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Circumcision, Decisions, and Artistic Visions

The week that was on Tablet magazine

by
Nona Willis Aronowitz
June 29, 2012
(Margarita Korol/Tablet Magazine)
(Margarita Korol/Tablet Magazine)

Vladislav Davidzon got his hands on an anti-Semitic, thoroughly insane banned film at Cannes. Talia Lefkowitz, a volunteer from New York in an IDF paratrooper unit, reports from a bunker on rockets fired from Gaza. And Mimi Rosenbush writes of a 50-year-old Sunday brunch tradition in Chicago that may be coming to an end.

The Scroll was rife with guests again this week. Zack Beauchamp introduced himself by explaining how Judaism can be a “religion for atheists.” Then he pondered the question of a lesbian interfaith wedding, the moral question behind the health care law, and what we can learn from anti-Israel longshot candidate for Congress, Brooklynite Charles Barron. Oh, and the connection between medieval Jews and libertarians.

Yair Rosenberg jumped in to defend the practice of circumcision, which is under attack in a regional German court. He also reported on a fraught evacuation of a Jewish settlement, and the man who’s breathing new life into the Israeli National Archives.

I examined two Jewish pop culture icons: Nora Ephron, who died Tuesday, and Woody Allen, whose love for Italy is very much alive. I took issue with France’s Google censorship and Alice Walker’s self-censorship. And after Iran’s vice-president ran off at the mouth about how Jews must be running the drug trade because there’s not a single “Zionist” addict out there, I found an Orthodox Jew who begged to differ.

Nona Willis Aronowitz is a writer, editor, and author of Girldrive: Criss-crossing America, Redefining Feminism. Her Twitter feed is @Nona.