It's 1979, do you know where your Nazis are?
By Symi Rom-Rymer
By 1948, World War II had been over for three years, yet hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced persons remained scattered throughout...
When Twentysomethings Date
By Symi Rom-Rymer
Every documentary filmmaker fortunate enough to have a close relationship with his mother should include her in a film about his life. Or...
At Sanity Rally, Sense Through Satire
By Symi Rom-Rymer
In the weeks leading up to last Saturday’s Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, the media world was practically falling...
The Hidden Israel
By Symi Rom-Rymer
A chubby young African boy dressed head-to-toe in an Israeli police officer’s uniform looks defiantly into the camera. A teenage girl in a...
Hasidim, Hipsters, and the New Crown Heights
by Symi Rom-Rymer
Hasidim and Hipsters can’t be friends, so says conventional wisdom. But maybe they can eat together. At least that’s what Danny Branover, principal...
It’s cheese! It’s mustard! It’s…a knish?
By Symi Rom-Rymer
If you happened to be walking down Second Avenue in New York’s East Village last Sunday afternoon, you might have seen an...
Textbook Tussle
By Symi Rom-Rymer
"No other country in the world, in its official curriculum, would treat the fact of its founding as a catastrophe," categorically stated Education...
Boxing Gym
By Symi Rom-Rymer
Lord’s Gym, Austin, Texas:
Thwack.
Sssssss.
Clang, clang, clang.
Slapslapslapslap.
In a small, white shingled building hidden behind a Goodwill store, posters of famous fights and fighters frozen...
A Sukkah for the 21st Century
By Symi Rom-Rymer
When I think about sukkahs—which I admit is not that often—it is rarely in architectural or even creative terms. As a child, around...
A Film Unfinished
By Symi Rom-Rymer
In an East German archive, three reels of silent film lay untouched and forgotten amid the chaos of World War II and its...
When Good Intentions Meet Reality
By Symi Rom-Rymer
In a recent posting on the Washington Post's OnFaith blog, a Rabbi and law professor recount their experience on a joint US Jewish-Muslim...
When we talk about the Middle East
By Symi Rom-Rymer
I think Thomas Friedman can read my mind. Just as I sat down to write this blog post, I came across a new...