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Jewish Culture in Kraków
Shai Afsai reflects on a pre-pandemic Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków. Prior to World War II, about one-tenth of Poland’s population was Jewish, and Jews made up almost a quarter of Kraków’s residents. By the end of the war, 90% of Poland’s Jews had died at the hands of the Nazis and their accomplices. Those […]
Jewish velvet – a touching memoire
Keith Kahn-Harris explores how his inability to tolerate the touch of velvet shaped his experience of growing up Jewish.
On (not) celebrating Jewish diversity
Keith Kahn-Harris explains how highlighting the diversity of British Jews through photography raises some uncomfortable issues
The Jews of Ukraine
Sue Fox recalls those Jews she met on her visit to Ukraine. World Jewish Relief is a British humanitarian charity that responds to international disasters, funds projects to meet the immediate needs of vulnerable communities, and secures sustainable livelihoods for those in poverty. The organisation was originally created to rescue refugees. Since 1989, WJR has […]
The Flying Camel
In the preface to the new edition of The Flying Camel, Loolwa Khazzoom explains how her book was birthed in 1992, and how to use it in 2022. I began compiling and editing the stories in this anthology back in 1992, shortly after graduating college. I finished editing the first version of the first edition […]
Howard Jacobson, Prestwich and Me
Sue Fox reflects on her hometown connections with the author Howard Jacobson. The writer, Howard Jacobson, who is older and much cleverer than me acquired his sense of humour in North Manchester. He grew up streets away from our Prestwich home, in Bowker Vale. It now has a MetroLink Station on the route from Piccadilly in […]
Can Your Canine Keep Kosher?
Nathan Abrams reviews a new short film about the relationship between frum Jews and their dogs. They may be man’s best friend, but they are not a Jew’s best friend. As the saying goes, “A Jew with a dog? It’s either not a Jew or it’s not a dog.” A new documentary, currently screening as […]
Tikkun Olam in a Frying Pan
Michal Nahman tells us about the Bristol-based Mizrachi food project. As a kid, it felt like our family was an odd and outlandish mixture. I’d hear my dad’s Ladino intermingled with my mum’s family’s Romanian in our Israeli home in a lower middle-class suburb of Toronto. ‘Ach Patron del mundo’, my dad would plead, as […]
Do Not Underestimate the Determination of a Quiet Rabbi
Gloria Tessler considers the welcome activities of some of our rabbinate but decries the misguided priorities of others. When we think of great rabbis we sometimes look back to philosophers of the past. Maimonides, the Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Nachman of Breslau, Abraham Heschel, the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Great thinkers who have died and left us […]
A flashy new diamond
Sue Fox visits the revamped Manchester Jewish Museum and bemoans the lack of storage for an umbrella and raincoat. My father, Jack Fox, who was an insurance broker, had his office in St Marks Lane, Cheetham Hill. There was a kosher slaughterer/ chicken shop and Mr Perlman the greengrocer in the narrow alley, On a visit back […]