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David Arenberg on being the only Jewish inmate in a state prison.
posted by reenum on May 1, 2013 - 49 comments

Magneto the Jew
posted by Artw on Jan 29, 2013 - 60 comments

The Ben-Zvi Institute in Jerusalem houses the Aleppo Codex, considered the oldest and most authoritative text of the Hebrew Bible. Written in the 10th century AD and annotated by Maimonides himself, it was safeguarded by the Jewish diaspora and revered for its linguistic precision and its beauty. "The story of how some 200 pages of the codex went missing — and to this day remain the object of searches carried out around the globe by biblical scholars, private investigators, shadowy businessmen and the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency — is one of the great mysteries in Jewish history." [more inside]
posted by zarq on Jul 25, 2012 - 36 comments

Files have been released showing that the MI5 investigated Charlie Chaplin's origins at the request of the FBI, attempting to check claims that besides being a communist, he might be Jewish, and/or French. His life story by his own account has him born in London, but no birth certificate has been found and last year evidence emerged that he might in fact have been born in a gypsy camp.
posted by Segundus on Feb 17, 2012 - 34 comments

Nearly three decades after Israel began airlifting Ethiopia's ancient Jewish community out of the Horn of Africa, Israel's rabbis are now working to phase out the community's white-turbaned clergy, the kessoch, whose unusual religious practices are at odds with the rabbinate's Orthodox Judaism. [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb on Jan 21, 2012 - 31 comments

Regina Jonas was the first woman rabbi. Ordained by the head of the German Liberal Rabbis’ Association in 1935 she continued to meet considerable resistance from many more conservative Jews; nevertheless she continued to work as a rabbi whereever she could find an audience even after being deported to the concentration camp of Theresienstadt; she remained there, giving comfort as she could, until she was murdered at Auschwitz in 1944. Her work was, for many years, forgotten until her papers were discovered in East Germany.
Ukrainian-born German Alina Treiger is to become the first woman ordained in Germany as a Rabbi since then.
posted by rodgerd on Nov 4, 2010 - 5 comments

Dancing Auschwitz
"Jewish artist defends YouTube video 'Dancing Auschwitz'"
posted by andoatnp on Jul 10, 2010 - 28 comments

Among American Jews today, there are a great many Zionists, especially in the Orthodox world, people deeply devoted to the State of Israel. And there are a great many liberals, especially in the secular Jewish world, people deeply devoted to human rights for all people, Palestinians included. But the two groups are increasingly distinct. Particularly in the younger generations, fewer and fewer American Jewish liberals are Zionists; fewer and fewer American Jewish Zionists are liberal. One reason is that the leading institutions of American Jewry have refused to foster—indeed, have actively opposed—a Zionism that challenges Israel’s behavior in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and toward its own Arab citizens.

The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment
posted by y2karl on May 18, 2010 - 105 comments

The little-known Jewish holiday of Christmas Eve. Seriously.
posted by andoatnp on Dec 23, 2009 - 38 comments

The manuscripts of David Kaufmann, Jewish scholar extraordinaire. Wonderful illuminations, inventive typography and even a little bit of naughtiness.
posted by tellurian on Jan 21, 2009 - 8 comments

Chanukkah is the story of a group of warriors (the Maccabees, later the Hasmoneans, led by Mattathias) who rose up against the Greeks (the Seleucids), united the Jews, reclaimed the Temple (Beit HaMikdash), and then lit one day's supply of oil which miraculously lasted for eight days, started a brand new holiday called Chanukkah, and brought Jewish sovereignty and peace to the land of Israel. Except that almost every part of that story is either wrong or completely misleading. [more inside]
posted by andoatnp on Dec 21, 2008 - 66 comments

Do you, or an older relative of yours, recognize any of these children? More than 70 children separated from their families during WWII, now all elderly men and women, are using the Internet to try to find some answers about their pasts, their families, and sometimes even their own names. They are soliciting help and suggestions in the comments sections on each story. [more inside]
posted by Asparagirl on Dec 19, 2008 - 21 comments

Sadie tells Maurice, "You’re a schmuck! You always were a schmuck and you always will be a schmuck! You look, act and dress like a schmuck! You’ll be a schmuck until the day you die! And if they ran a world-wide competition for schmucks, you would be the world’s second biggest schmuck!" "Why only second place?" Maurice asks. "Because you’re a schmuck!" Sadie screams. Some Jewish humor.
posted by serazin on Dec 7, 2008 - 27 comments

Did you know that the original Indiana Jones was an openly homosexual, Jewish, Nazi archeologist [more] and Obersturmführer in the party, hunting the Holy Grail? The documentary The Secret Glory chronicles his story (interview with the director: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4). [more inside]
posted by msaleem on May 27, 2008 - 23 comments

"Before you kill me, can you give me a bit of bread?" How a Jew, orphaned by Nazi atrocity, became a mascot -- to the Schutzstaffel.
posted by orthogonality on Aug 22, 2007 - 33 comments

JewTube. It's exactly what it sounds like.
posted by jeremy b on Aug 1, 2007 - 59 comments

He loves tradition: "[He] said he came to Virginia because he wanted to play football in a place where 'blacks knew their place'."

