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Through the Lens of Helmut Newton
As Wallis Annenberg, of the Annenberg Foundation, said: "Helmut Newton is one of the most powerful and influential photographers of the past century -- the place where art and fashion and subversion and aspiration all collide." Many years ago, on Jan. 23, 2004, to be precise, I was driving west on Sunset Boulevard when traffic stopped completely. There were police and an ambulance in front of the Chateau Marmont, where a car had crashed. I figured some celebrity-laden party had… -
Q&A with Noa, Israel's Superstar Singer-Songwriter and Peace Activist
Noa Achinoam Nini, the Israeli singer-songwriter known to all simply as Noa, will perform on June 18 at American Jewish University as part of the new Geller Festival of the Arts. Born in Tel Aviv in 1969, Noa moved to New York as a child and lived there with her family until she returned to Israel at 16. After her military service as part of an entertainment unit, Noa went on to Israel’s Rimon music school, where she met… -
Going Home with Gary Baseman
A still from Gary Baseman’s work on the animated Disney movie “Teacher’s Pet.” There’s an old saying that goes something like this: We spend the first half of our lives running away from home and the rest trying to get back. Consider Homer, way back in ancient Greece, who defined our notion of a life’s odyssey as a journey that begins and ends at home. The same could be said of Gary Baseman, a Los Angeles artist whose career… -
Belllow by way of Bellow
Sons of famous fathers rarely eclipse their parent. Although there are some notable exceptions (JFK and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes come to mind), the singularity of purpose, the ruthlessness that lead to lasting renown, as well as the perks and vicissitudes that come with fame, none of these reward excellent parenting nor allow children the same crucible to ignite a flame that might burn brighter than their parent’s. That children of the famous write memoirs is common; that they… -
The Bronfmans' New Haggadah
2 Cover of the newly released "Bronfman Haggadah." For Passover this year, Rizzoli has just released “The Bronfman Haggadah,” written by the businessman, philanthropist and Jewish community leader Edgar Bronfman Sr., illustrated by artist Jan Aronson, who is also Bronfman’s wife. Unlike other haggadot, this version includes the role of Moses in the story of the Exodus (read Bronfman Exodus Story on page 19). In his introduction, Bronfman suggests that the omission from the traditional telling may be because the… -
Chabon's Reconnect
Michael Chabon. Photo courtesy of HarperCollins. A writer walks into a room full of rabbis. This sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it’s not. In the words of Woody Allen’s “Broadway Danny Rose,” “It’s the emes.” The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) held the Reform movement’s annual rabbinical convention March 3-6 in Long Beach, and novelist and essayist Michael Chabon was this year’s Jacob Rader Marcus lecturer. He spoke on the topic “Shaping Jewish Narrative” with Rabbi… -
When Voices met Visions
Here’s a challenge: Let’s say you had $1.1 million to give away on a program to inspire people working in Jewish organizations as well as the people who find themselves in their public spaces. What would you do? Hand out baseball cards with the pictures of famous rabbis and leaders? Produce mix tapes of Israeli rap music? Philanthropist Harold Grinspoon had a different idea, and the result can be seen in an exhibition at the Skirball Cultural Center of 18… -
Abraham Lincoln: The First Jewish President?
Daniel Day-Lewis stars as President Abraham Lincoln in "Lincoln." Photo by David James, DreamWorks Abraham Lincoln has been dead for almost 150 years, yet suddenly he's everywhere. At the Skirball Cultural Center, you can see an original copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Lincoln, amid an impressive array of founding American documents. The Huntington Library is host to two stunning and deeply engrossing Civil War exhibitions, "A Just Cause: Voices of the Civil War" and "A Strange and Fearful… -
Rita Rocks her Persian Roots
Pop singer Rita will perforn in concert on Nov. 1 at UCLA. On Nov. 1, Israel’s most popular and enduring pop icon, Rita Yahan-Farouz, known the world over simply as Rita, will appear at UCLA’s Royce Hall, along with a special band assembled for this tour. She will perform songs from throughout her career, in Hebrew, as well as songs from “My Joys” (HaSmachot Shelanu), her most recent hit album, which includes lyrics in Farsi. Middle Eastern flavor and gypsy… -
sex,sex,sex
Portrait of Arthur Schnitzler, Atelier Madame d’Ora, 1915. Image courtesy of ONB/Vienna, 203.759-D One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons features two men in conversation walking down a city street. Surrounding them are dollar signs — in every window, on every car, on everything. The caption reads: “Remember when everything was sex, sex, sex?” This image came to mind the other afternoon at a dramatic reading by Annabelle Gurwitch and Sam Tsoutsouvas of “Arthur Schnitzler — Being Jewish,” a work… -
What's so Great about Stanley Kubrick
On Nov. 1, the Los Angeles County of Museum of Art, (LACMA) in partnership with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (those wonderful folks who bring us the Oscars), will present the first U.S. retrospective of filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, a project developed in partnership with the Kubrick estate, a show that originated at the Deutsches Filmmuseum in Frankfurt, Germany, but will be seen here in a more expanded form. Kubrick, who died in 1999 at 70, was —…