Jewish History & Culture
171 posts found
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Tommywood: "Light of Day" (Robert Weingarten at the Weisman Museum)
As I drove toward Malibu the other day, Santa Monica Bay was anything but uniform, a shifting collage of textures and hues of blue. As the sun glinted off the water, I wondered: How does one describe the special quality of Santa Monica light? How do you explain it? How do you quantify it? To find the answer, I went to the new Robert Weingarten photo exhibit, “6:30 am,†which runs through July 17 at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum… -
Tommywood: "Raymond's End" (or Phil Rosenthal: Deli Lama) 5-06-05
Phil Rosenthal, the creator of “Everybody Loves Raymond,†which will end its nine-year run on CBS on May 16, and I are fressing at Barney Greengrass in Beverly Hills high atop Barney’s Department Store. It’s not that eating sable is the way I mourn (how is it that a fish can be named after a fur coat my mother owned?) — or that toasted bagels and cream cheese dulls the imminent loss of my favorite sitcom. The reason is altogether… -
Luck of the Exiles
Spring is upon us. My allergies have been acting up for weeks. So it seems the right time to talk about cross-pollination, a subject that it is at the heart of important new exhibits in Los Angeles and New York. When Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis was running for president in 1988, he often talked about his father, a Greek immigrant who had come to this country with no money, had worked very hard and made a considerable fortune. When he… -
The Way It Was (Growing up Jewish in New York)
Last week, playwright Donald Margulies, The Manhattan Theater Club and The Forward weekly newspaper announced the winners of a contest they sponsored on the topic of “What It’s Like Growing Up Jewish in New York.†You can read the winning entries at www.forward.com. I regret to say you will not find my name among them (what do they know?). Still, my great consolation is being able to share my account with you: Growing up Jewish in New York as the… -
Death of a Moralist (Arthur Miller)
Although Arthur Miller was only 33 when “Death of a Salesman†premiered on Broadway, it was a transformative moment in American drama, and Miller’s impact on successive generations of writers continues to this day. In “Death of a Salesman,†Miller was able to find poetry in the personal that transcended the mundane — while creating drama that mattered. Rod Serling, then in his 20s, attended the original production and saw the kind of moral drama about average people that he… -
Whose Culture is it? (Ellen Gruber's 'Virtually Jewish")
Does it bother you when a white man sings the blues? Is jazz exclusively an African American art form? When Eminem (who is white) is the most popular rapper, Tiger Woods (who is part African American and part Asian) is the greatest golfer and Serena and Venus Williams (African Americans) dominate women’s tennis, should it upset us that Jewish Culture Festivals are run by non-Jews for audiences of primarily non-Jews, and that klezmer music is performed by non-Jewish performers for… -
The Award Goes to... (2004's Funniest moments on screen)
As the year ends, many of my correspondents (at least one) have been clamoring for the Tommywood Awards, a list of those defining moments in the past year — the best, the worst, the memorable. Frankly, my mind has already gone on vacation and the rest of me is soon to follow. So although I don’t rule out a “best of†list early in the New Year, I won’t trouble you or myself with that this week. Instead, the following… -
Dancing Queen (Liane Weintraub and Dance in LA)
Amid myriad reasons for moving to and living in Los Angeles, let me add one: this is a city where one dedicated individual can still have a major cultural impact. This came to mind recently when I made the acquaintance of Liane Weintraub, a new mother in her mid-30s. Weintraub lives in Malibu and no one could blame her for enjoying the life she is fortunate enough to lead. Instead, she has taken on a different challenge. In a short… -
Becoming a Nephew (The Yad Vashem online database)
Today, I am a nephew. Last weekend, the names of more than 3 million persons murdered in the Holocaust were posted on the Internet as part of a searchable database created by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Yad Vashem was established in 1950 by an act of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, as the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance authority. From its very inception, it has taken on the task of being a repository for the names and memory of the… -
Literary Journeys (Memoirs by Jonathan Schwartz, Nessa Rapoport and Stefan Zweig)
The most memorable books I’ve read recently have been, ironically enough, three memoirs that stand out for their sensitivity, intelligence and literary quality. Jonathan Schwartz’s “All in Good Time: A Memoir†(Random House) is a particularly well-crafted, deeply felt story of childhood neglect as the child of famed Broadway and movie music composer Arthur Schwartz, and his own rake’s progress surrounded by music as a radio DJ and cabaret performer. In retrospect, it seems like I spent every night of… -
Visiting History (The cemeteries of LA)
I have always had a soft spot for Brazil. I spent the summer after high school graduation there, and my wife and I spent our honeymoon there. I love the people, the music, the food and the spirit that Brazilians carry with them as effortlessly as they dance the samba. But I never imagined my affection for Brazil had a historic basis and a Jewish link. I mention this because it turns out that the first Jews in America, who… -
Listening to Lenny (Lenny Bruce)
One night many, many years ago, I was at The Comedy Store on amateur night when Robin Williams walked in off the street and jumped onto the stage. For the next 45 minutes, the air inside the club turned into nitrous oxide as Williams made us all feel a bit brighter, a bit wittier, a bit more manically high just for being able to keep up with him. It felt like being inside a comic mind that was both unhinged…