Sara Trappler Spielman
By Sara Trappler Spielman
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Life Finally, Sabbath-Observant Musicians Find A Home Off Broadway — In Yiddish ‘Fiddler’
Tradition was not lost when “Fiddler on the Roof” in Yiddish moved uptown last month to Off-Broadway’s Stage 42 and the production decided to keep their Sabbath-observant orchestra players. It’s an unusual act for a high-caliber commercial show to permit subs during its opening weeks, and Tevye would be pleased. Although most of the musicians…
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Life In Crown Heights, Hasidic Graffiti Artists Are Pushing The Boundaries
If you walk by Primo Hatters men’s hat shop on Kingston Avenue in the heart of Crown Heights, you might just miss it. Look into the alleyway on the side of the store, and you’ll see a striking bright blue portrait of an old Hasidic rabbi. Solomon Souza, a 25-year old graffiti artist, and 40-year-old…
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Life Meet The Hasidic Woman Who Rocks Out On The Drums
She’s known around Crown Heights as the frum woman with the drum set. Meet Dalia Shusterman, founder of “The New Moon All Stars Party Band”. When Shusterman first moved to Crown Heights, a woman with a drum set was a radical concept in the neighborhood. While setting up for their first show in town, women…
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Food Trailblazing Kosher Chef Makes Meal Replacement New Mission
If anyone can make meal-replacement powders not only nutritious but also delicious, it is the pioneering celebrity kosher chef, cooking teacher and cookbook author Levana Kirschenbaum. The ebullient Moroccan-born Kirschenbaum, who co-owned Levana Restaurant on New York’s Upper West Side for over 30 years, has just released a new line of meal-replacement products that is…
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Culture More Than 120 Years Later, ‘Dreyfus Affair’ Still Resonates
The infamous story of the 1894 conspiracy against French Jewish Captain Alfred Dreyfus for treason is being dramatized at Brooklyn’s BAM Fisher in a multi-media production, “The Dreyfus Affair,” based on texts and music from that period. The performance by The Ensemble for the Romantic Century (ERC) includes excerpts from the politically charged opera “La…
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Culture 7 Cool New Jewish Documentaries To Watch Out For
This year’s 7th annual DOC NYC film festival has seven Jewish flicks on its schedule, some having their North American or US premieres, others showing for the first time in NYC. America’s largest documentary festival runs November 10-17 at the IFC Center, which produces the event, and includes 110 feature-length documentaries and 102 shorts. Films…
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The Schmooze Hasidic Art Show Takes Off in Crown Heights
When people think of Hasidim, the image that comes to mind is often in black and white. An art show currently exhibiting local Hasidic artists’ work at a storefront space on Kingston Avenue, the main thoroughfare of Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidim in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, is challenging that notion. The third annual Sukkot art show, titled “Pure…
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Food Are GMO’s Kosher?
When the only kosher agency to certify organic food for the USDA announced last month that it will no longer grant kosher certification for products that contain GMOs (genetically modified organisms), it had me wondering: What is the relationship between kosher food and health? Traditionally, not much — at least not where the label’s concerned….
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