Category: Culture

(JTA) — Werner Reich had his opening line ready when he sat down for B.A. Van Sise to take his portrait. “Before I could say anything, he said, ‘Everybody comes to me and they want me to talk about the Holocaust. What am I supposed to say? I went to Auschwitz. It was lousy,’” Van […]

(New York Jewish Week) — When Andrew Mandel dreamt up a new Jewish ritual object known as a “tzedek box,” he was admittedly most interested in the “tzedek” — the social justice — aspect, and less so the “box” part. Mandel, a fifth-year rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College in New York, envisioned a new Jewish holiday, […]

(JTA) – “The Fabelmans,” Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical drama about his Jewish upbringing, had an expected strong haul of Oscar nominations, picking up seven nods Tuesday morning. A remake of a movie once targeted by the Nazis, a blockbuster embroiled in a lawsuit with an Israeli family and a documentary by the program director of the […]

(New York Jewish Week) — More than a dozen songs written by Jews imprisoned in concentration camps and ghettos during the Holocaust will be brought to life at Carnegie Hall next week as part of a commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Featuring Broadway bigwigs and performers such as Harvey Fierstein, Chita Rivera, Mikhl Yashinsky […]

(JTA) — Like many of us left without plans during the initial COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, Lisa Edelstein spent some of her time rummaging through old family photographs. But instead of just basking in the nostalgia, she was also on the lookout for her next painting project. Since then, the actress, known for her often […]

(New York Jewish Week) — A Brooklyn-based Orthodox activist wants her community to be the last one targeted by a possible serial flasher who crashed an online chat she was leading last week. Adina Miles-Sash, who is known to her 61,000 followers as Flatbush Girl, also says her community’s reaction to the flashing incident underscores […]

(New York Jewish Week) — Bob Gottlieb, who as editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf and The New Yorker ushered into print some of the 20th-century’s most accomplished writers — Nora Ephron, Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, John Cheever and Ray Bradbury, to name a few — believes editing is a service job, one […]

(JTA) — “Koshersoul,” chef Michael W. Twitty’s memoir about his career fusing Jewish and African-American culinary histories, was named the Jewish book of 2022 by the Jewish Book Council. Subtitled “The Faith and Food Journey of an African American Jew,” Twitty’s book provides “deep dives into theology, identity, and, of course, food — giving readers […]

(New York Jewish Week) —  While hiding from the Nazis, the German Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon began a series of autobiographical paintings and texts with a painfully simple description of her aunt, and namesake’s, suicide: “Scene 1: 1913. One November day, a young girl named Charlotte Knarre leaves her parents’ home and jumps into the […]

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