Az Yashir is an original Jewish music album of songs for Shabbat from singer and composer Yair Rosenberg. As a journalist, Rosenberg has interviewed White House officials, profiled Israeli prime ministers, covered Jews in baseball, and even chronicled the translation…
One of the ways to prepare a child for a vacation is to start small. For example, take them to a local aquarium or other nearby attraction to get them used to the idea of touring. (photo from Dawn M.…
Gloria Levi’s recently published creative memoir The Hotelkeeper’s Daughter is a tribute to her family. And not just the family from whom she comes – the people who inhabit the main part of this story – but also the family…
I had the privilege of seeing Mark Leiren-Young’s play Bar Mitzvah Boy when it premièred at Pacific Theatre in 2018. It was funny, edgy and insightful, and well-acted by Gina Chiarelli and Richard Newman. It contained a lot of local…
A basketball game may not be able to bring about world peace, but at least one game has acted as a bridge to increasing mutual understanding and empathy. The graphic novel The Basketball Game (Firefly Books, 2022) is based on the…
When Toronto poet Simon Constam emailed me with a request to read his debut collection of poetry, Brought Down, he described it as “notable because it addresses people’s daily experience of God and the Jewish religious tradition.” He noted, “it…
I always look forward to reading whatever Adeena Karasick writes, even though I know I won’t understand all of it. To be generous to myself, I’d say at least 20% of her latest publication, Massaging the Medium: Seven Pechakuchas (Institute…
It’s been eight years or so since I reviewed Mark Binder’s The Brothers Schlemiel, which recently has been reissued by Light Publications with the title The Village Twins, and written under Binder’s pen name, Izzy Abrahmson. I knew this story…
A Visit to Moscow is a beautifully illustrated and haunting graphic novel. In a brief 72 pages, it relates the story of an American rabbi who, on a 1965 trip to the Soviet Union, sneaks away from his delegation in…
Danny Danon, former Israeli envoy to the United Nations. (photo from IGPO / Chaim Tzach) “Jerusalem is an inseparable part of Israel and her eternal capital,” said an Israeli prime minister. “No United Nations vote can alter that historic fact.”…
