Diane Ackerman’s book The Zookeeper’s Wife — which details how Jan and Antonina Zabinski, who ran the Warsaw Zoo, hid Jews during WWII — has been getting very good reviews. And they’re well-deserved.
I read very little non-fiction and virtually no Holocaust literature (though, God knows, publishers send me a lot of it), and this […]

in jail?
David Brooks, notorious for spending more than $10 million on his daughter’s bat mitzvah two years ago, was arrested Thursday on a 21-count indictment from federal prosecutors including charges of securities fraud, insider trading, tax evasion, and obstruction of justice. Apparently the funds for the party came from DHB Industries, the body amour company […]

I’d like to believe that the findings from this investigation won’t prove the allegation true. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem too unrealistic that this might actually be happening.
From the Jerusalem Post:
Representatives from the Education Ministry are set to visit a religious girls’ school in Emmanuel to investigate whether or not the school is separating students based […]

I just got an email about the launch of JLifestyle, a new Jewish magazine for the British set. We wish them the best of luck, of course, but I do hope the writing in the magazine is better than the writing in the announcement email.
It took me a while to wrap my head around: “JLifestyle […]

It’s a little-known fact that many of the mainstays of Italian cuisine were in fact introduced by the Jewish community that has inhabited Rome for over 2,000 years. Vegetables such as artichokes and eggplant were ignored ingredients until they were noticed in the Cucina Hebraica (Jewish kitchen). More…

I just finished Vanessa Och’s book Inventing Jewish Ritual, which not only investigates the development, acceptance, and theory of new rituals, but goes through a few case studies of these new ceremonies.

I admit, I was afraid this book was going to be hokey. Even for those of us who consider themselves to be modern, liberal […]

-Isi Leibler bemoans the fact that in the Israeli Orthodox world, “the voices of moderation are silent. Zealotry has become the order of the day.” What he calls the “increasing stranglehold of haredim on religious institutions” is partially to blame, as is the increasing disconnection of rabbis from the people. (The […]

The New York Times takes a look at the editorial transition at Commentary:
To some within the neoconservative movement, the announcement of John Podhoretz as the next editor of Commentary magazine — the same job his father, Norman, held for 35 years — is the best of all possible choices. It is a model of what […]

Today is Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Day, which coincides with his yartzeit on the 12th of Cheshvan.
I’ve included some links for those interesting in learning more about the late prime minister and his legacy:
A Biography
His final speech
President Shimon Peres on Rabin

I like blogging about deli, particularly the Second Avenue Deli. When I first moved to New York a few years ago, I lived in Stuyvesant Town. There weren’t too many kosher options in the area, and my favorite by far soon became Second Avenue. I’d sneak back from NYU in between classes to get a […]