Israel

Book Review: Shush! Growing up Jewish Under Stalin

June 16, 2009

Have you ever read any books that perfectly articulate how you see the world?  Books that you can show to your friends when you don’t feel like explaining your life view and say, “Here, read this, and you will understand me?”  Shush, A Memoir-Growing up Jewish under Stalin by Emil Draitser, is such a book for me. There are a couple of books that really explain what being Russian/Jewish is all about:  From Lenin to Lennon, Sashenka, and  The Russian ...

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Ivri Lider in Washington, DC: On Wanting to Be Israeli

June 3, 2009

For those of you who live on another planet (or possibly not in Jewlandia in which case you are hereby pardoned,) Ivri Lider is a very popular Israeli musician.  Not only has he had more hits than Micahel Tyson, he has also publicly come out as gay and still remained successful and popular, which  is a tremendous accomplishment in the fickle world of showbusiness. Thanks to the kind generosity of 16th Street JCC in DC, I scored two tickets to ...

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יום השועה

April 21, 2009

My mom calls me. “Do you have a candle,” she asks. “No..”  I think of all the Glade scented candles I have.  She can’t mean those.   Her voice sounds serious. “Why not?  Don’t you know what day it is?” I start to panic.  I didn’t know.  I felt like I failed some sort of Jew test. “No.  What day is it?” “It’s Holocaust Memorial Day.  Go light a candle.” Oh, I had candles.  But,I wasn’t going to light a ...

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I have a love/hate relationship with A.B. Yehoshua

April 20, 2009

Last night, Mr. B and I went to go see A.B. Yehoshua at Sixth and I.  I can’t believe how much they’ve completely renovated what was a stale building and community somewhere on the outskirts of Chinatown to a vibrant focal meeting point for all kinds of DC Jews and at the caliber of speakers they tend to garner.  I am constantly impressed at the amount of work they do on their brand, especially to engage people in their 20s-30s ...

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First post: Already stirring up unneeded controversy

January 7, 2009

Thoughts on Tunnels in Gaza: Yesterday, Dan and I were listening to an interview on NPR with a Christian Science Monitor reporter who had gone into the tunnels in Gaza. That report is here. I had always heard that Palestinians used these tunnels only to smuggle weapons, but it appears that they use them as a major food supply source as well: BLOCK: You say maybe weapons. But Israel has been quite emphatic that weapons are absolutely coming through shipped ...

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