Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Spock Explain the Hasids

Who wouldn't want a behind-the-scenes guided tour through Hasidic America? Someone to explain the history of the community and to answer your questions about everything from modesty to matchmakers, from faith to fear? Now imagine your guides to this spiritual subculture were Sarah Jessica Parker and Leonard Nimoy—that's right: Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Spock.

For a brief, wondrous 95 minutes in 1997, this strange dream is a reality, in the form of a PBS documentary called A Life Apart: Hasidism in America (watch trailer here). Narrated by the strange and dynamic duo of Parker and Nimoy, A Life Apart is a fairly conventional documentary, alternating between contemporary Hasidic weddings, Purim feasts, and daily services with talking-head interviews and historical overview. The directors give us a unique glimpse into a society that most viewers will never see up close, and even include voices of dissent—those who have left the Hasidic community to live a more secular American life.
The film would be fascinating no matter who narrated it, but with Parker and Nimoy at the helm, it truly feels as if worlds—Greenwich Village, a spaceship called the Enterprise, and 19th-century Poland—are colliding.

Oma & Bella: Life is Delicious

Holocaust survivors Bella Katz and Regina ("Oma") Karolinski live together in contemporary Berlin, where they spend their days cooking, talking, and helping one another with the tasks of daily life. The two women are the subjects of Oma & Bella, a new documentary made by Regina's granddaughter, Alexa Karolinski.

Rather than cute-ify the ladies into stereotypical bubbies or cast them as victims of history, Karolinski lets her subjects speak for themselves. And speak they do: of their lives before the war, of their husbands, of the importance of eating chocolate daily. And in their long, intimate moments of silence, we witness their deep comfort with one another and the intimacy forged by shared joy and grief.

Is it better to dwell on the horror of war, the film asks, or to let it go? "It's in our bones and it will stay in our bones," Bella says of the past. But in the careful rolling of a blintz, and the gentle stirring of a simmering tzimmes, Oma and Bella connect the past to the present day. And through her beautiful Oma & Bella Cookbook Karolinski helps us experience their labors of love—and to eat them, too.

One Cook, Thousands of Seders

To Passover cooks parched for new ideas, wandering in a desert of matzo and dried-out brisket, Susie Fishbein is like a tall, icy Coca-Cola — the kosher for Passover kind, made with sugar instead of corn syrup.

Mrs. Fishbein is the author of the popular Kosher by Design cookbooks, which have sold more than 300,000 copies.

“No corn, no grains, no legumes, no seeds — not even mustard or soy sauce for eight days,” she said, searing a rib roast as big as a bread machine in her kitchen in Livingston, N.J. “It’s quite challenging, as a cook.”

She will not be making her famous tricolor matzo balls (colored by spinach, tomato and turmeric) for the Seder this year, and her signature napkin rings made of braided challah are prohibited during Passover.

But she has produced beef roulades with creamy parsnips, molten chocolate soufflés and yet another cookbook, “Passover by Design,” her fifth since 2003. On Tuesday it was the best-selling book in three categories on Amazon.com: holidays, entertaining and kosher foods.

Among strictly kosher cooks, she has an unparalleled following and unparalleled credibility: at ArtScroll/Mesorah, the religious press in Brooklyn that publishes her books, two Orthodox rabbis review her books for Jewish content and kosher law before publication.

A review of her closets reveals no edict limiting the number of platters one woman can own. In all of Mrs. Fishbein’s books, tables drip with feathers and hydrangeas, sparkle with crystal and shimmer with tea lights, tinsel and gold.

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A Locust Plague, Shy of Biblical Proportions, in Israel

JERUSALEM — For many Israelis, the biblical comparisons were irresistible: locusts were swarming across the border from Egypt three weeks before Passover, like a vivid enactment of the eighth plague visited upon the obdurate Pharaoh. Others with a more modern sensibility said it felt more like Hitchcock.

