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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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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Culture How To Make A Yiddish Classic When You Don’t Know Any Yiddish
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 (maybe the clash) between faith and modernity. It’s almost — but not quite — incidental that his characters are Yiddish-speaking Hasidim, members of the most austere sects living…
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Film & TV Fundamentalism And Feminism Square Off In ‘The Women’s Balcony’
‘The Women’s Balcony,” the Israeli film written by Shlomit Nehama and director Emil Ben-Shimon, could easily have turned into a polemic, awash in stereotypes, about the ultra-Orthodox versus the more liberally minded in one small, closely knit Israeli Orthodox congregation. But thanks to the talents of the actors and the creative team, the film is…
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Culture At 96, Judith Leiber Is Still The Queen Of All Handbags
Fashionable evening bags are one thing. But Judith Leiber’s handbags marry exquisitely detailed craftsmanship with a joyously bold, at moments, anarchistic, vision. Close to 100 bejeweled silver and gold-plated high-end “after five” handbags — including Leiber’s iconic evening purses (minaudieres) sculpted to evoke various vegetables and small animals — are on display in the stunning…
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Culture In ‘Natasha,’ David Bezmozgis Captures Russian Jews Caught Between Two Worlds
Writer-director David Bezmozgis is cautiously optimistic about the fate of his flick, “Natasha,” adapted from the title story in his critically acclaimed collection (“Natasha and other stories,” 2004) and marking his second outing as a filmmaker. “Natasha” is the first film to explore the little known Russian-born Jewish subculture in Toronto that was spawned from…
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