Alan Grabinsky

Jewish Telegraphic Agency • 2nd July 2021

These Jewish activists work as translators for migrants to fight 'language violence'

(JTA) — In 2018, a caravan of Central American migrants approached the United States through Mexico, stoking both fears and compassion. Ariel Koren, an interpreter who was translating for separated families near the U.S.-Mexico border at the time,...

Tablet Magazine • 22nd June 2021

Nomads United

Craving unbridled freedom after finishing their military service, some Israelis are joining horse caravans through the wilderness of South America

Tablet Magazine • 5th May 2021

The Polish Museum of Puerto Vallarta

The Mexican beach town is the unexpected home to one of the world’s finest post-WWII Polish poster collections, curated by a Jewish expat from Brooklyn

Jewish Review of Books • 5th May 2021

Forging an Identity

In a 1949 letter to an old family acquaintance in Istanbul, a man called Mauricio Fresco described his latest book project, a work titled Forge Your Own Passport, in which he sought to “prove the stupidity of passports, visas, nationalities, races,...

Atlantic Council • 28th December 2020

City Resilience Snapshot: Mexico City

Located on a lake basin and surrounded by volcanoes, Mexico City is continuously at risk of earthquakes, floods, heat waves, and other natural—and not so natural—disasters. More than half of the megalopolis’s workforce survives day-to-day and without...

The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com • 13th October 2020

United by the Deportivo, Mexico's Jews were separated by coronavirus

It houses, among other things, a full-size Olympic swimming pool, another 25-meter covered pool, dozens of tennis courts, multiple basketball courts, fronton courts (for playing Basque pelota sports), other paddle courts, a 200-person theater, two...

WSJ • 20th August 2020

Mexico City, Struggling to Provide Clean Water, Tests a New Method

When Carmen Luna moved to a neighborhood on the outskirts of Mexico City in 1975, there was no sewage system. To get water, she carried buckets to and from a faucet in the street. At the end of the 1980s, her house was connected to the grid; her...

Julius Baer • 6th July 2020

FARO: Cultural lighthouses brighten up Mexico City's art scene

That same year, the FARO in Milpa Alta, an area where suicide is the third most common cause of death for adults between 19 and 30, also opened its doors. Because of its confined space—originally 600 square metres— this project innovated by developing...

Jewish Telegraphic Agency • 18th March 2020

He wanted to encapsulate Beijing's Jewish community in a Passover Haggadah. The coronavirus complicated that.

(JTA) — Unlike Shanghai or Hong Kong, which received Jews fleeing from World War II, Beijing does not have a robust Jewish history. In the words of Joshua Kurtzig, former president of the Reform congregation there, the massive Chinese capital is a...

Julius Baer • 17th February 2020

Running out of water in a liquid paradise

Mexico City’s problems with running water are acute: in the city’s poorest neighbourhoods such as Iztapalapa and Xochimilco, brown, murky water flows from the faucets just once a week, if at all. The irony is that water in this region abounds....

Jewish Telegraphic Agency • 17th December 2019

Colombia's Day of the Little Candles looks an awful lot like Hanukkah

(JTA) — Jews in Colombia preparing for Hanukkah saw something earlier this month that no doubt looked very familiar. On the night of Dec. 7, streets, plazas, windows and porches across the country were lit by thousands of candles in honor of Dia de...

Julius Baer Insights • 20th November 2019

Econduce: Building sustainable mobility for a Latin American megacity

During the second half of the twentieth century, Mexico City’s metropolitan population more than quadrupled in size. As one of the first urban regions to reach the 20 million inhabitant mark, mobility has been a top concern for chilangos (as the...

Jewish Telegraphic Agency • 4th November 2019

Mexican-Jewish artist Aliza Nisenbaum on her colorful portraits of 'the other' in society

(JTA) — Mexican-Jewish artist Aliza Nisenbaum sees a failure to communicate in the modern world — and her work as a way to counteract the dilemma. “The problem today is that we are not sitting with real people, face to face, we are shouting to each...

America's Quarterly • 31st October 2019

From Cuba to Chile, a Journey through Jewish Latin America

This article is adapted from AQ's latest issue on the politics of water in Latin America Taken together, Latin America is home to the third largest Jewish diaspora group in the world, behind the United States and France. But as Mexican-born essayist...

Jewish Telegraphic Agency • 24th October 2019

A new book takes readers on a journey through Jewish Latin America

MEXICO CITY (JTA) —More than 10 years ago, Ilan Stavans scandalized language purists of the Spanish-speaking world by translating a chapter of “Don Quixote” — into Spanglish. Since then, the so-called czar of Latino culture has become one of the most...

The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com • 20th October 2019

Argentinian Jews are split over de Kirchner's political comeback

Argentines head to the polls for the final round of presidential elections later this month. The two candidates are the incumbent, Mauricio Macri — the first conservative elected in the South American nation in several decades — and Alberto Fernandez,...

17th August 2019

Mexico City’s Rain-Harvesting Program Could Change How Cities Manage Water

When Maria Isabel Contreras and her husband moved to Mexico City’s Iztapalapa district, 30 years ago, water was not an issue. But as the district urbanized, the taps began to dry up. Today, the nine-person household — four adults and five children —...

Jewish Telegraphic Agency • 16th July 2019

Rescued twice: The archive that survived the Holocaust and the AMIA attack

(JTA) — Abraham Lichtenbaum was getting ready to leave his house on July 18, 1994 when, at 9:53 a.m., he heard an explosion: The headquarters of Argentina’s 200,000-strong Jewish community, the AMIA, located less than four miles from his home, had...

Jewish Telegraphic Agency • 26th June 2019

Barcelona's oldest house is now a Jewish cultural center

BARCELONA, Spain (JTA) — Tucked away in one of the narrow streets of this city’s El Call neighborhood, a former Jewish ghetto that these days house upscale shops and restaurants, sits the oldest residential house in Barcelona — a nondescript white...

Julius Baer Insights • 6th June 2019

Mexico City: making way for the bike

As a car-centric city, Mexico City has made gigantic strides promoting the bicycle as a means of transportation. The greatest challenge today is bringing bike infrastructure to the periphery, where people need it the most.