Culture Clash in Jersey City

Greenville is a traditionally Black neighborhood in Jersey City. Orthodox Jews from Brooklyn have been lured to Greenville by it's relatively inexpensive housing stock, good access to mass transit, and proximity to Manhattan. The New York Times reports on how the two groups have fared together now that they are neighbors inhabiting the same space.

Obama expresses solidarity with Jews, American honored as Righteous Among the Nations

Amid signs of growing anti-Semitism, both in the US and especially in Europe, President Obama declares he too is Jew. Obama was speaking at an event at the Israeli embassy in Washington honoring 4 Righteous Among the Nations recipients, those who selflessly helped save Jews during World War II.

Among them was former American prisoner of war Army Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds. One of the highest ranking American officers at a German POW camp, Edmonds refused to comply with German demands to single out Jewish American soldiers. Instead Edmonds replied "We are all Jews here", and the German commander relented, sparing the lives of about 200  Jewish soldiers interred at camp Stalag IX A.

Return of the Golden Bride to Yiddish Theater

A classic Yiddish operetta has been just brought back to life. The Golden Bride is a Yiddish romantic comedy that premiered in New York back in the roaring 20's. Known in Yiddish as Di Goldene Kale, the opera was popular with the Jewish diaspora through the 1940's, but lost in the time following World War II. It has been brought back to life through the labor of music archeologisst and the support of the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene.  It tells the story of Goldele, a poor girl from a Russian shtetl who inherits a fortune from her estranged father. She embarks on a mission in the new world to find both her long-lost mother and her husband-to-be.

The Yiddish Fight Club

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research hosts "The Yiddish Fight Club", an exhibition honoring Jewish boxers and wrestlers, and featuring the vocabulary of Yiddish fighting terms.

The New England Holocaust Memorial

The New England Holocaust Memorial is located in Carmen Park, on Boston's Freedom Trail. It is one of the more interactive Holocaust tributes in the US, and its' design is rich in symbolism.


Six glass towers rise from the memorial. Six million numbers are etched in the glass, representing the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust.

Each tower represents one of the major Nazi extermination camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka.

Visitors pass through the towers on a black granite path. A steel grate covers a six foot deep chamber at the base of each tower. Smoke rises from charred embers at the bottom of these pits, evoking thoughts of the gas chambers used in the camps.

Nixon's ethnic diatribes

The Watergate Scandal wasn't President Nixon's only example of poor judgement. A newly released batch of tapes from the Nixon libraries reveal disparaging remarks President Nixon made in reference to Blacks, Jews, Irish-Americans, and Italian-Americans. The tapes were made in February and March 1973, and recorded conversations between Nixon and his top aides and personal secretary.

Nixon's rants stooped to the lowest of ethnic stereotypes. He took shots at the Irish as drinkers, Italians as hot tempered, and Jews as obnoxious. Surprising is the disinterest on the plight of Soviet Jews of not only Nixon, but also his German- Jewish National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger.

Don't kvetch. Head to KlezKamp instead.

Each December, KlezKamp manifests in a hotel in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. It's a week long program dedicated to keeping alive the traditional Yiddish language and culture. Participants immerse themselves in the culture and language that were almost decimated by Hilter.

Before World War II, Yiddish was the lingua franca among Central and Eastern European Jews. Klez Camp was founded by musician and scholoar Henry Sapoznik. Now in it's 29th year, KlezKamp attracts some 500 participants,  ensuring that Yiddish folk traditions are passed to the next generation.