Category: Culture

(New York Jewish Week) — “My feelings about Israel are the reasonable ones,” says Asaf Sternheim, an adjunct writing professor at an unnamed university who is the protagonist in a buzzy new play opening in New York this week. Speaking to his wife, Asaf — played by Jewish actor and “How I Met Your Mother” star […]

When Rabbi Avraham Wolff leaves the Mishpacha Children’s Home in Odessa, Ukraine, most evenings, he whispers a silent prayer.  He prays that the 120 children for whom his organization cares will be able to sleep through the night, uninterrupted by air raid sirens and a race to the bomb shelter. He prays that the food, […]

BERLIN ((JR)) – Israeli director Guy Nattiv and British actor Helen Mirren have received a Dove Award from the Cinema for Peace Foundation for their joint work in the 2023 biopic, “Golda,” in which Mirren stars as Golda Meir, the fourth prime minister of Israel. The film focuses on Meir’s role during the Yom Kippur […]

(New York Jewish Week) — In the days after Kristallnacht in 1938, two German Jewish brothers flee their Berlin home for a place halfway across the world: Shanghai, where they join a community of thousands of other Jewish refugees — and confront a Chinese population devastated by their own war with Japan.  One brother, Otto, […]

((JR)) — Rob Reiner, best known for his acting role in the 1970s sitcom “All in the Family” and for directing a series of beloved comedies — including “This is Spinal Tap,” “The Princess Bride” and “When Harry Met Sally” — is getting serious in his latest project. “God and Country,” which hits theaters this week, […]

(New York Jewish Week) — There is a scene currently playing out on Manhattan’s Lower East Side that might seem unimaginable in these fractured times. A man and a woman, each draped in a Jewish prayer shawl, stand at each end of a long table. The man is holding a kiddush cup; the woman is […]

((JR)) — Two concerts by Matisyahu, the American Jewish singer famous for his peace anthem “One Day,” have been canceled after pro-Palestinian protesters targeted venues where he was set to perform. Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, New Mexico, canceled one concert on Wednesday. The Rialto Theatre in Tucson, Arizona, canceled a second on Thursday, after […]

(New York Jewish Week) — When Elke Reva Sudin got married 16 years ago, she was a 20-year-old art school student at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She wanted to figure out a way to cover her hair — a traditional practice among Orthodox Jewish women — while still being true to herself. So instead […]

((JR)) — Organizers of an Israeli film festival in Barcelona say they have been forced to change locations at the last minute because of harassment directed at the theater that was slated to host the event. The Seret Film Festival, which has hosted a series of events around the world, will be moving forward in […]

(New York Jewish Week) –  For his very first runway show under his own label for New York Fashion Week, Israeli designer Kobi Halperin knew exactly the message he wanted to send: hope. On Sunday, Halperin concluded his show at Soho’s Splashlight Studios for his Fall 2024 collection, titled “Illumination of Hope,” with an instrumental […]