Arts and Culture

In her new show, "Monajat," Galeet Dardashti has taken the 13th-century Sufi poem of the same name and blended it into the traditional Persian songs and liturgy for Selichot. (Courtesy of Galeet Dardashti)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Growing up, Galeet Dardashti toured and performed with her father, Farid, a renowned cantor, performing Middle Eastern and Persian music throughout the United States and Canada as part of The Dardashti Family. “We’ve been called the ‘Jewish Von Trapps,’ ” Dardashti says jokingly. Dardashti, a… Read more »

The cast of "Hitler's Belly" (Tablet Magazine)

(Tablet Magazine) — A Chinese Hitler, dressed like a mall cop, mopes in an underground bunker in 1945 as his empire is collapsing around him. But it’s not all bad news. “My stomach hurts, and it’s bigger. I’m pregnant!” Hitler exclaims, stroking himself mindlessly. “Hitler’s Belly,” a hit play… Read more »

Gertrude Shankman, a Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging resident, and Adam DeLuca in front of the B’nai Tzedek triptych, currently on display at Handmaker. The painting includes a poem by DeLuca. (Bryan Davis)

  Eighteen-year-old Adam DeLuca has participated in the B’nai Tzedek Tucson teen philanthropy program since 2007. Now starting his freshman year at the University of Arizona, DeLuca has also embarked on a lifetime of giving. “Before I joined B’nai Tzedek I understood that charity was a good thing,” DeLuca… Read more »

Academy Award-winner Helen Mirren stars as retired secret agent Rachel Singer in John Madden’s espionage thriller "The Debt." Laurie Sparham/Focus Features)

      A taut, beautifully crafted thriller with an Israeli accent, “The Debt” is easily and best appreciated as edge-of-your-seat entertainment. At the same time, though, the English-language remake of the 2007 Israeli film “Ha-Hov” echoes a question raised far more egregiously by “Inglourious Basterds” but otherwise rarely… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — When Israeli music producer-to-the-stars Eitan Gafni put on a global song contest for Jews nearly 20 years ago, finding contestants was difficult. At the time, he called on Jewish Agency shlichim, or emissaries, residing in capitals around the world to find young Jews with musical talent… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — When I first heard that Lionsgate was remaking the classic ’80s movie “Dirty Dancing,” I had two questions: One, why won’t Hollywood leave my childhood alone? And two, will this update be as culturally Jewish as the original? While the first question is obviously rhetorical… Read more »

Frank (Waldemar Torenstra) and Esther (Anna Drijver) in ‘Bride Flight’

Half an hour into the richly layered Dutch saga “Bride Flight,” you’d never imagine that a menorah would become the film’s most affecting and enduring symbol. At that point, we’re scarcely aware that there’s a Jewish character in this first-rate romantic drama, which centers on a quartet of 20-something… Read more »

(L-R): David Updegraff, Bob Kovitz, Kathleen Cannon, Babe McGuire, Scott Berg and Robyn Austin in “Elevator”

“Elevator,” a play about six people trapped inside a World Trade Center elevator on Sept. 11, 2001,  debuted in Tucson at the Pima Community College Proscenium Theater, Sept. 1-4. Based on facts about the elevator system in the twin towers, the play begins a few minutes before the first… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Not all “Hava Nagila” routines are created equal. Here are five routines performed to different versions of the Jewish folk tune by notable gymnasts: Lilia Podkopayeva (Ukraine), 1994 World Championships in Brisbane, Australia http://youtu.be/-IVUIoLBMEg The future 1996 Olympic champion uses “Hava Nagila” in the all… Read more »

NEW YORK (Tablet) — Like so many other aspects of his life and work, Rembrandt’s connection to the Jews has been sentimentalized, overestimated, misappropriated, criticized, dissected — and debunked. In recent years, the image of the artist as a philo-Semite who painted and socialized with his Jewish neighbors has… Read more »

The worthy French film “Sarah’s Key” has two overriding aims, like the 2007 novel by Tatiana de Rosnay from which it’s adapted. The first is to expose a generally unknown — or willfully forgotten — chapter in France’s long, blemished relationship with its Jewish population. The other is to… Read more »

'Sunset II,' acrylic, by Diana Madaras

An art exhibit by Diana Madaras is on display at the Tucson Jewish Community Center Fine Art Gallery through Aug. 11. Madaras, known for her bold, colorful paintings in watercolor and acrylic, owns two galleries in Tucson that feature her work exclusively. She is president of the nonprofit Art… Read more »

"Mrs. Cohen's Shabbat Table" is part of the new Jewish History Museum exhibit

A new exhibit, “History & Nostalgia: The Southern Arizona Jewish Experience, 1850-1950,” exploring the daily life of Jews of the Southern Arizona region, will be on display at the Jewish History Museum from Aug. 14 through Dec. 30. The exhibit is part of Tucson’s birthday celebrations (see tucsons birthday.org).… Read more »

Amy Winehouse, shown at a June 2007 rock festival in France, foretold her own fate in "Back to Black," says Dvora Meyers, when she sang, "I tread a troubled track/My odds are stacked/I go back to black." (V. Gable -- Festival Eurockeenes)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Late last year, I spent the better part of a month working on a lengthy profile on Amy Winehouse, the British Jewish retro soul singer who tragically died over the weekend at 27. It was in the doldrums of this process, which included reading a… Read more »

The March 1941 front cover of "Captain America #1," the creation of two second-generation Jews, showing its titular hero punching Hitler in the face.

NEW YORK (JTA) — In March 1941 — nine months before the attack on Pearl Harbor impelled America to enter the Second World War — one colorful American hero already had joined the battle: Captain America. The famous front cover of “Captain America #1” showed its titular hero punching… Read more »

The Israeli singer Carolina shares love stories and songs next to the famous LOVE sculpture at "Contact Point," a late-night event held at the Israel Museum, July 2011. (Oscar Abosh)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Amid the alleyways that zigzag through Jerusalem’s Nahlaot neighborhood, a nonprofit collective run by five young artists is trying to make art more accessible in a city known more for conflict than culture. The turquoise gate of Barbur Gallery opens onto a stone courtyard and garden… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — If there’s one thing J Street is good at, it’s getting attention. Supporters, critics and relatively neutral observers all have conspired — with plenty of prodding from J Street’s own aggressive communications operation — to shine an intense media spotlight on the self-described “pro-Israel, pro-peace”… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Joan Nathan says she’s always had a particular fascination with French Jews and their food. For Nathan, author of “Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France (Knopf, 2010), the love affair with French cuisine started as a teenager when she made… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Known today as the massacre at Babi Yar, the killing near Kiev of tens of thousands of Jews by German troops at the end of September 1941 is remembered today as one of the most grisly chapters of the Holocaust in Ukraine. In the weeks… Read more »

Lisa Edelstein, a star of the hit television show "House," jokingly comforts a dummy used in medical simulations at the Sheba Medical Center, an Israeli hospital outside of Tel Aviv alongside fellow cast members. [Jorge Novominsky]

RAMAT GAN, Israel (JTA) — On television Lisa Edelstein, a star of the hit Fox show “House,” and her fellow actors work medical miracles every episode. But at an Israeli hospital she stumbled trying her hand at simulated arthroscopic surgery. “I’m so glad this is not a living person,”… Read more »