Arts and Culture

What's Wrong with Israel education in the Diaspora?

What Jewish news outlets for youth get wrong: Why they should provide content to make kids (and their parents) laugh about Israel – instead of making them feel disheartened or angry.

Arts and Culture

Jewish Gangsters: Thoughts on the Tough Guys Series at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

By Joanna Steinhardt

Joanna Steinhardt examines the Jewish gangster mythos, and why it’s only nostalgic, and doesn’t apply to the crooks of today.

Faith and Practice

Reconstructing Yiddishkeit

By Ben Weiner

Coming of age in an unprecedented riot of opportunities for self-expression, I gravitated toward the category of what Heeb Magazine founder Jennifer Bleyer calls “dim sum Jews.”

Arts and Culture

Building an Ark: On the Search for an Authentic Jewish Relationship to the Arts

By Joshua Boettiger

Where I grew up in Northampton, Mass., it went without saying that the Jews were the artists.

Arts and Culture

“The Family Playing Host to the Missile”: A Review of Rachel Zolf’s "Neighbour Procedure"

By Nava EtShalom

Nava EtShalom reviews the Rachel Zolf’s newest book of poetry, Neighbour Procedure (Coach House, 2010), and discusses its politics of Israel and of poetics.

Faith and Practice

Dedicated Jewish Contemplatives: A Jewish Monastic option?

By Norman R. Davies

Norman R. Davies is a Dedicated Jewish Contemplative – a Jewish monk. He writes for Zeek on what’s that like, and the possibilities in Judaism for a monastic lifestyle.

Life and Action

Cool Jews!

By Angela Himsel

Angela Himsel points out the disproportionate amount of Jewish intellectuals, and ponders bigotry and assumptions.

Arts and Culture

Autumns in New York and Albert Murray

By Sanford Pinsker

Sanford Pinsker reviews the work of legendary novelist and social critic Albert Murray.

News and Politics

Marilyn Sneiderman joins the 14% of Jewish Women Leaders

By Jo Ellen Green Kaiser

New Avodah Executive Director Marilyn Sneiderman breaks one glass ceiling, only to bump into another.

Faith and Practice

History, Memory, and Identity: A Conversation with Laurence Silberstein

By Valerie Saturen

Laurence Silberstein, author of The Postzionism Debates: Knowledge and Power in Israeli Culture (Routledge, May 1999) discusses the evolving relationship between history and identity among Israelis and American Jews with Valerie Saturen, Editor of Middle East Mirror.