Rabbi Bentzion Butman, Right

Letter From Cambodia: Rabbi Bentzion Butman’s quest to leave no Jew behind

Two weekends ago, I traveled 40 minutes northwest of Phnom Penh by tuk-tuk, the ubiquitous three-wheeled form of transport in Southeast Asia. I was going to see something strange: Cambodia’s first Jewish cemetery, which was inaugurated in April. The cemetery is the brainchild of Rabbi Bentzion Butman, who has run the Chabad Jewish Centre of Cambodia for the past five years.

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Panel Discussion on Gay Rights and Religious Freedom

Gay Rights and Religious Freedom Take the Stage

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Book Review // The Story of the Jews

The great Jewish historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, who died in 2009, famously declared that history was “the faith of fallen Jews.” Yerushalmi had trained under the preeminent 20th-century Jewish historian Salo Baron, whose epic (and unfinished) 18-volume A Social and Religious History of the Jews was celebrated for its paradigm-shifting rejection of the “lachrymose” view of Jewish history. Despite a life lived in the shadow of Jewish history’s most lachrymose moment—both his parents were murdered in the Holocaust—Baron insisted that Jewish history was defined not by dying but by living, by the astonishing creativity and vitality of an ever-changing Jewish culture.

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Cheesecake on a plate

Talk of the Table // Cheesecake: A Dairy Tale

While cheesecake has long been popular among Jews with a sweet tooth, the creamy, rich indulgence is now as American as apple pie, a symbol of how thoroughly Jews have integrated into American life. As cookbook author Joan Nathan says, “Jews like cheesecake because they like to eat good rich dishes, even if they shouldn’t”—but then again, who doesn’t?

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