Sleep Stranger. Compassion. This man has it. When Isaac Theil let a sleepy stranger take a little catnap on his shoulder, it was because "I simply remembered the times my own head would bop on someone’s shoulder because I was so tired after a long day," he recounted to Tova Ross of Tablet Magazine. Another subway rider was so struck by Theil's nonchalant empathy that he snapped a picture and put it on Reddit, from which it was then posted to Facebook by Charidy.
Redditor Braffination wrote, "Heading home on the Q train yesterday when this young black guy nods off on the shoulder of a Jewish man. Theil himself has been completely surprised at the attention he's received for his small act of kindness, as the photo has been shared over 20,000 times on Facebook. “Maybe the photo wouldn’t have become so popular if people weren’t seeing a Jewish man with a yarmulke and a black man in a hood, and because they might not necessarily correlate the two,” speculated Theil to Tablet.
Seconded. Also on HuffPost: Happy Thanksgivukkah: Menurkey Style. Like any kid, Asher Weintraub has little patience for questions from strangers. But he’s getting a lot of them. That’s because the 10-year-old New Yorker’s Thanksgivukkah-themed invention, the Menurkey, is selling like hot potato pancakes. “It’s exciting, but it’s also annoying,” Weintraub said of the attention he's been getting from reporters over the past few weeks. Weintraub said he came up with the idea for a Menorah, or ritual candelabra, shaped like a turkey when he was driving to Florida with his parents and his mom told him that Hanukkah and Thanksgiving fall on the same day this year -- a rare occurrence.
“It’s cool because it’s both of the holidays together,” Weintraub said. Asher Weintraub (in red) and his family. Apparently other people agree. “It really just caught this head of steam and almost like we couldn't keep up,” Anthony, 48, said. Anthony set up a Kickstarter page, featuring a 3D design of the Menurkey created by Asher, with the goal of raising $25,000. A Journey Away From Tradition. Hide captionSamuel Katz left the ultra-Orthodox community of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where he grew up. He's now a student at Stony Brook University on Long Island. Ari Daniel Shapiro Samuel Katz left the ultra-Orthodox community of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where he grew up.
He's now a student at Stony Brook University on Long Island. New York City receives immigrants from all over the world, including New York City itself. A handful of young ultra-Orthodox Jews are struggling to leave their neighborhoods in Brooklyn to take up less religious or even nonreligious lifestyles in other parts of the city. They often hide their desire for a different life. One young man fought to leave behind the only world he knew. Samuel Katz is 21, and he's accumulated his library of sacred texts, science books and classic literature gradually.
Katz and the other boys studied at a yeshiva, or Jewish school. "We were a school of 1,300 boys," Katz says. The more Katz read, the more he wanted to read. Sara Hurwitz Road To Becoming A Rabba. 'Anti-Barbie' Nickolay Lamm’s cousins play with a prototype of the Lammily doll. (Courtesy Nickolay Lamm) NEW YORK (JTA) — Almost exactly 55 years after Barbie made her debut at the American International Toy Fair, a more realistically proportioned alternative to the iconic fashion doll has become a crowdfunding sensation, raising more than $400,000 in a week and a half to begin production.
The Lammily doll, which has joints that bend, an athletic physique and a motto of “Average is Beautiful,” is being described by some fans as the anti-Barbie. But Lammily’s creator, 25-year-old Pittsburgh artist Nickolay Lamm – who, like Barbie’s late inventor, Ruth Handler, is Jewish — insists he is not trying to pick a fight with the Mattel toy. “I was just trying to make an alternative, which hasn’t existed yet,” he told JTA. “I can see girls playing with Lammily and other toys at the same time. I’m not really a crusading feminist. Lamm, who moved to the United States with his parents and twin brother from St.
Beating The Odds.