Arts and Culture « AZ Jewish Post

See galleries for more images from the Israel 64 Festival.

Arts and Culture

Detail from medieval Spanish Haggadah (Courtesy University of Manchester)

Priceless 14th-century Spanish Haggadah will be big draw at New York museum

Posted under Arts and Culture, Passover on April 17th, 2012. Leave a Comment »

A fourteenth-century Jewish religious book, preserved by experts at The University of Manchester’s John Rylands Library, [was] hand delivered to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it will be on exhibit through Sept. 30. The masterpiece from Catalonian Spain will feature in a special installation called Rylands Haggadah: Medieval Jewish Art in [...]

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s class of 2012 has a Jewish tune

Posted under Arts and Culture on April 17th, 2012. Leave a Comment »

(Cleveland Jewish News) — Michael Belkin knows plenty about the music industry; he was born and raised in it. More than 40 years ago, his father Mike and his uncle Jules founded Belkin Productions, which helped launch the careers of such artists as Johnny Carson, Tiny Tim, Janis Joplin, Wild Cherry, Joe Walsh, Maureen McGovern, [...]

Sharon Azrieli-Perez, a Candian-born opera singer, performs "Turandot" with the New Israel Opera in 2008. (sharonazrieli.com)

Scion of Azrieli family goes from opera to cantor, and back

Posted under Arts and Culture, Religion & Jewish Life on April 17th, 2012. Leave a Comment »

NEW YORK (JTA) — When Sharon Azrieli-Perez told her father — David Azrieli, one of Israel’s biggest real estate moguls — that she wanted to be an opera singer, he told her he’d pay for voice lessons only if she got into Juilliard. That was all the motivation she needed. “There was a fire in [...]

In his video for the song "HYFR," Drake re-creates his Bar Mitzvah -- sort of. (cash Money Records/Youtube)

Drake’s profanity-laced ‘re-Bar Mitzvah’ video filmed in Miami shul stirs controversy

Posted under Arts and Culture, Religion & Jewish Life on April 16th, 2012. Leave a Comment »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Thanks to hip-hop superstar Drake’s latest music video, there are now far more eyes focusing on Temple Israel’s bimah than there are even during the High Holidays. And even though the song’s lyrics are decidedly more profane than sacred, the Reform synagogue’s president said he hoped the video would help Jewish youth [...]

Shlomo Bar Aba as Eliezer Shkolnik in ‘Footnote’

Talmudic egos and ambitions collide in ‘Footnote’

Posted under Arts and Culture on April 10th, 2012. Leave a Comment »

Footnote,” the marvelous fourth feature by Israeli director Joseph Cedar and his wittiest and most accomplished, begins with music reminiscent of melodramatic Hollywood thrillers of the 1940s. The absurdly ominous score is so over the top that it’s funny. Indeed, the director is winking at us, acknowledging from the get-go that the internal intrigue [...]

Shuler Hensley and Eugene Brancoveanu in “The Thomashefskys”

PBS captures memories of Yiddish theater

Posted under Arts and Culture on April 10th, 2012. Leave a Comment »

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome! Tonight we’re here to tell you a story. It’s the story of Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, two kids from little shtetls in the middle of the Ukrainian nowhere who came to America and became the founders and pioneers of the American Yiddish Theater … they also happened to be my grandparents.” [...]

Michael Ginsberg, played by Ben Feldman, is the new Jewish copyeditor on the AMC award-winning show "Mad Men." (Michael Yarish/AMC)

Meet Michael Ginsburg: On ‘Mad Men,’ Sterling Cooper gets a Jewish copywriter

Posted under Arts and Culture on April 10th, 2012. Leave a Comment »

NEW YORK (JTA) — “Mad Men” is like the Jews — it gets a lot of attention for a show watched by less than 2 percent of the population. To kick off its fifth season, the 1960s period program, winner of four straight Emmys for best drama, has a new Jewish character. To be more precise, the [...]

BBYO embraces anti-bullying documentary, taking its message to Jewish teens

Posted under Arts and Culture, Religion & Jewish Life on April 10th, 2012. Leave a Comment »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Emotional. Raw. Frustrating. That’s how Oz Fishman describes his reaction to “Bully,” a documentary that follows five students who face bullying daily. The movie also focuses on two victims of bullying who killed themselves. “I think every single person who wants to be a member of any community should see this film,” [...]

Artist Lori Loebelsohn paints what she calls 'life-cycle portraits.' (Courtesy Lori Loebelsohn)

Painting lives: Artist helps clients mark pivot points, from Bar Mitzvah dreams to a dying wish

Posted under Arts and Culture, Religion & Jewish Life on April 9th, 2012. Leave a Comment »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Lori Loebelsohn enters other people’s lives at pivotal moments: a marriage, a milestone birthday, a Bar Mitzvah. Armed with a pen and a notebook, she discusses intimate details about the inner lives of those she has just met: their passions, their most significant memories, their dreams. She’s not a rabbi, nor [...]

A wax likeness of Anne Frank has been installed at Madame Tussauds in Berlin — in the room next to the Hitler figure. (Photo: Christian Kielmann)

Is wax Anne Frank at Madame Tussauds exploitation?

Posted under Arts and Culture on April 5th, 2012. Leave a Comment »

Is the image of Anne Frank heading in the same commercial direction as Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”? Munch’s Expressionist painting, once an iconic representation of horror, for years has been available as a party inflatable, an action figure mask, even a bobblehead. With the installation of a lifelike wax figure of the famed Holocaust diarist [...]