John Semley goes behind the scenes of “Barney’s Version.” I profile musician, filmmaker, photographer and folk revivalist John Cohen. Glenn C. Altschuler reviews a new book about Harry Gold, a “disciplined, smart, lonely, pathetic and oddly appealing” Soviet spy. Benjamin Ivry takes a fresh look at the polarizing French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Philologos elucidates the…
Stephen Hazan Arnoff reviews two new books on Bob Dylan. Joshua Furst goes to see the current revival of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America.” Philologos tries out Cockney rhyming slang. Benjamin Ivry watches the films of documentarian and social critic Frederick Wiseman. Gerald Sorin examines a collection of new American Jewish fiction. Devra Ferst looks…
Jordana Horn checks out the Other Israel Film Festival. Benjamin Ivry appreciates Russian Jewish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg. Sherwin Kaufman remembers arriving at Ellis Island almost 90 years ago. Yelena Akhtiorskaya takes a poetry lesson from Andrei Codrescu. Jacob Silverman reviews “Dolly City” by Orly Castel-Bloom. Eryn Loeb compares and contrasts two tongue-in-cheek books about the…
Talia Bloch sings the praises of poet and Bollingen Prize-winner Allen Grossman. Philologos wonders when ‘Palestine’ became such a controversial word. Jenna Weissman Joselit pores over Chief Rabbi of Cincinnati Eliezer Silver’s ledger book. Benjamin Ivry appreciates the Jewish artists at the Villa la Fleur museum outside of Warsaw. Joshua Furst questions the theatrical pieties…
Underground art is getting new exposure in Berlin. A trove of sculptures labeled as “degenerate” by the Nazis — and buried after the Reich confiscated the offending work from galleries — will go on display this week after an excavation turned them up near Berlin’s city hall, the UK Guardian reports. The collection of 10…
Leigh Kamping-Carder tells the story of the Mexican Suitcase, a collection of photographs from the Spanish Civil War by Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymour that got lost in Mexico for almost 70 years. Ilan Stavans wonders why we can’t escape from Harry Houdini. Shoshana Olidort reviews Avi Steinberg’s “Running the Books: The Adventures…
Crossposted from Haaretz Ami Brown, one of the foremost art collectors in Israel, passed away at his home in Thursday night after a long battle with cancer. He leaves his wife Gaby and their daughter, and was interred yesterday at Kibbutz Shefayim. Brown was born in Tel Aviv in 1929, the middle of three siblings….
Ron Dicker goes to see “Precious Life,” a documentary that was transformed in the making from a sentimental heart-tugger to a more complicated moral maneuver. Asaf Hanuka goes grocery shopping in “The Two States of Israel.” Philologos talks italics. Mark Cohen reads through all 708 of Saul Bellow’s witty and malicious letters included in a…
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