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 These Frum Filmmakers Are Revolutionizing Orthodox Cinema
The Haredi world is generally viewed as an insular patriarchal community that shuns movies. Virtually nobody owns a TV. Still, a fledgling, shadow film industry has been growing quietly for a decade within the confines of this improbable universe. These flicks — dozens of them — are produced, scripted, directed and performed by women. Female…
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Culture Meet the Women Changing the Face of Orthodox Journalism
Responding to the suggestion that some feminists might endorse Ami’s policy of not publishing photographs of women, editor Rechy Frankfurter says she doesn’t need to gussy up her Hasidic beliefs with politically correct rhetoric. “We are who we are and we’re not apologetic,” Frankfurter said in the magazine’s bustling offices, located in Brooklyn’s Boro Park….
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Culture Puck Everlasting: The Stan Fischler Story
Stan Fischler loves his hokey jokes. “When my aunt made me hot chocolate, my uncle would say to me, ‘Stan, do you want some snoo with your chocolate?’ and of course I’d say, ‘What’s snoo?’ And he’d say: ‘Nothing. What’s snoo with you?’” Deadpan, Fischler turned to me. “Now ask me if I’m comfortable.” “Are…
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Culture Yiddish Rep’s Controversial Take on Mideast Conflict
Asked if Mario Diament’s play “Land of Fire” seems almost quaint in the wake of recent terrorist attacks, New Yiddish Rep’s artistic director David Mandelbaum didn’t miss a beat. “The play has more resonance than ever,” he said. “There is a major distinction between an Islamic jihadist state and the valid aspirations of the Palestinians…
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Culture The Jews of Al-Jazeera
Broadcasting icon Dave Marash is all too familiar with the label “self-hating Jew,” and it’s a phrase he holds in the deepest contempt. “I’m not a pious or practicing Jew, but I’ve always identified myself as Jewish,” he said during a phone interview from his home in New Mexico. “My humor is Jewish — very…
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Culture Martin Duberman’s Radical 85-Year Journey Through White America
‘The older I get, the more radical I get.” So says Martin Duberman, the strikingly youthful-looking 85-year-old author, activist, CUNY professor emeritus and playwright, whose groundbreaking civil rights drama “In White America” is being remounted — with some revisions — on its 50th anniversary. “Like all political theater, it’s a call to action,” Duberman says….
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Culture Four Decades Later, They’re Still Banking on ‘The Rothschilds’
Book writer Sherman Yellen and lyricist Sheldon Harnick say the timing is spot-on for a new look at their 1970 musical “The Rothschilds,” which has been revised and dubbed “Rothschild & Sons” for its October run with The York Theatre Company, in New York. The Tony-nominated musical, with a score composed by the late Jerry…
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Music When Alvin Ailey Choreographs the Holocaust
With the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater presenting a Holocaust inspired piece, “No Longer Silent,” at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, the iconic African American company has branched into new territory. In fact, it’s unprecedented, explained its artistic director Robert Battle, who choreographed the piece. Its musical score was composed by Erwin…
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