Stories about how we look at Jewish artists and how Jewish artists look at the world.
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Culture Meet the real-life artist behind the paintings in ‘Shtisel’
Akiva Shtisel, the protagonist of the eponymous series, is a genius artist, and his gorgeous paintings lie at the heart of the show about Haredi life. In the most recent season, his paintings of his deceased wife hold much of the emotional weight of the show, symbolizing Akiva’s grief and his struggle to develop a…
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Culture At the Jewish Museum, the midcentury feels very, very modern
I arrived at “Modern Look,” the Jewish Museum’s newest exhibit, ready for what it promised: a bird’s-eye view of midcentury magazine photography. But I was preoccupied, as I have been for weeks, with a very different media moment. The recent documentary “Framing Britney Spears,” which showed how exploitative coverage eroded the singer’s mental health, has…
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Culture The artist who transfixed Albert Einstein and Jean-Paul Sartre
As a teenager I would often mistake Alexander Calder’s work for that of Joan Miró and sometimes even Picasso. Bold, playful and abstract, the sculpture of these three art giants appeared interchangeable. Visits to Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona and Musée Picasso in Paris only seemed to confirm Calder’s European influences, even though the darker…
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Culture Once a private investigator, now he preserves memories of Holocaust survivors
For Heshy Rubinstein, a Brooklyn photographer who has interviewed some 600 survivors over the past 15 years, Holocaust documentation is a family affair. The 62-year-old Borough Park resident and son of survivors from Hungary recalls how his son, Yossi, a curious child who voraciously read about the Holocaust, started interviewing his grandparents and several of…
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Culture How an Israeli video whiz created the typewriter supercut that’s helping you be (or feel) productive at home
Typewriters ooze productivity — which might be why we love using them to procrastinate. If you’ve been on the internet in the last month, you probably spent two minutes and three seconds watching this mesmerizing montage of cinematic typewriters. The supercut, which went viral on the inspiration-seeking corners of the internet, is set to Leroy…
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Culture In Taipei, an artist prepares for a Seder with his own Haggadah
Leon Fenster’s community is hosting what may be one of the largest legal Pesach Seders of 2021 — they’ll be using his Haggadah. The 34-year-old artist will lead the ceremony for a crowd of around 200 people in Taipei, Taiwan, where he has remained through most of the pandemic. It is a city in a…
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Culture Artists confront the new plagues of Passover
Jews are uniquely equipped to ruminate on a year of plagues — from time immemorial, plagues have been our dinner conversation. But the pandemic is different. At your Seder, it may not be wise to sprinkle wine for the Makot Mitzrayim (those drips could themselves hold COVID droplets). God’s mighty hand and outstretched arm have…
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Culture Statues of men grace parks and town squares, so why does RBG get a shopping mall?
Grocery shopping in Brooklyn has been as hellish, if not more so, than everywhere else in the pandemic. Trader Joe’s lines snaked fully around the block even during wintry weather. All year, the doors to City Point Brooklyn, where my closest TJ’s is located, have represented the joys of indoor warmth, everything bagel seasoning and…
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Theater Why is everyone laughing at Anne Frank?
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Opinion It’s time for the pro-Palestinian movement to make a radical change
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Film & TV How a complete unknown created one of the most iconic music events of the 1970’s
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News Should synagogues remove the Israeli flag from bimahs now? How a New York shul made the decision
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