Britta Lokting
By Britta Lokting
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News The Tragic Death of Daniella Moffson — an ‘Example for Everyone’
Daniella Moffson last updated her Facebook cover photo August 26. She chose a group shot of children and adults clapping in front of a lake. They are wearing matching pink baseball t-shirts and releasing white and yellow balloons towards the late afternoon sun. Accompanying the photo are the words “Simcha” – Hebrew for joy and…
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Culture The Crowd at the Met Just Got a Whole Lot Younger
On a recent drizzly Monday morning, the usual adult crowd at the Metropolitan Opera was replaced by 2,000 rowdy schoolchildren who were there to watch the last dress rehearsal of “The Barber of Seville.” Out on the plaza in front of the theater, teachers rounded up stray children playing tag. “Hold hands!” they ordered, and…
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Culture What’s Next for Valmadonna Judaica Trove After Record-Shattering Sale?
It was the highest price ever paid for a Jewish book. And the sale, along with 11 other books, broke up the most valuable private Judaica collection ever assembled. How much further the famed Valmadonna Trust Library may be broken up is unclear—and remains a concern of scholars and collectors around the world. The book…
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Culture Remembering the Artistic and Spiritual Legacy of Elizabeth Swados
“She was a Jewish girl. She was committed to her people,” said Tobi Kahn, who worked on the set design at The Public Theater for Elizabeth Swados’s 1990 musical “Jonah.” “She was Jewish in all the right ways. She understood the plight of suffering, the plight of children. She did tons for the Jews. She…
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The Schmooze Leonardo DiCaprio Is Embracing Kabbalah (Maybe)
Is Leonardo DiCaprio jumping on the Kabbalah bandwagon? The New York Daily News reported today that the actor was seen at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood donning a red string on his wrist during a Q&A for “The Revenant,” his latest film about a frontiersman who’s attacked by a bear and left for dead….
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Culture Why I Still Celebrate Christmas Without Guilt
During the month of December, back when I was 12 and studying for my bat mitzvah, my mom and I would scour the house each Saturday morning before my tutor arrived, in order to locate and hide evidence of Christmas. We had ample time before 1 p.m., but we waited until the last minute to…
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Culture Jewish Psychics of the Lower East Side — and Why We Need Them
I usually fall into the cynic camp when it comes to psychics or any sort of mystical readers. Or at least I used to. In July, I visited a reader named Monte Farber in East Hampton. He was a source for a story I was writing, and I dropped by to introduce myself. He operates…
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News World’s Largest Collection of Judaica Broken Up and Sold — Against Owner’s Wishes
The world’s most important private collection of Jewish books and manuscripts will be broken up soon, contrary to the original wishes of its founder, at an upcoming auction at Sotheby’s. On December 22, 12 selected pieces from the Valmadonna Trust Library — an unrivalled library of some 300 handwritten Hebrew documents and 13,000 rare printed…
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