Europa novel by Lia Levi. But unlike Ferrante’s popular books, Levi’s “Tonight is Already Tomorrow” is kind of a drag.
Book review: Pastrami as religion
Courtesy of NYU Press By Jesse Bernstein “Beyond the Synagogue: Jewish Nostalgia as Religious Practice” Rachel B. Gross NYU Press Rachel B. Gross, a professor of Jewish studies at San Francisco State University, is willing to bet that you don’t see your purchase of a scarf from the National Museum of American Jewish History gift shop as religious practice.
2020 polling errors, dissected
By EdDakhla. CC BY-SA 4.0 When it comes to the 2020 presidential election, it’s all over but the shouting. Joe Biden has taken office as the 46th president of the United States. But what actually happened? Where did Democrats make gains, and where did Republicans do the same, and why? How can it be that, in many cases, overestimation of the Democratic margin was even more egregious than the much-discussed mistakes in 2016? And what do the finer points of voting and polling patterns mean for Jews?
The holiness of a pastrami sandwich
Review “Beyond the Synagogue: Jewish Nostalgia as Religious Practice” Rachel B. Gross NYU Press Rachel B. Gross, a professor of Jewish studies at San Francisco State University, is willing to bet that you don’t see your purchase of a scarf from the National Museum of American Jewish History gift shop as religious practice. Ditto for eating a kosher-style pastrami sandwich, an afternoon spent on a Jewish genealogical website or a historical tour of Congregation Mikveh Israel.
Message from a Yiddish Werewolf
There is no such thing as reading for its own sake. When we read stories and poetry, whether we intend it or not, we are searching for ourselves in those works, for answers to our own most pressing questions. That doesn’t mean we are solipsistic readers. It means we are readers, people who believe in a shared human experience. Literature is communication, a profound message gifted to us from across space and time, one whose value lies in its resonance right now, to us.
David Fogel's Hebrew Tale of Sadomasochism and Coffee
A romantic might lament that no American café today resembles the one in interwar Vienna where the characters of David Fogel’s novel Married Life gather. But after you read it, you’ll thank God for that. In this deeply disturbing novel, first published in Hebrew in 1929, a group of young Jewish friends meet at a café every evening, which ought to make it feel like an American bar scene.
The Yiddish ‘Madame Bovary’ Is About a Shtetl Girl Who Gets an Abortion and Doesn’t Regret It
If you’ve never heard of the great novelist Dovid Bergelson, that means Stalin won. On Aug. 12, 1952, Dovid Bergelson, a top contender for the title of Greatest Yiddish Novelist Who Ever Lived, was executed by a Soviet firing squad—and he wasn’t a dissident. In fact, he was a loyal enough Communist that he published a famous essay in 1927 titled “Three Centers,” about which of the three centers of Yiddish culture—New York, Warsaw, and Moscow—offered the best future for Yiddish writers.
Can Agnon’s Goat Speak English?
My first encounter with the work of S.Y. Agnon, the only Hebrew-language writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, was at age 16, in Hebrew. I was an American public-school kid studying Hebrew in a JCC adult ed. class, in which I was the only student who wasn’t retired.
Why Yiddish is Funny
Those who know little about Yiddish often associate it with humor. But most Yiddish literature isn’t particularly funny except in a horrible, un-American way: comically-told plots in which people suffer terribly or die horrible deaths. Even the relentlessly upbeat Sholem Aleichem, whose Tevye stories inspired the relentlessly upbeat Fiddler on the Roof, fits this pattern: In the original, Golde and Motl both drop dead and Shprintze drowns herself, none of which made it to Broadway.
Yiddish Writer Itzik Manger's Laughter in the Face of Oncoming Death
What about joyful Yiddish literature—not merely humorous works, which can have a bitter edge, but genuinely delightful Yiddish literature? If you can’t name a Yiddish author whose work meets this description, well, that’s what I’m here for. Dear readers, meet Itzik Manger. Itzik Manger (1901-1969) would have needed no introduction among Yiddish-speaking audiences at any point in his life before World War II; he was one of the most renowned Yiddish writers the world over.
Jacob Glatstein and the Magic Mountain of Yiddish
What would it take to repair the damage done to the American Jewish psyche by hundreds of lousy Holocaust novels and school productions of Fiddler on the Roof? Every culture needs its inhumanly idealized pop versions of its past, I suppose, whether Lincoln or Gone With the Wind. But American Jews with roots in Yiddish-speaking Europe bear the burden of a past not merely gone but incinerated.
