Monday, December 1, 2014
Monday, November 24, 2014
The Kislev Calendar
The Kislev Calendar counts down the twenty-four days that lead to the
Jewish holiday of Chanukah and gives you a little surprise on each of
the eight nights of the Jewish Festival of Lights. Based on the
Christian Advent calendar, The Kislev Calendar begins on the first of
Kislev, the Jewish month in which Chanukah falls. This year (2014),
Kislev begins on the evening of Saturday, November 22. To use The
Kislev Calendar, click on the appropriate day and enjoy!
For more great Hanukkah ideas, check out our
page.Monday, November 17, 2014
Andy Samberg, Kiss My Mezuzah!
During the Hebrew month of Cheshvan, or MarCheshvan, [Bitter Cheshvan] there are no Jewish holidays. Jvillage Network, therefore, will be printing articles relating to Jewish Arts.
By Batya Ungar-Sargonfor Tablet Magazine
In Rachel Bloom’s animated music video “Historically Accurate Disney Princess Song,“ the princess in question wanders through her medieval town in search of love. Everyone seems to have found their prince but her, she laments in song, passing “the blacksmith with his daughter-wife, 10 years old and pregnant with her brother-son” and “a statue of Christ adorned with thief’s hands.” The princess dances and sings her way into the forest, where she encounters her friends, the Jews.
“Hello, Jews!” she cries with delight, addressing a group of two-foot-tall rounded creatures with egg-heads, who don’t speak so much as chirp. One has a monocle in one eye and a diamond in his hand, while another has beady black eyes. A third wears glasses. They have big hook-noses and wear yarmulkes. “You know, I never did ask you: Why do you live in the forest?” the princess coos, in the tone every Disney princess takes with her little creaturely friends. The Jews answer her with their chirping. “Oh, I see,” she says, “to hide from people trying to kill you. Well, that’s very resourceful, my beaky little friends!” The princess drops gold coins on the floor as Cinderella dropped corn, and the Jews dutifully bend to nibble. “Tell me: Have you ever had a dream that wouldn’t come true?” she trills. “Oh, I see, your dream is that people won’t want to kill you. Well, that’s definitely a dream that won’t come true!” she says, as characters in armor start to shoot arrows at the Jews and chase them off screen. “Oh, goodbye, goodbye!” she calls. Then, scrunching up her little cartoon nose and slitting her eyes, she grunts: “Jews.”
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Rachel Bloom is going to be funny, no matter what you think of her and her lewd, Jewy, borderline-offensive brand of comedy
By Batya Ungar-Sargonfor Tablet Magazine
“Hello, Jews!” she cries with delight, addressing a group of two-foot-tall rounded creatures with egg-heads, who don’t speak so much as chirp. One has a monocle in one eye and a diamond in his hand, while another has beady black eyes. A third wears glasses. They have big hook-noses and wear yarmulkes. “You know, I never did ask you: Why do you live in the forest?” the princess coos, in the tone every Disney princess takes with her little creaturely friends. The Jews answer her with their chirping. “Oh, I see,” she says, “to hide from people trying to kill you. Well, that’s very resourceful, my beaky little friends!” The princess drops gold coins on the floor as Cinderella dropped corn, and the Jews dutifully bend to nibble. “Tell me: Have you ever had a dream that wouldn’t come true?” she trills. “Oh, I see, your dream is that people won’t want to kill you. Well, that’s definitely a dream that won’t come true!” she says, as characters in armor start to shoot arrows at the Jews and chase them off screen. “Oh, goodbye, goodbye!” she calls. Then, scrunching up her little cartoon nose and slitting her eyes, she grunts: “Jews.”
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Monday, November 10, 2014
Is Chaim Soutine the Great Overlooked Jewish Painter of Modernity?
During
the Hebrew month of Cheshvan, or MarCheshvan, [Bitter Cheshvan] there
are no Jewish holidays. Jvillage Network, therefore, will be printing
articles relating to Jewish Arts.
