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March 15, 2013 Andy Cush

As you may recall, the Bronx’s Artuso Bakery won local fame for its delicious cookies depicting Pope Benedict XVI. And now that he’s resigned and that other guy has taken his place, they’ve adapted, turning out batches of pastries carrying the image of Pope Francis. Apparently, they were in a state of flux during the […]

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February 12, 2013 Andy Cush

Missing Emperor Palpatine Pope Benedict XVI already? One Bronx Bakery has just the thing: black-and-white sugar cookies emblazoned with the Pope’s image, so that his papacy can live on in your hearts and stomachs forever. “So many people loved these cookies,” says Anthony Artuso of Artuso Pastry Shop. “We still get calls asking for them, but […]

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January 30, 2013 Andy Cush

In the wake of Nechemya Weberman’s high-profile sex abuse trial, Hasidic Brooklyn’s modesty  committees–self-appointed, loosely organized groups of men who take it upon themselves to enforce the community’s explicit and implicit rules for appropriate dress and conduct–have received increased attention from non-Hasidic residents of New York. The Times published a fascinating report highlighting some of the squads’ […]

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January 11, 2013 Andy Cush

Ah, it’s been a while since we’ve gotten any updates on metzitzah b’peh, the ultra-Orthodox Jewish practice that finds Rabbis using their mouths to suck the blood from infants’ freshly-circumcised penises and has led to fatal contractions of herpes simplex virus. Back in September, New York City’s Board of Health ruled that rabbis who wanted to […]

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January 9, 2013 Andy Cush

Pamela Geller has a history of running ugly, hateful anti-Muslim ads around the New York City subway system, and New Yorkers have a history of defacing, modifying, and otherwise beautifying them. Last month, the right-wing blogger unveiled a brand-new series of ads, featuring images of the burning Twin Towers next to passages from the Qur’an. […]

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