This Week’s Links

By Michelle Albert

• Just in time for Passover, Jewcy takes a look at haggadahs that suit the wise, wicked, simple and tongue-tied children in all of us. Check out Moment‘s article on A New Generation of Haggadah Art.
• Last week, Israeli police raided a warehouse containing seven tons of matzah with forged kosher certificates. The matzah was made with flour that is not kosher for Passover. Israeli police have warned citizens to be on the lookout for pirated matzah.
• Over 250 members of Congress have signed a letter addressed to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton that reaffirms their commitment to the “unbreakable” bond between the US and Israel.
• Lionsgate Entertainment has bought the rights to a film about a box brought to the United States by a Holocaust survivor that apparently contains a Jewish ghost. “It’s A Serious Man meets Ghostbusters!”
• A copy of Schindler’s list—the actual list, not the movie—is on sale for $2.2 million.
• The alleged use of forged British passports in the assassination of a Hamas operative in Dubai earlier this year has led the British government to expel an Israeli diplomat from the country.
• Sea Secret, a new swimwear company, has found their niche, catering to haredi women with a swimsuit that resembles a dress.
• Slate’s Emily Yoffe goes undercover as a bat mitzvah dancer.

I Love A Parade

By Symi Rom-Rymer

Living in a large, multi-cultural city like New York, you get used to the ethnic parades that come through town.  In early fall, there’s the German-American parade with grown men wearing too-tight leder-hosen and sidewalk venders selling copious amounts of bratwurst and pretzels.  In the heat of the summer, there is the Puerto Rican day parade. Subway cars fill with enthusiastic teenagers dressed in as many variations of the PR flag as possible—tank tops, bandanas, shorts—until they spill into the streets to demonstrate their pride.  In the early spring, it’s the turn of the Irish with their bagpipes, shamrock-colored wigs, and Kiss-me-I’m-Irish pins (do those ever work?).

This year, stuck once again in the midst of tipsy, ebullient parade crowds on my way to work, I started to think about the Jews. As in, where is our parade? There is, of course, the Israel parade, an annual event launched in 1964 described by its official website as “a major vehicle for Zionist expression [that] enables our communities to come together in a non-partisan, apolitical show of unity and solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Israel.”    Festive as that is, however, it’s not really about celebrating the American Jewish community, which has its own unique identity and history.

Cupcakes: A Potential Passover Food

By Michelle Albert

Cupcakes are a long-ranging phenomenon—nay, obsession—here in the States. Ever since Carrie Bradshaw frequented Magnolia Bakery on Sex and the City, people all over have been queuing for these palm-sized cakes slathered in frosting, sprinkles and anything else bakers can possibly fit on top.

Now, luckily for those of us who don’t succumb to a bowl of cereal the second day of Passover, the cupcake’s sugary delights don’t have to be off limits. Crumbs Bake Shop in New York City (with other locations in California, Connecticut and New Jersey) offers Passover cupcakes made without flour. Flavors run from the Holy Moses (chocolate cake filled and frosted with chocolate and topped with chocolate sprinkles) to the Raspberry Red Sea (nut cake filled and topped with raspberry and almonds).

Crumbs Bake Shop is run by Mia Bauer, who learned to bake on a farm in Israel, and her husband Jason. All the ingredients used in the cupcakes are kosher for Passover, but since the Passover cupcakes are made in the same kitchen as the regular cupcakes, they aren’t kosher for Passover. But if you don’t mind the technicality, then these cupcakes could be the way to satisfy a Passover sweet tooth.

2010 AIPAC Policy Conference Round-Up

By Ben Ganzfried

There were few surprises at the 2010 AIPAC Policy Conference last evening.  The key topics were sanctions against Iran, the unbreakable relationship between the U.S. and Israel, and the fact that friends best disagree quietly.  I was told by a fellow journalist that this year’s policy conference followed the structure of conferences in the past: the evening began with a roll call of the representatives, senators and other policy-officials in attendance, as well as a list of distinguished guests.  I suspect that this conference was also similar to past conferences insofar as it was briefly disrupted by hecklers (who paid an awful lot of money just to yell for two seconds).  At least, the quick reaction of the crowd to cheer these disrupters down suggests that the audience is used to such things.

Photo Contest!

Get your picture published in Moment Magazine!

