The Delectable Dumpling Diaspora
Their seemingly modest appearance belies their multicultural significance, manifold incarnations and long history.
Ask The Rabbis // Is it the job of rabbis to fight intermarriage?
INDEPENDENT
Intermarriage is a reality of American Jewish life that isn’t receding, no matter how valiant the efforts to counter it. The central challenge to American...
The Great Hanukkah Clanging
Hanukkah was really only about one thing when I was growing up. It wasn’t the presents—they were generally small and unexciting…
Gelt-y Pleasures for All Ages
In the story of Hanukkah—the cruel reign of Antiochus, the unlikely victory of Mattathias and his sons, the one cruse of sacred oil left in the plundered Temple that burned for eight days—there is no mention of money.
Fiction // Turboatom
I wanted to tell my father that the fish salad was shining, but he was asleep, calling my name in long somniloquous moans. I stood at his bedside, the shape of our room made visible by the scarce lights of the Marshal Zhukov Street. Slava! My name rose from his lungs…
Ask The Rabbis // Gender Identity
What guidance, if any, does Judaism offer to transgender people?
Visual Moment // Jerusalem, 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven
From the years 1000 to 1400 CE, a kind of Jerusalem mania captivated much of the world. This fervor drew thousands of people from across the globe to the Holy City…
Honey Cake Cocktail
The proverbial liquor cabinet in the collective consciousness of American Jewry contains only a handful of familiar—and unquestionably eccentric, nostalgia-soaked—libations…
Shadows in the Golden Land
Myanmar has finally emerged from decades of military dictatorship. But its new democratic government has yet to confront the persecution of the country’s Muslim minority.
Venice, the Jews and Europe: 1516-2016
On March 29, 1516, the Venetian Senate, under the leadership of Doge Leonardo Loredan, decreed that “Jews must all live together” in a guarded and enclosed area of the city…
Talk of the Table | Foods to Beat the Heat
Not all Jewish food is the heavy, hearty fare meant to sustain Eastern European ancestors through dark, cold winters. But Jews, of course, don’t come from just Eastern Europe—many come from hot-weather climates and have a culinary canon that suits the heat. Here are some of the best Jewish foods to indulge in when the temperature soars.
Visual Moment // Odessa
“To this day I remember, feel, and love this town…I love this town because I grew up in it, was happy, melancholy, and dreamy in it. Passionately and singularly dreamy.”