Howard Lovy

Category: Jewish News and Commentary

This section is home to everything Jewish, including my commentaries, book reviews, podcasts, books, and other projects.

  • Lifesaving Solution to Help Odessa’s Vulnerable Jews

    Lifesaving Solution to Help Odessa’s Vulnerable Jews

    The Jewish Daily Forward ran my piece about the urgent need to help Odessa’s remaining Holocaust survivors live through a harsh winter.

    This winter, the city of Odessa, Ukraine, feels like the heart of darkness.

    The city faces constant bombardment by the Russian military, freezing nighttime temperatures commonly fall below zero, and electricity is only available for six hours per day: three in the morning and three at night.

    Amid these desperate circumstances, Avraham Wolff, the chief rabbi of Odessa and southern Ukraine, is trying to bring some light — and heat.

    He’s doing so with jerry-rigged car batteries to provide warmth and electricity to about 400 Holocaust survivors in the city — the most vulnerable of the vulnerable.

    “The ones at greatest risk of starving to death or freezing to death are the Holocaust survivors who were not able to flee this place. Holocaust survivors are staring death in the face for the second time, and we can’t avert our eyes.” — Avraham Wolff, the chief rabbi of Odessa and southern Ukraine

    Read the rest of my story in the Jewish Daily Forward.

     

  • Rachel Freier on Relations Between Hasidim, Secular Jews

    Rachel Freier on Relations Between Hasidim, Secular Jews

    Rachel Freier was the first Hasidic woman to be elected a civil court judge in New York. That is just one of many accomplishments for this mother of six who blows away preconceived ideas about what religious Jews can accomplish in the secular world.

    Freier also formed B’Derech, a nonprofit that helps provide education for adolescents in the Hasidic community. And she became a paramedic after she helped found Ezras Nashim, an all-women’s volunteer EMT service. What unites her various roles is a desire to serve God, she says, and that’s what keeps her rooted in her religious upbringing.

    In our interview, she discusses the changing public perception of Hasidim and relations between religious and secular Jews.

    Maybe in the past generation, we were dealing with Holocaust survivors, and they were happy just rebuilding and sticking together as a tight-knit community. Now, as third-generation Americans, we are participating more in the American system in a good way. — Rachel Freier

    Read my interview with Rachel Freier in The Jerusalem Post.

  • Tehran Von Ghasri Has Fun With His Many Identities

    Tehran Von Ghasri Has Fun With His Many Identities

    For an American Jewish comedian, Tehran Von Ghasri has an interesting story to tell, as his name suggests. The son of an Iranian-Jewish immigrant father and an African-American mother, Tehran’s heritage includes a mix of Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Zoroastrian, and any part of that mix is fair game for Von Ghasri’s standup.

    Yet despite Von Ghasri’s many identities, he has a strong sense of self. In our interview, he discusses how young Jews can also navigate through their own multiple identities and come out stronger.

    When the comedians that you’re mentioning get in trouble, it’s honestly not because they perpetuate stereotypes but because they reach for the low-hanging fruit. They use the stereotype in a very negative way. There’s a way to do comedy where you have fun with people. You don’t make fun of people.  — Tehran Von Ghasri

    Read my interview with Tehran Von Ghasri at JTA.

  • Roya Hakakian on the Power of Words to Create Change

    Roya Hakakian on the Power of Words to Create Change

    Roya Hakakian is a poet, author, journalist and advocate for refugees. Every one of these roles is an offshoot of her own life experience as a child and teenager in pre- and post-revolutionary Iran and as an immigrant to the United States. Her poetry appears in many anthologies around the world, her books take a candid look at life under Iran’s fundamentalist Islamic regime and her documentaries tackle important issues like underage children in wars around the world. In our interview, we discuss what people can do to support the current uprising in Iran and the role poetry can play in revolutions.

    Revolutions begin with certain social demands, but what fuels them, what keeps them going, is the power of the rhetoric poets and writers pour into them. That’s what literature has always been for me—a tool for grand ideas and grand expressions and, possibly, a tool for changing society for the better. — Roya Hakakian

    Read my interview with Roya Hakakian in JTA.

  • Ethiopian Israeli Pnina Agenyahu Celebrates Diversity

    Ethiopian Israeli Pnina Agenyahu Celebrates Diversity

    As director of Partnership2Gether of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Pnina Agenyahu brings together disparate Jewish communities from around the world and celebrate their diversity. It’s a role for which Agenyahu has spent a lifetime preparing — ever since she made aliyah at the age of 3 on the back of her mother, who had walked for two weeks from Ethiopia. Agenyahu was among the early wave of Ethiopian immigrants to Israel back in 1984 and, from a young age, found that she had a gift for being a leader and spokesperson for her community.

    In this interview, she discusses the challenges and promises that come with a diverse Israel and wider Jewish community.

