When the two women travel overseas together, one passes routinely through airport security checks; the other is invariably pulled aside for lengthy questioning.\n\nAt home, one is rarely asked for her ID; the other is stopped frequently.
At the threshold of commerce and art, there once existed a world where illusion, deception and transformation inhabited the fantasy realm of carnivals and circus sideshows. Noblemen would stand beside paupers to witness armless freaks and nefarious gamblers conjuring tricks that stirred the imagination.
Historically, rabbis have proclaimed that in order to study kabbalah, one has to be a learned Jewish man older than of 40. So imagine how surprised those rabbis would be today if they could peruse a modern bookstore: There are now a plethora of tomes on the subject, making kabbalah available to the layperson — male, female, Jew and non-Jew — the dummy and idiot alike (which is it better to be?).
The first time I visited the Kabbalah Centre, I thought it was weird. The congregants all wore white; the man on the bimah called out letters of the Hebrew alphabet (\”Alef to bet to taph!\”); the letters themselves were displayed in massive typeface on posters around the sanctuary.
A self-described professional Jewish lesbian. A Web guru who calls himself the Orthodox Anarchist. A young, Oscar-winning producer.
The United Jewish Communities (UJC) looked to this group and their disenfranchised peers for help at its annual General Assembly (GA) in Nashville in November, giving them an entire plenary to talk about themselves, what they need from the North American federation system and why they have a hard time becoming a part of it.
The small group inched forward through the dark walkway, clinging to one another. They giggled as they glanced nervously around at the bloody limbs strewn on the floor and thick cobwebs covering the walls. A ghastly creature lunged at them from a dark corner, and the terrified bunch shrieked. They finally made it out of the House of Horrors at Universal Studios, thanks to the guidance of a slightly annoyed teenage employee.
Hoping to raise money for a three-day bike ride over Labor Day to benefit the Jewish environmental organization Hazon, Ariela Pelaia turned to her blog.
Clicks and picks.
Tamara Jenkins knows firsthand what an overwhelming task it is to care for a parent suffering from dementia. While she was in her mid-30s, she had to help care for both her father and grandmother during their final days in a nursing home. She also knows that no matter how grave a situation might be, there are always sparks of humor surrounding it. So it\’s no surprise that her new film, \”The Savages,\” addresses that very subject and does so with a healthy dose of comic perspective.
