Shalom Y'all
By Symi Rom-Rymer
“Stand up and introduce yourselves,” invited the speaker on the Bima. “I want to know where y’all are from.” Unaccustomed to such warmth...
Lessons for Germany's Turks from France's Jews
By Symi Rom-Rymer
In the midst of cheering crowds and booming music at an auditorium in Düsseldorf, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his Turkish...
Anti-Semitic Auto-complete?
By Symi Rom-Rymer
Journalist Stéphane Foucart posed an interesting question in a recent article in the French daily paper, Le Monde: what can Google tell us...
People of the Book: Interview with Julie Orringer
By Symi Rom-Rymer
Sitting on a faux cowhide bench with rock music blaring at full volume in a small coffee shop in one of Brooklyn’s hipper...
The Black Bus
By Symi Rom-Rymer
Anat Zuria has made her career exploring the stories of religious women on the margins of their world. Her latest work, The Black...
The Holocaust Today
By Symi Rom-Rymer
January 27th marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp by Soviet troops. In 2005, 60 years after the liberation,...
Jewish Mother Redux
By Symi Rom-Rymer
We’ve had the bad mother, the free-range mother, and now, thanks to Amy Chua, the Tiger Mother. From punishing late-night math sessions to...
Sarah Palin's Jewish Problem
By Symi Rom-Rymer
By now, anyone with access to the internet will know about the latest furor in the wake of the tragic shooting in Tuscon:...
Sects, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll
By Symi Rom-Rymer
A group of young Hasidic men hang out at the foot of the subway stairs at a station in Brooklyn, New...
Learning the Right Lessons?
By Symi Rom-Rymer
In a recent poll, 30% of Israeli Arabs, out of 700 questioned, don’t believe the Holocaust happened. As the Associated Press reported earlier...
People of the Book: Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora
By Symi Rom-Rymer
The story of Jewish Eastern European immigration is a familiar one. Even if one never had the chance to know their relatives from...
Why The Wikileaks Are Not All Bad
By Symi Rom-Rymer
Much of the discussion over the Wikileaks dump has focused on the negative impact of the released cables. But there may be a...