Rapper Azaelia Banks has announced that she will perform in Israel the week of the two-year anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks — and embark on a wide-ranging tour that includes a trip to a museum honoring an early Zionist leader who preached Jewish self-defense. “✨🇮🇱 Okay so listen… The Jewcy Diva is touching down […]
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“This country broke my penis, but it couldn’t break my spirit.” So says Jewish writer Gary Shteyngart in “The Guy Who Got Cut Wrong,” a new documentary from The New Yorker about the botched circumcision Shteyngart received as a 7-year-old Russian immigrant to the United States. Told with humor, sensitivity and pain, the 20-minute film […]
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Fortnite, the popular multiplayer online video game, has disabled a character dance feature — called an “emote” — following speculation that its gestures resembled a swastika. The “Peaceful Hips Emote,” which depicts actor and professional wrestler John Cena moving his arms up and down at a right angle, was part of a collaboration between Fortnite […]
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In keeping with pop legend Britney Spears’ penchant for posting seemingly random images on her social media, the star posted a photo of a group of Hasidic men playing chess over the weekend with the caption, “I like the beard !!!” While it was unclear whether Spears posted the photo because of the Hasidic subjects […]
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An electronic music festival in London has cancelled a set by an Israeli DJ, citing a blog post by a pro-Palestinian group that criticized the artist for serving as a “linchpin” of Israeli nightlife. In a Substack post, Ravers for Palestine urged the Origins music festival to cancel Israeli DJ Roi Perez’s set, accusing him […]
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Fall is by far my favorite season in New York City — warm, sunshiny days followed by cooler nights; the excitement of back-to-school and the Jewish holidays and, perhaps best of all, Open House New York Weekend, an annual event that gives New Yorkers access to notable, little-known or usually inaccessible locations across the five […]
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When Rita Zohar stepped into the role of Bessie Stern, a Holocaust survivor whose death sets in motion Scarlett Johansson’s new film “Eleanor the Great,” she wasn’t simply acting. Zohar, 81, is a childhood survivor of the Holocaust. She was also drawing on her lived experience of loss and resilience to bring life to her […]
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Around 1,200 Hollywood names, including stars like Liev Schrieber, Mayim Bialik and Jennifer Jason Leigh, have signed onto an open letter opposing a growing celebrity boycott of the Israeli film industry. Led by Creative Community for Peace, a pro-Israel entertainment group, the letter argues that the stated boycott against Israeli film institutions will harm Israeli […]
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“Being a fan of the Mets is like very, very much being Jewish — you know, you suffer,” Israeli-American violinist Itzhak Perlman tells me. “Every now and then, you have wonderful, wonderful, great, great, great celebration — and then some more suffering.” Perlman, who turned 80 on Aug. 31, was describing his recent birthday celebration […]
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Television’s most irreverent cartoon has taken aim at the Gaza war, showing one of its Jewish characters flying to Israel to tell Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he is “making life for Jews miserable” by continuing to prosecute the war. The latest episode of “South Park” depicts FCC Chairman Brendan Carr suffering from a brain-eating […]
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