Defending J.D. Salinger's Half-Jewish Roots

I was reading Virginia Heffernan's article for Tablet about her encounter as a young woman with J.D. Salinger in Cornish, NH.  Salinger died at age 91 on January 28th, 2010.  Heffernan, who is a convert,  reflected nicely on his half-Jewish ... [Read more]

Real Talk Parsha: Beshalach

MaNishtana Fact No. 11: I'm a big fan of Aquaman. Not so much the costume but the character. I think he's highly underused and has a lot of untapped potential because it's easier to write him off as a third string character. But the dude is ... [Read more]

On Being Black, White, and Jewish

The news this week has been saturated with issues of race, otherness, and problems of identity in a society that's most comfortable drawing boundaries and lines. On Sunday, the New York Times ran a story on Rabbi Capers C. Funnye, Jr., the first ... [Read more]

No Sex With Bedouins?

High school girls in the Israeli town of Kiryat Gat are being warned not to become romantically involved with Bedouins, via a program run by a social worker named Chaim Shalom. A 10-minute film called Sleeping With the Enemy cautions girls that ... [Read more]

What is Frum Porn?

By now I am sure you have all heard of Shaindy.com, which is a website catering to Orthodox Jews who want to meet other Orthodox Jews for extra-marital affairs. I am also sure you have browsed through - and laughed at - the Chassidic sex ads in ... [Read more]

Cousin Moishe's Thoughts On Your Upcoming Interfaith Wedding

The following email was sent to Noah, a secular Jew about to marry his non-Jewish fiancee Sheila, by Noah's baal teshuvah cousin Moishe. By an odd and fortuitous chain of events, the email found its way to Jewcy HQ. The people in this exchange are ... [Read more]

Chagall in Postville

Eli Valley has never been one to back down from a controversial viewpoint. In his new comic for Jewcy (complete with beautiful coloring/shading by our very own Craig Leinoff), Valley borrows from that other great Jewish artist, Chagall, to give ... [Read more]

28 Days, 28 Ideas: Idea #2

During the month of February, six very different media outlets, with six different readerships (plus a major Jewish organization for good measure...and so no one gets hurt) have partnered to create aplatform and a mini-blog appropriately titled 28 ... [Read more]

Real Talk Parsha: Bo

So, after Pharaoh's back and forth yo-yo game with Moses, Egypt gets hit with the last of the plagues, including Death of the Firstborn.  Not sure if anyone realizes, but Death of the Firstborn is quite possibly the most devastating plague ... [Read more]

Jews and Germany: Why You Should Go, Even If It Makes Your Grandma Angry

I got a lot of flack from family and friends about visiting Germany, but no one had any compelling reasons for me to reconsider-- other than 'this feeling' that it was somehow wrong for a Jew to set foot in the former Nazi-land. Their feelings, ... [Read more]

Garfield Minus Garfield Plus God

When Dubliner Dan Walsh removed Garfield from the classic Jim Davis cartoons, drawing attention to the peculiar life and mind of his owner Jon Arbuckle, he created an internet phenomenon which has drawn between 30,000 and 300,000 hits per day ... [Read more]

Gary Shteyngart Becomes American

Unless there is a secret pocket of Choctaw Indians that look at this site, I'm going on under the assumption that very few of us are actual "native Americans." And if I could go out on even more of a limb, I'm going to guess a big ... [Read more]

Claiming J.D. Salinger (1919-2010)

Let me get this little bit out of the way right now: Louis Menand of The New Yorker wrote the following about "The Catcher in the Rye" ten years ago and I don't think it's been said any better and I have the good fortune of being wise ... [Read more]

So Long, and Thanks for All the Gefilte Fish: Saying Goodbye

A twentieth-century Eastern European writer who survived a variety of wars, movements, and renamings once said that he'd lived in five countries without ever leaving his house. During the fifteen months that I've been the editor of Jewcy, I've ... [Read more]

Now You Too Can Find Your Aryan Dreamgirl (Or Boy)

Have you ever found yourself frustrated while swimming in the dating pools overt at Match and eHarmony? Have you ever spend days scouring JDate for your dreamgirl but turning up your nose at all the olive skin and dark hair? Well, it seems your ... [Read more]

The Cynicism Behind Restoring Jewish Synagogues in Arab Countries

Are we witnessing a new vogue in restoring Jewish sites in the Middle East? The renovated Maimonides synagogue in Cairo will be officially inaugurated in March to much fanfare. The Maghen Avraham Synagogue in the heart of Beirut is being ... [Read more]

More Information from Inside the "Tefillin Terrorist" Flight

Last week, a flight from New York's LaGuardia airport going to Louisville, Kentucky was grounded in Philadelphia when a Jewish passenger wrapping tefillin was suspected of being a terrorist. Jewcy spoke briefly with "Caleb," a man who ... [Read more]

Why Many Jewish Outreach Workers Ignore Half-Jewish People

Jewish outreach professionals complain constantly that younger Jews with two Jewish parents are bored with Judaism and are constantly wandering off to join Buddhist zendos and Hindu ashrams, conjuring up an image of disobedient and insolent young ... [Read more]

Jews and Plastic Surgery

Three weeks ago, I wrote about the Matzah Ball, the “revolutionary” Jewish singles party on Christmas Eve, a.k.a the sleaziest Jewish-themed event I’ve ever been to. At the Matzah Ball, as I wrote, there was a table offering plastic surgery ... [Read more]