He gives free food to the poor: "After they had killed a deer, [he asked] where the local black residents lived. [He] then drove... to that neighborhood with the severed head of the deer. 'He proceeded to take the doe's head and stuff it into a mailbox'".

And even before "macaca", he enjoyed giving out clever nicknames: "[He] gave him the nickname 'Wizard,' because he shared a last name with.... the imperial wizard of the United Klans of America".

(But don't call him a Jew! That would be an "aspersion.")
posted by orthogonality on Sep 24, 2006 - 145 comments

Borat likes you. Do you like Borat? Not everyone does. Kazakhstan's Foreign Ministry is threatening to sue to prevent the country from being presented in a "derogatory way" by the caricature, a brainchild of UK comedian Sacha Boren Cohen, aka Ali G. [more inside, dziękuję]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Nov 17, 2005 - 37 comments

Iranian students demonstrate outside Italian embassy in Iran.Chanting anti-Zionism slogans, the ralliers called for the withdrawal of the Zionists from the occupied Palestine.
They also called for the Italian government's explanation on the Nov 15, 2000 assassination of the Eduardo Agnelli suspiciously at the hand of the zionists. Edoardo Agnelli, born in June 9, 1954 in New York of a Christian father and a Jewish mother, had converted to Islam four years before the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. He was the only son of the Italian tycoon Gianni Agnelli -director and the main shareholder of Fiat and Ferrari automaking factories - who died of prostate cancer in January 24, 2003.
Some pictures which prove he was a Moslem.
posted by persia on Nov 3, 2005 - 103 comments

Is there a Mogan Dovid in the Great in the Great Seal of the United States? It may simply be a pleasing arrangement, but some insist that it's George Washington's tribute to Haym Solomon(Salomon), the man who fueled the first American war machine.
posted by Citizen Premier on Aug 1, 2005 - 18 comments

"Filthy Jew." "'They are calling me a [expletive] Jew, and that I am responsible for killing Christ.'" But so what if at a private Christian school the "official academy newspaper runs a Christmas ad every year praising Jesus and declaring him the only savior, [signed by nearly] 200 academy staff members, including some department heads," and "[t]he academy commandant... a born-again Christian, said in a statement to cadets in June 2003 that their first responsibility is to their God"?

But it's not a private Christian school. It's a school run by the United States of America, a school where all the students swear to defend the U.S. Constitution against all enemies. It's the United States Air Force Academy, training the nation's future military leaders. [more inside]
posted by orthogonality on Apr 20, 2005 - 178 comments

The return of the Bnei menashe : Israel's Chief Rabbi has decided to recognize the members of India's Bnei Menashe community as descendants of the ancient Israelites. Previous discussion.
posted by dhruva on Apr 8, 2005 - 5 comments

"We're Hunting The Jews" go the chants at the Feyenoord soccer stadium in Rotterdam whenever Ajax is in town. Supporters of Ajax, one of the top Dutch football clubs based in Amsterdam, call themselves "Jews" or "Super Jews" based perhaps on historical Jewish communities. They wave Israeli flags and wear Stars of David in one of the oddest traditions in sport. Of course, the story wouldn't be complete without their opponents chanting "They've forgotten to gas you!" and hissing to mimic the gas chambers. Further complicating matters is the mosque being built overshadowing Feyenoord's stadium. Ajax wants the Jewish symbolism to stop to prevent further embarrassment, but this isn't the only case of "Jewish" clubs in European football, and the reaction they provoke.
posted by loquax on Feb 26, 2005 - 36 comments

And then there was one. Following the death of his neighbour Ishaq Levin, Zebulon Simentov has become the last Jew in Afghanistan. There have been Jews here since at least the eighth century, but now Simentov is on his own.

