Culture -

Trump taps Mel Gibson, actor-director with record of antisemitism, as ‘special ambassador’ to Hollywood

January 16, 2025January 16, 2025Jesse Orine

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 […]

A lost film about Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side returns to the big screen in NYC

January 14, 2025January 17, 2025Jesse Orine

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 […]

Franz Kafka’s Hebrew writings are now on view in New York City

January 13, 2025January 13, 2025Jesse Orine

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. […]

A.J. Weberman, famous for picking through Bob Dylan’s trash, shares his thoughts on ‘A Complete Unknown’

January 9, 2025January 9, 2025Jesse Orine

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 […]

The Borscht Belt hotels were cornerstones of Jewish family life that have no real replacement

January 7, 2025January 7, 2025Jesse Orine

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 […]

Adrien Brody wins Golden Globe for portraying Holocaust survivor and architect in ‘The Brutalist’

January 6, 2025January 6, 2025Jesse Orine

“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 […]

A chance meeting between Delia Ephron and Julianna Marguiles begat a subtly Jewish Broadway play

January 3, 2025January 3, 2025Jesse Orine

A few years ago, two well-known Jewish women serendipitously met walking their dogs in Greenwich Village and immediately connected. It was a meet-cute befitting a romantic comedy. But this was no movie, nor was it the beginning of a romance. Instead, this fortuitous encounter between bestselling author Delia Ephron and Emmy Award-winning actress Julianna Margulies […]

Our 10 most-read Jewish news stories of 2024

December 31, 2024December 31, 2024Jesse Orine

In a year when Israel was at war, a U.S. presidential election found Jews on both sides of the political divide, and rising antisemitism persisted in the aftermath of Oct. 7, these stories most captured the attention of (JR)’s readers in 2024. 1. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she opposed antisemitism bill because it rejects ‘Gospel’ […]

A Strands shanda? NYT game misspells Hanukkah in Festival of Lights-themed puzzle

December 30, 2024December 30, 2024Jesse Orine

Jewish devotees of the New York Times’ game Strands came in for a shock on Sunday, when the day’s puzzle offered up a Hanukkah theme — and then seemed to botch it. Strands is a word-search game where participants identify six hidden words or phrases in a matrix of letters, including a “spangram” that stretches […]

The gaming site Slither.io says it is addressing complaints about antisemitism

December 27, 2024December 27, 2024Jesse Orine

This article was produced as part of (JR)’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives. It’s been a year since I stopped playing the popular online video game Slither.io with my cousins. We had bonded while competing against each other but it […]