The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical movie, did not win a single Oscar last night, which is a shame. Though the actors cast to play his parents are not Jewish (something I would have preferred) and the fact that the Spielbergs grew up Orthodox wasn’t mentioned (which would have been a neat chance to normalize Orthodoxy), this […]
The Talmud tells us to do something strange on Purim: drink until you don’t know the difference between “blessed is Mordechai” and “cursed is Haman” (“ad d’lo yada”). This is a surprising statement. Judaism generally doesn’t promote getting drunk. And why would we want to be confused about not knowing the difference between blessing Mordechai (the […]
Two brothers, ages 4 and 6 were rammed by a terrorist in a car in Israel, while walking with their father and brother two weeks ago. Both boys were killed. Last I heard, the father was in critical condition. I have two boys who are two years apart. Seeing those sweet, smiling faces beneath their […]
The following movie review began with angry texts I sent to friends and colleagues yesterday, as I was watching You People, the number one movie now streaming on Netflix. It premiered on Holocaust Remembrance Day, and I’ve got to hand it to them on the timing: nothing says #neveragain like #rightnow. There are numerous spoilers […]
Yesterday, a woman collapsed on a plane from New York to Fort Lauderdale and a Hasidic Jewish man was the one to step in and help save her. In the article though, there was no mention of the fact that he was Hasidic. He was called “a man” in one outlet and “a man wearing […]
In November, our JITC Hollywood Bureau attended the Television Academy’s DEI summit where they told us to be brave and asked if they had missed any points. I was. They had. I explained that they had forgotten the Jews. An academic entertainment group at UCLA, Scholars and Storytellers, heard by impassioned speech and wanted me […]
