Meet the Egyptian-Jewish Owner of Kentucky Derby Winner American Pharaoh

Ahmed Zayat, who lives in New Jersey, once named a yearling ‘Maimonides’ to promote peace among Arabs and Jews

By Jonathan Zalman for Tablet Magazine

On Saturday, like a tremendous machine, three-year-old bay colt American Pharaoh pushed ahead in the final furlong to take the 141st running of the Kentucky Derby. In a close second was Firing Line, followed by Dortmund.

American Pharaoh is owned by Ahmed Zayat, head of Zayat Stables, a 200-plus horse operation that competes at racetracks around the country. Zayat lives in Teaneck with his wife, two daughters, and two sons; 23-year-old, Justin, a student at NYU, currently manages the stables.
Zayat, 52, moved to the U.S. at the age of 18. He earned a graduate degree in Public Health at Boston University and founded Al Ahram Beverage Company, a distributor in Egypt, which he sold to Heineken in 2002 for $280 million. According to his bio, Zayat is also the largest shareholder in Misr Glass Manufacturing, a manufacturer of glass containers in Egypt. In 2010, the New York Times profiled Zayat and wrote about the businessman’s entry into the world of horse racing:

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

The Crazy New Invention for Using Electricity on Shabbat

By Jewniverse

For many observant Jews, not using electricity is one of the most salient aspects of Sabbath observance. But a new invention aims to change that.

By changing the way a light switch works, the patented Kosher Switch offers a novel — and, its backers say, kosher — way to turn light switches (and, perhaps, other electrical appliances) on and off during Shabbat.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

A Journey Through French Anti-Semitism

By Shmuel Trigano, jewishreviewofbooks.com

If after the horrors of January 2015 there is any consolation for the Jews of France, it would seem to lie in the words of Prime Minister Manuel Valls. “How can we accept that people are killed because they are Jewish?” he cried out at a special session of the French parliament a week after the massacres at the Charlie Hebdo editorial offices and at the Hypercacher kosher supermarket. “History has taught us that the awakening of anti-Semitism is the symptom of a crisis for democracy and of a crisis for the Republic. That is why we must respond with force.” We are at war, he said, “with terrorism, jihadism, and Islamist radicalism” (he has spoken more recently of “Islamofascism”), but not, he added, “Islam and Muslims.” And yet, as someone who has lived through and documented the last two decades and more of anti-Semitism in France, I note that there is a problem with the inevitable reflexive warnings after every vicious attack not to slip into Islamophobia by conflating Islam and terrorism. It is a kind of automatic discourse in which the existence of a threat to Muslims erases the recognition of the hatred to which Islamic texts and doctrines have given rise, as expressed by the terrorists themselves. For there is a long history of Islamic anti-Judaism, and it is the reason for the attacks against the Jews.

Continue reading.

For more on Jewish books, check out our    page.

The Marathon and the Mikveh

by Rabbi Danielle Eskow for MayyimHayyim Blog

As a monthly mikveh goer, I had always appreciated the cleansing experience of immersing in the water. The routine enhanced my own life, as well as my marriage. As a rabbi, I had witnessed the powerful experience of a new Jewish person immersing in the mikveh upon conversion. I had not yet experienced, either personally or professionally the powerful healing that the mikveh could bring. This all changed when the Boston Marathon Bombings occurred on April 15th 2013.

My husband ran the marathon that year and finished four minutes before the bombs went off.  I had been standing in front of where the first bomb went off.  For twenty minutes I could not find him, the longest twenty minutes of my life. That night when we finally were able to go home, I told my husband, “this was one of the hardest and worst days of my life.” Little did I know that the days that followed would be much worse.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

It’s 1933: Calling All Jewish Doctors to Istanbul!

By Leah Falk for Jewniverse

In the 17th century, the Ottoman Empire was known as the “sick man of Europe.” When, after World War I, Kemal Mustafa Ataturk helped inaugurate the republic of Turkey, becoming its first president, one could say he overturned this reputation by the most literal means possible: by inviting 300 some German Jewish doctors, on the eve of World War II, to take refuge in Turkey.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

Q&A: ‘Mad Men’ Creator Matthew Weiner Talks LA Jews and the American Dream

By David Samuels for Tablet Magazine

If I could meet any Jew for a dry martini at the Carlyle Hotel, I would choose Matthew Weiner, the creator of the most influential iteration of the mid-century American story and one of the great show runners in the new golden age of television. So, I felt lucky when I got the chance to do just that a few weeks ago. But we met at 11 a.m., so the only drink available was a Bloody Mary. Still game, I ordered one for myself (vodka; extra horseradish), but Weiner just asked for a coffee with milk.

It wasn’t exactly how I imagined it, but we settled in to our comfortable surroundings and talked about the Jews for almost two hours, until he went off to have a more perfectly set-designed lunch, probably at the Rainbow Room or some other suitably mid-century modern midtown location. The version of our conversation that follows has been subjected to the moderate degree of editing appropriate to a publication that is read both by Jews and by the people who love them.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

Oliver Sacks on Facing Death

Will my last days be filled with gratitude or regret?

by Eliana Cline for aish.com

My tears surprise me. I am reading Oliver Sacks’ New York Times op-ed where he shares that his cancer has metastasized to his liver and in a few months he will leave this world.

These are not the tears I cry when I hear of a young mother stricken with incurable cancer, or a teenager plucked from this world tragically before his prime. In his 81 years Sacks has achieved dazzling success and acclaim as both a scientist and an author.  His ground-breaking discoveries in the field of neuro-science have transformed modern medicine's understanding of the brain. Hailed by The New York Times as “the poet laureate of medicine,” Sacks will leave the world of both medicine and literature infinitely richer.

It is the fullness of his life which moves me. It is specifically the fact that he stands facing death with not a whisper of regret in his words. Quite the opposite, his words are dripping with fulfilment and gratitude. Till his last day, he chooses to embrace the world: “It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me,” he writes. “I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can.”

Continue reading.

Follow us on