But the saddest fact of all is the fact that up until his death the two men hated each other.
posted by ciderwoman on Jan 26, 2005 - 20 comments

Kurds are the Closest Relatives of Jews Funny, They don't look Jewish:"Research has just begun into the ancient ties between Kurds and Jews. It would be interesting to see if the various Jewish groups have as strong a family tie to Kurds in the maternal lineages as they do in the paternal lineages. Preliminary studies indicate that Jewish populations in eastern Europe and Yemen have maternal origins that contain much more non-Israelite ancestry than their paternal origins. Despite this admixture with other groups, the Jewish Judean people ultimately began their existence in an area within or nearby Kurdistan, prior to migrating southwest to Israel. This exciting research showing that Kurds and Jews may have shared common fathers several millennia ago should, hopefully, encourage both Kurds and Jews to explore each others' cultures and to maintain the friendship that Kurds and Jews enjoyed in northern Iraq in recent times (as chronicled in Michael Rubin's recent article "The Other Iraq"). As Rubin indicates, the Kurdish leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani once visited Israel and met with Israeli government officials. Rubin refers to the Iraqi Kurds' "special affinity for Israel" and writes that "In the safe haven of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Jews and Israel are remembered fondly, if increasingly vaguely." Let us hope that this relationship can be renewed and strengthened."
posted by Postroad on Dec 29, 2004 - 51 comments

Highlights bigotry or encourages it?
Ali G comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's latest Channel 4 show, 'Borat's Television Programme', is being investigated by TV watchdogs following complaints about a sketch featuring an anti-Semitic song titled 'Throw the Jew down the well'.

A Channel 4 spokesman said: "Sacha Baron Cohen's humour is ironic and actually highlights bigotry and ignorance." The irony being that Baron is himself a Jew.
posted by Jase_B on Aug 22, 2004 - 24 comments

Searching Google for the word "Jew" brings up a clearing house of anti-jewish propaganda, Jew Watch.
WTF?
posted by jpburns on Apr 13, 2004 - 44 comments

Betrayed by Europe: An Expatriate’s Lament Journalist, novelist, and translator Nidra Poller, an American ex-pat who has been living in Paris with her family since 1972, writes in the latest issue of Commentary about her painful decision to leave her adopted homeland for the US. The main reason? Poller and her family are Jewish and scared for their lives. Her poignant essay is not just another report on the disturbing levels of anti-semitism in France or yet another French Jew abandoning the country for safer turf, but an examination of the power of hope (and inertia) in our lives, even when intellectually one sees no reason for hope: I'm being treated to a poignant lesson in European and Jewish history. The 30's: why did they stay? Why didn’t they run for their lives? Couldn’t they see what was happening? I see before me a vivid demonstration of the deep roots we dig to make our lives bloom, the intricate biology of a human life, irrigated with the lifeblood of a community, inextricably connected to a society, born of life to give life to keep life alive. Leaving is not packing up and tipping your hat goodbye. It is tearing live flesh out of a living matrix. A powerful and disturbing testimony.
posted by Asparagirl on Mar 14, 2004 - 74 comments

The August 9, 2003 edition of the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram Al-Arabi featured an interview with Dr. Nabil Hilmi, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Al-Zaqaziq who, together with a group of Egyptian expatriates in Switzerland, is preparing an enormous lawsuit against "all the Jews of the world."
For material stolen from the Pharaonic Egyptians during the Exodus ...
(link via The Daily Grail)
posted by thatwhichfalls on Aug 29, 2003 - 36 comments

The Hasidic Rebel. A blogger from inside the Hasidic community provides some insight into a lifestyle few are familiar with.
posted by srboisvert on Jul 17, 2003 - 11 comments

The Fighting Sixties. "In 1962, faced with a resurgent fascist movement, young Jewish men and women came together to oppose them." Searchlight magazine, through a comprehensive guide to the Jewish 1962 Committee (62 Group) presents a thorough historical rundown of anti-fascist activity in London. Eye witness accounts of London Battlegrounds, intelligence led actions, multi-racial, anti-fascist gangs and local heroes fighting back - stories to remember but also to warm the cockles of the heart.
posted by niceness on Oct 15, 2002 - 4 comments

Zionism - Outspoken criticism from the unlikeliest of places. Neturei Karta, members of this orthodox clique condemn zionism, claiming there is no place in the modern world for a jewish state.
posted by johnnyboy on Jul 22, 2002 - 75 comments

To be a great photographer, Garry Winogrand liked to claim during the 1970's, it was first of all necessary to be Jewish Why didn't they tell me this in art school? (via NYTimes)
posted by mrhappy on Jul 7, 2002 - 11 comments

Cadence engineer fired for activism: So, an engineer for Cadence Design Systems, on his own time and dime went to Bethlehem to do humanitarian work with the International Solidarity Movement, a group of pro-Palestinian activists who believe in non-violent resistance to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. When he returned, he was immediately terminated due to "inappropriate politics in an area where Cadence does business (Israel)". Should corporations have the right to mandate the political views of their employees, contractors and subsidiary workers? Would there be more outrage if he was fired for supporting the Israeli occupation? When a Christian's beliefs run contrary to Jewish interests, is it automatically fair to fire the Christian?
posted by dejah420 on May 29, 2002 - 57 comments