Naomi Ragen, the New York-born Israeli novelist and playwright known for her portrayals of Orthodox Jewish women in crisis, says the cancellation of a planned Chicago revival of one of her plays represents a “return to McCarthyism” in the American cultural scene. Ragen, 77, has revealed that plans by a Jewish arts company in Chicago […]
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”They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat.” Alan King’s joke about Jewish holidays gets to the essence of Jewish persistence in the face of horror. He might have added “Let’s sing.” Music has accompanied the Jewish people for millennia through periods of joy and sorrow. Moses and the Israelites praised God for His […]
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In 2015, while visiting Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, James Beard Award-winning chef Alon Shaya came face-to-face with a World War II artifact that moved him deeply. It was a red cloth triangle — cut from a Nazi flag — embroidered with the names of a few dozen female prisoners at the Ravensbrück concentration camp. […]
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The Anti-Defamation League is alleging “systemic exclusion of Jewish and Israeli artists” in a trio of reports released Thursday focusing on the publishing, museums and entertainment spaces. The reports, which the ADL calls its “State of the Arts” initiative, were shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in advance of their publication and come as Jews […]
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Adam Brody, who stars as a rabbi in the Netflix rom-com series “Nobody Wants This,” for the first time publicly shared his view that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. “Put me down as thinking it’s a genocide. Put me down as wanting a free Palestine,” Brody said in a new interview with GQ. “It’s […]
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When Daniel Okrent first proposed writing a biography of Stephen Sondheim for the Yale Jewish Lives series, he had a warning for his publisher. “I would love to write about Sondheim if you’re interested, but I have to tell you that he was not in any way, in any remote way, a practicing Jew,” Okrent […]
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Even a powerful Nor’easter couldn’t stop the crowds from showing up at the North American premiere of the controversial Israeli documentary “NAZA” on Saturday afternoon. The two weekend screenings scheduled at Lincoln Center as part of the New York Film Festival sold out in minutes. Dozens of people waited in a box office standby line […]
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Nazi salutes. A swastika flag. Fights in the stands. They were all part of the scene at a recent combat sports event in Orlando that pitted an Israeli Jew against an avowed racist with SS bolts tattooed on his chest – and ended with the latter mocking his defeated foe as “a short little f–king […]
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TEL AVIV — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would advance legislation allowing Israel to revoke the citizenship of people who defame soldiers or the state abroad, citing “NAZA,” the prize-winning documentary accusing the military of knowingly killing large numbers of civilians in Gaza. Netanyahu said Wednesday he also planned to advance a separate bill […]
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The last time Macklemore drew fire from the Jewish community for a controversial performance, he apologized, there was forgiveness — and the rapper asked fans to support the Anti-Defamation League. That was May 2014, when Macklemore wore an onstage costume featuring a large hooked prosthetic nose, black wig and bushy beard, prompting many commentators to […]
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