During the pandemic, Jessica Tamar Deutsch has been considering exile as she relearns how to paint. Specifically, she’s been thinking about the title character in “The Lost Princess,” a story by Rabbi Nachman, the mystic founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement, about a young woman who disappears from her home after displeasing her kingly father….
The new PEW survey on Jewish life paints a bleak picture of our future. Among the findings were the fact that 58% of Jews now marry non-Jews, two-thirds don’t belong to a synagogue and 32% of Jews born after 1980 say they have “no religion.” In response, Slate’s Jessica Grose wrote about her mixed feelings…
This year’s LABA fellowship is only tangentially about food, just as last year’s LABA fellowship was only tangentially about space and the previous year’s fellowship only tangentially about Eros. A program of Manhattan’s14th Street Y, LABA brings together artists, writers, dancers and — this food year — a baker, to study classical Jewish texts and…
Manna, the unknown substance upon which the Jews subsisted in the desert, has been a subject of mystery and wonder to the Jewish people for many thousands of years. Last night, a trendy New York beit-midrash study group called LABA brought the question to the table once again as part of their year-long discussion of…
Jerry Seinfeld plans to release nearly all of his recorded standup on his website, Jerryseinfeld.com, tomorrow. The latest LABA Journal is out, featuring Elissa Strauss on why she won’t marry King David, Basmat Hazan on why we definitely need to pay attention to what David is wearing, and Stephen Hazan Arnoff on Justin Bieber, the…
Michael Weiss on why Boris Pasternak matters. Was Jewish humor created in 1661? Steven Spielberg has secured the rights to make a Wikileaks movie. The new edition of the Laba Journal, “Eros,” is out, featuring Stephen Hazan Arnoff on music and artificial memory, Shari Mendelson on the work of Charles LeDray, fiction by Jeremiah Lockwood,…
A Holocaust-themed video game called “Sonderkommando Revolt,” based on a 1944 uprising at Auschwitz, has been withdrawn. Chibi Vision, “your new favorite science fiction hip-hop boy band” talks about the Jewish love-hate for Christmas. The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, but what does its future hold? LABA, a Jewish house…
The journey to paradise is not without its optical illusions. What is enchanting can be hollow, what seems trite may be the doorway to magnificence, and what does not appear worth understanding could contain all of the answers. When engaged in an active dialogue with the world, what was an arid wasteland can become a…
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