By Abby Margulies for Tablet Magazine
On a quiet block in Chelsea, nestled among dozens of contemporary art exhibitions, a small but ambitious show has just opened seeking to give one of the great modern masters his due. Life in Death: Still Lifes and Select Masterworks of Chaim Soutine, is the first in a series of exhibitions the gallery will present meant to re-contextualize the work of Lithuanian-born artist Chaim Soutine.
Soutine’s work was first introduced to American audiences in 1950 in his eponymous retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In his seminal essay, exhibition curator Monroe Wheeler wrote of Soutine, “from an early age he used his hardship, pessimism, and truculence to set a tragic tone for his painting, irrespective of its subject matter.” Looking at Soutine’s body of work, it does in fact emanate tragedy, from his flaccid blue chickens nailed to a wall, to his gaunt women whose twisted hands seem to contain the sadness of the world. Though further exhibitions, catalogs, and scholarship have emerged in the past half century—notably significant exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1968 and at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1998 that have contributed tremendous scholarship to his legacy—the vision of Soutine as a tragedian has nonetheless prevailed.
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A new gallery show helps reassess the Lithuanian-born artist’s important work—and reveals it as anything but tragic
By Abby Margulies for Tablet Magazine
On a quiet block in Chelsea, nestled among dozens of contemporary art exhibitions, a small but ambitious show has just opened seeking to give one of the great modern masters his due. Life in Death: Still Lifes and Select Masterworks of Chaim Soutine, is the first in a series of exhibitions the gallery will present meant to re-contextualize the work of Lithuanian-born artist Chaim Soutine.
Soutine’s work was first introduced to American audiences in 1950 in his eponymous retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In his seminal essay, exhibition curator Monroe Wheeler wrote of Soutine, “from an early age he used his hardship, pessimism, and truculence to set a tragic tone for his painting, irrespective of its subject matter.” Looking at Soutine’s body of work, it does in fact emanate tragedy, from his flaccid blue chickens nailed to a wall, to his gaunt women whose twisted hands seem to contain the sadness of the world. Though further exhibitions, catalogs, and scholarship have emerged in the past half century—notably significant exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1968 and at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1998 that have contributed tremendous scholarship to his legacy—the vision of Soutine as a tragedian has nonetheless prevailed.
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page.Monday, November 3, 2014
Farewell to Avraham Hefner, the Forgotten Genius of Israeli Cinema
During the Hebrew month of Cheshvan, or MarCheshvan, [Bitter Cheshvan] there are no Jewish holidays. Jvillage Network, therefore, will be printing articles relating to Jewish Arts.
By Liel Leibovitz for Tablet Magazine
On my first morning in Tel Aviv University’s film school, a short gentleman with a shiny bald head and a neatly trimmed white beard walked into the classroom and told us that he was very sorry to announce that our professor, Avraham Hefner, had fallen ill, and that class was therefore canceled until further notice. Disappointed, we got up and collected our notebooks; we’d all heard much about the legendary Hefner, the director of some of the most influential films in Israeli cinema history, and were looking forward to meeting him. As we began filing out of the classroom, however, the bearded man eased into a chair and started laughing. We stopped at the doorway, baffled, then walked back in and took our seats. Hefner, still laughing, never bothered introducing himself formally. He’d already taught us an important lesson: If you have to make art—and not everybody does—remember not only to question conventions but, most important, to have fun. The rest of the semester wasn’t always as playful, but it was never less than profound. And when it was over, it wasn’t difficult to understand why so many of the directors and the screenwriters responsible for so many recent and excellent Israeli films and television shows considered themselves Hefner’s ardent students.
Hefner passed away last week at age 79. He’d been declining for some time. In 2005, while standing at a bus stop in Jerusalem, a speeding bus swerved into his path, forcing him to leap away. He hit his head against a pole and broke his glasses. He paid it to no mind at the time, but soon, he started forgetting words. A visit to the doctor revealed serious brain trauma, and his condition steadily deteriorated. His influence, however, seems to grow with each year: A recent survey selected his 1972 masterpiece But Where Is Daniel Wax? as the second-most-influential Israeli film ever made, second only to the cult hit Metzitzim.
