Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree Most days, my students leave class in high spirits, noisily pushing back their chairs and chatting away animatedly as they head off to another class, a cup of coffee or a nap. Not this time. After an hour and a half spent watching the infamous “Jud Suss,” one of…
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree As everyone knows by now, we are what we eat. But we’re also the sum of our associations, many of them derived from museum exhibitions and film screenings. Take old suitcases, for instance. When I think of these objects, of where they’ve been and what they contain, what springs…
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree I’m often asked how to go about extending the shelf life of yesteryear’s Jewish cultural treasures. It seems to me that studying them in class is one way to keep them fresh and evergreen. Another is through creative recycling. A lively, smart example of how to preserve Jewish culture…
Last month, on December 14, three carefully detailed renderings of synagogue interiors, the handiwork of Marc Chagall, fetched $2.3 million at Sotheby’s. In the days preceding the auction, much was made of the rarity of these works and of how they stood apart from the artist’s oeuvre, which tilted toward the fantastical. A great deal…
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree When American Jews first discovered the Jewish community center, or JCC, way back in the 1920s, what drew them in droves was the novelty of its indoor pool and well-equipped gym. Today, the JCC’s constituents are just as likely to be drawn by the art on the walls as…
When American Jews think of the Israeli landscape, what come to mind are ancient ruins, contemporary settlement blocs and walls of all sorts. But as I recently discovered on a whirlwind trip, the situation on the ground is far more complex than that. Buildings whose history stretches back to pre-state days are being given a…
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree Not since the 1939 debut of Sholem Asch’s “The Nazarene: A Novel Based on the Life of Christ,” has so much media attention been showered on the Jewish perspective on Jesus and the New Testament. The recent release of “The Jewish Annotated New Testament,” an Oxford University Press publication…
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree This past Sunday afternoon, the students in my Jewish Geography class got more than they bargained for when they attended a matinee performance of “Parade,” a two act musical at the historic Ford’s Theatre that centered on the sobering events that culminated in the lynching of Leo Frank of…
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