101 Great Jewish Books: Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl (1946)
America’s New Corporate Tyranny The American political and legal systems are working just fine, despite a few hiccups. Meanwhile, American corporations are depriving citizens of basic rights and freedoms and destroying our democracy. by Michael Lind The Three Stigmata of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. More than a half century after the civil rights leader’s assassination, the trauma of his death keeps expanding by B.
Dara Horn on the Great Yiddish Poem About... Kentucky
According to conventional non-wisdom, American Jewish literature started in a Lower East Side sweatshop and then migrated to New Jersey, where it has remained until Philip Roth’s retirement. Of course, reading this way necessitates leaving out things that don’t fit the mold, like a canonical epic Yiddish poem about … Kentucky.
Yiddish Poet Avrom Sutzkever's Winter Wonderland
Yiddish literature is often caricatured as being either tragic or comic, or both at once; according to the stereotype, Yiddish is not the native language of unironic joy. But Avrom Sutzkever, the premier 20th-century Yiddish poet, is the quintessential joyous Jewish artist, and one of his many masterpieces is a poetic cycle about the joy of a childhood spent dashing through the snow.
Jorge Luis Borges, Zionist
In 1969 I was living in Jerusalem, waiting to be inducted into the Israeli army, for which I had volunteered a few months earlier. From friends at the Hebrew University I learned that Jorge Luis Borges was visiting Jerusalem and that he would be speaking that evening at the university. I arrived at a packed lecture hall at the university’s Givat Ram campus, where Borges spoke in slightly accented English, softly but very clearly.
American Expats Change the Face of Jewish Berlin
The Shtetl Berlin Yiddish Culture Festival kicked off on Dec. 6 with a Montreal-style bagel-making workshop led by Laurel Kratochvila, the American-born owner of Berlin’s Fine Bagels. Klezmer musicians and artists filled the static periods with Yiddish tunes and poetry while the bagel dough rose. American Jewish musicians such as Daniel Kahn and Craig Judelman—as well as performers from Montreal—followed up with workshops on Yiddish song and instrumental workshops.
The Twin: A Newly-Translated Yiddish Tale of Defiance in the Death Camps
I This happened in the Aladdin Cafeteria on the steep hills of the Old Jaffa seashore. This cafeteria with the intense blue dome, blue like laundry bluing, old-fashioned glass windows set in narrow frames, steps made of marble excavated out of the very earth, which belonged to another time and another building, descending now a couple of stories into the depths of the mountain to a glassed-in terrace cut into its curved face.
Howard Jacobson: Writing Jewish
I’d best begin by owning up to a lie I have been responsible for spreading about myself when explaining why I was such a late starter.
Seven Civil Rights Heroes-Besides MLK-to Teach Your Kids About
It’s shocking how little the youth of today know about the civil-rights movement. A few years ago, the National Assessment of Educational Progress found that only 2 percent of high school seniors knew what social issue was addressed in Brown v. Board of Education.
How the Zoom Minyan Brought Me Closer to Judaism
It is a cold winter morning. I open the blinds of the east window in my messy home office and rush to log in, seconds before my synagogue’s 8 a.m. daily Zoom prayer service. I wear my cozy, fuzzy socks, my tallit with its frayed turquoise silk panels, and a crocheted kippah pinned to my wet hair. I’ve been saying Kaddish every day since early May for my dad, and since October for my mom. Neither passed away from COVID-19; both were 93 and in failing health, but I was in utter shock when each died.
Democrats Are Turning Immigration Into a Moral Ultimatum
Deciding who does and does not get to become an American has never been simply a matter of law. In the U.S., immigration has long been a social gospel as well a policy question; a balance of moral and practical considerations. We’ve come a long way since the bigoted nativism of early 20th century anti-immigrant crusaders, but in our own time it’s the moral mythologies of liberal Democrats that have become increasingly detached from practical realties.
Season's Greetings: For the Hanukkah Edition of Our Print Magazine, the Power of Miracles
My first date with my now-husband was to Radio City Music Hall. He got the tickets on a lark, after I had shied away from a few of his other attempts to ask me out. But, the Rockettes! That was something I couldn’t turn down. As we walked down Sixth Avenue in the chill of a December afternoon, I remember asking what made him think of the idea. “It’s a Christmas Spectacular,” he said, triumphantly.