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He was the poet of normal life in a culture still beholden to its foundational myths
By Liel Leibovitz for Tablet Magazine
On my first morning in Tel Aviv University’s film school, a short gentleman with a shiny bald head and a neatly trimmed white beard walked into the classroom and told us that he was very sorry to announce that our professor, Avraham Hefner, had fallen ill, and that class was therefore canceled until further notice. Disappointed, we got up and collected our notebooks; we’d all heard much about the legendary Hefner, the director of some of the most influential films in Israeli cinema history, and were looking forward to meeting him. As we began filing out of the classroom, however, the bearded man eased into a chair and started laughing. We stopped at the doorway, baffled, then walked back in and took our seats. Hefner, still laughing, never bothered introducing himself formally. He’d already taught us an important lesson: If you have to make art—and not everybody does—remember not only to question conventions but, most important, to have fun. The rest of the semester wasn’t always as playful, but it was never less than profound. And when it was over, it wasn’t difficult to understand why so many of the directors and the screenwriters responsible for so many recent and excellent Israeli films and television shows considered themselves Hefner’s ardent students.
Hefner passed away last week at age 79. He’d been declining for some time. In 2005, while standing at a bus stop in Jerusalem, a speeding bus swerved into his path, forcing him to leap away. He hit his head against a pole and broke his glasses. He paid it to no mind at the time, but soon, he started forgetting words. A visit to the doctor revealed serious brain trauma, and his condition steadily deteriorated. His influence, however, seems to grow with each year: A recent survey selected his 1972 masterpiece But Where Is Daniel Wax? as the second-most-influential Israeli film ever made, second only to the cult hit Metzitzim.
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Monday, October 27, 2014
The 5 Worst Pop-Culture-Inspired Halloween Costumes of 2014 and 5 We'd Like to See Instead
Skip the oversexed cartoon characters and dress up like real pop-culture heroes.
by Angela Zimmerman for Common Sense Media
Mass-marketed
Halloween costumes have taken a decidedly strange turn this year. Sexy
versions of characters from kids' movies and TV shows are mixed in with
little-kid interpretations of figures from grown-up shows, creating a
strange brew of both oversexualized and inappropriately aged-down
images.Sure, a big part of Halloween is trying on new identities to freak people out. But it's doubtful many kids watch The Walking Dead -- so why would there be a kids' costume from that show? And how do you explain to your kid that a leotard and thigh-high tights have anything to do with her beloved Olaf from Frozen? As a parent, you just have to laugh -- and consider helping your kids make their own costumes inspired by characters that promote positive (or at least age-appropriate) messages instead.
The 5 Worst Pop-Culture-Inspire
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Monday, October 20, 2014
Collecting Candy on Halloween
Though many Jewish children go trick-or-treating, this writer (among many others) believes the practice runs counter to Jewish law.
By Rabbi Michael Broyde for MyJewishLearning.com
To
many, if not most, American Jewish parents, participating in Halloween
revelries is harmless. Increasingly, however, rabbis and educators from
across the denominational spectrum have questioned and challenged Jewish
participation in Halloween activities.Halloween in History
A recent newspaper article recounted:
"According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Halloween originated with the pagan Celtic festival of Samhain, a day on which the devil was invoked for the various divinations. 'The souls of the dead were supposed to revisit their homes on this day', Britannica says, 'and the autumnal festival acquired sinister significance, with ghosts, witches, hobgoblins ... and demons of all kinds said to be roaming about.' In the early Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church instituted All Hallow's Eve on October 31 and All Saints Day on November 1 to counteract the occult festival. It did not work. All Hollow's Eve was simply co-opted into the pagan celebration of Samhain."
As was noted by Professor John Hennig, in his classical article on this topic, there is a clear historical relationship between the Celtic concepts of resurrection, Roman Catholic responses to it, and the modern American holiday of Halloween.
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