Jon Kalish is a Manhattan-based writer and radio journalist.
Jon Kalish
By Jon Kalish
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News Listening to ‘Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish’
In this podcast, Jon Kalish traces the inception and production of the feature film “Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish,” which debuted at the New York Jewish Film Festival. Young Jews who left Brooklyn’s chasidic communities comprise its cast of first time actors. Read more about “Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish” in the Forward here and…
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The Schmooze Will Film’s Nudity Keep Hasidim Away From ‘Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish’?
Tongues have been clicking in the Orthodox world about the U.S. debut of Eve Annenberg’s feature film “Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish” (which I previously wrote about for the Forward here), but the New York Jewish Film Festival screening on January 16 at Lincoln Center sold out quickly and the Hasidic dropouts-turned actors who star…
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The Schmooze Xmas Jollies for Jews
In the subculture of Christmas mixtapes Bill Adler is a very important Jew. For close to 30 years, the Manhattan music maven has put out “Xmas Jollies,” which just may be the most eclectic Yuletide mixtape on the planet. Adler has what musicians refer to as very big ears and for many of his 300…
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News The Twersky Family Tree
The Twersky family tree has more than 25,000 names on it, and stretches back to the early 1700s, in the town of Chernobyl. The family not only boasts a legacy as a Hasidic dynasty — with the exception of a handful of Hasidic groups from Hungary, almost all Hasidic sects can trace their lineage to…
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Culture Shedding Grim Light
The Lampshade: A Holocaust Detective Story from Buchenwald to New Orleans By Mark Jacobson Simon & Schuster, 368 pages, $26 In this podcast, Jon Kalish speaks with Mark Jacobson, author of ‘The Lampshade.’: Why are people so reluctant to publish a photograph of Mark Jacobson’s lampshade? Because the lampshade is almost certainly made of human…
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Culture Bluffing the Bolshoi
At the beginning of Radu Mihaileanu’s mischievous new comedy film, “The Concert,” we meet an observant Jewish trumpet player in Moscow named Viktor and his son, Moshe, who seems to have no connection to Yiddishkeit. At the end of the movie, Viktor’s yarmulke has been replaced by a cowboy hat, while Moshe has peyes and…
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Culture Shakespeare in the Shtibl
In 2006, film director Eve Annenberg stumbled onto Chulent, a weekly gathering of young, alienated Orthodox and formerly Orthodox Jews in Manhattan. She had no idea that she was about to embark on one of the most improbable movies of her career. Four years later she is sending DVDs of her feature-length motion picture “Romeo…
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Culture Broza Dons Cowboy Boots
At one point during a Writers in the Round concert that took place in Houston in March 1994, Townes Van Zandt gestures at his fellow songwriters — David Broza, David Amram and Linda Lowe — and declares that they are “genuine giant talents!” He did not use the word “we” in that assessment, but most…
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