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3 weeks ago | 
jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com | Daniel Friedman
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1 month ago | 
jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com | Joanne Palmer
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2 months ago | 
jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com | Larry Yudelson |Deb Herman
As Passover winds down, here’s hoping that your travel plans worked out better than those of one unfortunate Israeli man whose efforts to return to his home in Safir were foiled by Israel’s Sabbath-observing public transportation schedule, his own erratic driving, and ultimately the Israeli police.
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2 months ago | 
jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com | Joanne Palmer |Deb Herman
When a piece of fiction really works for you as a reader, the line between its world — a made-up place — and your own — the real one — blurs. By the end of a successful novel, you, the reader, can feel so firmly rooted in it, no matter what happened in it, that you’re sure you’ve breathed its make-believe air into your actual lungs.
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2 months ago | 
jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com | Joanne Palmer |Deb Herman
Alexander Smukler and his wife, Alla Straks, Russian Jewish emigres from the former Soviet Union who live in Montclair — and who are familiar to our readers because Mr. Smukler analyzes the war in Ukraine and the deadly game behind it for our series Global Game of Thrones — went to see the documentary “October 8” on the Saturday night before Pesach.
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2 months ago | 
jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com | Curt Schleier |Deb Herman
Tina Landau is having quite a year. She opened two shows on Broadway this season, in itself a remarkable feat. But what makes it extraordinary is that she wrote and directed both. “Floyd Collins” is in previews at Lincoln Center, but the play I really want to talk about is “Redwood.” It is the most positive Jewish play in decades. “Parade,” “Prayers for the French Republic,” “Leopoldstadt,” even “Fiddler on the Roof” are rooted in antisemitism.
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2 months ago | 
jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com | Banji Ganchrow |Deb Herman
Before I begin, let’s discuss the concept of “being spoiled.” And since it is my column, I will talk about me. Am I spoiled? My dad always said, “You can always have more, but more people have less.”So am I spoiled? To a certain extent, yes. Do I have cleaning help? No, I do not. Am I wearing the same clothes from 20 years ago? Yes. Does that make me less spoiled? Probably not, but, whatever. In relation to the holiday of Passover, I have been very spoiled. (Of course, that is all relative as well. Mexico?
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2 months ago | 
jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com | Joanne Palmer |Deb Herman
It’s always hard to make the transition from Pesach to Yom HaShoah. I know that the Israelis are good at it. They manage to go from Yom HaZikaron to Yom Ha’Atzmaut seamlessly. That seems hard, it does, but not quite as hard, because it’s going from grief to joy. It’s the direction the human spirit yearns for, even if it yearns vainly. This one, though, going from joy to grief, while less aspirational, may in some ways be more natural — even the most wonderful lives generally end in decline.
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2 months ago | 
jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com | Shammai Engelmayer |Deb Herman
If they gave out an award for the sickest April Fool’s joke, the current White House crowd most certainly would be among this year’s finalists, if not the winners. April 1, of course, is April Fool’s Day, but it is also a day on which all manner of formally recognized annual month-long civic observances are presidentially proclaimed — observances only a fool would turn his or her back on.
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2 months ago | 
jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com | Larry Yudelson |Deb Herman
What happens when a yielding object meets a totally resistible force? That’s the metaphysical question underlying the fascination with the baseball doubleheader held in Teaneck on Tuesday, which pitted the two losingest teams in collegiate baseball in a match that promised to break a multiyear losing streak — and in fact broke two. Lehman College hadn’t won a baseball game since 2023; it’s lost 42 games in a row.