J. Hoberman

By J. Hoberman

Culture
Could It Be Time For A Yiddish ‘Porgy And Bess?’

Suppose, instead of adapting the white Southerner DuBose Heyward’s 1925 novel “Porgy,” the Russian-Jewish American composer George Gershwin took on the Russian-Jewish Russian writer Isaac Babel’s 1926 play “Sunset.” Imagine a Gershwin folk opera set in a Jewish ghetto, rather than African-American slum, not populated by the poor people and criminals of Catfish Row but…

By J. Hoberman Oct 3, 2019 | 4 min read
Art
In 1930s German And Austrian Art, Portents Of A Dark Future

Currently at the Neue Galerie, the exhibition “Before the Fall: German and Austrian Art of 1930s,” is as fateful as its title suggests — devoted to paintings, photographs, prints and drawings made under the lengthening shadow of Nazi terror. It’s a show suffused with anxiety and denial. Many of the artists were representatives of the…

By J. Hoberman May 10, 2018 | 5 min read
News
Lay-Offs Bring Curtain Down on Jewish Era at Village Voice

For much of its existence, the Village Voice was a paper where you could call a momzer a momzer and use just that term to do it. But the news in May that the out-of-town momzers who own the Voice had fired the paper’s last remaining signature writers — Michael Feingold, Michael Musto and Robert…

By J. Hoberman May 31, 2013 | 6 min read
Culture
Fantasies of a Fascist America

The Plot Against America” is Philip Roth’s fantasy of a fascist America. Although it arguably has as much to do with contemporary America as its imaginary 1940-42 setting, Roth’s new book also belongs to a particular tradition of counterfactual history. In some respects, “The Plot Against America” recalls Sinclair Lewis’s cautionary “It Can’t Happen Here,”…

By J. Hoberman Oct 1, 2004 | 5 min read
News
With God, and the Constitution, on His Side

A Hollywood movie about Jesus Christ, released in a presidential election year, is denounced by religious leaders, inspires antisemitic demonstrations and becomes an organizing tool for Christian fundamentalists: “The Last Temptation of Christ,” director Martin Scorsese’s 1988 adaptation of the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, anticipated Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” even as it…

By J. Hoberman Feb 20, 2004 | 7 min read

Explore

J. Hoberman

By J. Hoberman

Could It Be Time For A Yiddish ‘Porgy And Bess?’

In 1930s German And Austrian Art, Portents Of A Dark Future

Lay-Offs Bring Curtain Down on Jewish Era at Village Voice

Fantasies of a Fascist America

With God, and the Constitution, on His Side

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J. Hoberman

By J. Hoberman

Could It Be Time For A Yiddish ‘Porgy And Bess?’

In 1930s German And Austrian Art, Portents Of A Dark Future

Lay-Offs Bring Curtain Down on Jewish Era at Village Voice

Fantasies of a Fascist America

With God, and the Constitution, on His Side

Most Popular

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ADL chief attacks Zohran Mamdani, but gets his facts wrong

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Meet the Jewish senator emerging as Chuck Schumer’s heir apparent

In Case You Missed It

Reform movement urges against death penalty for alleged Capital Jewish Museum shooter

‘Chetanyahu?’: NBA star sucked into Gaza culture wars over workout video

Following Laura Loomer’s lead, the US is repeating an egregious Holocaust-era mistake

For this historian, anti-Zionism is part of a hallowed Jewish tradition

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