Next time you find yourself craving matzo ball soup on a chilly March evening in Tokyo, do not panic.
Head to Tokyo Station, then walk two blocks west, towards the Imperial Palace. You’ll find the soup waiting for you on the basement floor of the Marunouchi Building, a 37-story skyscraper, at the newly opened Japanese branch of San Francisco’s Jewish-style deli Wise Sons. Treat yourself to an original pastrami sandwich, bagel and lox, and a slice of matcha-flavored babka.
The Italian people wanted change, but they couldn’t agree on what kind of change they wanted. The results of the parliamentary elections which took place on Sunday will for sure shake the political landscape of the country, but it’s still unclear which direction they will lead it to.
The populist Five Star Movement is the party with most votes, about 32 percent for both parliament chambers. Another party that skyrocketed is the right-wing Northern League, led by Matteo Salvini, which got 17 percent of the votes and may be able to determine the future of Italy’s politics. Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party, which has ruled the country for the last five years, barely reached 19 percent of votes.
In January, just a few weeks away from the forthcoming parliamentary elections in Italy, a candidate from the Northern League party visited a local radio station for an interview. When asked about the issue of immigration, the candidate said: “We must choose if our ethnicity, the white race, our society, should continue existing or if it should be erased. It’s not a matter of xenophobia or racism,” he continued. “We can’t accept everyone.”
It’s 2018. About 80 years have passed since World War II. You’d think Italian politicians have learned a lesson from their predecessors, but apparently they have not.
At 5pm on a cold Friday evening, a couple dozen men, most wearing black suits, walk towards a red brick, four-story building near Clinton Street on East Broadway. On the facade next to the entrance, large, dark-red and white marks suggest painted-over graffiti. The men do not seem to notice. Above them is a painted sign in Yiddish. Some briefly kiss the fingers of their right hand after touching the mezuzah affixed to the doorpost. As they pass through the narrow entrance, they also enter the Shabbat, the holiest day of the week for observant Jews.
The building at 233 East Broadway now houses a couple of small shtiebels, Jewish prayer rooms, much like others in a row of several, tiny Orthodox synagogues along the same block, a remnant of what was once the largest concentration of Jews in the United States.
Harlem non è solo il nome di un quartiere di New York. È una fetta intera della storia afroamericana negli Stati Uniti, con l’Apollo che sorge orgoglioso sulla centoventicinquesima strada, il Rinascimento di Harlem degli anni venti, la produzione orwelliana del Macbeth. Harlem è protagonista di infinite notti al ritmo di jazz e blues. È stata per decenni palco di rapper, artisti, attivisti politici. E quella storia continua ancora oggi, con gli hamburger del Harlem Shake e l’ultimo cortometraggio di Alicia Keys, incentrato sulla vita del quartiere.
