Chayah

By Michele Feder-Nadoff

Chayah Series is a painting /drawing series (sumi ink and gouache) currently in progress that utilizes the simple gesture, right to left, as Hebrew and Arabic are written.

Arts and Culture

Days of Future Past: Iranian Garage Rock of the 1960s

By Charlie Bertsch

Like many locales that are retroactively said to have had garage rock scenes, Iran was not a country where many people actually had garages. It still isn’t. To imagine young Iranians hammering out tunes in a subdivision of three-bedroom homes with two-car garages is to indulge a fantasy that is simultaneously economic and political. We are drawn to the vision of an Iranian garage scene in the 1960s precisely because we perceive it as a future past. And we are drawn to Raks Raks Raks because it gives us hope that it is not a future past redemption.

News and Politics

Harvey Milk Was Here

By Aeyal Gross

The cold blooded killings at a queer youth center in Tel Aviv last August put into stark relief the plight of gay Israelis. How can the most sexually liberated state in the Mideast sincerely proclaim the singularity of its freedoms when its GLBT citizenry live in fear of being murdered?

Faith and Practice

Enoch's Ascent: A Tale of a Jewish Angel

By Rami Shapiro

Judaism and angels? You bet. Like the boddhisattvas of Buddhism or Catholic saints, stories of human beings who became angels took shape in the minds and lives of our Jewish ancestors. In this excerpt from his newest book, Rabbi Rami Shapiro explores what the myth of Enoch’s ascent can teach us about achieving a God-centered awareness.

Arts and Culture

A Night During the Gulf War

By Yossel Birstein and Translated by Margaret (Waisberg) Birstein

Yossel Birstein (1920-2003) was a significant talent, “on par with Kafka and Agnon,” according to critic Menachem Perry. Birstein’s wanderings, and his ideological convictions cut through with irony, make him an intriguing symbol of the vagaries of modern Jewish life.

Arts and Culture

Studying Violence: The Films of Avi Mograbi

By Shai Ginsburg

According to the infamous Israeli director, a filmmaker cannot explore violence without becoming subjected to it, as its victim or, more probably, as its perpetrator. Zeek’s film editor, Shai Ginsburg, gets to the bottom of Avi Mograbi’s unique approach to documentary productions.

Arts and Culture

A Blessing from my Grandmother

By Pamela Frydman Baugh

The Holocaust remains a key trope for the construction of Jewish identity. In this memoir, a frum family comes to accept the rabbinic ordination of Rabbi Pamela by recalling the memory of her namesake, Grandmother Pessel, who fought for her own liberation from the Nazis.

Arts and Culture

Lessons from My Mother

By Andrea Dezsö

Andrea Dezsö, Lessons From My Mother, 2006 cotton and metallic floss embroidery on cotton fabric 5X5 inches. Number of pieces in series: 50

Life and Action

I'm Broke. Please Help

By Sue Swartz

“I hate to ask,” the hand-written sign apologized, “but I have to. I’m broke. Please help.” It’s mid-morning, mid-week, and drizzling. I’m stopped several car lengths down from the traffic light where the man with the sign stands unprotected from the elements and the stares of strangers.