Jewish History & Culture

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Sandler and the Zohan

As everyone knows by now, Adam Sandler’s “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” dives in where few comedies have gone before: The Middle East conflict between Arabs and Jews. Hollywood has a long tradition of preferring onscreen Jews to be Semitic-lite (or even better, portrayed by non-Jews such as Gregory Peck in “Gentleman’s Agreement”). Sandler, […]

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Made in New Orleans

It’s 2 a.m., and there’s a crowd on St. Peter’s Street in New Orleans’ French Quarter; people are waiting to see the Stanton Moore Trio play Preservation Hall. Midnight and early morning shows during Jazzfest are part of a new tradition initiated by Benjamin Jaffe, Preservation Hall’s creative director, the man charged with safeguarding New […]

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Post-Zionism in a diaspora world

What does it mean to be a Jew in a Post-Zionist world? For centuries, for Jews, the notion of living free in Zion was a dream. In Theodor Herzl’s famous essay, “The Jewish State,” the journalist and playwright transformed the dream of living in a Jewish state into a goal. “Next year in Jerusalem,” the […]

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William Shatner gets a place at the Seder

William Shatner is God. And Pharaoh. And Moses, too. Just in time for Passover, the Jewish Music Group (a division of Shout Factory) has released “Exodus: An Oratorio in Three Parts,” performed by the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. It is conducted by David Itkin, who created and composed the Oratorio, sung by baritone Paul Rowe and […]

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Where the booklovers are

Dutton’s Brentwood Books, among the best-known and best-loved of Los Angeles’ independent bookstores, will close on April 30. It is hard not to take this as a sign of the times. Over the past few years many local independent bookstores have gone the way of the local movie theater, the local hardware store and the […]

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Gang of actors reaches a new stage

The Actors’ Gang, now in residence at the historic Ivy Substation in Culver City, is celebrating its 25th anniversary. The substation, constructed in 1907 by the Los Angeles Pacific Railroad, looks more like a Spanish mission than an electric power facility, strangely appropriate for The Actors’ Gang, which is both a theater troupe with a […]

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