Jewish Museum in SF Unsettles

Ark of the Covenant may have been in Zimbabwe all along

(NEWSER) - An African tribe's claim to be descended from Jews who fled the Holy Land 2,500 years ago has been backed up by DNA testing. The Lemba, who live in South Africa and Zimbabwe, are largely Christian or Muslim, but they practice many Jewish traditions, including wearing skullcaps, eschewing pork, and placing the Star of David on their tombstones, the BBC reports. More»

No home country and an Americanized palate spell doom for brisket

(NEWSER) - The Jewish deli is dying, author David Sax tells New America Media , and there’s not much anyone, Jew or gentile, can do about it. In New York, for instance, there are about two dozen kosher and non-kosher establishments today, down from 1,500 in the 1930s. One of the problems is the rootlessness of the culture. “A Mexican restaurant always has a Mexico to go back to, for its source,” Sax says. With Jewish food, “there is no physical place that you can return to.” More»

Synagogues, churches, mosques get ready for H1N1

(NEWSER) - Places of worship across the country are adjusting holy rituals to head off swine flu, CBS News reports. On the Jewish New Year, one Massachusetts synagogue is skipping handshakes and promoting the use of hand sanitizer—and, in a substantial break from tradition, allowing worshipers to not kiss the Torah. “I said, well if you have a problem with it, you can wave at the Torah, I think the Torah will understand," the rabbi says. More»

Following 'false messiah' Obama is bad politics, bad religion: Podhoretz

(NEWSER) - Jewish voters backed Barack Obama over John McCain last year by a staggering 57 points—the most resounding mandate from any group other than African Americans. That bewilders neocon Norman Podhoretz, who argues in the Wall Street Journal that both Judaism and the Jewish experience endorse "the infinitely precious virtues of the traditional American system." Alas, Podhoretz writes, for many fellow Jews, liberalism "has superseded Judaism and become a religion in its own right." More»

(NEWSER) - Jews seeking to send a message to God can now do so via Twitter, the Daily Telegraph reports. The "Tweet Your Prayers" service prints out tweeted prayers and deposits them between the stones in Jerusalem's 2,000-year-old Western Wall. Its founders accept no responsibility for unanswered prayers. "Take it up with the Big Guy upstairs," their website says. "We're just the middlemen!" More»