Life and Action

Angetevka: It’s Relative

Begging your pardon in advance, this past week when I heard about a recent rabbinical ruling, a dirty joke popped into my head. Here it is: What’s the difference between like and love? Spit or swallow.

Arts and Culture

Reinventing Ritual

By The Jewish Museum

Click here for a slideshow from the current Jewish Museum show, Reinventing Ritual: Contemporary Art and Design for Jewish Life. This show surveys the avant-garde design of objects and art that renew Jewish practices. The nearly sixty works in Reinventing Ritual envision a more sustainable and harmonious future, where identity is indelibly connected to action, not image.

Life and Action

Always Outsiders

By Joel Schalit

His English isn’t very good, but the guy sure knows how to communicate with dogs. Whenever he sees me taking Pixel out for a walk, Antonello turns into a magnet. Within seconds, Pixel is at his feet, wagging his tail, as though he and our doorman have known each other for years.

Media and Tech

Jewish Second Life

By Julian Voloj

Second Life is one of many virtual worlds. But it is different. Why? Because it is the home to a very active and creative Jewish community. Sounds strange? Maybe, but visit the slide show and find out for yourself what it is all about.

Arts and Culture

Halakhic Striptease: Avi Nesher's The Secrets

By Shai Ginsburg

During the 1980s, Israeli filmmakers were preoccupied with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the 1990s, they explored the dynamic between Israel’s urban centers and the country’s periphery. The past decade has witnessed a rise in films that seek to portray the experience of communities previously considered marginal to Israeli cinema. Avi Nesher’s latest drama, The Secrets (Israel/France, 2007), joins a host of recent Israeli films, both feature-length and documentary, which explore Israel’s ultra-orthodox community.

Arts and Culture

A World Without Ashkenazim

By Shai Ginsburg

Since its release in 1982, Jacob Goldwasser’s first feature, Under The Nose (Mitahat La’af) has acquired cult status in Israel, setting the cinematic standard for portraying domestic social problems for many years to come. To mark its 25th anniversary in 2007, Under The Nose was released on DVD. A script book was also recently published which included an interview with the director and the scriptwriter, three essays, and a short story inspired by the film — a rare event for a cultural scene in which the study of film is sparse.

Arts and Culture

Jewish Film Festival Diary

By Shai Ginsburg

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival requires little introduction. Now in its twenty-ninth year, the annual summertime event has turned into the most important global gathering of its kind. Transforming the west coast American city into a temporary stand-in for Berlin or Cannes, albeit a Jewish version, is no small feat. Nor is the festival’s distinction for helping serve as the North American starting point for some of Israel and Europe’s most significant new Jewish productions.

Life and Action

Fateful Encounters

By Angela Himsel

This week, Zeek columnist Angetevka (Angela Himsel) reflects on what happens when she chooses a different kind of birthright, her spiritual rather than her geographical homeland.

Arts and Culture

In Search of Anti-Semitism

By Shai Ginsburg

Defamation is contentious, malicious even, to some, because it’s director refuses to accept at face value the belief that Jews are always victims of racism, and sets out to find out who makes such claims today, and why.

Arts and Culture

(De)Programming the Middle East: A Conversation with Jamal Dajani

By Joel Schalit

If you haven’t seen it before, Mosaic will change the way you think about the Middle East. A thirty-minute daily news report aggregating content from the region’s major television news outlets, this seven-year old program airing on Link TV has skyrocketed in popularity among North American viewers. Why? Because, to paraphrase Jamal Dajani, Mosaic’s producer, his show is helping air a new regional identity which includes both Israeli and Arab voices from throughout the Middle East.