World News
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13,000 Jews were driven out of Poland in 1968. Now, some are returning to tell their story.
(JTA) — In March 1968, Rachelle Halpern walked into her university in Szczecin, Poland, and found a group of her classmates gathered around a newspaper. She asked what they were reading about. The answer came: “Zionists.” Halpern didn’t understand. Who were the Zionists? One classmate said, “The Jews.” “But I’m a Jew,” said Halpern. Her…
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The 2026 J. I. Segal Award for Yiddish literature is now accepting submissions
די יערלעכע פּרעמיע פֿאַר ייִדישער ליטעראַטור, אַ טראַדיציע פֿון דער מאָנטרעאָלער ביבליאָטעק במשך פֿון די פֿאַרגאַנגענע 50 יאָר, זוכט אָריגינעלע ביכער אָנגעשריבן אויף ייִדיש און אַרויסגעלאָזט צווישן דעם 1טן יאַנואַר 2024 און דעם 31סטן דעצעמבער 2025. די מחברים קענען זײַן פֿון אומעטום. דער מחבר וואָס געווינט די „פּרעמיע פֿאַר ייִדישער ליטעראַטור אויפֿן נאָמען פֿון ד״ר…
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Cultural boycotts of Israel just reached peak absurdity
Nadav Lapid is a filmmaker whose work has become increasingly ferocious in its indictment of Israeli society, nationalism and moral self-deception. His latest film, Yes, is not a plea for Israeli innocence, but rather a savage, obscene, self-implicating reckoning with a country in which language, music, sex and grief have all been drafted into the…
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The Jewish friendship that let David Hockney experience ‘dangerous perfection’
Think of the British painter David Hockney, who died Thursday at 88, and you think of color. 1967’s “A Bigger Splash,” almost certainly his most famous work, is a study in blue so profound that it’s nearly synesthetic: The pool is such a saturated cool that you can feel the water lap your feet, and…
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Aristotle, Jewish ethics and the vexing case of Graham Platner
In last Tuesday’s Democratic Senate primary in Maine, nearly three quarters of voters decided that Graham Platner — Iraq War veteran, oysterman, Reddit misogynist and SS tattoo bearer — was their best hope to defeat the Republican incumbent, Susan Collins, come November. While the result was wildly cheered by his supporters, other Democrats and independents…
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What does it say that Gwyneth Paltrow is advertising luxury Israeli real estate?
What does Gwyneth Paltrow have to do with a new luxury apartment building in Tel Aviv suburb Herzliya? Not much, it seems, judging from a new ad that dropped this week. It features Paltrow going on a morning jog in the city — New York City, that is. She wakes up, voices some pat complaints…
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Abdul El-Sayed is courting Jewish voters — without moderating his views on Israel
Michigan senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed isn’t toning down his rhetoric to win over Jewish voters. He’s called Israel’s action in Gaza a genocide, wants to withdraw both offensive and defensive military aid to Israel, called the Israeli government “evil” like Hamas, has rebuffed questions about whether Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish…
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My summer plans prove it: The Jewish Catskills are alive and kicking
In the collective memory of a certain generation, the Borscht Belt is synonymous with its gloriously garish excesses: massive resorts where spangled entertainers rivaled the kitchen in the production of schmaltz; a frenzy of activities that attracted crowds who reveled in the fruits of upward mobility, including more food than they could possibly ever eat.…
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A ‘deficit of courage’ killed the free press in Germany. Will American journalists find the courage to thwart Trump?
Paul Reusch was managing director of a major German industrial conglomerate known as GHH, whose holdings included Bavaria’s largest newspaper, the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten. After two meetings with Adolf Hitler early in 1932, Reusch signed an agreement that the Munich broadsheet would refrain from “all unwarranted and personal attacks against Hitler and individual National Socialist…
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YiddishPOP can bring more diversity to American Jewish education
Every Sunday morning, a group of families in Stockholm, Sweden, meets in a local school to create handicrafts, do gymnastics — and learn Yiddish. Katka Mazurczak, the instructor of this grassroots group called The Yiddish Club, told me that the families seem to really enjoy the weekly Yiddish immersion. One of the resources she uses…
