Judaica, like all religious art, represents an aesthetic dilemma: Are these religious objects primarily objects of worship, or do they have an aesthetic value abstracted from any potential uses? Even if the answer is “both,” context is critical. Most Judaica exhibits that I have seen (exhibits at the Jewish Museum in Prague, or the Museo…
WASHINGTON — Painting a grim picture of Jewish vulnerability in the United States, a top U.S. security official said that the vast majority of funds earmarked to secure non-profits goes to Jewish institutions because their need is most acute. Alejandro Mayorkas, the deputy homeland security secretary, speaking Wednesday to the Orthodox Union’s annual leadership mission…
The Jewish Museum’s invitation for its 30th Annual February 24 Purim Ball — with the directive “Wear Your Mask; Leave Your Black Tie at Home” — honored fashion icon Isaac Mizrahi and featured actress/ singer/ comedienne/ Sandra Bernhard in an edgy spoof of the annual Megillah Purim Spiel. Always innovative in its décor — this…
The distance between New York’s Lower East Side and Upper East Side is only a few miles, but the neighborhoods could hardly be more different. My grandfather Ben Schoenfein was born on the Lower East Side in 1899, 15 years before opened its doors at 179 E. Houston Street. The original appetizing shop still stands,…
Jens Hoffmann, Daniel S. Palmer and Kelly Taxter, the curators of the Jewish Museum, have a difficult job. They can’t help but recognize the limitations of revisiting the same narrow band of Jewish tropes with each and every show they present. There are only so many fresh ways to revisit the Holocaust, the Jewish immigrant…
At the Jewish Museum’s “Becoming Jewish: Warhol’s Liz & Marilyn” exhibit September 24 pre-opening reception a woman looking at Monroe’s conversion document exclaimed: “I knew Elizabeth converted but I didn’t know Marilyn Monroe did too!” For Taylor and Monroe fans this show is a nostalgic treat. Struck by a huge display of 40 movie magazine…
On a spring day in 1956, Rabbi Robert E. Goldburg paid a visit to Marilyn Monroe’s New York City apartment. Before the 30-year-old actress tied the knot with playwright Arthur Miller that summer, she wanted to convert to Judaism. In a neatly typed letter set inside a display case at the Jewish Museum’s new exhibit…
Halfway through my visit to the Jewish Museum, someone thought to turn down the Barbra Streisand. Or maybe I just got used to it. Either way, it was a blessing. For, the sound of Babs belting out the Peter Matz tune “Gotta Move,” from her 1966 CBS TV special, “Color Me Barbra,” threatened to drown…
מישעל ווײַס, אַ רעפּובליקאַנערין, האָט געוווּנען די וואַלן אין יוניווערסיטי הײַטס — אַ טיף דעמאָקראַטישער פֿאָרשטאָט פֿון קליוולאַנד, אָהײַאָ
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