Chai Lights
Jewish news for the week of February 16th
Culture & Identity
The Jewish Architect Who Made South Beach Look Like a Fever Dream (In the Best Way) Henry Hohauser built Art Deco Miami on creativity, boldness, and a shoestring budget.
Also from Tablet’s Miami-themed February issue, Samuel D. Gruber profiles Henry Hohauser, the Jewish architect whose playful, exuberant designs shaped one of the most recognizable skylines in America. From the Breakwater Hotel to Collins Avenue landmarks, Hohauser’s fingerprints are all over the neighborhood that tourists flock to today. A reminder that Jewish creativity has shaped American cities in ways most people never realize.
Tablet Magazine: “The Visionary Who Shaped Art Deco Miami”
History & Culture
PBS Asks: What Happened Between Black and Jewish Americans? A new four-part docuseries from Henry Louis Gates Jr. explores the alliance, the fractures, and the road ahead.
PBS premiered “Black and Jewish America: An Interwoven History,” a sprawling series that covers everything from Jews co-founding the NAACP to the tensions that followed the civil rights era. The Forward covered both the series’ strengths and its notable blind spots, particularly how it sidelines Black Jews and the Hebrew Israelite community. Worth watching and worth the conversation that follows.
Five Decades of Jewish Life, One Shutter Click at a Time Photographer Bill Aron’s retrospective captures a changing Jewish world, from Lower East Side scribes to Southern shrimp sellers.
The Forward profiles “The World In Front of Me,” a career retrospective at the American Jewish Historical Society from photographer Bill Aron, who spent decades documenting Jewish communities across the U.S., Cuba, and the former Soviet Union. His images are joyous and warm, a welcome alternative to the “doom and gloom” school of Jewish documentation. Aron credits his camera with deepening his own Judaism, proving that sometimes the best way to find yourself is to look outward.
The Forward: “Bill Aron’s Jewish Photography Charts Decades of Communities” (February 5, 2026)
Religion & Jewish Life
Why Animal Sacrifice Isn’t as Weird as You Think Dovid Bashevkin makes the case that Tractate Zevachim has something urgent to teach modern Jews about humility and devotion.
In Tablet’s “Burnt Offerings,” NCSY’s Director of Education takes readers deep into the Talmud’s treatment of animal sacrifice, and instead of treating it like an ancient relic, he argues the logic is haunting, humbling, and surprisingly relevant. If you’ve ever wondered why the Torah devotes so much real estate to burnt offerings, Bashevkin’s accessible, thoughtful writing will make you rethink what you thought you knew about the Temple service.
Tablet Magazine: “Burnt Offerings”
Hummus Diplomacy: Muslim and Sephardic Jewish Students Are Finding Common Ground on Campus Persian karaoke nights and hamsa painting are doing what formal interfaith panels can’t.
The Sephardic American Mizrahi Initiative (SAMi) is running cultural programming on 16 campuses, and roughly 10% of the 6,000 students engaging are Muslim. The secret? No one’s showing up for “dialogue.” They’re showing up for the music, the food, and the shared cultural memory. At a time when campus tensions dominate headlines, this is a quietly hopeful story about what happens when identity is a bridge, not a barrier.
Muslim and Sephardic Jewish college students are connecting over shared heritage (The Forward, February 15, 2026)
Jewish Life Today
This Jewish Olympian’s Pre-Race Ritual Starts with a Text to Mom Speedskater Kamryn Lute recited the Shehecheyanu at the Milan opening ceremony, and it only gets more heartwarming from there.
The Forward profiles Kamryn Lute, the 21-year-old Team USA speedskater making her Olympic debut in Milan. Before every race, she texts her mom a prayer. At the opening ceremony, she recited the Shehecheyanu, the blessing for new experiences. Between scrolling synagogue newsletters in the athletes’ village and channeling her bat mitzvah-level discipline on the ice, Lute is a refreshing reminder that Jewish identity shows up in all kinds of places, including at 30+ mph on frozen straightaways.