A.J. Goldmann
By A.J. Goldmann
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News New Kind of Passion in an ‘Alpine Jerusalem’
It was during the intermission in Oberammergau’s controversial, once-in-a-decade Passion play that I met Jesus for a cup of coffee. A public relations man at the Münchner Volkstheater when he’s not onstage, Frederick Mayet, 30, has the long, dark-blond hair and bushy beard of a Nordic Jesus portrait hanging on the wall of a rectory…
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Culture Obsessively Self-Filming His Vicissitudes
In February 2006, Israeli documentary filmmaker Tomer Heymann traveled to Berlin to present his film, “Paper Dolls,” at the Berlin International Film Festival. One evening, he went in pursuit of the nightlife for which the city is justly famous, and met Andreas Merk, a German choreographer, at the electronic music mecca, Berghain. What started as…
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Culture Brutal on the Beach
Israeli choreographer Nir de Volff is one of the most promising newcomers on Berlin’s vibrant dance scene. Early in December 2009, expectations ran high for the premiere of “Maktot,” his dissection of the social complexities of beach culture. His previous creation, a site-specific dance in Berlin’s iconic Neue Synagoge called “Action!” had a successful run…
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Culture Berlin Jews and Jazz
Celebrations for the 70th birthday of legendary jazz label Blue Note Records are taking place at an unlikely venue. The Jewish Museum Berlin is tooting its horn with an exhibition of photographs by two of Blue Note’s Jewish photographers, Francis Wolff and Jimmy Katz. Wolff, a Berlin native, helped found the label in 1939, along…
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Culture Taking the A Train to ‘The Fourth Reich’
In 2008, the German city of Munich celebrated its 850th birthday amid much fanfare, and various cultural institutions were asked to mark the occasion. When the recently opened Jewish Museum was approached, it reacted with ambivalence. Indeed, for nearly half the history of Munich — more than 400 years — Jews were excluded from taking…
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Culture Excuse Me, Have You Seen My Alps?
Before embarking on a trip to Switzerland in the 1880s, the great rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch is reported to have said, “When I shall stand before God, the Eternal One will ask me with pride: Did you see my Alps?” This apocryphal quote is the jumping-off point for a new exhibit at the Jewish Museum…
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Culture New Life for Arthur Szyk
“An artist, especially a Jewish artist, cannot remain neutral in these times. He cannot escape to still lifes, abstractions and experiments.” These words, uttered in 1934, belong to Polish-Jewish illustrator and political caricaturist Arthur Szyk (1894–1951). As one of World War II’s most widely circulated propagandists, he fought the National Socialist regime and the Axis…
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Culture Breakthrough After Breakthrough: Israeli Film History in Motion
One of the few surprises of this year’s Academy Awards ceremony was the snub of Ari Folman’s “Waltz With Bashir,” the animated film about the First Lebanon War that seemed poised to win Israel its first ever statuette for best foreign film. Instead, the Oscar went unexpectedly (some might say inexplicably) to the Japanese film…
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