Philadelphia’s Jewish newspaper is in a flap with organizers of a boycott, divestment and sanctions conference over the disinvitation of one of its reporters from the event. Philadelphia’s Jewish Exponent published an article on its website Friday reporting that organizers of the National BDS Conference had barred the paper from covering the Feb. 3-5 conference…
Beth Sholom Synagogue: Frank Lloyd Wright and Modern Religious Architecture By Joseph M. Siry University of Chicago Press, 736 pages, $65 When Rabbi Mortimer J. Cohen contacted Frank Lloyd Wright in November 1953 about designing a new sanctuary for his conservative congregation, Beth Sholom, in the Philadelphia suburb of Elkins Park, the legendary architect had…
Ronen Koresh has tears in his eyes. Dancer Melissa Rector has just finished a run-through of a searing solo from Koresh’s “Theater of Public Secrets,” dancing both on and around a table. The cozy second-floor dance studio with the burgundy curtains is silent, the dozen onlookers — dancers and visitors — stunned by raw emotion…
For most people, the Reading Railroad is a valuable spot on the monopoly board. But Philadelphians will proudly claim it their own. The old terminal, of a 60-mile train line that ran between Philadelphia and Reading (from 1839-1976), has housed The Reading Terminal Market since 1893. Filled with open stalls for butchers, Amish farmers, cheese…
King David is a smiling child in a red T-shirt and corduroys. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fills in for Haman. David Ben-Gurion is leading Holocaust survivors across the Red Sea. That’s the aim of the Dura Europos Project, on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art until March 27 — to present a decidedly modern take…
Omar Souleyman is a singer from Hasakah, Syria, who plays a techno-ish version of dabke, an Arabic folk music usually heard at weddings. He performs in a red-and-white checkered keffiyeh, dark glasses, and a moustache. Not the most likely artist to take the American hipster-indie music scene by storm, you say? Think again. Now on…
ELKINS PARK, PA. — Edward Lichstein, a Democratic Party committeeman, stood outside the neighborhood library on a crisp, 40-degree morning, handing out sample ballots, and pondering the issues voters are facing this Election Day. “There are really a lot of Jewish poor people, who are really suffering because of the economy,” Lichstein, 63, said, standing…
Fannie Forman Buten witnessed it all: the roaring ‘20s, two world wars, the women’s and civil rights movements, JFK, Elvis, airplanes, moon landings, MTV and the Internet. She was also believed to be the oldest living Jewish person in the world up until her death last week. Buten, who was born in Austria in 1899…
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