When playwright William Gibson’s one-woman play “Golda’s Balcony” opened last March at the Manhattan Ensemble Theater, reviewers proclaimed Tovah Feldshuh’s portrayal of Israel’s Prime Minister Meir as “blazing,” “sensational” and “extraordinary.” Nothing has changed in the recent move to Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theatre, except that the seats are far more cushy. At the play’s October…
Call them the “Norm Coleman Republicans.” A surprising number of Jews running for office in 2003 appear to be modeling themselves after the newly minted Minnesota senator and former mayor of St. Paul — moderate, Jewish Republicans running on urban-friendly platforms. In mayoral, city council and state senate races in New York, New Jersey and…
Refuge in Hell: How Berlin’s Jewish Hospital Outlasted the Nazis By Daniel Silver Houghton Mifflin, 295 pages, $24. * * *| On April 24, 1945, when Soviet troops liberated a Berlin hospital, they discovered the unfathomable inside its doors. Two years after Joseph Goebbels had proudly professed the Nazi capital Judenrein, there functioned a Jewish…
It’s finally here: a synagogue in New York City for people who summer in the Hamptons. Thirteen years ago in Westhampton, Rabbi Marc Schneier founded the Hampton Synagogue, a spiritual center for urbanites nestled in the well-to-do wilds of Long Island for the summer season. In what seemed like a New York minute, the synagogue…
Strait Talk I: The Muslim world is fighting back against the West, one Mecca Cola at time. The French-produced, ethnically conscious soft drink was the beverage of choice at last week’s Organization of the Islamic Conference, the gathering of world Muslim leaders at which Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad charged Jews with ruling the world….
I know I’m supposed to make fun of Disneyland. I am an edgy, postmodern, anti-consumerist person of bohemia. It’s what we do. I know that Disney is a giant ultra-clean behemoth, controlling vast swaths of American culture through its television networks, sports teams, real estate holdings, shopping centers and cruise ships. I know its offerings…
Senator Backs Sephardim The chairman of the powerful Senate Republican Conference, Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, is spearheading congressional efforts to seek redress for Jews displaced from Arab countries. The senator has joined other high-profile political figures signing up to back Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, a coalition of Jewish groups and diplomats charged…
This week is the beginning of the annual cycle of readings from the Torah. How are we to turn this material around in our minds, and assimilate it, in a manner that does not compromise either our respect for tradition or our contemporary sense of reason and morality? One traditional method of understanding the relevance…
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — A year ago Cynthia McKinney’s political stock hit rock bottom. The five-term Democratic congresswoman from Georgia suffered an embarrassing primary loss — never having recovered from her suggestion that the Bush administration had ignored warnings about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. But since McKinney’s August 2002 defeat — which some…
Dusk crept into a midtown Manhattan diner earlier this month as Jennifer Jiles presented a reporter with an impromptu performance of the opening act of her one-woman comedy, “Kicking & Screaming,” culled from the four years she spent as a Rockette. During her show, being performed October 29 and throughout November at the Workshop Theater…
Jewish Democrats in Congress were deeply divided by President Bush’s call for $87 billion in emergency funding for military operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan. Emergency supplementary appropriation bills for Iraq and Afghanistan passed the House of Representatives October 17 by a vote of 303-125 and the Senate the same day by a margin…
