The Arts

A Married Lesbian Palestinian-Jewish Couple Aims to Break Stereotypes — and Make it Big in Comedy

by Ben Sales, JTA | Nov 28, 2018 | Arts & Life, Performing Arts, The Arts

NEW YORK (JTA) — Eman El-Husseini and Jess Salomon have a few people to thank for their marriage — including a drunk Italian guy at a comedy club and Saddam Hussein. Salomon is a Jew from Canada. El-Husseini is the daughter of a Palestinian family that...

New Yorker Cartoonist Liana Finck Draws on the Light and Shadows of Her Jewish Upbringing

by Josefin Dolsten, JTA | Nov 26, 2018 | Arts & Life, The Arts, Visual Arts

NEW YORK (JTA) — Liana Finck is in the eating area of a grocery store in Southampton, N.Y., and I’ve interrupted her beach excursion. Once a week, the Brooklyn-based illustrator rides a train to the east end of Long Island to channel her creative energy. She wakes up...

Stan Lee Gave Comic Books Permission to be More Jewish

by JTA | Nov 16, 2018 | Art, Arts & Life, Books, The Arts, Visual Arts

By Arie Kaplan (JTA) — When Stan Lee died on Nov. 12 at 95, he left behind a vast legacy. Between 1961 and 1969, his greatest sustained burst of creative activity, he co-created a vast array of iconic characters, including Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the...

‘Manchester by the Sea’ Director’s Latest Broadway Play Follows a Jewish Family Dealing with Tragedy

by Curt Schleier, JTA | Nov 9, 2018 | Arts & Life, Performing Arts, The Arts

(JTA) — On the phone last week, just before the revival of his play “The Waverly Gallery” opened on Broadway, Kenneth Lonergan sounded harried. There had been some set malfunctions earlier in the week, just as critics were getting ready to start their reviews. He...

‘King of the Yees’ Celebrates Cultural Mapping and Diversity

by Martha Thomas | Nov 9, 2018 | Arts & Life, Performing Arts, The Arts

Lauren Yee loses her father. In some ways, she never really had him. A Yale graduate and playwright, she is poised to relocate to Germany with her Jewish husband, and she isn’t sure if she ever wants to have children. As “King of the Yees” opens, an exasperated Lauren...

Hot Tuna and Jorma Kaukonen Coming to Gordon Center

by Simone Ellin, Associate Editor | Nov 7, 2018 | Arts & Life, Music, Performing Arts, The Arts

As a teenager in the late ’70s, I was too young to experience firsthand the earth-shattering events of the 1960s. Still, my friends and I clung to the remnants of that tumultuous, transformative, romantic and inspiring decade. We were especially captivated by...

How Moises Kaufman Went from a Yeshiva in Venezuela to Directing a Harvey Fierstein Classic

by Curt Schleier, JTA | Oct 31, 2018 | Arts & Life, Performing Arts, The Arts

(JTA) — It has been more than 35 years since Harvey Fierstein’s “Torch Song Trilogy” opened on Broadway. At the time it was a theatrical revelation: Who could have imagined that the story of a young gay Jewish man’s quest for love and validation in a world that viewed...

Author Deborah Tannen Kicks Off Festival of Jewish Literature

by Simone Ellin, Associate Editor | Oct 24, 2018 | Arts & Life, Books, The Arts

If you’ve ever wondered where you’d be without your BFF, Deborah Tannen’s latest book “You’re the Only One I Can Tell: Inside the Language of Women’s Friendships” (Ballantine Books) is bound to resonate with you. Based on interviews with approximately 80 women and...

Writer A.J. Jacobs Traveled Thousands of Miles to Thank Everyone Who Had a Hand in His A.M. Coffee

by Cindy Sher, JTA | Oct 21, 2018 | Arts & Life, Books, Food, The Arts

(JUF News via JTA) — Author A.J. Jacobs has encouraged his three sons to be grateful for all they have. He and his wife urge them to write thank-you notes, to thank the bus driver — even thank their household robot Alexa for weather forecasts. Jacobs, who is...

Rube Goldberg Exhibition Opens at Jewish History Museum in Philly

by Stephen Silver | Oct 17, 2018 | Art, Arts & Life, Museum, The Arts, Visual Arts

When hearing the name Rube Goldberg, one notion instantly comes to mind: those fun machines that complete simple tasks in overly complicated and humorous ways. Think a ball rolling down a long ramp that hits a series of dominoes, which hits something else, so on and...