Simi Horwitz is a feature writer and film reviewer based in New York City. In 2022, she received first place for film criticism from the Society for Feature Journalism, and in 2023, a New York Press Club Award for an Entertainment News feature; and three Los Angeles Press Club Awards, including first place for film criticism — all for pieces published in the Forward.
Simi Horwitz
By Simi Horwitz
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Culture Ruchie Freier: Hasidic Judge, American Trailblazer
Judge Rachel (“Ruchie”) Freier, 52, is the only Hasidic woman judge in the world. She knows she’s an anomaly, and yet she sees nothing contradictory between her deeply held religious beliefs and her high-powered, secular career. “People always make a big deal that I’m the first Hasidic woman judge, but my husband [mortgage broker David…
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Film & TV Samuel Maoz Says ‘Foxtrot’ Isn’t Trying To Make Israel Look Bad
Israeli director Samuel Maoz’s vivid, memorable — and not easy to watch — film, “Foxtrot,” has already generated controversy in Israel. Minister of Culture Miri Regev has accused him of being a traitor and done everything in her power to generate a boycott against the film. Maoz has received death threats. At the same time,…
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Film & TV Why Yiddish Theater Works Better In America Than In Israel
Israeli actors Gera Sandler and his wife Ronit Asheri-Sandler, now starring in Clifford Odets’ “Awake and Sing!” with the New Yiddish Rep at the 14th Street Y, can’t help comparing New York and Israeli audiences for Yiddish-language Theater. “In New York you’ll see people of many backgrounds sitting in the theater, also a surprising number…
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Film & TV The ‘Last Jewish Writer In Hungary’ Returns To 1945
Set in post-Holocaust Hungary, “1945” is a stunning, black and white film which explores the culpability and dread that is aroused among local Christians, many of whom were Nazi collaborators, when two Orthodox Jews arrive in town on an unspoken mission. The timing for this multi-award winning film couldn’t be more on target, say writer-director…
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Film & TV ‘Aida’s Secrets’ Opens Up A Pandora’s Box Of Family Memories
For 67-year-old Shep Shell, learning he had a brother and then meeting him for the first time in 2013 was a mind-blowing experience on many fronts. But that was just the beginning. He also learned that his mother, whom he believed had died in a German displaced persons camp in the post-World War II years,…
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Culture Does Ionesco’s ‘Rhinoceros’ Lose Something in Yiddish Translation?
New Yiddish Rep’s (NYR) 2013 production of “Waiting For Godot,” staged to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Samuel Beckett’s great existential comedy, was ground-breaking. Its Yiddish speaking characters cast a new, more profound light on the masterpiece. Indeed, they evoked Holocaust survivors wandering across a post-apocalyptic landscape, especially as they talked about the ashes and…
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Film & TV Yiddish Musical of ‘The Golden Land’ Emerges Somewhat Tarnished
Appropriately located at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park within view of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene (NYTF) is attempting to redefine its mission and aesthetic while celebrating the Yiddish language, with few if any English words thrown in for good measure. Its renewed commitment to…
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Film & TV How To Make A Yiddish Classic When You Don’t Know Any Yiddish
Editor’s Note: Joshua Z. Weinstein’s film “Menashe” is now playing at the Angelika Theater in New York. Earlier this year, Simi Horwitz interviewed the film’s cast and director. Documentarian Joshua Z. Weinstein, 33, who dubs himself a humanist filmmaker, says he never wanted to make a Jewish movie, but rather one that explores the interplay…
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