By Zuzanna Mietlinska Ethiopian Jews have a 2000 years history of living in exile, outside the borders of Israel. Despite the pogroms (violent repression of ethnic/religious groups), forced conversions and many other forms of persecution, they have maintained their culture and religion throughout the centuries under the name ‘Beta Israel’.Continue Reading
By Zuzanna Mietlinska The following article presents a short introduction to the Jewish lifecycle – namely, the most important events for every practicing Jew – from birth to death, through circumcision, bar mitzvah and marriage. All these occasions are associated with a set of customs and practices, common to JewsContinue Reading
By Sasha Zinchenco Did you know that the Carnival in Brazil had a much more violent sister festival? This other event, called Entrudo, was finally prohibited in 1830 in order to give way to the more “civilized” Carnival. Initially it involved brutal and violent pranks and throwing of disgusting liquidsContinue Reading
By Ayse Mısırlıoğlu A couple of years back, I started noticing a curious pattern in several of the New York-based TV series or movies that I was watching. Whenever certain characters had a cup of coffee in their hands, it was always the same cup of coffee. I could seeContinue Reading
By Zhayra Escalona In a city far from nature, autumn days go by as if autumn were not present. If it weren’t for the decreasing temperatures and the dampness of the day, one would see no difference between the warmer seasons and the colder ones. Life is limited to theContinue Reading
By Lea Schiller North Korea’s shrinking island in Japan For these young kids, being accompanied by guards on their way to school is normal. Their uniforms are safely tucked away in their backpacks to be worn later, when they are in the safety of the school building, away from pryingContinue Reading
By Alon Küster In Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber looks at the increase of jobs that do not contribute anything meaningful society. He reasons that the role of bureaucracies and perverse incentives are to blame for the rise of this phenomena. The book reviewed here is an expansion of an essayContinue Reading
By Zuzanna Mietlinska Female doctor, female lawyer, female boss. These juxtapositions seem obvious to us in Western culture, but can be completely inapparent when we think about women in the Middle East. Why is it so? Well, we humans love to generalize. After enormous migration flows as well as theContinue Reading
By Eva Bajema Fabulous outfits, the 80s, drama, a story of friendship and emancipation. That’s Ryan Murphy’s Pose in a nutshell. Netflix describes the series as follows: in 1987, a diagnosis spurs ball fixture Blanca to start her own house in the Bronx, where she soon takes in homeless dancerContinue Reading
By Zuzanna Mietlinska The story in “Burning” is as simple as complicated. Persistently trivialised yet never-to-be-forgotten. It is a genre mishmash of over two and a half hours, combining the elements of a thriller, a sappy melodrama with psychological motives. It is another creation of widely awarded director Chang-dong Lee,Continue Reading