Cremation: So What If It’s Heresy?
In the months before lockdown I was training with a group of volunteers to start a project in the borough for the national Dying Matters organisation. As it happens, we were all ‘old’ and Jewish with a wealth of experience in many different professional fields – not just in the voluntary sector. The aim was […]
Is Clueless Really Jew-less?
Clueless celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary this week but its director, Amy Heckerling, has denied that its iconic lead character was even Jewish. ‘I wasn’t thinking in terms of this being a Jewish story’, she said in an interview with the JTA. ‘I was taking the plot of Jane Austen’s “Emma” and translating it into that world.’ And, […]
Freud meets Shtisel
For those not lucky enough to have seen it, Shtisel is a Netflix drama about family life in a Haredi community set in Geula, Jerusalem. It offers a unique insight into what living in this close-knit community may be like from the point of view of the Shtisel family including patriarch Shulem, son Akiva, daughter […]
10 Reasons Why Zoom Limmud Is Much, Much Better Than Normal Limmud
1. I didn’t have to book in February to make sure I was charged £8,000 rather than £8,050 for my own room. 2. On my way into a talk, I didn’t have to barge my way past groups of people who attend the same shul and feel compelled, not having seen each other for five […]
Locked Down Jews in Leicester
As the lockdown extends in Leicester, Lucy Michaels considers the pros and cons of being based in a small Jewish community during COVID-19.
Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher’s Never Have I Ever: When is a Jewish stereotype useful?
In the first part of this two-part series on new culture and old Jewish stereotypes, I wrote about Jewish money, solidarity, and privilege in Candice Carty-Williams’s Queenie. For this post, I’m going to move across the pond to discuss the new American Netflix series Never How I Ever. This series, like Queenie, has a diverse group of girlfriends at its core and a problematic Jewish figure framed in […]
As We Are – Davida Pines
Snapshots During Lockdown. Movie. (2020) 5.44 Minutes
