13 Jul
Jewish World, Latest, Opinion

Opinion | You Were Finally a Mensch, Mr. Snyder

In the 1960s, Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan penned inspiring poetic lines, “There's a battle outside and it is ragin'/ It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls,” that still ring true today. Dylan’s concluding musical refrain, “For the times, they are a-changin’,” should be a warning to Dan Snyder, the owner of the Washington, DC football team with the controversial name, that his past declaration to never change the franchise’s name isn’t acceptable anymore as his sponsors are pulling out. Finally today, Snyder said the name would be changed after 87 years of insulting Native Americans with a racist slur.  Snyder had to bow to corporate pressure. Recently, 87 shareholders and investment firms approached important corporate sponsors such as FedEx, Nike and PepsiCo to stop doing business with the Washington football team until it...

Continue reading

03 Dec
Jewish World, Latest

Anti-Semitic Graffiti Reported at DC Synagogue

Sixth & I, the historic Washington, DC synagogue and culture center, was vandalized on Friday less than two months after a similar incident at the Washington Hebrew Congregation. Sixth & I staff reported finding the word “JEW” etched into a wooden door and several swastikas drawn on a staircase, according to communications manager Michelle Eider. On Monday, DC police arrested 28-year-old Luis Montsinos and charged him with defacement and destruction of property and resisting arrest. According to the police report. Officers designated the vandalism as a potential anti-Jewish hate crime.“Nothing is more important than the security and safety of our community,” says Heather Moran, Sixth & I’s CEO and executive director, “and we are working closely with the Metropolitan Police Department and other local law enforcement.” Built in 1908, the Sixth & I synagogue hosts both religious...

Continue reading

12 Mar
Arts & Culture, Culture, Food, Misc

Sticky Fingers' Sweets and New York Cheesecake Cupcakes

By Monika Wysocki A self-described “Jew-talian from New York,” Doron Petersan grew up in the land of Jewish delis, bagels, cannoli and knishes. But after assisting with a surgery in a veterinarian’s office and realizing that the flesh of the dog looked just like chicken she had just eaten, Petersan began to look for new ways to cook her favorite foods without using animal products. Her kitchen experiments, combined with courses in food science at the University of Maryland, eventually led to the birth of Washington, DC bakery Sticky Fingers Sweets & Eats, and cupcake recipes like the George Caramelin (chocolate cinnamon cupcake, filled with bourbon caramel) that have beat out non-vegan competitors twice on Food Network’s baking competition, “Cupcake Wars.” In her new cookbook, Sticky Fingers’ Sweets, Petersan shares the secrets behind 100 of the bakery’s hugely...

Continue reading

12 Mar
Arts & Culture, Culture, Food, Misc

Sticky Fingers’ Sweets and New York Cheesecake Cupcakes

By Monika Wysocki A self-described “Jew-talian from New York,” Doron Petersan grew up in the land of Jewish delis, bagels, cannoli and knishes. But after assisting with a surgery in a veterinarian’s office and realizing that the flesh of the dog looked just like chicken she had just eaten, Petersan began to look for new ways to cook her favorite foods without using animal products. Her kitchen experiments, combined with courses in food science at the University of Maryland, eventually led to the birth of Washington, DC bakery Sticky Fingers Sweets & Eats, and cupcake recipes like the George Caramelin (chocolate cinnamon cupcake, filled with bourbon caramel) that have beat out non-vegan competitors twice on Food Network’s baking competition, “Cupcake Wars.” In her new cookbook, Sticky Fingers’ Sweets, Petersan shares the secrets behind 100 of the bakery’s hugely...

Continue reading

14 Jul
Arts & Culture

Shakespeare's "Merchant of NYC"

By Sarah Breger; Interview by Sophie Taylor To stage The Merchant of Venice is courageous; to stage The Merchant of Venice so soon after the celebrated Al Pacino-led performance on Broadway even more so. The Washington Shakespeare Theatre’s production—a re-imagining of the play in 1920s New York—certainly does not lack for guts, but this madcap romp through the Lower East Side yields mixed results. In Director Ethan McSweeny’s beautifully staged production, Venice is New York, Antonio and his fellow gentry are Italian Mafioso—and the Jews? Well, they seem to be Lower East Side Hasidim. Ignoring the fact that the twenties were glory days for Jewish mobsters (think Bugsy Siegal, Meir Lansky et al.) McSweeny chooses to dress his Jews in beards and payos, playing them as insular ultra-Orthodox.  (This was especially disappointing for me, since I was...

Continue reading

14 Jul
Arts & Culture

Shakespeare’s “Merchant of NYC”

By Sarah Breger; Interview by Sophie Taylor To stage The Merchant of Venice is courageous; to stage The Merchant of Venice so soon after the celebrated Al Pacino-led performance on Broadway even more so. The Washington Shakespeare Theatre’s production—a re-imagining of the play in 1920s New York—certainly does not lack for guts, but this madcap romp through the Lower East Side yields mixed results. In Director Ethan McSweeny’s beautifully staged production, Venice is New York, Antonio and his fellow gentry are Italian Mafioso—and the Jews? Well, they seem to be Lower East Side Hasidim. Ignoring the fact that the twenties were glory days for Jewish mobsters (think Bugsy Siegal, Meir Lansky et al.) McSweeny chooses to dress his Jews in beards and payos, playing them as insular ultra-Orthodox.  (This was especially disappointing for me, since I was...

Continue reading