The Earliest Yiddish Poem
When we think of Yiddish, most of us envision an 18th-century Jewish shtetl in Poland or Russia, with Hasidic men in fur hats and bubbies in babushkes. But Yiddish, the Hebrew-German hybrid, actually...
View ArticleThe Things We Left Unsaid
Moshe Zvi Marvit is an absorbing writer, the kind of author whose descriptions linger in your brain long after you stop reading. His attention to detail is like something between Sherlock Holmes and a...
View ArticleShlemiels and Shlemazels
“A shlemiel,” explains Matthew Menachem Feuer at the beginning of the new documentary Shlemiel, “is a dreamer. And his dreams don’t match up with reality.” Feuer, a recent devotee of Orthodox Judaism,...
View ArticleA Christmas Special for Jews
There’s a certain magic to stop-motion animation–the animation technique that makes physically manipulated objects, like clay figurines, look like they’re moving on their own. It seems honest and...
View ArticleReal Jewish Ninjas
Yehoshua Sofer is the “Aluf Abir” (Aluf means “champion”) or headmaster of the Abir Warrior Arts school of self-defense in Jerusalem. According to him, Jews have practiced martial arts since biblical...
View ArticleA Tale of Two Crown Heightses
The neighborhood of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, is home to a large population of Hasidic Jews, and a large population of Caribbean immigrants. For the most part, the two groups have kept to...
View ArticleJumping for Joy
In Israel, the NaNach movement, a subset of Bratslav Hasidism, has attracted thousands of followers. The movement was founded in 1962 by Yisroel Dov Odesser, a Bratslav rabbi. Odesser claimed to have...
View ArticleChaim Potok and the Rebbe Walk into a Bar.
A farbrengen is a Hasidic spiritual gathering–it can be just a handful of people, or a few thousand. Stories and folktales are told, wordless niggunim are sung, and, more often than not, alcohol is...
View ArticleMitzvah Tantz
The mitzvah tantz is one of Hasidic Judaism’s most bizarre rituals. It takes place at weddings, when the leading members of a community–a prominent rabbi or the bride’s new father-in-law, or...
View ArticleVideo: Fake Hasids, Real Hasids
Hollywood has long been fascinated with Hasidic Jews. From A Stranger Among Us (1992) to New York I Love You (2009)—featuring Natalie Portman as a Satmar wife—to Madonna’s most recent film W.E. (2011),...
View ArticleVideo: Hasidic Boy Wins Chinese Dance-Off
However did we miss this? Does anyone know who this boy is, and how he made it to this dance contest in Shenzen, China? We would really like to know. The post Video: Hasidic Boy Wins Chinese Dance-Off...
View ArticleAn American Folksinger With A Hasidic Twist
When you first listen to Levi Robin‘s tender, breathy vocals and hypnotic fingerpicking, what comes to mind is likely Iron & Wine or Bob Dylan. But if you close your eyes and listen to the lyrics,...
View ArticleThe Other Kabbalah-Loving L.A. Musician
LA-based singer-songwriter Mikey Pauker’s inspirations come from across the map. From contemporary pop music to Jewish liturgy, hasidut, kabbalah, and his own Jewish experiences, Pauker skillfully...
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When Falling in Love Means Leaving Ultra-Orthodoxy Behind
Meira is young, Hasidic, and miserable. She hides her birth control pills and her doo-wop records from her husband Shulem, roaming the wintry streets of Montreal just to get air. “Why are you trying to...
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A New, True Story About Growing Up Hasidic and Leaving
Ex-Hasidic narratives — they seemed to be publishing’s hot ticket for a few minutes, with Anouk Markovits’s I Am Forbidden, Leah Vincent’s Cut Me Loose, and others. But Unpious editor Shulem Deen’s new...
View ArticleWhen Bob Dylan Went Hasidic at a Chabad Telethon
Bob Dylan is a well-known iconoclast, from his combative tone with reporters (see this clip from the 1967 Dylan documentary Don’t Look Back) to his born-again Christian phase in the late 1970s and...
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Why Hasids Celebrate Xmas Eve (Sort Of)
Christmas Eve has such a marked place in European Jewish history that it has its own name: Nittel Nacht. As a precaution against the violent acts by marauding Eastern European and Russian Christians,...
View ArticleBizarre Torah Taxidermy in the Heart of Jewish Brooklyn
Tucked away in a brownstone in the Brooklyn shtetl of Borough Park is a family-friendly attraction of almost Biblical proportions: Torah Animal World, or the “spiritual taxidermy center” of New York...
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These Hasidic Legos Are Coming to a Death Star Shul Near You
The wonder of Legos is that you’re supposed to be able to build anything you can imagine. While sitting around their Baltimore Shabbos table, Tobey Finkelstein and family decided that what they wanted...
View ArticleRabbi Art Green (still) believes Hasidic ideas are key to a vibrant modern...
(JTA) — Rabbi Art Green is a scholar of worldwide renown, the author of dozens of books, one of the world’s leading experts on Hasidic Judaism and perhaps the only person ever to lead two different...
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