Israel first announced that it was on “locust alert” on Monday, after large swarms were spotted in the Cairo area. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations warned that wind and climate conditions increased the chances of an entomological cross-border invasion.

The Ministry of Agriculture set up a hot line for swarm sightings. By Tuesday, grasshoppers the size of small birds were reported on balconies and in gardens in central and northern Israel. But the largest concentration, an ominous black cloud of millions, settled for the night near the tiny rural village of Kmehin in Israel’s southern Negev desert, not far from the border with Egypt.

Potato farmers in the area complained that their fields were being ruined. Drivers said they could not see through their windshields for all the bugs flying in their direction.

On the up side, some considered the curse almost a blessing. The popular Channel 2 television news showed delighted Thai agricultural workers frying up locusts for a crunchy snack. The Israeli television crew munched on a few too, noting that locusts are considered kosher.

The Agriculture Ministry said it was the first time that Israel had seen locusts since 2005, and recalled an even worse invasion in the 1950s.

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Feel Good Moment to Start Your Week

Flashwaltz at Hadassah Hospital

Can you imagine a symphonic orchestra at the entrance to your local hospital? That is what I experienced on Sunday as I participated in the Flashwaltz at Hadassah Hospital in honor of Good Deeds Day, Yom Ma'asim Tovim, last Sunday.

This is what Marcy Natan, President of Hadassah, writes (she also gets a harp lesson).   Enjoy this charming video.

Build-a-Bear/Haggadah

Every Haggadah has a different way of telling the story of the Exodus. Some focus on social justice issues. Some are feminist, or geared toward LGBT families, or academic, or artistic. There are Haggadot just for children, Haggadot for people who want a quick seder, and Haggadot for people who love comic books. There are so many kinds of Haggadot, it can be hard to decide what to get for your seder. What if you want some traditional texts, with something new age-y thrown in, too? What if you want mostly English readings, but all the Hebrew songs?

Enter Haggadot.com, a website where you can create your own haggadah using their vast library of clips, texts, prayers, songs, reflections, and artwork. (Some of our favorites include a Muppets parody called "The Matzah Show" and an alternative Four Questions.) Simply browse through the library, choose what strikes for your fancy, and voila! Your own personal Haggadah, ready to print and use on the first 2 nights of Passover, without having to camp out at your synagogue library. But you better get cracking because Passover is less than 3 weeks away.

Now, who's up for 3 versions of Had Gadya?

The Nine Lives of ‘Hava Nagila’

A new documentary looks at the many iterations of the popular tune, from Hasidic niggun to American kitsch

“Hava Nagila” is perhaps the best-known Jewish song in the United States. Jewish and non-Jewish wedding and bar/bat mitzvah attendees alike know that its first few notes are our cue to link arms on the dance floor and drag or be dragged through a never-ending and increasingly chaotic hora.

But how many people know that the song originated not in Israel (Hebrew lyrics not withstanding) but in Ukraine, and that its greatest ambassador was not Jewish at all? In Hava Nagila (The Movie), a documentary that opens in a limited theatrical release this month, director Roberta Grossman traces the song’s history from a Hasidic enclave in the Pale of Settlement to Palestine and then the United States. She also looks at how affection for the song has waxed and waned, in some ways reflecting American Jews’ (and others’) relationship to Jewishness, through interviews with actor Leonard Nimoy, singers and musicians Regina Spektor, Harry Belafonte, Henry Sapoznik, ethno-musicologist Josh Kun, and many others. (If, after seeing the film, you feel that you still haven’t had your fill of “Hava Nagila” history, there’s also an exhibit on the song on view at New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage.)

On today’s podcast, guest host Rebecca Soffer, a New York-based producer and writer, talks to Grossman about how this project came to be, the song’s status among American Jews today, and Bob Dylan’s “talking blues” interpretation which is, depending on your perspective, a mangling or a brilliant articulation of Jewish ambivalence.

[Listen here, running time 19:50]