Eileen Lavine

Beshert | The Phone Number in His Wallet

It was early September 1956. I was living in a Greenwich Village basement apartment, when I got a phone call from one Dick Lavine from Webster, Massachusetts. I knew it as an ugly mill town where an aunt had moved with a new husband and her daughter Rita had found a husband, ending up in an apartment next door to Jennie and Phil Lavine. Rita told Jennie one day that she had a cousin in New York whom their son Dick should call if he were ever in the city.  Dick put the paper with my phone number in his wallet and forgot about it until he moved to New York that summer. He had just graduated from Georgetown Law School and started his first job with the Federal Trade Commission in their New York office....

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Ten Musicals by Jewish Composers to Watch In Times of Quarantines

Enough of medical warnings. If you want to relax and keep happy at home, watching musicals is just the thing. Here are some selections by our favorite Jewish composers and lyricists, many of which are available to stream online; the songs also might be found on Spotify, Apple Music or other music streaming services.

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The Books That Predicted the Presidential Election

In his victory speech in 2008, President Obama said, “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, tonight is your answer.” This November, in a New Yorker article titled “It Happened Here,” editor David Remnick recalled Obama’s quote: “A very different answer arrived this Election Day,” he writes. “America is indeed a place where all things are possible: that is its greatest promise and, perhaps, its gravest peril.”

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