World News
-
70 years ago, this Jewish choreographer predicted our epidemic of loneliness and isolation
When the dance begins, they are all onstage together. But they are each very much alone. In the opening vignette of Anna Sokolow’s “Rooms,” there are eight chairs scattered across the stage and eight performers who inhabit them — like city apartments squished so close together yet keeping their occupants apart. No one makes eye…
-
Gene Shalit, a mensch with a personality as big as his mustache, turns 100
The television entertainment personality Gene Shalit, who celebrated his centenary on March 25, semaphored a Jewish appearance for decades to viewers of NBC’s early morning gabfest The Today Show. With his Jew-fro hairstyle that fascinated celebrity interviewees and his abundant mustache that outdid Groucho Marx’s mere greasepaint simulacrum, Shalit was one of a kind. Born…
-
How a song about the food chain became a Seder mainstay
I’m almost positive I heard about the old lady who swallowed a fly before the father who bought a goat for two zuzim. This occurred to me a few years ago while riding in my sister’s minivan. My niece was in her car seat fidgeting with a toy that plays a catalogue of public domain…
-
Connecticut Catholic school punishes students who targeted ‘Jew Canaan’ rivals on social media
(JTA) — A Connecticut Catholic school has issued punishments in connection with a series of antisemitic social media posts about the school’s hockey rivals last month, The New York Times reported. Posts associated with fans of Fairfield College Preparatory School disparaged the New Canaan Rams ahead of their March 23 game, which the Rams won,…
-
Pro-Palestinian rally at Buchenwald memorial is shut down by German authorities
(JTA) — German authorities have shut down a planned pro-Palestinian vigil at the Buchenwald Nazi concentration camp memorial after a fierce outcry. The rally was slated for April 12, marking the 81st anniversary of Buchenwald’s liberation by U.S. troops. But the city of Weimar said on Monday it would ban the event on the memorial…
-
Argentina designates Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization
(JTA) — Argentina announced on Tuesday that it had designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, a move that was quickly praised by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar. The move stems from Argentina’s decades-long investigations into the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 29 and injured more…
-
This isn’t Barbra Streisand’s ‘Yentl’ — it isn’t I.B. Singer’s either
There’s an FAQ on the website of the London theater where the Kadimah Yiddish Theatre of Melbourne’s production of Yentl is running through April 16. The very first item reads: Is this a stage version of the 1983 musical film starring Barbara Streisand? No — the London production of Yentl is a play. It is…
-
Oct. 7 changed Howard Jacobson. But his new novel is as defiant as ever.
Howard Jacobson is a rarity in British public life: vocally, unabashedly Jewish. Jews have made fine contributions to British society, of course, but typically they haven’t done so with their Jewishness front and center, preferring to stow it away in the service of a vaguely-defined Britishness that still sees outward expressions of ethnic or religious…
-
In 1989, Harold Pinter and Jerry Schatzberg made the perfect Holocaust movie for 2026
The first hint that Reunion is an unusual kind of Holocaust film comes from a music cue. An older man has traveled from New York City to Stuttgart, a trip that has clearly brought him immense psychological pain. His flashbacks to Nazi marches lead us to assume he lived in the German city during Adolf…
-
3 more men arrested in London arson of ambulances owned by Jewish emergency service
(JTA) — Three more men have been arrested in London in connection with a series of fires on ambulances owned by the Jewish emergency service corps Hatzola, London’s Metropolitan Police Service announced on Wednesday. Two British men, ages 20 and 19, and a 17-year-old dual British and Pakistani citizen were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy…
