Apologies for the delay in posting; this was due to circumstances far beyond my control. Whew. Okay. A moment before the Purim holiday ends, let’s take a look at days gone by, in particular the Adloyada parade. “Adloyada” is a bastardization of the phrase “ad lo yada” o...

Purim, the Jewish holiday coming up this week, is a time for Jews to cut loose. Some people will drink until there is no tomorrow (until you have no idea of how drunk you really are). But lot of people forget that there are to-do mitzvahs (good deeds) associated with the Purim holiday. Green Prophet...

This is a response to last arguments and a post to me on the An Amazing First Century thread, which is too long for me to follow using dial-up… oleg: Historians are not trying to straighten out theology. It's none of their business. But they are well equipped to study Jesus Christ as a hi...

The Philadephia Daily News recently ran a compelling profile of international Israeli boxers Ran Nakash (pictured) and Elad Shmouel. The main thrust of the piece is that being raised in the Middle East makes one a particularly hard brand of badass, making Israel an emerging source for fighting talen...

Back in the early Sixties, most kids’ mothers wore frilly cocktail aprons to entertain. Not my Israeli mother. Hers looked like this. And her miniskirts and pantsuits looked like this. My mother, a singer of international folksongs, had a great collection of gowns. Many were created at Esther ...

About five years ago, Emanuel Peled made headlines when he was convicted of fraudulently billing suckers for phone sex calls they didn’t make. He stole hundreds of thousands of shekels from strangers by threatening to make public these peoples’ love of audio porn, even though in most cas...

In a trend that runs parallel to the exploding popularity of pole dancing lessons among North American soccer moms, Israeli women - even Baby Boom-generation Ashkenaziot (Jews of Eastern European descent) - have been flocking to belly dancing activities and workshops in recent years. The art form...

The world of haredi observant Jews is one that most secular Israelis never get a chance to see - and if they do, they find it alien, even threatening. Photographer Yuval Nadel, an Israeli-born Jew with a secular up-bringing, became familiar with and learned to appreciate and respect the people who [...

Anhedonia is “an inability to experience pleasure from normally pleasurable life events� and in addition to being the working title for Wood Allen’s “Annie Hall� - it also describes a feeling Israelis wrestle with on a daily basis. Nissan Shor, is the author of the new book “Dancing With...

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/01/05/germany.battlefield/index.html Via my friend Scott, some evidence that the movie Gladiator got (perhaps by accident) more things right than he or I thought. Archaeologists have found more than 600 relics from a huge battle between a Roman army and Barbarian...