Most ideas about Jewish culture in the United States come from Ashkenazi traditions, but there’s a vast landscape of Jewish cultures around the world – and represented in the US.
Candles on a large Hanukkah menorah shine in front of a Christmas tree at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, in 2015.
Gregor Fischer/picture alliance via Getty Images
Assimilation no doubt played a role in making Hanukkah the commercialized holiday it is today. But other factors shaped the modern festival, too, a scholar of Jewish studies and gender explains.
People cheer as a vehicle carrying hostages released by Hamas drives toward an army base in Ofakim, southern Israel, on Nov. 26, 2023.
Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images
Advanced artificial intelligence is new, but a similar idea has been around for hundreds of years: the power of a just-right sequence of numbers, letters or elements to animate matter.
Natural materials like palm fronds, tree branches or reeds typically create the top of the sukkah.
Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
Like many Jewish practices, the harvest festival of Sukkot largely takes place at home − meaning families can incorporate many meaningful traditions.
Amitai Gross reads from the Haggadah while preparing to dip parsley into salt water as part of the Passover meal, called the Seder.
Marty Caivano/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images
The Passover Seder has tradition and remembrance at its core, but has also evolved throughout the centuries in Jewish communities around the world.
The cultural significance of Tu BiShvat has taken on new meaning in modern Israel.
Teddy Brauner/National Photo Collection, Government Press Office (Israel)
An expert in the representation of the Holocaust on film explains the responsibility of the reader to educate themselves beyond the depth of a single work of fiction.
Ross in Friends dressed as the Holiday Aramdillo telling the story of Hanukkah.
Photo 12/Alamy
Many religions value forgiveness, but the details of their teachings differ. A psychologist of religion explains how Christian and Jewish attitudes compare.
Joyce Dalsheim, University of North Carolina – Charlotte
Authorities have closed schools in some ultra-Orthodox areas of New York. The reasons for apparent noncompliance with public health guidelines are complicated, explains a cultural anthropologist.
No lengthy viewing of the body, but no quick burial either.
Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images
The former justice received a Jewish funeral at the Supreme Court. But in other ways, Ginsburg’s burial is breaking with traditional Jewish death rituals.
A Hindu bride on her wedding day.
EPA-EFE/Shaizaib Akber
To afford sufficient protection to marginalised people in society - such as women in minority religious communities - the state must recognise and regulate religious marriages in a nuanced way.
Menorahs have now become ubiquitous features around the world during Hanukkah, from Berlin to New York to Melbourne.
Hayoung Jeon/EPA
Giving small gifts to children has become common around the world, though nowhere has Hanukkah reached the level of commercialisation that it has in the US.
When Dirty Dancing is reduced to its dance sequences, the powerful politics of the film are erased.
Vestron Pictures
Dirty Dancing’s dance sequences are stand-alone properties, famous in their own right. But when they’re considered in isolation, the film’s messy class, race and gender politics are sidelined.
American and Israeli flags above Jerusalem rooftops prior to President Trump’s May 2017 visit.
Reuters/Ronen Zvulun
As Israel approaches the 70th anniversary of its establishment, many older American Jews will be celebrating. Many younger ones will wonder whether the Jewish state is something to celebrate at all.