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The band Neutral Milk Hotel only recorded two albums before its lead guitarist and songwriter, Jeff Mangum, retreated from the public eye. Yet their second album, In the Aeroplane over the Sea (1998), remains one of the most critically acclaimed albums in independent music. Magnet magazine named it the best album of 1993-2003,…
Memory is a funny thing. When we tell the stories of our own lives, we tend to report events the way we want to remember them–not necessarily the way they really happened. Yosef Yerushalmi, one of the greatest Jewish historians of the 20th century, published a meditation on this issue as it applies to the…
The book Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean is written by a historian, but its tales of smugglers, brigands, and high-seas violence have all the flavor of a guilty pleasure. In 1492, the Inquisition expelled all Jews from Spain and Portugal. Many headed for the New World–specifically, for the Caribbean islands. Some Jews became…
If Andy Warhol lit Shabbat candles, chances are they’d look like this. Yitzchok Moully, an Australian-raised painter and photographer (he now lives in New Jersey) is a Hasidic Jew raised by former hippies. This might explain his interesting position in the art world. With a loud style and subtle humor, Moully subverts Jewish…
Seasonal affective disorder is a depression associated with the shortening of the days as winter comes. Though they didn’t use such fancy clinical language, the ancient rabbis understood that this time of year can be frightening indeed. One Talmudic tale (Avodah Zarah 8a) describes Adam, the first man, watching the days get shorter…
He’Brew is a brand of beer that’s exactly what it sounds like. If you’ve never heard of this particular beverage, you’re probably asking yourself the same thing we did at first: Does the world need another kitschy Jewish food product? However, after tasting their Messiah Bold and Jewbelation 14, our attitude changed drastically. It was…
How do you make your Hanukkah a little bit warmer? By bringing it in with some friends, of course. Three great singers–Naomi Less (who fronts the band Jewish Chicks Rock), Chana Rothman, and Sarah Aroeste (who you might remember from our video How Jews Look)–teamed up to record a great new song, “A New…
Todd and God are at it again. You might remember the crazy duo from the time they tried to find an obscure fruit for Rosh Hashanah, or when God dressed up as Al Gore for Earth Day. In this episode, someone’s given Todd a brand-new menorah for Hanukkah…but he doesn’t know how to light it.…
For the past five years, the Sephardic Music Festival has showcased everything from folkdance to electronica to hard rock and reggae. This year, the festival will take place during the eight nights of Hanukkah, from December 1-8, in Los Angeles and New York City. But what about those of us in the rest of the world?…
Some conductors lead the orchestra with a baton or the tips of their fingers. Among musicians, Leonard Bernstein was widely known to conduct with his face. Aside from composing a startling variety of masterpieces (from the mournful “Kaddish” to the boisterous “West Side Story”), Bernstein conducted many of the world’s most prestigious…
What’s with the Jewish ideal of wanting our kids to be doctors? It seems we’ve forgotten the Jewish roots of the union movement–folks who put in a hard day’s work at the factory, then protested for the rights of others. Not to worry–Jewnion Label has us covered. Jewnion Label creates logos and…
Looking at Jews and Native Americans side by side, you might think there’s no way to mix up the two cultures. Yarmulkes and eagle-feather headdresses look quite different, after all. But some early colonial Americans thought, upon discovering the earlier inhabitants of the Americas, that they were the Chosen People–perhaps one (or more) of…
