Manhattan

Breaking Out

Dara Levin — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 20:24:51 +0000

Manhattan

Dvora Meyers

JTA

Israeli-born hip-hop break dancer Ephrat Asherie has heads spinning (her own included).

Near the start of the dance performance piece “Brothers,” break dancer and choreographer Ephrat Asherie turns and faces the audience dressed like a boy. Her long brown hair is covered by a black bandana and she wears a plain red sleeveless sweatshirt. Her baggy jeans are ripped open, thigh down to shin, which exposes her black kneepads, a basic piece of equipment for any b-girl.

Completing the gender-bending look are her arms, which are so chiseled they would make Madonna envious.

Under One Tent

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:40:19 +0000

Manhattan

Steve Lipman

Staff Writer

Katrin Yaghoubi wanted to find a synagogue with gemutlichkeit. That’s German for coziness. And it had to have eshtemah. That’s Farsi for community.And a rabbi whose services kept her interest. That’s English for not boring.

It took her almost eight years.An Iranian Jew born in Germany, Yaghoubi now lives in Manhattan but her shul is in Great Neck, home to her mother, one of her three siblings and thousands of other Iranian Jews.

Thumping His Chess

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:26:55 +0000

Manhattan

Steve Lipman

Staff Writer

The Schneider family of Hastings-on-Hudson in Westchester is running out of shelf space. The bookcase in their living room is packed with the chess books, in Russian, that Dimitri brought from his native Riga, and the ones in English he bought after the family immigrated to the United States eight years ago.There are the chess sets that Dimitri likes to buy. And the trophies he keeps winning.Dimitri, 14, is the top-ranked player in the country in the U.S.

Ethnic Harmony

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:04:00 +0000

Manhattan

Steve Lipman

Staff Writer

Hebrew is a familiar medium for Walter Turnbull’s vocalists. “We were singing in Hebrew 10 years ago,” says the founder and director of the Boys Choir of Harlem. Psalms are a constant part of the group’s repertoire. “We’ve always sung in Hebrew.”But the world-traveling choir had even more opportunities to practice the language in recent months. In May, Turnbull and 48 of his singers made their first trip to Israel for 10 days of performances, workshops and tours.