Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman, a daughter of Holocaust survivors known for her experimental films that closely examined women’s lives, has died in Paris. She was 65. French media reported that Akerman committed suicide. The date and cause are not yet known, according to the New York Times. Her parents were Polish Holocaust survivors, and her…
Jeffrey Tambor used to be that actor you saw everywhere but couldn’t place. No longer. In January, he won a Golden Globe in the Best Actor in a TV Series category, for his performance as Maura Pfefferman, a Jewish father of three who comes out as transgender, in Amazon’s “Transparent.” In September he took home…
On a spring day in 1956, Rabbi Robert E. Goldburg paid a visit to Marilyn Monroe’s New York City apartment. Before the 30-year-old actress tied the knot with playwright Arthur Miller that summer, she wanted to convert to Judaism. In a neatly typed letter set inside a display case at the Jewish Museum’s new exhibit…
When five-year-old Asher Blinkoff strode off into the audition room, his father, Saul, was a little nervous. An old pro of the movie industry, Saul has directed several films himself and worked for Walt Disney Animation Studios before that. He knew what to expect, but to leave his son in a room full of strangers…
(JTA) — On Saturday, the Spanish language television network Univision will host the final broadcast of “Sábado Gigante.” With 53 years on TV, the world’s longest-running variety show is an eclectic, strange mashup of a game show, a talk show and live entertainment. There are singing competitions — the poor-performing contestants are eliminated by a…
Did you cry during “Love Story”? Sing along to “Funny Girl”? Swoon over “The Way We Were”? For that, and a lot more, you can thank Sue Mengers. Before this badass lady came along, talent agents were basically baby-sitters to the stars: you tried to keep them in line, and if that failed, you prayed…
Ingrid Bergman, whose centenary is being celebrated on August 29, is cherished by film fans, especially for playing two foes of the Nazis: Ilsa Lund in “Casablanca” and Alicia Huberman in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Notorious.” Her late-career incarnation as Golda Meir in the 1982 TV film “A Woman Called Golda” surprised some viewers. Yet her own…
I have a confession: I am completely, utterly addicted to Downton Abbey. It might go against my progressive politics, or , but – let us tell the truth – it is a soap opera in gilded clothes. The sixth and final season is about to premiere next month in the United Kingdom (Americans will have…
One of the more surprising aspects of “Straight Outta Compton” — F. Gary Gray’s propulsive and vibrant, if rather disjointed, film about the rise and fall of the seminal rap group N.W.A — is how dainty it is when it comes to portraying Jews and anti-Semitism. Whatever its merits and shortcomings, like the music it…
Daytime television may soon be getting a little more exciting. This fall, Shmuley Boteach — the TV personality and Orthodox rabbi who isn’t afraid to talk very publicly and very explicitly about sex, intimacy and all things private — is hosting a new talk show, “Divine Intervention.” In this case, Boteach is that divine intervention…
At the recent Jerusalem International Film Festival, the Israeli horror movie “Jeruzalem” was scheduled to premiere right after “From Caligari to Hitler,” a German documentary based on Siegfried Kracauer’s book of the same name. Kracauer was a Jewish writer and critic who escaped Nazi Germany. In his book, he analyzed Weimar-era German cinema and theorized…
מישעל ווײַס, אַ רעפּובליקאַנערין, האָט געוווּנען די וואַלן אין יוניווערסיטי הײַטס — אַ טיף דעמאָקראַטישער פֿאָרשטאָט פֿון קליוולאַנד, אָהײַאָ
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