The New York Jewish Week

12/02/2025

A rare, 14th-century handwritten Hebrew Bible from Spain will hit the auction block at Sotheby’s New York this month.

The medieval work, adorned with calligraphic art, is a Tanakh, or Five Books of Moses plus the Book of Prophets and Writings. It is estimated to fetch between $1.5 and $2.5 million when it is up for sale on Dec. 17.

Part of this month’s Important Judaica sale, the medieval work is expected to fetch between $1.5 and $2.5 million.

12/01/2025

Tom Stoppard had already won four Tony Awards during his prolific career as a playwright when he penned what would be his final staged work, dealing with his family’s Holocaust history.

Already in his 80s, Stoppard wrote “Leopoldstadt” to explore a past he said he had thought was not relevant to his life — until he realized that it was. The play, which portrayed a Jewish family grappling with how to respond to rising antisemitic ferment in their native Vienna, won the Tony for best play after it opened on Broadway in 2022.

“I thought that the subject of the Jews through the war had been done and done,” Stoppard told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at the time. “But actually, not really!”

The prize bookended more than five decades of awards for Stoppard, who died Saturday at 88.

Stoppard was the author of "Leopoldstadt," "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead," "Shakespeare in Love" and dozens of other works.

11/28/2025

Congregation Shearith Israel announced a partnership with the kosher food insecurity nonprofit Masbia on Thanksgiving.

11/26/2025

Director Nathan Silver has been making arts about Jewish mothers for a while.

Now, in Silver’s latest short film “Carol and Joy,” produced by Natalie Portman, he turns his camera to the special mother-daughter relationship between the actor and her now 98-year-old mother.

Director Nathan Silver has been making arts about Jewish mothers for a while. It all started with Cindy Silver, his own mother. She has been in quite a few of his films, and is the subject of “Cutting My Mother,” a documentary series about her journey studying for an adult bat mitzvah. That seri...

11/25/2025

What do New Yorkers have for breakfast on Thanksgiving morning?

Well, if you’re watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, it might be a cup of coffee and a bagel with lox — at least, on the TV screen.

For the second year in a row, keep an eye out for an adorable pairing of a lox bagel and a coffee trycaloon — a sort of balloon-tricycle hybrid — seated on the back of a tricycle, pedaled down Central Park West and then Sixth Avenue by a performer dressed as a deli employee.

Lox and Java, two "trycaloons" honoring New York deli classics, will make their second appearance in the famous parade.

11/21/2025

Your night-by-night guide to the Festival of Lights, including menorah lightings, concerts, parties and more.

11/20/2025

Celebrated 50 days after Yom Kippur, the holiday of Sigd celebrates Ethiopian Jews’ connection to Jerusalem and their acceptance of the Torah.

Last night was New York’s first-ever municipal celebration of the Ethiopian Jewish holiday of Sigd, the latest milestone for a celebration that until recently was little known outside of the Beta Israel communities in Ethiopia and Israel.

Local Jewish and city leaders say celebrating Sigd publicly can fight antisemitism and showcase Jewish diversity.

11/20/2025

Jewish groups and government officials are condemning an incident at a recent interfaith event held on the campus of the City College of New York, at which a Muslim leader reportedly led a student walkout against the Hillel director after saying he refused to be “sitting next to a Zionist.”

The incident took place last week and was first reported Wednesday by the Times of Israel, which obtained a recording of the event hosted by the college’s Office of Student Inclusion Initiatives.

The incident at the City College of New York was “antisemitism, plain and simple,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said.

11/19/2025

Cameron Kasky, the 25-year-old Jewish activist and school shooting survivor, has entered the race to represent one of the United States’ most Jewish congressional districts — on a platform that includes stopping Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.

“We need leaders who aren’t going to coddle their billionaire donors, who won’t support a genocide and who aren’t going to settle for flaccid incrementalism,” Kasky said in the launch video posted on Tuesday for his campaign to represent New York City’s 12th Congressional District.

The video’s caption includes the three main points of his campaign: “Medicare for all. Stop funding genocide. Abolish ICE.”

Kasky, a 25-year-old self-described "unhinged politics Jew," enters an already crowded race to succeed Rep. Jerry Nadler in New York City.

11/18/2025

A silver Tiffany & Co. menorah from the year 2000. A bronze, 23-inch tall Statue of Liberty menorah made in 1986 in New Jersey by German-born artist Manfred Anson. A silver Hanukkah lamp, inlaid with carnelian stones, that was made in the early 20th century at the Bezalel school in Jerusalem.

These are just a few of the 35 unique and historic menorahs that famed auction house Christie’s is selling ahead of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, which this year begins on Dec. 14.

Thirty-five Hanukkah lamps from renowned Judaica collector Max Berry will be up for grabs, priced from $5,000 to upwards of $30,000.