The Jewish Week | Arts

Morgan Spector and Sarah Steele in “Russian Transport.” Monique Carboni
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 | | Special To The Jewish Week

A working-class Jewish family struggling to make ends meet. A gangster uncle newly arrived from Russia. Conflicts between immigrant parents and their more Americanized children. It all sounds a lot like the early-20th century world of Samson Raphaelson’s “The Jazz Singer” or Neil Simon’s “Lost in Yonkers.”

“I don’t believe in stories that are sentimental,” says Holland, top. Above, scene from “In Darkness.” Sony Classics
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 | | Special to the Jewish Week

When you ask Agnieszka Holland about the historical tensions between Jews and Catholics in her native Poland, she doesn’t have far to look for a reply.

The Cassatt Quartet plays Gerald Cohen's Shoah-themed "Playing for our lives" this weekend.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 | | Special to the Jewish Week

For Jewish-American children of European immigrants of a certain age, the Shoah is more personal reality than historical memory. If they work in the arts, it is an open question that hangs in the air until it is finally faced. For composer and cantor Gerald Cohen, the time is now.

About his novel’s traditional narrative, a departure for him, Marcus says, “I’m afraid of complacency.” Michael Lionstar
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 | | Staff Writer

No one can seem to get over the fact that Ben Marcus, the scion of avant-garde literature and its most impassioned defender, recently published a fairly traditional novel, “The Flame Alphabet.” It has all the trappings of normative fiction — a plot, emotionally developed characters, even some good old-fashioned drama.

A scene from the Chinese-made “Ocean Heaven,” part of the ReelAbilities: NY Disabilities Film Festival.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 | | Special to the Jewish Week

What is the largest minority group in the United States? Hint: it is the only minority group to which anyone may belong, a group that many of us will join with the passage of time, but a group that is woefully underrepresented in many elements of American life, including the arts.

Sam L. Tsoutsouvas as Dr. Bernhardi in Alfred Schnitzler’s “Professor Bernhardi.” Jill Usdan
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 | | Special To The Jewish Week

Fin de siècle Vienna was, in the words of Jewish satirist Karl Kraus, a “research laboratory for world destruction.” Viennese playwright Arthur Schnitzler agreed; his play, “Professor Bernhardi,” was one of the first plays in German to confront the rising tide of anti-Semitism in early 20th-century Central Europe. Translated by C.J. Weinberger, “Professor Bernhardi” opened in Midtown this week at the TBG Theatre as part of a series of works that were “banned and burned” at some point in their history.

Friday, January 27, 2012

NEW YORK (JTA) – The Jewish Book Council announced its five finalists for the 2012 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.

The $100,000 prize, presented annually since 2007, is awarded to fiction and non-fiction writers in alternating years, with this year’s focus on non-fiction.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

NEW YORK (JTA) -- Ben Stiller reportedly has signed on to direct, produce and star in an HBO original series about a Jewish family called “All Talk.”

The script is being written by Jonathan Safran Foer and the series, set in Washington, will co-star Alan Alda.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the show is billed as “politically, religiously, culturally, intellectually and sexually irreverent.

Shooting is set to begin in the fall.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

PARK CITY, Utah (JTA) – For Israel fans, it's all pain and anguish this year at the Sundance Film Festival.

Unlike in years past at America’s top independent film fest, when feature films exploring the nuances of Israeli life offset some hard-hitting documentaries – such as in 2007 when the award-winning “Sweet Mud” contrasted with “Hothouse” – 2012 has no such leavening agents. At the venues in this mountainous ski town showing the films this week, the views of Israel range from critical to abysmal.

Cellest Maya Beiser team up with Pianist Pablo Ziegler for "Canyengue, The Soul of Tango."
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 | | Special to the Jewish Week

When Tito Beiser left Argentina in the early 1950s to help start a Galilee kibbutz centered around members of the Argentine chapter of Hashomer Hatzair, he brought a lot of his home with him — food, soccer, Spanish and, most of all, tango.