Currently Browsing: Judaism 44 articles
Reflecting on Rosh Hashana: A Call for Contributions
JewThink would like to mark this extraordinary Rosh Hashanah by collating and publishing some reflections on other Jewish new years past and present. These can be brief, funny and irreverent or longer and more reflective. What was your most disastrous Rosh Hashanah? What was your most uplifting? What new possibilities does Rosh Hashanah in semi-lockdown […]
Antisemitism and Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’
The Shining, which marks its fortieth anniversary this year, is probably the ur-horror film. Its template for pyschological horror has been much copied over subsequent decades. Given its director’s ethnicity, which has been established by various authors (including myself), we can also view The Shining through the lens of Jewishness and Judaism. In so doing, […]
Britain’s Most Northerly Shul’s Deluge of Disasters
Debby Taylor catalogues the problems that have befallen Britain’s most northerly congregation over recent years, and how you can help out. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the UK’s most northerly synagogue. Aberdeen Hebrew Congregation was founded in 1893 but didn’t own its own place of worship until 6th June 1945, when the current […]
Watching Unorthodox in Broughton Park
Rachel Harris argues that problem with Orthodox Jewish women in popular cultural representation lies with audience shlock and salvation, not with Charedi society. I am an Independent Sexual Violence Advisor, supporting people who have experienced sexual violence. I am a writer and a campaigner against ideologically motivated harms. I live and work in the heart […]
Far Above Rubies
Mila Tanya Griebel’s ‘Far Above Rubies’ kiddush cup won first prize in the 2014/2015 Judaica 21 Award. It was subsequently bought by the Berlin Jewish Museum, and features in their new core exhibition which opened to the public in August 202 this week. A matching Yad is now part of the Barr Foundation collection. This […]
Jews and Cheese: An Ambivalent Relationship
As we celebrate Shavuot, Nathan Abrams explores the curious relationship between Jews and cheese. The issue of Stilton cheese, which held up any potential UK trade deal with Japan, got me thinking about the relationship between Jews and cheese. But as it’s Shavuot, it’s a good time to be thinking about it again. Despite the modern Israeli’s love of all things to […]
What Prickled Me About ‘An American Pickle’
Nathan Abrams rants about why he didn’t like An American Pickle. I was looking forward to watching An American Pickle, Seth Rogen’s latest movie. As I have written here, I am a fan of his films, and the furore caused by his appearance on the Marc Maron show only intensified my expectations. An American Pickle […]
Remembering Rabbi Hugo Gryn
On the twenty-fourth anniversary of his death, I thought I would mark the occasion to remember my friend, Rabbi Hugo Gryn. It was in the mid-1970s, in Jerusalem, when a longtime friend, Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman, introduced me to a visiting London rabbi and his family. I had been spending my junior year of college at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem from 1970-1971 and decided to stay on afterwards. Rabbi Levi and I had met when we worked together at […]
A Pickler on the Roof
Jarrod Tanny discusses An American Pickle. *Contains some spoilers* At the risk of deploying an overused pun, we need to begin by alluding to the now well-known pickle Seth Rogen got himself into in July. While discussing his new film, An American Pickle, on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, where he spent an hour schmoozing with the host about all things ‘Jewy’ and their shared inability to escape their yichus. Rogen was […]
How Matter Means: BLM and Mixed Judaism
My family is Jewish, Muslim, and of color. Though our children are white-passing, they are 1/4 African-American, and we are raising them Jewish through a Sufi lens. We live in a predominantly Black working-class neighbourhood where we are welcome and seen. As a third generation survivor, I was immersed in stories of the Holocaust since […]