Merry Purim

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Jewish Review of Books Launched With Foundation Funding

from The Jewish Week: Can New Journal Find Its Niche? If you’re an intellectually curious reader who craves sophisticated, accessible writing on Jewish books and ideas, there’s no shortage of places for you to look. There are well-established magazines like Commentary and Tikkun, to say nothing of start-ups, like the online magazine Tablet and this paper’s monthly insert, Text/Context. And even if those explicitly Jewish publications are too burdensome a detour from your already imposing stack of unread New York Review of Books, Harper’s and The New Republic issues, the latter journals cover plenty of Jewish issues, too. Fair enough, but that logic has not deterred Abraham Socher, a professor of Jewish studies at Oberlin College, from publishing his own new quarterly Jewish magazine, called... Continue Reading

Jewish Culture in a Crossover World

Words like “crossover,” “fluidity,” and “hybrid” kept coming up during a session at the annual conference of the Council of American Jewish Museums a couple of weeks ago. The panelists, drawing on both research and experience, all saw changes in attitudes and behavior among the audiences for Jewish cultural events, though not necessarily the same changes. From the standpoint of the arts generally, this is hardly news. For decades symphony orchestras have had to cope with a shift away from subscriptions towards single tickets sales. Opera companies use sexier marketing and rely less on social cachet; museums entice young adults with music and mingling in the galleries on weekend nights. Arts institutions have generally recognized for a while now that they can’t rely on the habitual... Continue Reading

Digital Judaica Project To Provide Multilingual Access to Collections

Ten institutions in London, Frankfurt, Athens, Bologna, Budapest, Paris, Rome and Warsaw join forces to offer worldwide access to the treasures of European Jewish culture. Judaica Europeana, a ground-breaking digital project has been awarded a major grant by the European Commission’s eContentplus Programme to provide multilingual access to Jewish culture collections through Europeana, Europe’s archives, libraries and museums online. It is one of only a dozen targeted projects co-funded by the EC for Europeana. The Consortium of Judaica Europeana partners is led by the European Association for Jewish Culture in London and the Judaica Collection of the Goethe University Library in Frankfurt/Main. Project partners include the Alliance Israélite Universelle in cooperation with Paris Yiddish Centre... Continue Reading

Jewish Arts and Their Audiences

Rabbi Irwin Kula, the mediagenic head of CLAL, inaugurated last week’s Schmooze conference on Jewish arts and culture with what he called a “thought experiment.” Bypassing a ritual obeisance to the current renaissance in Jewish culture and the importance of Jewish art and artists, he posed big-picture questions about both the medium and the message. Decades ago, in his student days, Kula was struck by an offhand remark by Billy Crystal on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight” Show. Carson had mentioned that he had gone hunting and Crystal retorted, “Hunting! Jews don’t hunt, we’re furriers.” With that joke, reflected Rabbi Kula, Crystal had taught more Americans about Jewish values than all the rabbis in the United States. He also pointed to movies like Barry Levinson’s “Liberty Heights”... Continue Reading

Six Points Fellowship Application Available

Six Points Fellowship is looking for artists for the next round of the Six Points Fellowship. They are looking for nine talented artists (ages 22-38 and based in NYC) to open up new conversations in the worlds of contemporary culture and the Jewish community. The 2-year fellowship will provide: Stipend: Up to $20,000 over two years Project Grant: Up to $20,000 over two years Retreats, monthly workshops, coaching, and mentorship To learn more and apply for the Fellowship, visit the Fellowship website. They are also holding application workshops on Feb. 7 and Feb. 17 at 7pm at the Bronfman Center at 7 E. 10th Street, where you can learn more about the process. The Letter of Intent is due March 1, 2010 and the fellowship cycle begins in October 2010. Six Points is a unique collaboration of Avoda... Continue Reading

Culture, Media and the Jewish Future

It’s no accident that the words “communicate” and “community” come from the same root, which means “to share.” Culture, which grows from the collective experience of a group, needs to be communicated in order to become common property. Strikingly, the most ancient media – oral traditions, the written word, song, dance, and images – are still the basis of art and creativity today. The main difference is that they are now radically more accessible, thanks to mechanical and electronic means from the printing press to the Internet. Beginning with Gutenberg it has been possible for a written or visual work to be widely and more easily disseminated, and Edison and Emile Berliner did the same for sound. Those were the first mass media. Now that you can carry thousands of songs... Continue Reading

Sephardic Music Festival NYC 2009

Yallah Chabibi! The Festival that could is back again this year and the line up is, as always, outstanding! Taking place from December 12 to December 19th, New York’s Sephardic Music Festival includes performances by Matisyahu, Y-Love, Pharaoh’s Daughter, DeLeon, Kosha Dillz, Eprhyme, DeScribe and a whole host of more traditional Sephardic musicians. Every year, the Yemenite artist known as Diwon aka Erez aka DJ Handler, the man, no, the force of nature behind Shemspeed and more parties, events and concerts than I can possibly keep track of pulls this Festival together out of fumes, sweat, hard work and I don’t even know what… a love of quality Jewish music and happenings that transcend denominations, fostering unity and booty bumpin’ good tunes. If you are in or near the NYC area, check out... Continue Reading

G-dcast Does Chanukah

The crew at G-dcast has been hard at work. Having produced 55 episodes featuring the weekly parsha, this innovative group has now tackled Chanukah. Sit back, enjoy and watch the dreidel spin. And, if you’re an educator – as with all their videos – a free teaching guide is available. Parshat G-dcast Spins Chanukah! from G-dcast.com More Torah cartoons at www.g-dcast.com Production support provided by the ROI Community. [Translate] Bookmark:  Read More →

A Chanukah Celebration Around the World

We originally posted this last year; one of our favorites so we wanted to bring it back. ROI120 alumni Michelle Citrin and William Levin have another hit on their hands! “Left To Right” is the third music video by the duo who brought you “Rosh Hashanah Girl” and “20 Things To Do With Matzah” and serves as the perfect soundtrack for this worldwide Hanukkah video collaboration, Pass The Candle, igniting a spark that will warm hearts as it spreads around the world for the Festival of Lights. How many people will you recognize in this video? (hint: they are some of the most creative and influential young adults rockin’ our Jewish world). [Translate] Bookmark:  Read More →

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