culture -

This Jewish artist fought Nazis with a paintbrush, when art like his still mattered

January 8, 2026January 8, 2026Jesse Orine

I remember being freaked out, and fascinated, by my parents’ copy of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. It featured these especially lurid illustrations; I can still see a little girl in a red coat, trapped in a spider’s web and tormented by lizards, bats and a huge black spider with a skull and crossbones on […]

An Israeli couple is reshaping ideas about Jewish culture at a historically Black university

January 4, 2026January 4, 2026Sara Wood

The class does not begin with a lecture. Instead, Neta Elkayam stands at the front of the room and sings. Usually in the Moroccan Arabic of her ancestors, rather than her native Hebrew. The students — most of them Black, most of them American, many of them encountering Jewish culture for the first time — […]

Irving Berlin’s 1926 interfaith marriage sparked a Jewish debate that, 100 years later, hasn’t gone away

January 2, 2026January 2, 2026Jesse Orine

Exactly 100 years ago, on Jan. 4, 1926, legendary American Jewish songwriter Irving Berlin married Ellin Mackay, a Roman Catholic heiress, in a civil ceremony in Manhattan’s City Hall. What some considered a misalliance of prominent figures from different worlds was the subject of much comment, as much for their class differences as their religious […]

At Illinois Holocaust Museum, teens learn the Shoah’s Jewish history — and how to apply its lessons to today

January 1, 2026January 1, 2026Jesse Orine

This article was produced as part of the New York Jewish Week’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around New York City to report on issues that affect their lives. On a freezing December day in Chicago, an elderly woman sat in a chair in a small downtown auditorium, speaking in measured […]

Before ‘SNL,’ there was Sid Caesar — and a roomful of Jewish writers

December 26, 2025December 26, 2025Jesse Orine

Sid Caesar once dominated American television so completely that it was hard to imagine Saturday nights without him. In the early 1950s, his live sketch-comedy program “Your Show of Shows” drew tens of millions of viewers. That show and its other iterations — “The Admiral Broadway Revue,” “Caesar’s Hour” and “Sid Caesar Invites You” — […]

In a new album, Yiddish becomes a language of queer belonging

December 24, 2025December 24, 2025Jesse Orine

“I want to change the way I wear my shoes,” Brooklyn-based Yiddishist and musician Ira Khonen Temple sings on the first track on their debut album, “Strange Tongue/Mistame Loshn.” “But I don’t wanna change the way I say ‘hello,’” Temple continues. “I wanna say it in my fruity voice and hear the birds around rejoice.” […]

A new organization aims to combat antisemitism and spread Jewish joy in New York’s theater industry

December 22, 2025December 22, 2025Jesse Orine

Shortly after Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, Seth Rudetsky, a well-known New York City theater fixture and a host on Sirius XM’s On Broadway station, received an email from an American living in Israel who expressed confusion at the relative silence of the theater community concerning the plight of the hostages. At first, Rudetsky […]

9 Jewish things to do on Christmas in NYC this year

December 16, 2025December 16, 2025Jesse Orine

What’s a Jew to do on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day? Sure, you could take advantage of New York City’s empty streets, appreciate a day off from work if you have one, and hang out with your family. You could also partake in a time-honored Jewish Christmas tradition: Chinese food and a movie. But if […]

This Jewish family acquired a farm in 1889 Oklahoma. Now it’s on stage in New York City.

December 15, 2025December 15, 2025Jesse Orine

Jewish author, actor and playwright Alice Eve Cohen was a newly minted Princeton University graduate in 1977 when her mother very suddenly died. “We were just beginning to become close … after having a very stormy relationship for a number of years,” Cohen said. “To lose her in that moment, where everything seemed possible for […]

Back in the day, Yiddish-speaking Jews had themselves a merry ‘nitl’ Christmas

December 14, 2025December 14, 2025Jesse Orine

Call me a softie, but I love a traditional Christmas Eve. If you don’t find me eating Chinese food and watching a movie, I might be catching Gotham Comedy Club’s “A Very Jewish Christmas!” show or comedian Joel Chasnoff’s “Christmas for the Jews.” Or I may just stay home, light a fire and listen to […]