• Today’s direct talks went well: President Abbas agreed to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s U.S.-backed proposal to meet every two weeks (starting on September 14 in the Mideast). I’ll have more on all this tomorrow. [Politico]
• The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research has already found upwards of 15,000 volumes in Chaim Grade’s old apartment. [Arts Beat]
• ...

We learn much about the final days of comics writer Harvey Pekar (whom Vanessa Davis graphically eulogized in Tablet Magazine) from a New York Times feature. When he died in July, I noted that among Pekar’s final works published while he was still alive was his column, written by him and drawn by Tara Seibel, ...

On next week’s Vox Tablet podcast (which we’re actually posting tomorrow so you can enjoy it over Labor Day weekend), host Sara Ivry goes a-wandering through the century-old Mount Carmel Cemetery with Andy Bachman, the rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn. Together, they talk about how shifts in American Jewish life are playing out ...

Today is National 90210 Day (check your calendar), which is only an official holiday for those of who grew up watching Beverly Hills, 90210 and thinking it was an accurate representation of life on the West Coast. When I moved to Los Angeles in 2004 after college, I learned that Beverly Hills High, which the ...

Today in Tablet Magazine, investigative reporter Peter Lance has a blockbuster showing that the murder of ultra-nationalist Meir Kahane in New York in 1990 may have been backed by al-Qaida. Music columnist Alexander Gelfand profiles Galeet Dardashti, whose music is inspired by her Persian Jewish heritage. Part 5 of Toby Perl Freilich’s documentary on the ...

“Amanda left yesterday,” Kevin helpfully reminds us. “I didn’t think she’d make it this far.” So there are no more Jews, but as long as Top Chef D.C. goes on, so will these round-ups. And we have, like, three or four more episodes in D.C. to go. Right, guys?
Wrong! “There’s one more challenge in D.C., ...

• Talks today at the State Department. Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas seemed equal parts insistent and conciliatory in speeches at last night’s banquet. [NYT]
• Obama, meanwhile, pledged his “full weight” behind the peace effort while asserting that the United States “cannot impose a solution.” [Politico]
• The figure driving much of the optimism and ...

• “President Abbas,” Prime Minister Netanyahu will say tonight, “you are my partner in peace.” He will also concede the legitimacy of Palestinian claims to the land. [Haaretz/JTA]
• The U.S. government is funding an ad campaign in Israel touting moderate Palestinians as partners for peace. It seems fine, and then you stop to think about ...

With four players scoring double-digits (and with the Minnesota Timberwolves’s Kevin Love stepping up for 13 points and 6 rebounds in only 11 minutes), the United States national basketball team crushed Iran’s 88-51 in the preliminary round of the 2010 FIBA World Championships, in Turkey. 33 of Iran’s 51 points were scored by just two ...

From Vanity Fair’s blockbuster new profile:
The e-mail came from pastor Lou Engle, a prominent right-wing activist who identifies himself as a prayer warrior and is a central figure in dominionist theology. (Dominionists believe that, until Jesus Christ returns to earth, society should be governed exclusively by God’s law as revealed through a literal reading of ...