Courtesy of Go2Films One is tempted to declare that “Torn,” the documentary by Israeli filmmaker Ronit Kertsner making its American debut at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, is about the “Who is a Jew?” question. It is. But it is also about more than that. The film tells the story of Romuald Jakub Weksler-Waszkinel,…
Alison Pick, who won the Canadian Jewish Book Award earlier this year for her novel “Far to Go,” was longlisted today, along with 12 other writers, for the annual Man Booker Prize for Fiction. Pick grew up not knowing that her father’s family was Jewish, and only learned the truth of her family’s history as…
The Israeli team at the 42nd International Physics Olympiad returned home from Bangkok, Thailand with some serious bling around their necks. Each of the team’s five members came home with a prize. The teenagers won five medals – two gold, two silver and one bronze – ranking Israel 13th in the world, four places higher…
Funny or Die “Yeah, uh huh, you know what it is. My nose and ass — they’re both big” is the catchy refrain to this outrageous yet endearing Funny or Die parody, celebrating the idiosyncratic joys of being both black and Jewish. It’s hard to be put off by the video’s many offensive Jewish and…
The most prominent Palestinian imprisoned by Israel, Marwan Barghouti, is now serving two weeks in solitary confinement for having been caught with a mobile phone in his cell. Israel’s Channel 2 News reports that the phone was discovered during a search by prison personnel in response to tips that contraband had been smuggled to security…
“The Chairs Are Where the People Go: How to Live, Work, and Play in the City” By Misha Glouberman with Sheila Heti Faber and Faber, 174 pages, $13 “The Chairs Are Where the People Go” is the name of a chapter in Misha Glouberman’s book, as well its title. It is also one of the…
Ivy L. Barsky is changing museums, cities and American Jewish culture. As deputy director of the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, located on Battery Place in Lower Manhattan, Barsky worked to convey the Jewish experience through the stories of survivors. Now, as she becomes the director and chief operating…
Zach Katz, with his “The First World Problems Rap,” has provided a much-needed antidote to self-indulgent teen videos, like the one offered earlier this year by a bar mitzvah boy who shares his first name. (In case you missed it, “I’m Zack” by Zachary Freiman was a spectacular doozey.) The self-aware Katz belied his 17…
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