1) Massachusetts has a Jewish population of roughly 278,000, accounting for 4.2% of the state population (which is twice the national average), and 4.1% of the total Jewish population in the United States. 2) Solomon Franco, a merchant who arrived from Holland in 1649, is Boston’s first recorded Jewish resident. However, he was not allowed…
Amy Pascal will step down as co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment after hackers angry about a movie she championed mocking North Korea’s dictator exposed a raft of embarrassing emails between Pascal and other Hollywood figures. One of the most powerful women executives in Hollywood, Pascal had kept a low profile since her emails were leaked…
Amid rising calls in some quarters for a boycott of Israel, creating television shows is one export that is humming like never before around the world — and even making quiet inroads in Muslim countries where business ties with the Jewish state are taboo. After the success of shows like ‘Homeland,’ Israeli TV hitmakers are breaking…
Several Arab countries banned the release of the film “Exodus: Gods and Kings.” Egypt on Friday barred what its culture minister called a “Zionist film.” “It gives a Zionist view of history and contains historical inaccuracies, and that’s why we have decided to ban it,” Gaber Asfour told the French news agency AFP. A day…
On paper, filmmaker Darren Aronofsky making a biblical blockbuster seemed inevitable. Hollywood’s obsession with the Bible is well established, and Aronofsky’s movies had steadily been growing in budget and ambition: His 2006 work, “The Fountain,” elegantly played with themes of love and existence unfolding over millennia, and 2010’s “Black Swan” grossed more than $300 million…
The 29-year-old actress who hates to be known as “ScarJo” had a busy year, what with starring in several films, recording soundtracks, and giving birth to a baby girl with her fiancé Romain Dauriac. Yet she found time to become a symbol both praised and derided in the Jewish world for her persistent promotion of…
We never thought we’d say this, but there is a dangerous similarity between children raised in the wealthy, sun-soaked Los Angeles enclave of Westside and children whose families follow an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who runs a prominent yeshiva in Philadelphia. Both are victims of their parents’ misguided decision to bypass science and civics by ignoring the…
In the face of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, film scholars have long debated about why American moviemakers assiduously avoided dealing with Nazism and anti-Semitism in their films. Some point to the fact that Hollywood studio heads wanted to avoid controversial film fare. Others note that these moguls, most of whom were Jewish,…
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