I half expected to see the picture of Tennessee Williams that sat on Tony Kushner’s office desk. I didn’t expect the picture of Pep Guardiola, the youngest and most successful manager in the history of Barcelona Football Club, to be sitting right next to it. A present from the late poet Thom Gunn, its presence…
If they could get Natalie Portman involved, it truly would be a Jewish dream team behind “Team of Rivals,” an upcoming Hollywood drama about the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. Instead, they’ll have to make do with “just” the directing talents of Steven Spielberg and the writing gifts of Tony Kushner, who are collaborating for a…
Almost 150 years after shots rang out at Fort Sumter, the United States has yet to fully recover from the brutalities of the Civil War. The conflict ripped families apart along regional lines, and pummeled the economy and infrastructure of many Southern cities into such disrepair that many are still working on their reconstruction. When…
Each year at Passover we gather together, crack the door a bit, and break bread of the unleavened variety. It is a celebration of freedom, of tradition, and a reminder of those ties that bind. While the Seder depicted in Matthew Lopez’s play “The Whipping Man,” which opened February 1 at New York City Center,…
Chicago’s first minyan gathered for Yom Kippur in 1845; before then, the 12-year-old city hadn’t been able to muster a prayer quorum of even 10 men. Yet it was only two years later that Chicago welcomed its first rabbi, the Reverend Ignatz Kunreuther, and its first synagogue. This history lesson is displayed in the first…
