“Sorry for (Communist) Partying”: I review “After the Revolution”
at AmCon:The engine which runs “After the Revolution,” a play by Amy Herzog that will show at Theater J (the theater of Washington’s Jewish Community Center) through October 6, is a generations-old...
View ArticleObjects in the World Are Words Spoken By God
Poet Scott Cairns talks about something adjacent to an element of my own conversion–and, like me, he found this truth in Judaism as well as Christianity. The title of this post comes from Christianity...
View Article“God’s Away on Business” in Hebrew
I like this on its own merits, as well as for its high concept. Via TKB.
View Article“Passover Cocktails for Each of the Ten Plagues”
I am just a fountain of good taste:Plague 1: Blood Cocktail: Red NileThe original eye-opener. Great way to start the plagues, perfect for weekend brunch of fresh fruit, coffee, matzoh brie, and...
View Article“The Passover Sandwich”: NPR
celebrates:Why is this Sandwich Monday different from all other Sandwich Mondays? In honor of Passover, I introduced my non-Jewish colleagues to the wonders of the Passover lunch.It’s not the Seder...
View ArticleSister and Stranger: “Ida,” A Jewish Nun in a Haunted Poland
Ida, a contemporary black-and-white movie now playing at the E St Cinema & Bethesda Row Cinema, begins as the title character (Agata Trzebuchowska) is about to meet her only known relative. Ida...
View Article“The Dead Hand of the Past”: I Review “Bad Jews”
at Studio Theatre:Jaroslav Pelikan declared, “Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.” But it can be hard to tell which one you’re actually doing.“Bad...
View ArticleVoices from the Fire: Medieval Jewish Martyr Laments
Part of my Lenten reading was Susan L. Einbinder’s Beautiful Death: Jewish Poetry and Martyrdom in Medieval France. It’s a very readable adapted thesis which makes a few arguments–for example, that...
View Article“Up Close”: Rabbi Ayelet Cohen and Me on The Jewish Channel
interviewalicious!Click here to view the embedded video.and podcast version etc here
View ArticleIt Always Rains on Ben Affleck: Short Movie Reviews
The Leopard: Burt Lancaster is the patriarch of an aristocratic Sicilian family whose role in society is inevitably being usurped by the rising middle class during the period of Italian unification....
View ArticleWhich Films Show the “10 Obscure Gospel Moments Most Jesus Films Miss”: Peter...
with some excellent service journalism at Christianity Today:Ten years ago, I compiled a list of my ten favorite Jesus movies for CT. Several new Jesus films have released since then, with more coming...
View ArticleI Revisit Saul Bellow’s “Ravelstein,” A 2000 Novel About Love and...
here you go: Ravelstein, Saul Bellow’s roman à clef about the last years of philosopher-provocateur Allan Bloom, may be the best post-9/11 novel published in the year 2000. Ravelstein has as many...
View ArticleThe Only Song in the World: Short movie notes
In order of when I saw them, so this will get whiplashy. Me Without You: Brutally disappointing. The bait: Two girls forge a best friendship (YES) in the late ’70s/early ’80s (YES) complete with...
View Article99 Dreams I Have Had, Every One a Red Heifer: I read “The Yiddish Policemen’s...
So I finally read Michael Chabon’s novel The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, and in spite of its serious flaws, I was still left with that wonderful feeling, Where have you been all my life? Why didn’t I...
View Article“The Fading Shadow of the Habsburgs”: Peter Berger
with a lovely tribute. From 2011, but I just found it via people reminiscing about Berger’s life and work: For centuries the Habsburgs cast a gigantic shadow over a large part of Europe. Their empire...
View ArticleOff-Key in the Canticle: Some scattered notes on “post-liberal” order
On Wednesday I went to a discussion at the Catholic Information Center here in DC, hosted by Fare Forward (I’m in the magazine! reviewing a Czech genocide-tourism novel, it’s fantastic, I think the...
View Article“The Naked Emperors”: I’m at the University Bookman
reviewing a recent book on the German 1890s through the rise of the Nazis: Martin Duberman, in his recent “novel/history” Jews Queers Germans, rarely describes clothing. He describes, instead, physical...
View ArticleGod and Other Strangers: Short movie reviews
Best one first! Ushpizin: A poor, childless Orthodox Jewish couple in Jerusalem have no idea how they’ll afford to celebrate Sukkot (the Feast of Booths, commemorating the Exodus from Egypt), let alone...
View ArticleThree Fictional Retellings of Violent Christian History
Two of them are good. One of them is not good! …Plus bonus Pope Emeritus at the end. When I learned that Netflix had made a series about a 14th-century Spanish serf who takes part in the building of a...
View ArticleDesert Hearts: I watch “The Jewish Cardinal”
Lord, if this is how You treat Your friends, no wonder You have so few of them. –St Teresa of Ávila, granddaughter of a Jewish man forced to convert to Catholicism The Jewish Cardinal is a 2013 biopic...
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