Thoughts From Russia on the Meaning of Pittsburgh
For the foreseeable future, for the rest of my lifetime, our synagogues, our day schools and our community centers will be less accessible, less open to world than in the past.
Rediscovering and Restoring Cape Verde’s Jewish Heritage
Four large and heavy commemorative bronze plaques wait in storage at the Praia airport in Cape Verde, an archipelago of ten tiny islands 300 miles off the coast of Senegal in West Africa.
We Live in Dangerous Times
People living in a weak democracy know too well that dangerous rhetoric leads to dangerous consequences.
Becoming a (Jewish) Grandparent
Four months ago, our daughter gave birth to our first grandchild.
Can Hebrew Be Gender-Neutral?
Gender in Hebrew—as in Spanish, Hindi, French and other languages—is intimately woven into word construction. “Hebrew goes a lot further,” says Erez Levon, a professor of sociolinguistics at Queen Mary University of London who focuses on questions of gender and sexuality. He explains that the language is particularly restrictive because gender is conveyed through masculine or feminine verb, adjective and adverb endings and almost every other part of speech.
Abby Stein: A Gender Transition Through a Jewish Lens
Abby Stein is the first openly transgender ex-Hasid and a lightning rod for Hasidic trans-youth.
Curacao, the Island That Brought Jews to the Americas
It’s hard to imagine that at one time, this tiny island, so far from the cobblestone streets of Portugal, the canals of Amsterdam and the shtetls of Eastern Europe, had the largest Jewish population in the Americas.
From The Editor | September/October 2018
In practice it requires women to maintain the peace by bending to the will of the males around them. Although my mother was a feminist for her time, she still subconsciously bought into the notion that shalom bayit was the duty of women and girls.
Book Review | What We Talk About When We Talk About Hebrew
In What We Talk About When We Talk About Hebrew, Naomi Sokoloff and Nancy Berg, both professors of Hebrew and comparative literature, successfully present a number of lenses through which the wondrous revival of the Hebrew language—and its current decline on American college campuses—can be viewed.
New Faces of the Yiddish Revival
A new generation has taken up the banner and found creative ways to make Yiddish relevant, injecting the language into concerts, lectures, poetry, theater and podcasts.
Life Online as a Jew of Color
Nylah Burton, a 23-year-old freelance writer based in Denver, had been discussing Jewish whiteness online since she joined “Jewbook,” a collective of Facebook groups designated to be of Jewish interest.
A Haredi Rabbi’s Rumination on Racism
Like many of his generation, Mr. Paskow harbored some deep, overt racial prejudices against what he referred to as shvartzes, Yiddish for “blacks.” It was 1969, and race riots in a number of cities provided the elderly shulgoer with ample fodder for his racial railings.