Arts and Culture

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 »

In a letter to the CUNY board, Tony Kushner wrote, "I believe I am owed an apology for the careless way in which my name and reputation were handled at your meeting." (Jay Thompson)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — It was the latest dustup over what constitutes acceptable discourse in the American Jewish community when it comes to Israel. Except this time the battle wasn’t contained within the community, but began at a university board meeting and spilled over onto the front page of The… Read more »

Kurt Gerron saw a chance to resume his career when he signed on as director of "The Fuehrer Gives the Jews a City."

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — “The Fuehrer Gives the Jews a City” may rank as the oddest film fragment in cinematic history. The 23 minutes of raw, unedited footage is all that has been found of a Nazi propaganda project to prove that the “model” Theresienstadt camp was a veritable paradise… Read more »

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — For Ira Feinberg, what he calls the “pinnacle of my life’s experiences” took place 63 years ago. Feinberg was a 17-year-old New Yorker when he joined the elite troops of the Palmach force fighting in Israel’s War of Independence. “No other experience in my life… Read more »

History is not static. As years pass new information becomes available, new archives are opened and new interpretive lenses reshape our understanding of what once was. In 2008, Mariette Job’s decades-long drive to share her aunt Hélène Berr’s journal reached the English speaking world, and we were given a… Read more »

BEERSHEBA, Israel (JTA) — Or a lunatic, extremist or just someone whose opinion you would dismiss were you really to know him. Like the famous 1993 New Yorker cartoon, where one dog explains to the other that “On the Internet, nobody knows you are a dog,” we are inundated… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — When a rare volume of a 1914 cookbook written in Yiddish for American Jewish housewives came into the hands of Bracha Weingrod, the once popular but forgotten book began its long journey from dusty oblivion to celebrated translation. The thick, worn copy of “Dos Familien… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — With the greatest Jewish rock and roller of all time,  Bob “You can call me Zimmy” Dylan, making his return to Israel after nearly two decades, the question arises: Will the crowd be bored? Dylan, whose lyrics have been soaked in biblical and religious imagery for decades,… Read more »

NEW YORK (Forward) — On a Tuesday night in April, millions of people will gather together for the tale of four Jewish children, each of whom embodies contemporary Jewish consciousness in a different way. The evening is filled with song, multiple narratives and insights into Jewish identity. I’m talking,… Read more »

(L-R) Josh Silvain (David), Bill Epstein (Murph), Tenoch Gomez (Pete) and Dan Colecchia (Mitch) in “Fronting the Order”

“Fronting the Order,” a new play by Warren G. Bodow, opens today at the Beowulf Alley Theatre, with 11 performances running through April 23. Set in a diner in a small upstate New York town on a summer evening in 1959, “Fronting the Order” follows the fortunes of four… Read more »

Painter and printmaker Sylvia Garland and photographer Edlynne Sillman will exhibit their work at the Tucson Jewish Community Center from April 14 to May 19. Garland’s exhibit, “Abstract Botanical Expressions,” features oil paintings and one of a kind prints on paper. Sillman is dedicating her “America the Beautiful” exhibition… Read more »