Culture

Israeli series ‘Fauda’ tops in Lebanon

The fifth season of the Israeli action-thriller “Fauda” ranked first among Netflix shows in Lebanon during the week of Sept. 7-13, according to the subscription-based streaming service’s Tudum country rankings for the period.

Not your typical break-the-fast

Yom Kippur break-the-fast has ballooned into a significant event in the Jewish calendar. Though menus have become more extravagant, for many Ashkenazi Jews, the heart of the meal are the classics — bagels, smoked fish, blintzes and cake.

Argentine judge: Return the art!

A Dutch journalist hunting for art treasures belonging to an Amsterdam Jewish art dealer spent years trying to get answers from Patricia Kadgien, the daughter of the Nazi financier who had made off with some of them, with no luck. So last year he went to her house in Mar del Plata, a resort city on Argentina’s Atlantic coast.

336,004,951 — The true wealth of Dolly Parton

336,004,951. That number summarizes the main accomplishment of Dolly Parton, the beloved country singer who died last month as an enormously wealthy woman. It is the number of books distributed for free, to children in the US and in four foreign countries, as of this month, by the early-childhood literacy intervention program she founded 31 years ago.

Galliano bows out of Met exhibit

John Galliano withdrew from a planned exhibition of his work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in response to an escalating controversy over the museum’s decision to honor the fashion designer despite his history of anti-Semitic and racist remarks.

I.J. Singer is part of Italy’s Yiddish moment

In 1932, Israel Joshua Singer boarded a ship bound for New York, where he had been invited to report on the US for Yiddish-speaking Jews like himself. “Americans are a difficult people to understand,” the famed novelist wrote in one of his first articles from the US. Nearly a century later, his first encounters with America have appeared together in Italian translation.

Jewish musician’s concert canceled over ‘Zionist views’

Jewish musician Mikey Pauker is appealing a federal court ruling that dismissed his discrimination lawsuit after a California retreat center canceled his scheduled Chanukah concert due to his support for Israel.

Met honors Galliano — did the designer do teshuvah?

Before the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that it would honor fashion designer John Galliano with a major Costume Institute exhibition next spring, the museum convened at least two unusual meetings: a face-to-face with Galliano and a number of prominent rabbis, and a larger meeting with the recently retired Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, museum officials and several prominent Jewish leaders.

Seeking Mr. Right — and finding friendship — in ‘Bloody Murray’

It shouldn’t be too hard for a smart, funny, and successful Israeli woman to meet Mr. Right. At least, that’s the theory hilariously put to the test in “Bloody Murray,” the hit Israeli romantic comedy that recently made its US debut on ChaiFlicks.

French-Jewish DJ Barbara Butch stands strong

The popular French Jewish DJ Barbara Butch is striking a defiant tone after pro-Palestinian activists disrupted her concert in Grenoble, France, vowing not to be cowed from performing.

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When a sukkah is on an elephant

The Talmud, in tractate Sukkah, discusses constructing a sukkah on an elephant. The Biblical Museum of Natural History in Israel made it happen. “It’s hard to avoid talking about the elephant in the room, which is literally the elephant in the room,” said Rabbi Natan Slifkin, the museum director known as the “zoo rabbi.”