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Sarah Ogince

Recent shows revive a debate that has echoed across Jewish and Christian tradition for millennia.
Satire aims to fool readers, at least for a minute or two. But in the age of social media, that’s a luxury few editors can afford.
“It is an essential part of the Jewish tradition to dwell among ghosts,” David Wolpe, a Conservative rabbi and emeritus leader of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, told JNS.
“Mount Sinai loses its meaning after the revelation,” said Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun on New York City’s Upper East Side. “There’s no religious value attached to it.”
“The pyramids represent people being forced to work for a central power, not being allowed to be important in and of themselves,” Yeshiva University professor Aaron Koller told JNS.
“V’nahafoch hu—turning things on their head—in today’s climate, means sanity,” says comedian Mendy Pellin.
Chanukah’s message of religious freedom and the power of youth resonate this year in particular.
Post-pandemic, brick-and-mortar Judaica stores are closing at a rapid rate. What has the Jewish community lost?
The commandment to count 49 days between Passover and Shavuot has inspired generations of artists.
Young Jewish chefs prepare for the holiday in traditional ways, some with modern new twists, but minus all the stress.
“It is a story about the necessity of Jewish power as a form of group protection—of lobbying, rallying, activism and sticking one’s neck out for one’s fellow Jew,” says Wendy Zierler, a rabbi and a professor of modern Jewish literature and feminist studies at Hebrew Union College‒Jewish Institute of Religion.
How did the only piece of Jewish liturgy to explicitly condemn Christianity become a universally popular Hanukkah hymn?