Currently Browsing: Religion 44 articles
Jewish Folk Medicine
Efram Sera-Shriar explores an often forgotten or overlooked tradition. When I used to work for the Science Museum in London, I was often asked by friends and colleagues what my favourite object was in the collection. There is so much fantastic material in the museum’s store, and there are several objects that are dear to […]
The Jewish mystical roots of His Dark Materials
The BBC and HBO recently aired the final episodes of the TV show His Dark Materials, based on the books of the same name by Philip Pullman, a self-described Church of England Atheist. When I first read the His Dark Materials trilogy 20 years ago, I knew the books were deemed as heretical. I read […]
Jewish Folk Medicine in Eastern Europe
Efram Sera-Shriar reviews a new book about Jewish Folk Medicine in Eastern Europe. Not so long ago I was having a discussion about traditional Jewish folk customs with my uncle, who is a lawyer. Like me, he’s always been interested in this aspect of Jewish culture, and we chatted about things such as the supposed […]
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.
Pour Out Your Rage
Ruben Vis reflects on a key passage in the Haggadah. If the word Seder means order, then every piece in the Haggada must be in its correct place. Why, then, immediately after the meal, do we read a passage that seems out of place and why is it even there in the first place? It […]
Intersex and Trans Jewish Lives
Martin H. Di Maggio argues that the time to act is now. Shortly after I was born, nurses noticed that I was “a bit different from other boys” and took me to have chromosome tests (without informing my mother) to verify my sex. It wasn’t enough that I “looked like a boy” or that I […]
Introducing “Seinfeld Yomi”
Jarrod Tanny introduces us to Seinfeld Yomi, a Facebook group devoted to watching and discussing the series day by day in the tradition of our greatest sages. Welcome to Seinfeld Yomi! Are there degrees of coincidence? Is it permissible to parallel park headfirst? Is it poor hygiene to “double dip” a chip? How long must […]
Solomon and Rabbi Simon
Barbara Borts tells us how Simon and Garfunkel explain Kohelet. Paul Simon has just celebrated his 80th birthday, keyn eyn hore, and Art Garfunkel has his coming up soon. All the celebrations have sent me with nostalgia back to their music, which formed a significant part of my teenage playlist of folk and singer-songwriter melodies. […]
Stamp of Approval
In the third of three poems, Bruce Black reflects on prayer. Do prayers receive a stamp of approval when they arrive in heaven? Maybe there’s an angel sitting at a desk reading each prayer, deciding which one gets passed on to God and which gets dismissed—tossed into the wastebasket to be shredded later— while those […]
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 […]