Currently Browsing: Uncategorized 114 articles
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 […]
MRS AMERICA: Everything coming up Bagels
True story: About three weeks into a new job, my first in England, which had thus far included a lot of activities labelled ‘induction’ (a term unfamiliar to my North American brain, but which seemed to mean go drink coffee while having small talk about the weather and bad shows like The Great British Bake […]
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 […]
The Enduring Relevance of Avrom Radutski’s Poetry
Phil Alexander finds contemporary echoes in the poetry of Avrom Radutski. At the beginning of 2020, recently embarked upon a British Academy fellowship exploring Scottish-Jewish musical encounters, I was looking forward to days spent leisurely mining the Garnethill Synagogue Archives, the National Library of Scotland, the British Library, and so many other physical treasure chests. […]
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 […]
My Hero, Seth Rogen
I have long admired Seth Rogen and I still do. No amount of selective quotation from his hour-long interview with Marc Maron will change my mind. In fact, it has reinforced my appreciation for him. Rogen (whose surname must be mispelled as often as mine is) first came into my life as part of Judd […]
Racial Inclusivity in the Jewish Community: The Long View
In Part 1 of a two part series, Jay Prosser explores Jewish Racism in Bombay and Singapore. The Board of Deputies’ Commission on Racial Inclusivity in the Jewish Community could herald a sea change in Jewish communities becoming truly welcoming of Black (and other non-white) members. The six-month enquiry, which has been initiated by the Board itself, is an expression of solidarity with […]
Why we need more research on how Anglo-Jewry profited from slavery
Jews were not overrpresented in the slave trade but we still have a difficult history to confront. Nathan and Jonathan Abrams call for more research to assess Anglo-Jewry’s legacy of slavery. The database of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership makes interesting reading and some of it is not so comfortable for England’s Jews. It reveals […]
‘The Plot Against America’ comes back to haunt me
I can vividly remember reading Philip Roth’s novel when it was published in 2004 and being completely gobsmacked that Charles Lindbergh was the American President. We were on holiday in Portugal in the same place we’d gone back to every year since who knows when, for a week of walking, Scrabble and reading. I can still […]
Marmite? Hummus? Am I hearin’ you right?
If, to paraphrase the great Lenny Bruce, hummus is Jewish, then Marmite is definitely goyish. But what do you do when the two are combined into, wait for it, Marmite hummus? It sounds like an abomination, two ingredients that should never meet, like shatnez or mixing milk and meat. Really, we shouldn’t be surprised by this hybrid given that they’ve added Marmite to Mini […]