The Genetic Legacy of Jewish Catholics
When Francesc Calafell, a geneticist at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona, first began swabbing cheeks as part of an effort to study the...
Proud and Prickly with a Soft Heart
Muscular. Courageous. Bronzed. The stereotype of the sun-kissed sabra is Ari ben Canaan, as played by actor Paul Newman in the 1960 movie Exodus. The word sabra stems from the name of the prickly pear cactus—tzabar in Hebrew and sabr in Arabic—whose thick thorny skin covers a sweet and succulent soft flesh. An affectionate metaphor, it describes native-born Israelis whose rough and impertinent manners hide their good hearts and sensitive souls.
Book Review | In Love with Life—and Himself
By Alan A. Stone
DucClaude Lanzmann is known on this side of the Atlantic as the Frenchman who created the monumental film, Shoah. He tells us that...
The Food of Great Fiction
Here a Roth, there a Stein, everywhere a Kafka—Jews are the people of the book, a group that has long prized its own erudition and...
Ask The Rabbis | Will It Matter to Jews If There Is a Mormon President?
INDEPENDENT
Historically, the religious affiliation of a governmental leader has never been an issue for the Jewish people, as long as the government involved was not...
Jewish Word | The Rabbinic Way of Fiction
By Sala Levin
You may know the story: Abraham, in an effort to convince his father, Terach, that idol worship is wrong, takes a hammer and...
Marshall Breger: U.S. Citizenship: Priceless or Merely Convenient?
By Marshall Breger
In 2011, Sen. Joseph Lieberman suggested that U.S. nationals, “homegrown” or otherwise, be stripped of their citizenship if they are “engaging in or...
David Hazony: Israel Catches a “Flytilla” with (Serious) Satire
First off, let me be clear that I do not condone Israel’s official use of sarcasm, wit or anything else that could be construed as...