There can be an almost archeological element to discussing the work and career of Jerry Lewis. The legendary Jewish-American filmmaker, who died on August 20, lived and worked through a period of immense transformation in American culture – one that he helped to create – such that it can be difficult for contemporary audiences to…
The works of Jewish-Italian modernist painter Amedeo Modigliani are beloved by art critics and libidinous undergrads alike, but they hold a special allure for a less desirable audience: Art forgers. For Artnet, Lorena Muñoz-Alonso recently looked into the proliferation of fraudulent Modiglianis, which reached a scandalous apex in June when an exhibition featuring the painter’s…
During the lead-up to the September 11th terrorist attacks, ringleader Mohammed Atta and at least four other hijackers met multiple times in Las Vegas. Something about this detail seems to stick in the imagination, such that the intervening years have seen considerable speculation as to what they did there, prompting earnest investigations as well as…
Editor’s Note In the summer of 2016, the Brooklyn Historical Society’s exhibit “Truman Capote’s Brooklyn” brought new attention to the late photographer David Attie. Attie, who died in 1982, was perhaps best known for his portraits of such luminaries as Capote, Lorraine Hansberry, Leonard Bernstein, Bobby Fischer and Ralph Ellison. Attie had been a commercial…
Art critics are used to having the last word on things, so New York Times writer Jason Farago must have been surprised when his review of “Operation Finale,” an exhibition on the capture and trial of SS leader Adolf Eichmann at New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage, earned him the severe ire of the Algemeiner’s…
Never Walk Alone: Jewish Identities in Sport At the Munich Jewish Museum Through January 7, 2018 The 1936 Berlin Olympics showcased the Nazi love of spectacle and buttressed the regime’s international legitimacy. To avert boycott threats, the government temporarily muted overt manifestations of its anti-Semitic policies, removing discriminatory signage and toning down newspaper rhetoric. But…
When a Jewish businessman in Cologne, Germany, named Franz Levy died in 1937, his family commissioned the renowned German artist Käthe Kollwitz to design his gravestone. Kollwitz, who was not Jewish, sculpted pairs of hands reaching in subtle relief from opposite sides of the stone surface, fingers gripping wrists, holding on. It arouses a feeling…
Tel Aviv’s Florentin neighborhood is known for its constantly changing graffiti — and for the artists, eccentrics, hipsters, and refugees that call it home. But there is also the Love Car. The Love Car changes parking spots, resurfacing in different corners of the neighborhood. Covered in hearts, it is a form of moving graffiti. If…
Memory Unearthed: The Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross At the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, through July 30 The story of the Lodz Ghetto has become folkloric. Chronicled in novels such as Leslie Epstein’s “King of the Jews” and Steve Sem-Sandberg’s “The Emperor of Lies,” this was the place that the dictatorial Mordechai Chaim…
Summer! The beach! Camp for the kids! And maybe, this time around, endless hours spent inside, staring in horror at Twitter. If that’s a fate you’d like to avoid, look to one of the following books, which promise to be some of the most interesting releases of the summer and fall. Some will distract, some…
“The American Dream” refers to the notion that embedded in the founding documents of our nation is a framework that guarantees equality of opportunity for socio-economic success to all. Never mind that the reality of American history, law and socio-economic practice has been one that has at best been selective in who is allowed onto…
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