Tag: culture

For six years, singer and actor Ari Axelrod has been performing a one-man musical show about Jews and Broadway in front of sold-out audiences around the country. It is a remarkable accomplishment, especially considering that Axelrod — who grew up in a Conservative Jewish home and has fostered a deep love of musicals since high […]

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 […]

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 — 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 […]

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 […]

Exploring the mind-boggling array of greenery at the New York Botanical Garden is always a bit of a magical experience. That’s even more true during the holiday season, when the Bronx garden’s Holiday Train Show makes its annual appearance, bringing a host of model trains that run through a miniature New York City erected inside […]

As 2024 comes to a close, we look back and mourn those we lost this past year, including the Jewish icons whose legacies left an outsized impact on the city, as well as those who lost their lives or were otherwise impacted by the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.  But in a place like […]

Hanukkah starts on Christmas Day this year — which means chances are you (or your kids) will have some time off over the course of the eight-day holiday.  Looking to stay entertained during this busy, chilly time of year? Here at the New York Jewish Week, we’ve got you covered: Don’t miss our roundup of […]

New York City’s Times Square is considered the “crossroads of the world” — so what better location is there to spread the light and message of Hanukkah? On Friday, Dec. 13, a cadre of Broadway stars, including former “Funny Girl” star Julie Benko, came together in Times Square to record a Hanukkah music video: A […]