Hosting “Saturday Night Live” in its final broadcast before the inauguration of Donald Trump, comedian Dave Chappelle concluded with advice for the new president. “Do not forget your humanity,” Chappelle said. “And please, have empathy for displaced people, whether they’re in the Palisades or Palestine.” The line represented Chappelle’s signature mix of humor and serious […]
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Like many people during the pandemic, Asher Lovy became addicted to TikTok. After watching numerous videos on the social media platform, he asked his organization’s social media manager to start an account of their own. Today Lovy’s group, Za’akah, has around 9,000 followers on the platform — a paltry amount compared to its most popular […]
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Jewish stand-up comedian Gary Gulman is trying a new approach in his new, one-man off-Broadway show, “Grandiloquent.” Between the usual moments of hilarity, Gulman, 54 — a “Last Comic Standing” finalist whose most recent comedy special, “Born on Third Base,” was released on Max in 2023 — takes a more serious, vulnerable approach to storytelling […]
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For six years, singer and actor Ari Axelrod has been performing a one-man musical show about Jews and Broadway in front of sold-out audiences around the country. It is a remarkable accomplishment, especially considering that Axelrod — who grew up in a Conservative Jewish home and has fostered a deep love of musicals since high […]
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For years following his highly publicized antisemitic outbursts, Mel Gibson couldn’t find much work in Hollywood. But now he’s back in the filmmaking capital — as Donald Trump’s “special ambassador.” The president-elect announced Thursday he was appointing the actor-director, along with fellow conservative celebrities Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone, to the newly created role of […]
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In the early 1920s, a Jewish filmmaker set out to create a movie that would counter the rising antisemitism of the time. The result was “Breaking Home Ties,” a silent film about Russian Jewish immigrants in the Lower East Side that depicts Jews and Jewish practice in a sensitive light. “Breaking Home Ties” premiered at […]
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Celebrated Jewish writer Franz Kafka may have written his most famous works, including the novella “The Metamorphosis,” in German, his mother tongue. But Kafka was proficient in other languages, too, including Hebrew — a fact that some scholars point to when making the case that his Jewishness played a large role in his creative life. […]
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A.J. Weberman — the writer and gadfly who gained notoriety in the 1970s by picking through Bob Dylan’s garbage — recently watched “A Complete Unknown,” the new biopic about the Jewish singer-songwriter. He didn’t like it. Even before the movie was over, Weberman, a lifelong Dylan obsessive who coined the term “Dylanology,” made his opinions […]
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Last year, as I stood in the ruins of the Nevele Hotel, memories flooded back despite the devastation around me. Every surface is covered in graffiti, roofs have caved in throughout the property, and not a single piece of carpet or wood paneling remains — all stripped away by years of looting. The grand ballroom […]
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“The Brutalist,” an epic about a Holocaust survivor and acclaimed architect in the postwar United States, had a big night at the Golden Globe Awards, taking home prizes for best motion picture drama as well as for its director, Brady Corbet, and star, Adrien Brody. Kieran Culkin also won an award for his performance in […]
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