n the 1946 film The Big Sleep, based on the Raymond Chandler mystery of the same name, Carmen—the promiscuous, drug-addicted younger sister of Lauren Bacall’s character—sizes up Philip Marlowe, played by Humphrey Bogart, and asks him, “What are you, a prizefighter?” Bogart responds, “No, I’m...
The epigram, “They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat!” sometimes serves as a tongue-in-cheek synopsis of Jewish holidays: Passover, for example, recounts the original Jewish survival story in an extended banquet punctuated by four cups of wine. ...
About five years ago, we decided to do a one-time, five-day barbecue pop-up kosher restaurant. We served nearly 6,000 people in four days, and I realized then and there that I was onto something....
Few Americans have heard of Besa, but Besa is the reason that during the dark days of the Nazi takeover of Albania not a single Jewish citizen of Albania, nor any other Jew seeking refuge in Albania, was turned over to the Nazis or sent...
A Moment Symposium with Sarah Bunin Benor,David Biale, Steven M. Cohen, Alan Cooperman, Arnold Dashefsky, Anita Diamant, Sylvia Barack Fishman, Samuel Heilman, William Helmreich, Bethamie Horowitz, Ari Y. Kelman, Barry A. Kosmin, Sergio della Pergola, Leonard Saxe, Ira Sheskin, Arnon Soffer ...
While still addressing the integration of Israeli-Americans into American Jewish life, this year’s conference gave center stage to the Coalition for Action’s step-by-step construction of alliances with local political and religious groups and use of social media to build support for pro-Israel actions....
When Brent Delman was growing up in Cleveland, his culturally Jewish family, like their Eastern European forebears, ate lots of soft, fresh cheese—cream cheese, sour cream, cottage cheese—without worrying much about whether it was kosher. After all, cheese is just curdled milk, and as long...
In 2004, the stoic, cowboy-esque Clint Eastwood unexpectedly proved himself more Tevye the Dairyman than Dirty Harry. In response to a reporter’s question about the chances of his movie, Mystic River, winning the Best Picture Oscar, Eastwood cried, “Kinehora!” He explained that it was a...
The (Jewish) Sixth Sense By George E. Johnson In his autobiography, Songs My Mother Taught Me, Marlon Brando writes at length about the transformative role Jews played in his personal development in the 1940s. At the conclusion of his tribute to Jews and Judaism, Brando tries to reduce what...