Where do you read Moment? On a plane, on a train, in the rain? Upside down, dressed as a clown, wearing a crown? We at Moment want to know!

Send us your pictures, and every week the editorial staff will pick our favorite pictures and post them on Moment’s official blog (momentmagblog.com) and Facebook page. Out of those favorites, one picture will be featured in each issue. The winner will receive a free one-year digital subscription.

The photo should feature a person and a copy of Moment. Otherwise, get creative! Just don’t send us anything you wouldn’t want your Jewish grandmother to see. All photos should be in .jpg format. To submit, send your photo to photocontest@momentmag.com.

Passover Chocolate Orange Almond Tart with Almond Praline

By Jenna Huntsberger

Chocolate, almond, orange – perfect for Passover.

If you’re really looking to rile up your Jewish friends, ask them about their most detested Passover desserts. We got into just such a discussion at my book club this weekend, and our Jewish members were quick to trot out a litany of complaints. Cakes made with matzoh meal are coarse, sponge cake is dry, cookies taste weird without flour – the kvetching went on and on.

Monday politics roundup

By Sarah Breger

Tensions Boil over at the AIPAC conference

“New construction in East Jerusalem or the West Bank undermines mutual trust and endangers the proximity talks that are the first step toward the full negotiations that both sides want and need,” said Hillary Clinton at the AIPAC conference this morning. Yesterday, the president of AIPAC Lee Rosenberg took the administration to task for the public nature of the dispute over East Jerusalem housing expansions. “Allies should work out their differences privately,” he said. Read more about the origins and history of AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel organization in a feature piece from Moment’s archives.

Review of “Among the Righteous”: Arabs who saved Jews in the Holocaust

By Ben Ganzfried

Arab-Jewish relations during the Holocaust are too often viewed as typified by the actions of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who actively worked with Hitler to murder as many Jews as possible.  Challenging this historical outlook, “Among the Righteous” offers a few examples of Arabs who saved Jews during the Holocaust.  Robert Satloff provides powerful individual stories of bravery, courage, and sadness.  Told from the perspective of family stories and first-time interviews, “Among the Righteous” shows how otherwise ordinary Arab men became heroes and saved defenseless Jewish men and women.  What distinguishes the movie is the focus on people who acted out of a sense of humanity rather than adhering to the dictums of the Nazis and their allies in power.  People like Khaled Abdul-Wahab who risked his life to save a handful of Jewish women hiding in the animal shed of his farm.  

“On the seventh day thou [and technology] shalt rest”: Nonprofit takes a new spin on a biblical idea.

By Talia Ran

A recent USA Today Faith & Reason post ponders the questions: Do you ever give your Blackberry a day off?  Fast from Facebook?  Take a time-out from Twitter?

For the nonprofit group Reboot, they are doing just that.  Fueled by a Sabbath Manifesto, created to “slow down lives in an increasingly hectic world,” Reboot is advocating a day of rest for the overworked, overstressed technology obsessed culture of today.

Beginning sundown Friday, March 19, to sundown on Saturday, March 20, the “National Day of Unplugging” will be a day free of the use of computers, cell phones and any technology.

This Week’s Links

By Michelle Albert

• The newly expanded Jewish Museum in London opened Wednesday. It boasts a 13th century mikvah, an 18th century silver and coral Torah case from Iraq and the boxing shorts worn by Jewish boxer Harry Mizler, Britain’s 1934 lightweight boxing champ.
• Minnesota senator and former funny guy Al Franken brings comedy to congress. Read a profile of Franken from Moment’s archives.
• A new website caters to the edgier side of Chasidim—what the site calls “Chasidim on the fringe.”
• The Republic of Ireland’s Foreign Minister, Micheal Martin, criticized the Irish town of Carickmacross for removing the page in its guestbook that was signed by the Israeli Ambassador. Martin said that while he shares Irish concerns over Israeli policy, that does not mean Ireland shouldn’t treat the Israeli Ambassador with respect. The now infamous page was torn from the Carickmacross guest book after 11 Israeli agents attacked a Hamas agent in a hotel in Ireland. The clincher? Three of the agents had illegal Irish passports. Some have construed the attack as an uprising by Irish Jews, but the evidence for that seems laughable.
• Heeb gives a rundown of the biggest Jewish marriages of the year, complete with caricatures.