Salt, that old standby, gets fancy
| 7:00 AM Aug 11, 2009
“Pass the salt” should be the simplest request in the world, one requiring no further elucidation. But in recent years, salt has become an accessory in the fickle world of fashionable food. What was a simple question has become complicated. Now the questions might be: “Which salt? What color? What size crystals? Sea salt or the mined kind? From where?”
Homemade pretzels as housewarming gifts, and other topics in modern Jewish eating
| 7:00 AM Jun 11, 2009
Whenever I need a housewarming gift, I go to my local farmer’s market for two dozen crackling, salt-encrusted, handmade pretzels. It is my riff on a medieval custom still observed by Russians, Eastern Europeans, some Middle Easterners, and the Jews whose ancestors lived among them: bread and salt comprise the proper gift for anyone in ...
A family blurs the borders between religion, superstition, and OCD
| 12:00 PM Sep 26, 2008
Anyone who’s been to a Jewish wedding has witnessed the ritual of the groom stepping on a glass. And most of us have seen hamsahs, the hand-shaped amulets often displayed in people’s homes or worn as jewelry. But how many of us have had a chicken killed on our behalf to ward off bad luck?
Nextbook ...
A haftorah of remorse and return
Though only a tiny fraction of what it was in the 18th century, Barbados’s Jewish community—and its 1750 synagogue—still stand proud
In early 20th-century Poland, poet Shmuel Nadler took off his yarmulke and took up with the Communists
After a painstaking survey, Tablet Magazine awards title for nation's tastiest triangular treat
Making Palestinian chicken and Moroccan challah for a Shabbat dinner with Alice Waters
The national infatuation with pork has reached Jewish cuisine, prohibitions notwithstanding
When we were kids, I wanted to follow in my brother’s footsteps. Now, as adults, I’m reminded why.
Passover is about freedom, so let’s not encourage our kids to be slaves to their allergies
My children are becoming German citizens, and I’m going nuts
Playing the defiant Vashti in a day school Purim play awakened my inner feminist
On Valentine’s Day, reflecting on the limits and boundlessness of a father’s love
Plus-size retail queen Deb Malkin insists that fashion isn’t only for the skinny
Amid financial shortfalls and a Conservative crisis, the Jewish Theological Seminary will shutter its cantorial school
As Chabad opens preschools across the country, secular parents try to reconcile the movement with the classroom
The recession has hit the rabbinate, too. How are the newly ordained—and laid-off veterans—handling the rabbi glut?
How to reconcile religious prohibitions on autopsies with the need to determine a cause of death
From the archives: The neverending fetishistic fascination with Jews and intelligence
Immunization fears lead to another outbreak among New York’s ultra-Orthodox
For an Orthodox preteen, Tonya Harding was a hero—and a Purim inspiration
A crossword puzzle celebrating Judaism’s denominations
The Coney Island attraction who made wrestling history
