(JTA) — Fred Schwartz, a New York-area philanthropist and businessman who marketed affordable mink, sable and fox under the name “Fred the Furrier,” has died at 84. Schwartz, of Great Neck, New York, died Aug. 7 after an illness. Schwartz operated “Fur Vaults” at three Alexander’s department stores, earning praise and scorn for opening up a once-exclusive industry through…
— French authorities allocated approximately half a million dollars toward the preservation of what is believed to be Europe’s oldest known Jewish building. Restoration works are to begin in October to save the damaged parts of the Sublime House, which some historians believe was the seat of a 12-century yeshiva – a Jewish religious seminary — in…
When the domes of Edirne’s abandoned Great Synagogue caved in, Rifat Mitrani, the town’s last Jew, knew it spelled the end of nearly two millennia of Jewish heritage in this Turkish town. As a boy, Mitrani studied Hebrew in the synagogue’s gardens and, in the 1970s, dispatched its Torah to Istanbul after the community shrank…
We can never know for certain what ancient Jews and Romans saw when they passed under the Arch of Titus, but thanks to technology and a team of scholars, we now have an inkling. The arch, dedicated in 81 C.E., celebrates the destruction of Jerusalem by the Emperor Titus and features an iconic bas-relief carving…
Crossposted from Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art and Monuments The former Ahavath Sholom Synagogue at 407 Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo, N.Y., built in 1903, is threatened with demolition. The building is one of the last standing synagogue of the “facade-dome” type that was popular at the end of the 19th century. Jewish use of the building…
Crossposted from Haaretz As Tel Avivians hurried home to beat the rush-hour traffic after another start to the workweek, dozens of passersby along the busy intersection between Carlebach and Ha’arbaa Streets were drawn to the plaza facing the Cinematheque, the site of a not-so-ordinary film preview. Seven pianos were scattered throughout the bustling Tel Aviv…
Gabrielle Birkner watches Yossi Madmoni’s “Restoration,” the only Israeli selection at the Sundance Film Festival. Pianist András Schiff talks to the Forward about growing anti-Semitism in his native Hungary. Gordon Haber reflects on integration and re-segregation in his native Los Angeles. Eileen Reynolds goes to see Yoav Gal’s biblically inspired space-age video opera “Mosheh.” David…
Set in a cavelike workshop, in dimly lit rooms, in alleyways and under heavy cloud cover, “Restoration” (“Boker Tov, Adon Fidelman”) is almost entirely devoid of sunlight. It’s a surprising choice for a movie that takes place in Tel Aviv, a seaside city that is far more sunny than gray. And yet, the color palette…
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