Editor’s note: Taika Waititi won the 2020 Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for “Jojo Rabbit.” But before he became a household name in the United States — he also directed the widely-beloved “Thor: Ragnarok” (2017) — he was the brightest light in filmmaking in his native New Zealand. To honor the Maori Jewish director’s groundbreaking Oscars victory,…
Courtesy of Reuven Spolter // A scene from a ‘man seder’ in Oak Park, Michigan (JTA) — I’m backing my midlife crisis into a tight space near the synagogue entrance, and because this is my midlife crisis – a 2013 blue Mustang – I’m taking my time. No way anybody’s gonna scratch my crisis. As…
A new initiative offering subsidized screening for cancer-causing mutations in Ashkenazi Jews — including those with no family history of cancer — appears to be splitting cancer specialists. The BRCA community study, sponsored by the Program for Jewish Genetic Health, began accepting applicants in January from Ashkenazi women and men age 25 and older. Led…
Alan Blassberg can’t enter a Cheesecake Factory restaurant without thinking about breast cancer. That’s where he was lunching when he got the call that his sister Sammy Blassberg had been diagnosed. The call would turn Blassberg from documentary filmmaker to activist. Sammy Blassberg died in 2010, at age 47. That same year, Blassberg’s other sister…
Chelsea Clinton has given birth to a girl, she said in a statement on social media, giving former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton their first grandchild. “Marc and I are full of love, awe and gratitude as we celebrate the birth of our daughter, Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky,” Clinton said in…
The bar adjacent to the concert venue on Manhattan’s Lower East Side was packed. Orange Christmas lights lined the wooden rafters on the ceiling of Arlene’s Grocery, casting the 70 or so people queuing up in a soft red glow. But all those waiting to see the rock band Bulletproof Stockings were women. As Hasidic…
Sarah Seltzer with her twin brother as children. I have a twin brother who, as a kid, frequently ran around outside with a ball and his friends ? usually in New York?s parks. Woe to the teachers at our Jewish day school who denied them gym or recess: they acted up extra-rambunctiously when they were…
Twitter isn’t the only place Israelis have taken a stand to #BringBackOurBoys. Israeli actress Moran Atias took to Times Square on Sunday to bring attention to the abduction of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. The actress, who is currently starring in “Third Person” with Liam Neeson and Mila Kunis, held a sign which…
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