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‘I haven’t really accepted he’s dead’ — scenes from the Stephen Sondheim estate sale
Scene: Interior, an Upper East Side auction house, 5:30 p.m. on a Friday. In a back corner, a singer accompanied by a keyboard bravely tried (and failed) to overwhelm the sounds of a party. A man in a white and black patterned button-down opened the doors of a wooden puzzle box, telling his companion that...
After outcry, El Al reinstates discount for shipping donated gear to Israel
Steeply discounted shipping of donations to support the Israeli war effort aboard El AL aircraft is coming back days after Israel’s national airline said it planned to end the program. El Al’s decision to reinstate the discount follows reporting on the end of the program by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and subsequent public outcry both...
How a colorfully dressed Orthodox Jewish woman became my soul sister
Read the article in Yiddish here. I was standing next to a green bus stop sign in La Pequeña Habana (Little Havana) in Miami. Tiny pearls of sweat dripped beneath the collar of my soaked-through, pink dress shirt. Normally I take the car everywhere but the day before, my gray, beat-up clunker had broken down...
Why ‘Hava Nagila’ is TV’s new fight song
“Hava Nagila” is the typical soundtrack to Jewish weddings and b’nai mitzvah — and, these days, brutal hand-to-hand fighting with naked combatants. Two streaming shows have recently picked up where Guy Ritchie, who used the folk song in his 2000 crime flick Snatch, left off. Paramount+’s Knuckles, a spinoff of the Sonic the Hedgehog films,...
The secret Jewish history of Dick Van Dyke
Was The Dick Van Dyke Show a precursor of Seinfeld? And why am I wondering about that now, decades after both TV comedy shows aired their final episodes? In case you haven’t heard, Dick Van Dyke just added another trophy to his bedroom-sized closet of awards he has garnered over the course of his 70-plus...
NYC Council staffers union endorses ceasefire in Gaza, calls for divestment from Israel bonds
Aides who work for the 51 members of the New York City Council, the city’s legislative body, adopted two resolutions on Sunday that address the ongoing violence in the Middle East ahead of a possible council vote on a proposal advocating for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza. According to the Association of Legislative...
She longed to be a lover and an outlaw; she became a writer instead
1974: A Personal History By Francine Prose Harper, 272 pages, $28 Author memoirs often set out to chronicle the journey to becoming a writer. Or the author’s relationship to her family. Or the death or illness of a loved one. In her first work of personal history, novelist Francine Prose reflects on the short, intense...
Netanyahu disbands war cabinet after centrist party’s exit, returning Israel to pre-Oct. 7 governance
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has disbanded the small war cabinet he established at the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, reverting to Israel’s pre-Oct. 7 governing system. Netanyahu established the war cabinet days after Hamas’ invasion of Israel when former Defense Minister Benny Gantz, a centrist rival, joined an emergency wartime government. The war cabinet...
Shaina Taub won two Tony Awards for ‘Suffs’ — and quoted the Talmud
For a Father’s Day Tony Awards, what better Jewish text is there to quote then the Talmudic book of aphorisms known as “Ethics of the Fathers?” “You are not obligated to complete the work,” Shaina Taub, the writer, director and star of the musical Suffs, said as she accepted the award for best score. “But...
‘It’s my family play.’ Tony winner David Adjmi talks ‘Stereophonic’
There’s a moment in David Adjmi’s Stereophonic that heightens the pressure in the room. The unnamed 1970s band at the play’s center, who bear more than a glancing resemblance to Fleetwood Mac, learn that Columbia Records has tripled their budget. In the words of their overwhelmed engineer Grover, “they’re getting more than Pink Floyd got...
10 Israeli soldiers killed in separate incidents in Gaza in deadliest day for military since January
Ten Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza on Saturday in one of the bloodiest days for the Israeli military since the beginning of its war with Hamas. An additional soldier died of wounds sustained in battle earlier in the week. The casualties came as Israel is negotiating with Hamas over a potential ceasefire that would...
Israel can dig in — or declare victory and gain advantages
It is becoming clear that the price for the return of the hostages held by Hamas is the end of the Gaza War and the withdrawal of Israeli forces. No amount of death and destruction in Gaza will change this, because the demonic leaders of Hamas quite obviously do not care. Meanwhile, Israel continues to...
Heather Conn Hendel, 48, beloved teacher, caregiver, matchmaker and newlywed, dies days after giving birth to a daughter
Jewish communities in Manhattan and Toronto are in mourning after the death of Heather Conn Hendel, 48, a teacher, matchmaker and newlywed who died June 10 of an unrelated illness just days after giving birth to a daughter. Conn Hendel, a pillar of two New York Jewish institutions — the Manhattan Jewish Experience and Congregation...
Cost of shipping donated gear to Israel quadrupling as El Al ends Oct. 7 cargo discount
El Al, Israel’s national airline, is ending a discount program for baggage containing donations that was created soon after Oct. 7 amid widespread shortages of military and medical equipment. The company says it made the decision because other cargo transport options that were shut down when the war began have resumed and because the need...
Frieda Johles Forman, ‘fiery’ feminist who rediscovered Yiddish women authors, dies at 87
Although Frieda Johles Forman grew up speaking Yiddish in Europe and New York City, it was not until she moved to Canada as an adult that she became familiar with great women Yiddish writers. Riding the bus in Toronto, she told the Yiddish Book Center in an oral history, Forman would pass through Jewish neighborhoods...
Etgar Keret: AI thinks I wrote a number of novels that don’t exist. So I tried to
Can you remember what the first question you ever asked AI was? Did you ask it what to do about global warming? Or how the universe was created? Perhaps you wanted it to count every freckle on the planet for you? Or were you simply after the ultimate recipe for the best cheesecake ever? The...
‘They’re not alone’: A pair of cousins in Israel and Long Island help outfit IDF soldiers
They’ve asked for pocket knives and thermal gloves. Pup tents and sleeping bags. But also gauze, medical scissors and kits to help staunch bleeding. The requests keep coming to a pair of cousins — one in Israel and one on Long Island — who together have organized a team of 150 volunteers to supply soldiers...
US slaps sanctions on Tsav 9, Israeli group targeting humanitarian aid to Gaza
The Biden administration imposed sanctions Friday on an Israeli group for attacking humanitarian aid convoys destined for Palestinian civilians in Gaza, in the latest round of penalties against far-right Israelis accused by Washington of undermining efforts toward peace and stability. The group added to the U.S. sanctions list is Tsav 9, which says aid should...
How Jewish communities are celebrating Juneteenth this year
News that the South had lost the Civil War and that the Emancipation Proclamation had freed all enslaved people came late to Texas — June 19, 1865. Since then, Black communities in the South have celebrated what came to be called Juneteenth on the anniversary of the day. “America’s second Independence Day” was recognized as...
How Jewish communities are celebrating Juneteenth this year
News that the South had lost the Civil War and that the Emancipation Proclamation had freed all enslaved people came late to Texas — June 19, 1865. Since then, Black communities in the South have celebrated what came to be called Juneteenth on the anniversary of the day. “America’s second Independence Day” was recognized as...
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