Navigate to News section

Sundown: The Game of Death

A painful metaphor, a strange role model, and a stupid mistake

by
Hadara Graubart
June 25, 2009

• A new Holocaust board game: “Once a train reaches the ‘finish line,’ the game is completed and it is revealed that the destination of the trains is Auschwitz. Nobody ‘wins.’” Sound like fun? It’s not supposed to be. [WSJ]
• On the Orthodox Union’s website, Chana Willig Levy draws parallels between the Kindle and Jewish life. Yes, the electronic book-reading doohickey. “The Kindle’s inner workings remain a mystery for most of us. … Similarly, the inner workings of our planet are shrouded in mystery.” [OU]
• Apparently, 20 years or so of gradually increasing involvement by women in Judaism is enough to make up for the thousands of years preceding; Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin feels there’s now a need for his book, The Modern Men’s Torah Commentary. [Jewish Week]
• Israeli officials plan to use Canada as inspiration in trying to better integrate the nation’s various cultural populations, a goal that’s probably easier to achieve when people live miles from their closest neighbor. [Globe and Mail]
• The editors of a Colorado paper try to make up for using the phrase “of Jewish descent” to describe a suspected criminal by falling all over themselves to parse that age old question: How else do you describe a hairy guy with a big nose? [Vail Daily]

Hadara Graubart was formerly a writer and editor for Tablet Magazine.