‘Mozart in the Jungle,’ An Italian Jewish Celebration, and 5 Other Things to Watch, Read, and Do This Weekend

Image by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Hanukkah is coming, which means, for many, some serious winter nesting. Before you huddle up for the holiday, partake in some of the last best moments of Jewish culture in 2016.
1) Binge on theater, new and old
This week and next herald the openings of Tony Award-winning playwright Richard Greenberg’s new play “The Babylon Line” at Lincoln Center Theater, the new Israel-set musical “The Band’s Visit” at the Atlantic Theater, and increasingly high-profile director Sam Gold’s star-studded interpretation of “Othello” at the New York Theater Workshop. Before stepping out for Greenberg’s play, make sure to read his recent long, rambling chat with the Forward’s Adam Langer.
2) Explore classical music’s dramatic underbelly through “Mozart in the Jungle”
The third season of “Mozart in the Jungle,” the creators of which include Jason Schwartzman and Paul Weitz, premieres on Amazon on December 9. In its first season the New York Times’s Zachary Woolfe called the show, based on a memoir by oboist Blair Tindall “sexed-up, druggy, lovably daffy and patently fictional” and expressed joy at “how true its depiction of the classical music industry rings.” Based on previews, season 3 holds more romance, drama, and sheer loveliness, accompanied by a healthy dose of humor.
3) Learn about Southern Reform rabbis’ engagement with the Civil Rights Movement
In the late 1960s, rabbinical student P. Allen Krause interviewed twelve Southern Reform rabbis about their understanding of and relationship to the Civil Rights Movement. He promised he wouldn’t make the interviews publicly accessible for 25 years, and worked on assembling them into a thoroughly contextualized collection until his death in 2012. This week, that collection – completed by Krause’s son, Stephen, and historian Mark Bauman – arrives as “To Stand Aside or Stand Alone: Southern Reform Rabbis and the Civil Rights Movement.” Krause couldn’t have anticipated his work would be published at a time when racism, bigotry, and discrimination have returned to the forefront of our national consciousness. As we consider our way forward, it’s lucky for us that it has.
4) And celebrate 40 years of women in the American rabbinate
Thursday, December 8th, Chicago’s Am Shalom hosts a reflection on the history of women in the American rabbinate. The conversation will feature Rabbi Sally Priesand, the first woman rabbi in the United States, Rabbi Debra Newman Kamin, the first woman rabbi in the Chicago area, and Rabbi Rebecca Einstein Schorr, who edited the recently released anthology “The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate.” Politically, that highest, hardest glass ceiling may not have been shattered; religiously, the ability of women to become rabbis remains a recent development, and one worth celebrating. Also in Chicago, spend Sunday, December 11 celebrating Jewish Book Month and Russian Jewish Culture with the Spertus Institute as it hosts Irina Reyn, award-winning author of “The Imperial Wife” and “What Happened to Anna K.”
5) Explore Italian Jewish culture and delve into Kafka’s lasting literary legacy
The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia plays host, this week, to two events reviewing Italian Jewish culture. Saturday, the Center hosts the musical extravaganza “Cantata Ebraica: The Music of the Italian Jews,” a performance guided by Hazzan Dr. Ramón Tasat, and Sunday, December 11 brings a screening of “The Venice Ghetto: 500 Years of Life,” accompanied by a wine tasting and selection of Italian sweets. Should you be inclined more towards the surreal than gustatory pleasures – that’s a sentence I never thought I’d write – spend Saturday at Kafka scholar Elizabeth Rajec’s lecture “Kafka: The Man Who Defined a Nightmare” through Smithsonian Associates.
6) Have a hearty laugh at some good old-fashioned Jewish comedy
Los Angeles residents have the chance to see two greats of Jewish comedy this weekend: Sandra Bernhard and Lewis Black. At the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts December 8-10, Bernhard delivers her “Sandra Monica Blvd: Coast to Coast,” a timely quest for the always-surprising “soul of America.” No word on Black’s subject matter when he takes the Orpheum Theater’s stage December 10, but given that he’s described on his own website as “the king of the rant,” go expecting a thoroughly enjoyable, thoroughly impolite verbal barrage.
7) And indulge in great recent longform journalism
If you’re in the mood for a good long read – humorous or serious – the week’s best picks include Jacob Siegel’s profile of “The Alt-Right’s Jewish Godfather” for Tablet (definitely serious), Margaret Talbot’s profile of Carrie Goldberg – “The Attorney Fighting Revenge Porn” – for The New Yorker (also serious), and Rich Cohen’s “Inside Quebec’s Great, Multi-Million –Dollar Maple-Syrup Heist” for Vanity Fair (it aims for seriousness, but well, it’s a maple syrup heist, a fact of which Cohen is playfully, wickedly aware.)
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 3
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
- 4
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Gaza and Trump have left the Jewish community at war with itself — and me with a bad case of alienation
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Fast Forward Deborah Lipstadt says Trump’s campus antisemitism crackdown has ‘gone way too far’
-
Fast Forward 5 Jewish senators accuse Trump of using antisemitism as ‘guise’ to attack universities
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.