Articles in the Press 2018

New Jersey Jewish News
Bridging the gap between American Jews and Israel
December 5, 2018 — The gap between Israel and the American-Jewish community has grown wider in recent years, but the drift has nothing to do with the countries’ political leadership, according to Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. 

Articles in the Press 2015

New Jersey Jewish Standard
Still Your Bubby's Yiddish
March 8, 2015 — It’s even more startling to hear the phrase Yiddish rock. Still, says Jeffrey Shandler — a professor of Jewish studies at Rutgers and a scholar of contemporary Yiddish culture — that genre of music not only exists but is thriving.

My Central Jersey
Yiddish Princess bringing free performance to Rutgers
March 8, 2015 — "There's great musical talent and cultural energy at work in Yiddish Princess, and their music can encourage people to rethink common assumptions about what Yiddish can be," Shandler said.

New Jersey Jewish News
Mizrahi music hits the Israeli pop charts
March 10, 2015 — The sacred music of Jews from Arab lands has enjoyed a resurgence in Israel, with traditional songs and poetry transformed into popular numbers in the pop, rock, jazz, and even heavy metal mode. In a talk in New Brunswick, anthropologist and performer Dr. Galeet Dardashti said this “piyutim craze” is also reflected in popular classes that have attracted young and old, men and women, and Mizrahi and Ashkenazi students.

New Jersey Jewish News
Food industry titan Allen Bildner, 88
February 11, 2015 — “All of the major supermarkets in the area — Kings, ShopRite, and [formerly] Pathmark — were started by members of this community, and they were famous for giving back,” said Linda Forgosh, executive director of the Jewish Historical Society of New Jersey. And none more so, she added, than Bildner and his wife Joan, who died in 2013.