Author

Eddy Portnoy

Eddy Portnoy, a Tablet contributing editor, teaches Yiddish language and literature at Rutgers University.


Recently by Eddy Portnoy

Family

Divorce Court

Long before Jerry Springer, divorcing couples fought it out before Warsaw’s rabbinical court
By Eddy Portnoy | 7:00 AM Feb 18, 2010

One of the convenient aspects of studying Jewish history is its 3,000-year-old paper trail—the texts and records of the rabbinical and intellectual elite allow us to examine contours of Jewish law and history. But we tend to know less about the lives of average Jews, who didn’t receive much attention in the writings of the ...

Family

Fine Young Criminal

The story of a yeshiva boy who turned to the gang life and lived to write about it
By Eddy Portnoy | 7:00 AM Jan 21, 2010

One of the convenient aspects of studying Jewish history is its 3,000-year-old paper trail—the texts and records of the rabbinical and intellectual elite allow us to examine contours of Jewish law and history. But we tend to know less about the lives of average Jews, who didn’t receive much attention in the writings of the ...

Sports

Big Man

The Coney Island attraction who made wrestling history
By Eddy Portnoy | 7:00 AM Dec 17, 2009

One of the convenient aspects of studying Jewish history is its 3,000-year-old paper trail—the texts and records of the rabbinical and intellectual elite allow us to examine contours of Jewish law and history. But we tend to know less about the lives of average Jews, who didn’t receive much attention in the writings of the ...

Sex & Body

Manhood, Interrupted

The grisly aftermath of a broken engagement
By Eddy Portnoy | 7:00 AM Nov 19, 2009

One of the convenient aspects of studying Jewish history is its 3,000-year-old paper trail—the texts and records of the rabbinical and intellectual elite allow us to examine contours of Jewish law and history. But we tend to know less about the lives of average Jews, who didn’t receive much attention in the writings of the ...

Slideshow 

Sports

Flexing Some Muscle

The boxers and strongmen who turned the image of the Jewish nebbish on its head
By Eddy Portnoy | 7:00 AM Oct 20, 2009

For many years, certain Jews—and those who dislike them—have relished an image of the Jewish body as skinny and weak, hunched-over, barely able to hold up its Jewish bobblehead, with a gargantuan brain and massive, jutting nose. This is a caricature, obviously, but one that is based on a tiny kernel of ethnic reality, a ...

Ritual & Observance

The Futurist

You might not have heard of Naftali Imber, but you've heard his most famous work
By Eddy Portnoy | 7:00 AM Oct 15, 2009

One of the convenient aspects of studying Jewish history is its 3,000-year-old paper trail—the texts and records of the rabbinical and intellectual elite allow us to examine contours of Jewish law and history. But in contrast, we tend to know less about the lives of average Jews, whose lives didn’t receive much attention in the ...

Ritual & Observance

The Festive Meal

When Yom Kippur was a time to eat, drink, and be merry
By Eddy Portnoy | 7:00 AM Sep 24, 2009

When Jews decide to chow down on Yom Kippur, it’s usually done clandestinely, sneaking tasty morsels in a dark pantry, or disappearing into a diner in some nearby non-Jewish neighborhood. But furtive noshing wasn’t always the heretical path of choice on the Day of Atonement. Just over a century ago, a range of leftists held ...

Sex & Body

Jewish Abortion Technician

After a young woman’s 1871 death, the press took aim at an immigrant from Plotsk
By Eddy Portnoy | 7:00 AM Aug 20, 2009

A drawing of Alice Augusta Bowlsby from an 1871 pamphlet called “The Great ‘Trunk Mystery’ of New York City”
New Yorkers sometimes complain that the city stinks. They have no idea. When New York was a horse-powered town, the stench of manure and urine was gag-inducing, especially in the dog days of summer. It was on ...

Ritual & Observance

Grudge Match

When bris attendees turn into brawlers
By Eddy Portnoy | 7:00 AM Jul 16, 2009

When Yiddish journalism came into its own, just over 100 years ago, its writers and editors used the forms of reportage they found in the general press. For the first time, Yiddish readers, many of whom could not read anything but that language, were treated to editorials, cartoons, crime blotters, sports reports, and human interest pieces about their own community.

Science & Technology

In the Palm of His Hand

A look at Abraham Hochman, 19th-century Lower East Side clairvoyant
By Eddy Portnoy | 6:30 AM Jun 18, 2009

If you’re a historian, or even if you just play one on TV, you’re keenly aware that one of the convenient aspects of Jewish history is a 3,000-year-old paper trail—material that has allowed Jewish historians to poke and probe the texts of the rabbinical and intellectual elite that crafted the contours of Jewish law and ...