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Like many scholars in the Talmud, Rabbi Joshua Ben Levi yearned for the Messiah’s coming. Living in exile, Joshua dreamed of a perfect world free of suffering, and he prayed for a powerful redeemer–perhaps a supernatural being or a warrior king –who would come to actualize this dream. Imagine Joshua’s surprise then…
Jews have devised all sorts of mechanisms for dealing with the holiday on December 25 that shuts down most of the Western world. In centuries past, Jewish communities have hid from Christian pogroms or read from a secret scroll containing derogatory versions of Jesus’s life. Today, it’s mostly movies and Chinese food.…
When’s the last time you danced up a storm…to the Bible? Matt Bar and Ori Salzberg are Bible Raps, a duo that creates songs based on stories from the Bible and other Jewish books. Last year, they released their first album–a collection that ranges from a retelling of the Noah story to a Talmudic conversation…
Though the Israeli poet Dahlia Ravikovitch (1937-2005) was named for a flower, her unsentimental and ironic poems are decidedly not flowery. Her first book, “The Love of an Orange,” was published when she was in her early twenties. The title poem is playful and funny and sinister all at once–here’s the first verse, translated…
Like any compelling story, the saga of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt has bad guys–the Egyptians–and good guys–Moses and, well, God. Yet Rashi, a medieval commentator, makes a surprising comment about how we’re supposed to feel about the bad guys. Even though the Egyptians tossed Israelite babies into the Nile River, he writes, Jews should still not hate…
Paul Robeson (1898-1976) was an African-American singer, actor, and activist who sang the songs of his ancestors–and ours. Robeson learned Hebrew from his father, a Christian preacher, and he became captivated by the Jewish stories and hymns he heard in childhood, several of which had been adapted by blacks in the American South. In Robeson’s…
There’s always been a healthy, productive relationship between Jews and Chinese food–from Christmas dining to a mutual love for sweet & sour flavoring. L.A.-based comedian Seth Front (who’s also a rabbi’s son) took the relationship one step further. In his Jewish Zodiac–a website with accompanying t-shirts and other fun items–you won’t find a Year of the…
The 1998 Coen Brothers film The Big Lebowski has become an integral part of Jewish pop culture–owing mostly to the fervency with which John Goodman shouts ”I don’t roll on Shabbos!” Lebowski Tees, the newest bit of cultural ephemera to grow out of the Lebowski trend, come from Philadelphia graphic designer and pixel artist Jude…
After WWII, a small group of Holocaust survivors set out to take revenge on Nazis. They tracked down former Nazi soldiers, executed them in the middle of the night, and even allegedly poisoned hundreds of SS officers in American POW camps. This group was nicknamed “the Avengers.” Their true identities were kept secret for…
When his debut album Paullelujah came out in 2002, M.C. Paul Barman was called “the thinking man’s Eminem.” That isn’t 100% fair–for one thing, Eminem sometimes writes remarkably thoughtful verses. Still, the short, nerdy, flamboyantly-Jewish Barman definitely has a knack for complicated, intricate wordplay. He’s alternately crude (“I hope your ova’s kosher”)…
For many nights in a row, a classic Hasidic story goes, Reb Isaac Yeklish dreamed that there was treasure buried under a bridge near the king’s castle in Prague. So he traveled all the way from Krakow to Prague in the hopes of becoming rich. But alas, the bridge was guarded by soldiers day…
How many times have you gotten halfway through a book, only to say, “I wish I’d known what I was getting into?” The site BetterBookTitles.com does what we all secretly wish book covers would do: It tells you exactly what you’re about to read. No books are sacred in BBT’s hands. Elie…