    And it’s fascinating to see individuals that come in from different countries — from Nigeria, South Africa, New York, India, Canada, U.K., and they’re all not Ashkenazi. And I think that’s what makes me proud, when you see how colorful we are and that each of us can bring his own voice to the table. — Pnina Agenyahu

    Read my interview with Pnina Agenyahu in The Jerusalem Post.

  • Israeli Rapper Shaanan Streett mixes music with activism

    Israeli Rapper Shaanan Streett mixes music with activism

    Shaanan Streett, one-sixth of the Israeli hip-hop/funk group Hadag Nahash, says that it’s all well and good for musicians to advocate for social-justice causes, but that doesn’t mean the music can’t also be fun. Streett seems to have accomplished both goals, as his band’s songs are featured in protests for various causes while remaining catchy and danceable. As long as you “keep it real,” Streett says, audiences will pick up on your authenticity.

    In our interview, Streett talks about what music can do to bring people together and about his hometown of Jerusalem.

    Even if you’re saying important stuff, but it’s not fun, who wants to join? Right? There’s a saying that is something like, “If you can’t dance to it, it’s not my revolution.” — Shaanan Streett

    Read my entire interview with Shaanan Streett here.

     

  • Matan Kahana Tried to Loosen Ultra-Orthodox Grip

    Matan Kahana Tried to Loosen Ultra-Orthodox Grip

    Matan Kahana was an F-16 fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force, so he’s not one to back down from a difficult mission. When he entered politics and served as Israel’s minister of religious services in Naftali Bennett’s coalition government, Kahana gave himself a politically perilous assignment: to loosen the grip of ultra-Orthodox rabbis on Israeli religious life. He pushed for significant reforms within Israel’s religious institutions and kashrut certifications and appointed women to religious councils. The Israeli press called his actions “revolutionary.” Now a Knesset member for Benny Gantz’s National Unity party, Kahana said he will fight to temper the far right and keep his reforms intact.

    In our interview, Kahana talks about his own religious background, why he chose to take on a mission of reform, and how Israelis and the diaspora can find common ground.

    You can’t force anyone to believe in God. And you can’t force anyone to be a religious Jew. And I believe that if we do as much as we can to reduce forcing people, they will come by themselves. This is what I tried to do, to reduce religious laws, and hopefully, they will try to be more and more close to Judaism. — Matan Kahana

    You can read my entire interview with Matan Kahana here.

  • Hen Mazzig: Forget Your Preconceived Ideas About Jews

    Hen Mazzig: Forget Your Preconceived Ideas About Jews

    My guest on the Emet-Truth podcast is Hen Mazzig, a public speaker and advocate against antisemitism and for the Mizrahi community. His new book is called The Wrong Kind of Jew: A Mizrahi Manifesto, published by Wicked Son Books.

    You might recognize Hen as somebody who is very active on social media or who has made the news more than a few times as the object of protest by anti-Zionists on college campuses. But Hen fights battles that go beyond the struggle against antisemitism. He has always been an advocate for visibility inside and outside the Jewish community. As a Mizrahi Jew, an Israeli, and a member of the LGBTQ community, Hen has pushed back against his status as what he calls “the wrong kind of Jew.”

    In our interview, we talk about his family background, struggle for acceptance, and how he takes on all our preconceived notions about who he is. He hopes his book helps to educate Jews and non-Jews alike about the diversity within world Jewry and in Israel.

    Click here to listen to my interview with Hen Mazzig.

    More Jewish podcast links can be found here.

  • PW Interview: New Book Reframes Trial of Jesus

    PW Interview: New Book Reframes Trial of Jesus

    For Publishers Weekly, I interviewed an Israeli author who rethinks the trial of Jesus. He presents an evidence-based case that Jesus was the victim not of Christian-Jewish conflict, but rather an internal Jewish one. He hopes his book leads to Jewish-Christian reconciliation. A couple thousand years ago, a trial was held at night during Passover. That was highly irregular. The defendant was Jesus, and the hearing was conducted by a minority sect within Judaism. “I can tell, in my discussions with the students, there is still work to be done with regard to this issue of blaming the Jewish people for crucifying Jesus,” says the author, Israel Knohl. “If my book can improve that in some way, I would be happy.”

    Read the full story in Publishers Weekly. 

  • Ben Freeman Declares War On Internalized Antisemitism

    Ben Freeman Declares War On Internalized Antisemitism

    My podcast guest is Ben M. Freeman. He’s a Holocaust educator, activist, and author of two books: Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People and the soon-to-be released Reclaiming our Story: The Pursuit of Jewish Pride.

    Ben was born in Scotland and is an internationally known author, educator and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion specialist focusing on Jewish identity. He’s about to embark on a tour of North America to promote his latest book, so I am very happy I was able to speak to him for about a half-hour before he leaves. We discuss what he means by internalized Jew-hatred, his own experience as both a Jew and a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and how to bring back a sense of Jewish Pride.

    Click here to listen to my interview with Ben Freeman.