JJ Editor's Daily Picks
"At 12:42 a.m. on the quiet, moonlit night of March 8, 2014, a Boeing 777-200ER operated by Malaysia Airlines took off from Kuala Lumpur and turned toward Beijing, climbing to its assigned cruising altitude of 35,000 feet. The designator for..."
"“I hereby sentence you to death.” The words of Judge Clifford B. Shepard filled the courtroom in Jacksonville, Fla., on Oct. 27, 1976. Shepard was sentencing Clifford Williams Jr., whom a jury had just found guilty of entering a woman’s house..."
"The video footage of Jewish Israelis dancing with Palestinians at a wedding should be something to celebrate. It should be an expression of joy and joint faith in the future. Instead, it has brought danger and disgrace to Radi Nasser, the mayor..."
"In 2013, I was executive editor of the NY Daily News, and we, like every other publication in the country, were covering the series finale of Breaking Bad. As one of the most popular and critically acclaimed shows in history, the finale was..."
"Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., tells us that wealth inequality is at grotesque and immoral levels. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has a plan to tax everyone lots and lots to solve this. The slight problem is that the Federal Reserve tells us that..."
"For much of World War I, Sir Phillip Gibbs was one of the few journalists the British War Office permitted to correspond from the Western Front. Gibbs’s mission was to describe, in terms that would be acceptable to government censors, the..."
"In the 1940s, sexologist Alfred Kinsey, who was on the verge of publishing his first major report on male sexuality in the US, enlisted a photographer named Thomas Painter to investigate gay subcultures. Painter, a white, openly gay man, had..."
"What was Postmodernism? In the 35 years since Fredric Jameson’s New Left Review essay “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism” — and the 40 years since the publication of Jean-François Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition..."
"My husband and I are proud fathers of a 5-year-old girl and 1-year-old boy. I was grocery shopping with them last week when I saw a sign that made me cringe. Attached to a basket of free fruit, the sign reminded kids to “Ask Mom” before taking a..."
"Family farms are central to our nation’s identity. Most Americans, even those who have never been on a farm, have strong feelings about the idea of family farms — so much that they’re the one thing that all U.S. politicians agree on. Each..."
"The Big Bang is the defining narrative of modern cosmology: a bold declaration that our universe had a beginning and has a finite age, just like the humans who live within it. That finite age, in turn, is defined by the evidence that universe is..."
"After a protracted siege by the Roman tenth legion, the situation of the Sacarii, the Jewish rebels holed up on the mountain fortress of Masada, became hopeless. The Jewish rebels led by Elazar Ben Yair decided to kill themselves rather than be..."
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I didn’t think I wanted to be a weekly columnist until I read a column by comedian Mark Schiff. I’ve never told him this, but...
Perhaps the most surprising part of the D.C. Dyke March, which sought to ban rainbow flags embossed with the Star of David, was how surprised...
As a kid, I wanted to be Erma Bombeck when I grew up. With book titles such as “If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries,...
“When a father helps a son, both smile; when a son must help his father, both cry.” — Yiddish proverb “My father gave me the...
On June 2, graduation day at the United States Military Academy, the class of 2019 pushed the total number of Jewish West Point graduates past...
There is something about New York City that drives me closer to my personal “d’mimah dakah” (still, small voice). That voice inside of me that...
I stood on a wobbly paddleboard in the Mediterranean Sea in my pajamas, feet apart, arms at my sides, trying to balance. The water was...
“How does it feel to be here?” I asked my father while we were standing inside the magnificent rotunda of the U.S. Capitol a few...
Leah Silver was at a wedding on Lag b’Omer when she saw the headline on her phone: “Mevo Modi’im Destroyed in Fire.” Harrowing photographs displayed...
Let’s be serious: No participant in a Dyke March feels “threatened” when a Star of David appears on a rainbow flag. Not unless he or...
As a Jewish woman who frequently shares her opinions on social media, I’ve been targeted online by white supremacists, communist bots from China, die-hard Donald...
They were older than the other parents, gray and pale, with consonants that gargled when they said come in. They played Beethoven sonatas on their...
One verse, five voices. Edited by Salvador Litvak, Accidental Talmudist The Lord spoke to Moses saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying: this is how...
When I opened the first Mexican restaurant in Uganda and hired local cooks, not only had my team never experienced any of the dishes I’d...
More than 200 supporters gathered June 5 to sample dishes from some of Los Angeles’ top chefs at Playa Studios in Culver City for “Hunger...
It seems there is nothing Rabbi Sherre Hirsch can’t do when it comes to shaping the Jewish community. She was a pulpit rabbi at Sinai...
Beth Chayim Chadashim (BCC), Los Angeles’ first gay and lesbian synagogue, and Temple Isaiah came together on the night of June 8, to celebrate Shavuot...
The terrace outside Dr. Amnon Rofe’s office at Bnai Zion Medical Center offers picturesque views of the Mediterranean Sea and the Báha’í Gardens in the...
Reaching Acme Smoked Fish in Brooklyn requires traversing worlds: through Chasidic Williamsburg, full of modestly dressed Chasidim, and then through Hipster Williamsburg, where tattooed young...
It was possible to believe a part of New York’s Lower East Side had moved west, as Russ & Daughters, the iconic 105-year-old New York...
Two swastikas were discovered at Glen Rock High School in Glen Rock, N.J., over the last two weeks. The first was found on May 28...
When the cast of the Israeli television series “Shtisel” began shooting interiors in Tel Aviv and exteriors in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim in...
The well-known Hollywood red carpet query is “Who are you wearing?” But at a fashion exhibit currently making the rounds at Los Angeles Public Library...
“After Auschwitz,” warned Theodor Adorno, “to write poetry is a barbarity.” And yet, ironically, some of the most iconic words ever written about the Holocaust...
Leslie Arden Archer died May 4 at 68. Survived by sister Adrienne (Lewis) Weissman. Mount Sinai Norman D. Beals died May 4 at 102. Survived...
For Father’s Day, give the men in your life some more ties. But not the kind they wrap around their necks. I’m talking these cute...
Award-winning artist Avi Pashnov has spent his career merging art and Judaism. As a teaching assistant in the Judaica Department at Bezalel Academy of Arts...
Friendship Circle of Los Angeles (FCLA) celebrated its 552 volunteers at their annual garden party, on May 21. In its 16th year, FCLA runs...
FRI JUNE 14 “The Joy of Change” Sinai Temple honors Matt Baram, millennial director at Sinai, at his final Orden Family Friday Night Live Shabbat...
‘New’ Canard or an Old Canard in a New Disguise? According to the “new” canard, Zionists created an apartheid state in the Middle East. Because...
The great scholar Maimonides wrote, “The measure of honor and awe due one’s teacher exceeds that due one’s father. His father brings him into the...
