Currently Browsing: Judaism 40 articles

FBI_Most_Wanted_Title_Text

Crooked TV Jews

Elliot Gertel reflects on some nasty recent representations of Jews on US television. “FBI: MOST WANTED”      FBI: Most Wanted definitely has it in for older, wealthy Jewish women. And the series reserves its biggest broadsides against this “type” for season closers. In 2021, it was a Southern Jewish heiress to a major grocery chain who was […]

steve-harvey-Bv4ImkwctlY-unsplash

Overcriticism and Forgiveness

Alex Gordon reflects on his father’s Jewishness. In 1935 my father met his idol, the French writer Henri Barbusse, winner of the Goncourt Prize. Barbusse, a member of the French Communist Party who also met with Stalin, sought to persuade my father, a newly minted graduate in literature from Kiev University, to become a communist. […]

WhatsApp Image 2023-01-06 at 16.17.45

Eyes Wide Shut

Nathan Abrams considers the Jewishness of Jordan Peele’s Nope. Two alternative names have been suggested for Jordan Peele’s latest film, Nope, but which have already been taken: “Don’t Look Up” and “Don’t Look Now”. I am going to suggest an alternative if already taken title: Eyes Wide Shut. This is because in quoting Stanley Kubrick’s […]

dark feature copy

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 […]

19th_century_Hanukkah_lamp_from_Austria-Hungary_-_Musée_d'Art_et_d'Histoire_du_Judaïsme

The Hollywood Chanukkiah

Barbara Borts discusses an unlikely Jewish Film Star. How does one signal to the public that the characters in a film are Jewish? ‎Well, let me introduce you to the unlit Chanukkiah, which made at least three different ‎appearances in three different films during the 2022 UK Jewish Film Festival.‎ In no particular order, this […]

Liberal Drippings of Pork Fat feature

Liberal Drippings of Pork Fat

Stephen Pogany contributes an exclusive extract from his book Modern Times: The Biography of a Hungarian-Jewish Family. Throughout her married life in Budapest, my Jewish grandmother invariably cooked with pork fat. She also spread pork dripping liberally on toast as a tasty snack for herself and her family, in open defiance of one of the most […]

rage

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 […]

trrans Jewishness

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 […]

The Rabbi's Revenge Jewishness

The Rabbi’s Revenge

A short story by Elliot B. Gertel.                                                      The young rabbi looked forward to the class. Fresh out of the seminary, in his first congregation, he anticipated, more than anything else, the opportunity to teach the children. After all, “And thou shalt teach them unto thy children,” is a cardinal commandment in Judaism. The teacher of […]

JewThink
Close Cookmode