In 2013, a Hasidic filmmaker took the world by storm with her critically acclaimed feature length film, Fill the Void. It was distributed by Sony Pictures and premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Its writer-director, Rama Burstein, is a hasidic baalas teshuva, whose newest effort, The Wedding Plan, comes out this weekend (it opens May 12 in […]
The Jews Who Saved Monticello Thomas Jefferson is buried at Monticello, his estate in Charlottesville, Virginia, along with Rachel Phillips Levy, a traditional Jew. How did a Jewish grave end up in Monticello? The answer lies in the history of a family whose own story is every bit as American as that of Jefferson himself. […]
People might often think of Orthodox Jewish women as “barefoot and pregnant,” but probably don’t think of them as “pregnant and running marathons!” Beatie Deutsch, an American-born mother (of now five!) grew up athletic but stopped formal sports activities for many years when she started a family. Then, on a whim a couple years ago, […]
A few months ago, I was approached by NRG360, which started out as a division of the Israeli newspaper, Maariv. They were doing profiles on six Jews who lived outside of Israel and asked if they could showcase me and my work. It seemed like a great opportunity to break down stereotypes about Orthodox Jews, […]
Thousands of years ago our prophets spoke of a day when Jews, who had been exiled and spread around the world, would gather and return to the land of Israel. A man named Michael Freund, founder and director of Shavei Israel, might be helping to bring this millennia-old navuah to fruition. Shavei Israel, which means […]
Now that “Fake News” is well established as a thing, Reza Aslan has introduced us to “Fake Documentaries” via his CNN Believer series which aired last week. I’ve read that his coverage of Hindus and Catholics was pretty awful. Critics have said he focused on fringe groups with little legitimacy while offering no context or overview […]
