Most of the events I cover in this column reflect the culture of American Jewry's majority Ashkenazi Jews. This weekend American Sephardi Federation/Sephardic House(ASF/SH) will host a symposium that will highlight the culture and history of Sephardi Jews

"We're preprogrammed to reach out," Dr. de Waal writes. "Empathy is an automated response over which we have limited control." The only people emotionally immune to another's situation, he notes, are psychopaths.

Ever is a long time; maybe the worst decade of the last half century.

Gender roles in the movie New Moon

Events of Jewish interest this week in NYC include several movies.

"The staging and choreography nods to burlesque as much as it does opera."

Freakanomics for parents.

Ali Sibat is not even a Saudi national. The Lebanese citizen was only visiting Saudi Arabia on pilgrimage when he was arrested in Medina last year where a court condemned him as a witch on November 9 for making predictions on his Lebanese TV show.

...our brains take in and integrate information from various senses to build a picture of our surroundings.

Abayudaya representative J.J. Keki's talk relates the history and current circumstances of Uganda's Jewish community.