That’s the claim made by one Jay Michaelson in the Forward: Yes, Virginia, Pajama Boy is a member of the tribe. Look at him. Pale Ashkenazic skin, Jew-fro’d black curls, Woody Allen specs. Even the smart-ass expression on his face screams of the Wise Son from the Passover Seder.Parenthetically, the model himself is one Ethan […]
Archive | Jewish Culture
Interesting Essay on Jews who Oppose Israel
Shlomo Fischer in the Times of Israel: I suggest that in fact, they [ultra-Orthodox and leftists who are hostile to the existence of Israel] do share a common Jewish theme. This theme was articulated by the great Israeli scholar of the Jewish religion, Gershom Scholem, who argued that the price that the Jewish people paid […]
Forgetting the Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries
My wife and I just attended a tour at the National Archives of the exhibit of Iraqi-Jewish documents that were rescued and preserved from the flooded basement of the Iraqi intelligence headquarters in 2003. My Iraqi-Jewish wife, along with many others, is very upset that these documents, having been stolen from the Jewish community, are […]
Pew Study: 27% of Jewish Children Live in Orthodox Homes
By comparison, only 11% of Jews ages 18-29 are Orthodox. Two caveats. First, only 80% of those 18-29 who were raised Orthodox call themselves Orthodox, so if trends hold the 27% will be more like 21.5%. Second, there is a confidence interval, unknown to me, and the numbers may not be quite so dramatic. But […]
Europe’s Proposed Circumcision Ban: How Far Back We’ve Gone While Making Progress
By Eugene Kontorovich on October 4, 2013 10:12 am in Anti-Semitism, Circumcision Bans, Democracy, Jewish Culture, Religion, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom, Uncategorized
The Council of Europe in Strasbourg has recommended nations consider banning child circumcision. Jewish groups, and the State of Israel, are predictably outraged by the recommendation, which if adopted would make traditional (and not just religious) Jewish life impossible on the Continent. Thus the law has been denounced as anti-Semitic. While I have recently criticized […]
Some Takeaways from the Pew Study of American Jewish Life
The study is getting a lot of commentary, and there is much that one can say. But my top takeaways are that Modern Orthodoxy, Conservative Judaism, Reform Judaism, and Orthodox outreach are, all things considered, overall failures, which implies that American Judaism is a failure. Maybe this shouldn’t be a surprise. American Jews were always […]
The Behavior of Nonprofits
I’ve randomly come across two stories that illustrate a truism about “nonprofits”–their leaders often act a lot like leaders of for-profit organizations, seeking to expand market share and the like. In particular, it’s well-known that non-profits very rarely declare their mission to be over and wind up operations. The famous example is the March of […]
They Hate Us And/Or Want to Convert Us
Anytime the issue of evangelical Christian support for Israel comes up in a conversation among Jews, someone is bound to say something like, “they may love Israel, but only for theological reasons and they are anti-Semites” or “they are just trying to cozy up to us so that they can convert us all because they […]
Passover Rhapsody
I’m talking to my daughter’s preschool class about Passover tomorrow, and in preparation I’ve been looking for appropriate Youtube videos to show them. This one didn’t make the cut for the particular occasion, but it’s my favorite Passover Youtube video (and one of a series of very clever Passover videos from Aish.com). A must if […]
Video of My Father’s Talk at an Immigration Panel at Cary Library in Lexington, MA
My father, Yefim Somin, recently participated in a panel on memoirs of immigration at Cary Memorial Libary in Lexington, MA. The video is available here. As my father mentioned in the talk, his account of his immigration experience is available in this recent book of Russian Jewish immigrant memoirs published by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid […]
Immigration Stories Event in Lexington, MA
For readers who may be interested, my father, Yefim Somin, will be speaking on his experience of immigration from the Soviet Union to the United States at Cary Memorial Library in Lexington, MA on February 28 at 7 PM. His talk will be part of a panel on the experiences of immigrants who have settled […]
A True Heroine
From the Times of Israel comes the inspiring story of Judy Feld Carr: “For nearly three decades, Feld Carr [a musicologist and mother of six] single-handedly arranged the smuggling of more than 3,000 Jews out of Damascus, Aleppo and Qamishli to safety in Israel and America.” UPDATE: I wonder if this article might be exaggerating […]
Study of Genetic Origins of Middle Eastern and North African Jews
Ha’aretz has the details. Reading this and other accounts of this and other studies, it now seems well-established that: (1) The mainstream Ashkenazic and Mizrahi (“Eastern”) Jewish communities share a genetic heritage tracing back about 2,500 years. (2) These communities maintained sufficient separation from the local non-Jewish populations that despite vast geographic distances, to this […]
American Jewish Voting Behavior, 1972-2008
Here’s a very interesting report from “The Solomon Project.” The main conclusion is that based on election year exit polls, Jewish support for Democrats and liberalism has remained pretty constant since 1972. If one digs a bit deeper into the report, one learns that current trends suggest that the American Jewish electorate will grow less […]
More Data Contra Peter Beinart
Back in 2010, I wrote: Peter Beinart has written a scathing indictment of organized American Jewry’s “conservative” views on Israel. He claims that “right-wing” Israeli policies, combined with American Jewish groups’ unflinching support for Israel, are alienating young American Jews, and reducing their attachment to Israel. Beinart’s essay has received a remarkable amount of attention, […]