Welcoming Legendary Columnist Masha Leon to Tablet
Fifteen years ago this spring, on the cusp of graduating from journalism school, I landed a summer internship at The Forward, the English edition of the historic Yiddish newspaper. This was big news for my parents, who were (in their telling, at least) “charter subscribers” to the paper, which was founded in 1990 by Seth Lipsky. The staffers at the paper were less enthusiastic. It’s not that they were mean or rude; they were simply—as all good journalists always should be—on deadline.
What's Mine Is Mine: Bibi and the Case of 'Misplaced' American Jewish Fear
America’s New Corporate Tyranny The American political and legal systems are working just fine, despite a few hiccups. Meanwhile, American corporations are depriving citizens of basic rights and freedoms and destroying our democracy. by Michael Lind The Three Stigmata of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. More than a half century after the civil rights leader’s assassination, the trauma of his death keeps expanding by B.
Denise Levertov’s Poetic Gifts and Her Hidden Inheritance from Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi
In 1935, a 12-year-old aspiring poet from London asked her father to show her poems to a literary critic he knew from work. Eager to encourage his precocious younger daughter’s artistic tendencies, Paul Levertoff, an Anglican cleric and scholar of religion, asked his friend T.S. Eliot to read his daughter Denise’s poetry. Levertoff knew Eliot well; the cleric and the critic had served together on a number of cultural committees organized by the Church of England.
Solomonov brings Israel home with web series
Michael Solomonov Photo by Michael Persico With his fleet of Philadelphia restaurants and three published cookbooks, chef Michael Solomonov has made a strong bid to be the most prominent proponent of Israeli food in America. Now, the man once named the James Beard Outstanding Chef will look to bring the tastes of Israel to Americans through a new medium: a web series, which debuted on Jan. 13.
Solomonov brings Israel home with web Series
With his fleet of Philadelphia restaurants and three published cookbooks, chef Michael Solomonov, a former Pittsburgher, has made a strong bid to be the most prominent proponent of Israeli food in America. Now, the man once named the James Beard Outstanding Chef in America will look to bring the tastes of Israel to Americans through a new medium: a web series, which debuted on Jan. 13.
Chef Michael Solomonov brings Israeli cooking to web series
Michael Solomonov’s new show is called “Bringing Israel Home” (Michael Persico) With a fleet of Philadelphia restaurants and three published cookbooks, chef Michael Solomonov has made a strong bid to be the most prominent proponent of Israeli food in America. Now, the man once named the James Beard Outstanding Chef in America will look to bring the tastes of Israel to Americans through a new medium: a web series, which debuted on Jan. 13.
Solomonov brings Israel home with web series
With his fleet of Philadelphia restaurants and three published cookbooks, chef Michael Solomonov has made a strong bid to be the most prominent proponent of Israeli food in America. Now, the man once named the James Beard Outstanding Chef in America will look to bring the tastes of Israel to Americans through a new medium: a web series, which debuted on Jan. 13.
Books: Nostalgia’s role, unmet potential
Pastrami as religion “Beyond the Synagogue: Jewish Nostalgia as Religious Practice” Rachel B. Gross NYU Press Rachel B. Gross, a professor of Jewish studies at San Francisco State University, is willing to bet that you don’t see your purchase of a scarf from the National Museum of American Jewish History gift shop as religious practice.
Diverse Anti-Semitism Panels Focus on Interconnectedness
A Zoom panel hosted by the political and advocacy arm of Jewish Voice for Peace called “Dismantling Anti-Semitism: Jews Talk Justice” was the subject of pointed criticism prior to its occurrence on Tuesday night.
Controversial Anti-Semitism Panel With Marc Lamont Hill, Rashida Tlaib Focuses on Interconnectedness
A Zoom panel hosted by the political and advocacy arm of Jewish Voice for Peace called “Dismantling Anti-Semitism: Jews Talk Justice” was the subject of pointed criticism prior to its occurrence on Tuesday night.
2020 Chanukah gift ideas
The manner in which this gift guide was assembled is the manner in which these gifts are meant to be bought, received, given and enjoyed: from the comfort of home. Chanukah, which begins on Dec. 10 this year, is the time to let the people you love know you’re thinking of them, even if you can’t be together in the way you normally would.
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