
Jon Kalish is a Manhattan-based writer and radio journalist.

Jon Kalish is a Manhattan-based writer and radio journalist.
A new radio drama titled “The Witches of Lublin” is being offered to public radio stations as a Passover special. Written by Ellen Kushner, Elizabeth Schwartz and Yale Strom, the hour-long production features original klezmer music by Strom and the handiwork of Long Island-based audio drama producer Sue Zizza. The cast includes the prolific audiobook…
It’s the Itzhak and Yitzchok show! Violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman is teaming up with cantorial superstar Yitzchok Meir Helfgot for a concert tour and recording project titled “The Soul of Jewish Music.” The inaugural concert takes place March 30 at the Saban Theatre in Los Angeles and will benefit Bet Tzedek Holocaust Survivors Justice Network….
Scores of events have been scheduled to mark the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. The workplace disaster took place March 25, 1911, and killed 146 people — most of them young Jewish and Italian immigrant women. The Forward speaks with the filmmakers behind an HBO documentary on the fire, the composer of a…
In a cold and windswept Staten Island cemetery, four dozen people huddled together to recite Kaddish, the mourner’s prayer, and to mark the 100th yahrzeit of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire’s victims. Twenty-two of the victims were laid to rest in 1911 at the Mount Richmond Cemetery, which is owned by the Hebrew Free Burial…
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…
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…
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…
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…