A.J. Goldmann is a writer based between Munich and Berlin. His articles about European and Jewish culture have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Republic, and The Guardian.
A.J. Goldmann
By A.J. Goldmann
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The Schmooze Friday Film: Lost Weimar Classic Resurfaces at MoMA
As part of its epic retrospective of Weimar Cinema, “Daydreams and Nightmares,” New York’s Museum of Modern Art will screen Werner Hochbaum’s 1932 film “Razzia in St. Pauli” on January 29 and February 2, an early German sound film long thought lost. An atmospheric slice-of-life look at the Hamburg underworld of pimps, prostitutes and criminals…
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The Schmooze Friday Film: Weimar Cinema Beyond Caligari
“Weimar Cinema, 1919–1933: Daydreams and Nightmares,” running at MoMA until March 7, 2011, is billed as the largest-ever retrospective of German cinema from between the Wars to be shown in the United States. The era’s defining cinematic style, expressionism, is well-represented in dozens of offerings, giving a healthy dose of the atmospheric, disturbing and downright…
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News Demjanjuk’s Long Road to Justice Nears a Murky End
The day I arrive in Munich is dismal and gray. One of the jewels in Germany’s crown, the Bavarian capital does not impress on a day like this. Rather, the Glockenspiel at Marienplatz, and the elegant shopping boulevard Maximilianstrasse seem dull and lifeless. Inside, the beer halls are bustling. No wonder — they are the…
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News At the Death Camps, Muslim Leaders Grapple With Jews’ Pain
It was a perfect summer day at the Dachau concentration camp. The clear skies and pleasant breeze seemed almost offensive. And there, beneath the main monument, a bronze sculpture of writhing bodies intermeshed with barbed wire, was an uncommon sight: a group of Muslims leaders prostrate in prayer. At the end of the service, prayer…
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Culture Measuring Mahler, in Search of a Jewish Temperament
This article originally appeared in the August 23, 2002 edition of the Forward. We are reprinting it today in honor of the 150th anniversary of Gustav Mahler’s birth. As a small ensemble of Viennese musicians, along with his own daughter Andrea, played examples of Jewish folk music and Judenpolkas, Philip Bohlman, associate professor in the…
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News New Kind of Passion in an ‘Alpine Jerusalem’
It was during the intermission in Oberammergau’s controversial, once-in-a-decade Passion play that I met Jesus for a cup of coffee. A public relations man at the Münchner Volkstheater when he’s not onstage, Frederick Mayet, 30, has the long, dark-blond hair and bushy beard of a Nordic Jesus portrait hanging on the wall of a rectory…
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Culture Obsessively Self-Filming His Vicissitudes
In February 2006, Israeli documentary filmmaker Tomer Heymann traveled to Berlin to present his film, “Paper Dolls,” at the Berlin International Film Festival. One evening, he went in pursuit of the nightlife for which the city is justly famous, and met Andreas Merk, a German choreographer, at the electronic music mecca, Berghain. What started as…
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Culture Brutal on the Beach
Israeli choreographer Nir de Volff is one of the most promising newcomers on Berlin’s vibrant dance scene. Early in December 2009, expectations ran high for the premiere of “Maktot,” his dissection of the social complexities of beach culture. His previous creation, a site-specific dance in Berlin’s iconic Neue Synagoge called “Action!” had a successful run…
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