Andrew Silow-Carroll RSS

is JTA's editor in chief.

Latest

• Smoked meat without cherry soda? Canadians say ‘Thanks, Trump.’

  October 19, 2018 4:07pm

  (JTA) — Canadians may be able these days to blame U.S. President Trump for a lot of things. But a shortage of cherry soda to go with their classic smoked deli meats isn’t one of them. CBC News reported Friday that Montreal’s iconic Jewish deli, Schwartz’s, had run out of cans of Cott Black Cherry…

• Why Roseanne Barr and Shmuley Boteach need each other

  October 17, 2018 3:07pm

  NEW YORK (JTA) — Rabbi Shmuley Boteach may or may not be America’s most famous rabbi. But among Jews, at least, he may be its most polarizing rabbi. Boteach has built his career on those twin tent poles of American fame: sex and celebrity. In books like “Kosher Sex” and “Kosher Adultery,” he offered up…

• Who’s sorry now: The top 10 apologies of the Jewish year

  September 17, 2018 2:15pm

  (JTA) — Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins an intense 10-day period of introspection and repentance that culminates with Yom Kippur, which begins this year on Tuesday evening, Sept. 18. As in years past, we’ve compiled  a list of the most newsworthy apologies of the past 12 months. Whether or not you find these apologies satisfying,…

• Too few Jews, Pew! Where are the ‘secular maximalists’? The Sunday brunchers?

  August 31, 2018 3:59pm

  NEW YORK (JTA) — The Pew Research Center’s new typology of religion puts Americans into seven broad categories ranging from Sunday Stalwarts (“active in their faith and congregations”) to Solidly Secular (“hold virtually no religious beliefs”). In between are the Relaxed Religious, who say religion is important but don’t hold much with traditional practices; the…

• A Neil Simon play that helps explain how we got to Donald Trump

  August 28, 2018 2:55pm

  (JTA) — I never thought of Neil Simon as a political writer, unless you agree that all politics are personal. “The Odd Couple” got a lot of its juice from the nascent feminist movement, I suppose, but the typical Simon character would rather rant about the weather and the traffic than the economy or the…

• The deportation of a Nazi ignited a fight between right and left. You’re surprised?

  August 21, 2018 4:08pm

  (JTA) — In the Trump era, even the deporting of Nazis can’t bring Americans together. A number of Jewish organizations and lawmakers were quick to thank the Trump administration for deporting Jakiw Palij, a former SS guard at the Nazis’ Trawnicki concentration camp in Poland. But they weren’t as quick as the administration itself, whose…

• Amid Trump N-word furor, Breitbart editor calls for ‘national conversation’ on the term

  August 15, 2018 4:09pm

  (JTA) — On a day when the home page of Breitbart News included no fewer than four stories on speculation over whether President Donald Trump used the N-word, one of its contributors wanted to talk about — hip-hop. In a tweet Wednesday, Joel Pollak, Breitbart’s editor-at-large, tweeted about his visit to a local boxing gym…

• If Israel has such bad PR, why does it remain so popular?

  August 13, 2018 5:33pm

  (JTA) — The first mention in JTA of the Hebrew word “hasbarah” was in 1988, at the height of the first intifada. The article focused on Israelis and American Jews and their deep concern that the media were distorting the unrest and showing the Israeli military in a bad light. The answer, interviewees agreed, was…

• Does ‘Three Identical Strangers’ play fair with its audience?

  August 10, 2018 11:40am

  NEW YORK (JTA) — A critical consensus has formed around the hit documentary film “Three Identical Strangers,” which can be summarized in the title of one of its glowing reviews: “‘Three Identical Strangers’ Is as Unnerving as It Is Thrilling.” This story of three triplets, reunited as teenagers after having been separated at birth, is…

• Richard Siegel left behind a Jewish denomination: Catalogism

  July 17, 2018 12:06pm

    (JTA) — I have belonged to six synagogues as an adult, representing all the major denominations except, purely by chance, Reconstructionism. Perhaps that makes me sound fickle or wishy-washy, but all the congregations have something in common: They are either lay-led or, if not, have a rabbi who encourages congregants to lead the prayers,…