Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics In his new movie, “Midnight in Paris,” Woody Allen did what he does best. He created a character out of a city and added his signature sleight-of-hand magic. Think “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” when a handsome leading man steps through a screen to romance a depression-era Mia Farrow, or…
It’s no secret that Woody Allen has a deep disaffection for organized religion. And it definitely ain’t a secret that Judaism, the filmmaker’s born religion, is the most frequent target of his jokes. (Here’s my personal favorite, from “Zelig”: “I’m 12 years old. I run into a synagogue. I ask the rabbi the meaning of…
Although Shabbetai Zevi naturally gets most of the attention, Jewish history has been marked by a series of impostors. On February 16, Bloomsbury USA publishes a collection by the late New Yorker reporter St. Clair McKelway, “Reporting at Wit’s End,” which includes the complete 1968 book “The Big Little Man from Brooklyn” about the Jewish…
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