Who ever heard of Hank Greenspun? Unless you grew up in Las Vegas sometime between the ‘50s and ‘70s, or paid close attention to the machinations of Israel’s founding, you probably haven’t. But that didn’t stop Hollywood screenwriter Scott Goldstein from working with the Greenspun family to create a rivetingContinue Reading
Allow me, if you will, to illuminate for you two unwavering cinematic truths. First, in any film, if an adorable animal appears in the first act — especially if said creature is the only friend of an awkward child — that adorable animal is destined for death. Second, if aContinue Reading
It might be a few hours after you leave the theater before it hits you how spiritual a film Seven Minutes in Heaven is. Galit (Reymond Amsellem) survives a suicide bombing on a Jerusalem bus line, and must search for answers to those minutes immediately before and after the explosionContinue Reading
Even by the high standards set by Israeli films in the last few years, Ajami is a knockout. A crackling urban drama shot with unblinking realism and steeped in astringent Middle East irony, Ajami sinks its hooks in the first minute and never lets up. Written, directed and edited byContinue Reading
For their first time out, Israeli’s Ethiopian community has produced a film that enters their adopted country’s pantheon of moviemaking. That said, Zruvabel is not without its flaws. At 72 minutes, this short (by today’s standards, anyway) feature film is the first time we can see a snapshot of aContinue Reading
Seven years ago, Israeli musician Idan Raichel never thought he’d be touring the world and meeting some of the planet’s greatest musicians. But he has become well-known with his collaborations with artists from places like South America and India, not to mention Ethiopia and Australia. JTNews spoke with Raichel asContinue Reading
Ruthlessly and riotously, A Matter of Size (Sipur Gadol) proves once and for all that Israel is the world’s capital of tough love. Four seriously overweight friends, each with their own insecurity, mishugas or secret, might be expected to form a rock-solid, mutually dependent support network. The rotund quartet inContinue Reading
French-Jewish writer-director Karin Albou assumed that the Algerian side of her family had been untouched by World War II. Then she came across the letters that her grandfather, a doctor in the French Army, had written to her grandmother from a German POW camp. He was held for four years,Continue Reading
Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to note the position of the former Indian ambassador to Israel. When the review committee for the Seattle Jewish Film Festival watched Ajami in October, they knew immediately it should the cornerstone of this year’s event to broach the not-always-pleasant sides of IsraeliContinue Reading
The Stroum Jewish Community Center’s Center Stage theater program has recently been revived within its halls. Now its director wants to take his next show out of the building. The gravity of the newest upcoming production, Voices of Hope, an adaptation by Center Stage director Daniel Alpern on writings fromContinue Reading
[Note: This article has been corrected to properly name Angella Nazarian’s husband.] When Jewish Iranian Angella Nazarian fled the violent revolutionary uprising of 1979 in her country and arrived in a predominately Jewish neighborhood in Beverly Hills at the age of 11, her father assured her it would only beContinue Reading
Leyna Krow Assistant Editor, JTNews The routine of going out for Chinese food and a movie on Christmas Eve is so ubiquitous among Jews that it seems to have moved from the realm of tradition to cliché. But the problem remains — what to do while everyone celebrates Christmas? “There’sContinue Reading
Not one of the many American movies about the Iraq War has been made by a former soldier — until now. The Israeli-born, U.S.-based writer-director Oren Moverman earns that distinction with his powerhouse debut feature, The Messenger. The quietly riveting independent film stars Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson as casualtyContinue Reading
heists have launched a full-frontal attack with books and media appearances by confirmed non-believers such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. As Lisa Miller wrote in Newsweek, they give us this choice: “Either you don’t believe in God or you’re a dope.” Robert Wright is not as virulent in TheContinue Reading
The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower: Complicity and Conflict on American Campuses by Stephen H. Norwood (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009). It is common knowledge that Hitler’s professors (the title of Max Weinreich’s famous book of 1946) were the first to make anti-Semitism both academically respectable and complicitContinue Reading
For the past two years, the Stroum Jewish Community Center has been enlightening opera lovers and novices alike as to the influence of Jewish themes, writers, and performance in the world of opera with its “Opera Sings the Soul” lecture series. But now the JCC has decided to broaden theContinue Reading
On the Shabbat before Simchat Torah, at the weekly Torah study at North Seattle’s Temple Beth Am, Rabbi Beth Singer asked regular participants to share their favorite Torah verse. Most offered stories from Genesis, a few noted the Exodus from Egypt while others singled out Moses’ final speech. But sculptorContinue Reading
Renowned Israeli singer Yasmin Levy has broken through as an international sensation in part because of her album Mano Suave, which is sung largely in the Sephardic language of Ladino. Levy, the daughter of well-known Turkish composer and cantor Yitzhak Levy, will make a stop in Seattle next month asContinue Reading
What would happen if 6 million Jews were invited to go back to Germany? That is what playwright Israel Horowitz asks in Lebensraum. Seattle will get the chance to witness his answer to this question when it unfolds on stage at Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse on Green Lake,Continue Reading
November 9, 2009 will mark 71 years since the Nazi pogrom known as Kristallnacht signaled the public beginning of the dark years to come for Jews across Europe. As synagogues burned and the windows of Jewish-owned shops were smashed across Germany that night, one could barely imagine that within lessContinue Reading
