It’s a scene out of a Norman Rockwell painting: A boy carries a stick on his shoulder with a bandana tied to one end. It contains his next meal; he’s running away from home to join the circus. That’s what Neil Kahanovitz did — with just a few minor differences. For one, there was no…
The Big Apple Circus’s Grandma the Clown, portrayed by Jewish performer Barry Lubin, has resigned after admitting to coercing a 16-year-old aerialist into posing for sexually inappropriate photos, the New York Times reported. In 2004, Lubin offered Zoey Dunne work in Big Apple Circus’s mini troupe for hire, but before beginning work, he brought her…
At the beginning of the year, the The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced that they will be putting on their last performances in May of 2017. Since announcing their upcoming closure, the company has received a spate of “in-memoriam” type coverage from the press – most of it nostalgic, some, not so much…
After 146 years, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus is packing up its tents for good. For a half-century, the iconic American entertanment company has been owned by the Feld family. Here’s how Alana Feld described her life’s work in the three-ring world in a Forward interview last year. Alana Feld runs her business…
A treasured New York circus with a Jewish backstory that helped make entertainment accessible to people of all backgrounds is folding up its big tent for good. The Big Apple Circus announced Tuesday that it will cease public performances after it failed to raise enough funds to soothe its financial woes, the New York Times…
Gemma “the Jet” Kirby can fly. In fact, it’s her job. As the youngest female human cannonball with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus Xtreme, the 25-year-old dynamo hurtles through the air at every performance. She’s also the only Jewish cannonballer currently with the traveling troupe. Kirby isn’t the first woman to go…
Britain’s next food TV star may just be a kosher housewife. [The Jewish Chronicle] With the Jewish farm movement growing, Leah Koenig takes a look at the history of Jewish farming in America. [Tablet] The tale of a family’s babka recipe. [Gilt Taste] Last butcher standing: “Yuval Atias is the last of the Bay Area’s…
When it comes to the Jewish family behind Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey, the real circus is taking place outside the big top. In a lawsuit that involves a rabbi, secret gay lovers and an alleged assault at a shiva, Ringling heiress Karen Feld is suing her brother, Kenneth, for $110 million, claiming she…
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