The FBI believes it has identified the thieves who pulled off the 1990 theft of 13 artworks from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, which stands as the costliest art theft in U.S. history. Officials, who did not identify the suspects, said on Monday they believed the artworks, which are valued at a total of $500…
Some synagogues have cancelled services ahead of a potentially historic blizzard. At least two synagogues in Providence, R.I., have called off Shabbat services this week in light of the expected severe weather. More than two feet are expected in Providence, one of the highest predicted snowfalls. “Due to the impending blizzard all worship services have…
Norman Corwin, the writer and radio producer who died on October 18 at age 101, was often dubbed the “poet laureate of radio” by journalists, but he was rather more than that. Born in an East Boston tenement to parents of Russian-Hungarian Jewish origin, Corwin inspired the following paean of praise from one of his…
Each week The Arty Semite connects the Torah reading — however tenuously — to a classic work of rock ‘n’ roll. In this week’s parsha, Vayera, three angels appear to Abraham and inform him that at 100 years old he will father a son. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are turned into rubble because…
Detail from ‘Moses and the Messengers from Canaan’ by Giovanni Lanfranco, 1621-1624. Each week The Arty Semite connects the Torah reading — however tenuously — with a classic work of rock and roll. This week’s parsha, Devarim, is the first in the fifth and final book of the Torah. Moshe begins his recap of the…
It’s all fun and games until Tyra Banks asks you to give up orthodoxy. Okay, that’s not really what happened on the first episode of this season’s “America’s Next Top Model,” but what did happen had the blogoshphere abuzz over an 18-year-old Modern Orthodox Jew competing on a show known for sexy photo shoots. When…
Boston-area Jewish day schools got a major boost this week — in the form of $2.1 million. For the next three years, Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Boston will use the funds to help Jewish families send their children to one of 10 local day schools, including the Maimonides School in Brookline and the MetroWest Jewish…
The short answer? Get Nat Hentoff to review it in the Wall Street Journal. In Saturday’s paper, the eminent jazz critic published an appreciation of “Cantors, Klezmorim and Crooners 1905-1953,” a three-disc box set of remastered archival Yiddish music that was released in late 2009. Hentoff had only good things to say about the remastered…
100% of profits support our journalism
