How Hungary’s Leading Anti-Semitic Politician Discovered His Jewish Roots
You may have followed the 2013 story of the Hungarian right-wing anti-Semitic leader Csanad Szegedi discovering that his grandmother was not only Jewish, but had survived Auschwitz. Joseph Martin’s new...
View ArticleIKEA Israel’s Special Woman-Free Haredi Catalogue
How do the Haredi do hygge, the Nordic coziness concept that infuses IKEA? Judging from the pages of the catalogue recently made expressly for the design giant’s Israeli ultra-Orthodox clientele —...
View ArticleThis Yiddish Ventriloquist Taught Tina Fey the Tricks of His Trade
Yiddish for dummies? Nope, it’s not the title of a paperback designed to get you back in touch with the mame-loshn — it’s what gets spoken during Jonathan Geffner’s Yiddish ventriloquist act. That’s...
View ArticleHot Pockets Were Invented by These Iranian Jewish Brothers
The American dream is microwaveable. At least it was for Paul and David Merage (formerly Meraj), the Jewish Iranian immigrant brothers behind America’s favorite savory drunk snack, the Hot Pocket. The...
View ArticleBeyonce’s Coming to Seder
Have you ever wished Beyonce could lead your seder? This Passover, your wish can almost come true, with Beyonceder, the Pesach-Bey mashup meme series you didn’t know you needed (and its attendant...
View ArticleImmigrant Jews Created Preppy High Fashion
Ever wonder why your grandfather loves that coral-colored polo so? It might be because Jews, as demonstrated by a snappy new video from the fashion magazine Racked, had a hand and a presser-foot in...
View ArticleAn Irreverent Haggadah to Hide Under the Seder Table
Imagine your most irreverent friend – the one who maybe eats a BLT on matzoh during Pesach, because “at least it’s not bread.” Yeah, what if you let him lead the seder this year? For This We Left...
View ArticleYour Bubbe Might Have Studied at These Yiddish Schools
In 1930s NYC, a young Jewish boy becomes a shoe-shiner and joins a street gang when his father loses his job. Through his various misadventures, he learns that the gang’s life of petty crime is not the...
View ArticleHip, Strange Yiddish Music Videos Straight Outta Germany
“Everything has an end–only the sausage has two.” It’s not the only German idiom involving sausage (there are many), but so far as we know it is the only one to first become the title of an eighties...
View ArticleWhen The Philippines’ First Synagogue Burned to the Ground
The Philippines’ first synagogue had bad timing. Jews had arrived in the Philippines after the Spanish Inquisition, but after World War I a new influx of Russian Jews arrived, and decided it was high...
View ArticleThe Jewish Woman Behind Celebrity American Dolls
These days, the true test of a celebrity’s, well, celebrity, rests with hosting an episode of Saturday Night Live or perhaps in coming out with a signature athleisure line (here’s looking at you,...
View ArticleA New Israeli Film Explores the Afterlife of Holocaust Family Trauma
With the 50th anniversary of Israel’s Six-Day War upon us, that historical moment is getting a lot of attention. A critically acclaimed new Israeli film takes place against the backdrop of an event...
View ArticleThese Young Sibs Resisted Hitler and Paid With Their Heads. Literally.
Exhausted from calling your representatives? Looking for new activist role models? Look no further than Hans and Sophie Scholl, the German teenagers who went from being part of Hitler Youth to leading...
View ArticleThe Colorful, Historic ‘Lost Shul Mural’ of Burlington, Vermont
Travel guide trivia: What Northeastern American city was once known as Little Jerusalem? If you guessed other than Bernie’s green stomping grounds of Burlington, Vermont, try again. In the Green...
View ArticleThis Jewish Hollywood Cowboy Invented the Pie-in-the-Face Genre
A Jewish kid from Arkansas pulls off the ultimate reinvention and makes himself a cowboy. In the process, he becomes a motion-picture pioneer — not least by filming the first on-screen pie-in-the face,...
View ArticleWhat the Yiddish Diary of a 17th-Century German Woman Can Tell Us Today
The history of women can feel riddled with gaps, especially during times when education was the privilege of men. But one 17th-century Jewish woman, known as Gluckel of Hameln, left us a priceless...
View ArticleThe Fierce Activists Turning Neo-Nazi Graffiti Into Art
Despite being outlawed, anti-Semitic, anti-Islamic, and anti-immigrant graffiti and stickers often get sprayed onto German walls and telephone poles nonetheless. A group of graffiti artists and one...
View ArticleThis Holocaust Survivor’s Two-Step About Auschwitz Went Viral
Where does a prisoner rescued from Auschwitz find the strength to immediately pivot and fight his captors? “Music” might sound cliche, but when survivor/infantryman/cantor David Wisnia says so, he...
View ArticleLove and Tears in a Mother and Sons’ Reunion, 70 Years After the Holocaust
Izak Szewelwicz thought he knew his mother Aida. After giving birth to him in the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp, she’d sent him to Palestine when she departed for Canada. Though they later...
View ArticleA New Project of Survivors’ Stories in Drawings, Letters, and Video Interviews
In the wake of #badderthantaylor, we can probably all think of a few elder Jewish women (and men) whose life stories could be a book or a feature film. Like Gerta, whose nightmarish life in...
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