Edit: thank you for the lovely comments!! I didn’t expect for this to end up so introspective. I think this has actually been a useful and helpful exercise in self identity but also deconstructing stereotypes and not basing one’s actions on the opinions of others. As many of you have pointed out there is no specific way a Jewish person looks. And just because a person may meet that stereotype it does not make them any less Jewish. We don’t say someone is not Jewish because they don’t have these stereotypical features so why would the reverse be true?

Furthermore, other peoples perspectives are useful but not the end all. It is important to consider them but in the end of the day make well thought out decisions based on what you want to do and not worry about judgement especially for such trivial matters.

Post:

I am sorry for the stupid question. It’s silly, I know. And vain. And there is more to life than looks. And there are way more important things in the world.

I need to get a rhinoplasty for medical reasons, but I was asked if I actually want to change the shape of my nose. And I am torn.

I know it is the nose of my ancestors but no one else has a hooked nose in my family and I have always felt like the ugly duckling. I also got teased by family in a “loving” way. Who are apparently all now adamantly against me getting it changed. It has always been a point of insecurity for me but I always just accepted it was the reality and tried to not think about it. But now need to get one anyway so it’s tempting to change it.

I never had a problem with my nose looking “Jewish” though. It was more that I have an asymmetry and just found it not to fit my face.

However, I had a nasty experience at uni where I was speaking my mother tongue trying to make friends with some Eastern Europeans and one of the boys looked me up and down and called me a slur (жид) and told me I wasn’t one of them.

Edit to explain thought process: Suddenly the nose I didn’t like just because, was labelled “Jewish” and made me question why I don’t like my nose to begin with and if there was an element of self-hating.

I feel like changing it would make me happier, but I also feel like I am betraying my ancestors and covering their features.

I don’t know many Jews where I live so I haven’t really heard people speak about it. However, watched a lot of American media and I was always slightly shocked how there was a TV trope of JAPs getting a nose job for their 18th birthday. Is it actually this normalised?

Idk what do yall think

The Hora hubbub,
by Jeanne Malle, Air mail, 2026-07-18.

It’s midnight. Somewhere between their fifth and sixth gin-and-tonic, two young men whisper into a DJ’s ear as the Isley Brothers’ “Shout” roars around them. Grinning like teenagers about to pull off a prank, they scurry to the long tables where, hours before, a bride and groom enjoyed their first moments as spouses. As they carry two chairs back toward the dance floor, the recognizable first few notes of the Hebrew folk song “Hava Nagila” begin to pour out of the speakers. While the rhythmic melody accelerates, the jubilant crowd hoists the helpless couple in the chairs, laughing as they grip their seats for dear life.

If you haven’t been graced with an invite this wedding season, ask anyone who has, and there’s a decent chance they’ve seen the hora performed—Jewish wedding or not. “I’m on the post-business-school wedding circuit,” Phil, a New Yorker who is half Jewish, tells me. “I’ve probably been to 20 weddings in the last year or two. From Orthodox Jewish to Catholic weddings, I’ve seen horas performed.” This includes Phil’s own wedding earlier this year, where he and his wife, who is not Jewish, were lifted in chairs by friends and relatives.

First choreographed in the 1920s by the Romanian-Israeli dancer Baruch Agadati, the hora contains two distinct parts. First, the wedding party holds hands and dances in a circle—sometimes read as a representation of the cyclical nature of life and the interconnectedness of community. Then comes the main event: the bride and groom (and, often, parents, siblings, and immediate relatives) are hoisted aloft on chairs, symbolizing the spiritual elevation of the couple as they step into married life.

Clara Caro, a Jewish Venezuelan woman, says that, in Venezuela, the hora is the centerpiece of every Jewish wedding. It typically follows the father-daughter dance, and is what kick-starts the dancing portion of the night. According to Caro, in Venezuela, the hora can go on for more than half an hour. “The more loved you are, the longer the hora,” says Caro, who recently had to warn her Catholic boyfriend to stay back with the older guests at a family wedding as the energetic dancing circle began.

Caro isn’t thrilled that the tradition is being borrowed outside Jewish circles. “I think it’s a little bit like fraud,” she says. “You don’t even know what this is, and you just think it’s cool.” Some online critics share her unease. “I am Jewish and even though the hora isn’t a part of the religion but the culture, I would find it weird/borderline culturally appropriative if you did it,” one Reddit user wrote on the thread r/weddingplanning. “Why people persist in hating us while continually copying us boggles the mind,” wrote another user on the thread r/Jewish.

NB: the reddit thread referenced in the above article is this one: ‘Thoughts on hora chair lift at non-Jewish weddings?’

Scarlett Johansson plays a fierce Jewish mother in the upcoming ‘Paper Tiger’,
by Lior Zaltzman, Kveller, 2026-06-30.

James Gray’s 2022 Armageddon Times was based on the director’s Jewish childhood in 1980s Queens, New York. It’s the story of his early teenage friendship with a Black classmate and his relationship with his Jewish grandfather (played by Anthony Hopkins), who escaped antisemitic persecution in the former USSR.

The film featured Anne Hathaway as Jewish mom Esther Graff, a stand-in for Gray’s own mother. Esther was a complex Jewish mother figure. Hathaway, who isn’t Jewish, took inspiration for the role from her late Jewish mother-in-law, Jacqueline Banks.

For Gray’s newest film, Paper Tiger, which takes place just a few years later, he had hoped Hathaway would reprise a similar role: a fictional stand-in for his Jewish mom, but this time in a completely different story. This character has a different name, though the plot is also based on his actual history. But Hathaway was busy filming Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.

“So I said, OK, shit — that means neither of them are going to be available,” Gray recalled in an interview with Rolling Stone. “So then I thought, well, who do I want to work with? Who is a woman from New York, who is Jewish, who would authentically understand this world? And then I thought to myself, ‘Who’s like the biggest female star in the world right now? It’s a Jewish woman from New York!'”

That woman was Scarlett Johansson.

Hello! I'm looking for a siddurs with both english and hebrew text that follows sephardic nusach. Tunisian if possible (איש מצליח), but otherwise North Africa.

For example, I've got the Pahah Eliyahou in hebrew and in french.

Are there any english versions of Tefillat Hahodesh?

We are hosting a Bat Mitzvah for 60 people at our home. Wondering what we should do about challah at the Kiddush. These are the options I know of:

* Presliced. Not pretty, doesn't taste as good, but sanitary.

* Pre-torn. Not pretty but sanitary.

* Full challahs to be torn apart by guests. Some guests may find this too unsanitary.

* Pull-apart challahs - more sanitary, but hard to find.

* Individual mini-challahs. These are available, 3" diameter, but very expensive and would require large baskets on the table, maybe taking up too much room.

What do most people do? Any thoughts?

Hi, I’m needing to order a stone for my uncle’s unveiling. He wanted his footstone to match that of his mother. Could someone tell me what the second line in Hebrew says? I remember enough to sound out that the first line is my grandmother’s name. I’m guessing that the second line is a translation of “beloved wife, mother, and grandmother”, but that’s just a guess. Thank you!

If my guess is correct and anyone knows how to write “beloved son, brother, and uncle”, that would be great too. I really appreciate any help!