Factor in the enormous guest lists, global cuisine and diversions such as high-tech interactive entertainment, and it is clear that bar and bat mitzvah celebrations have become more sophisticated than they were even a decade ago.
Americans who care deeply about Israel have to make two decisions regarding the upcoming election.
The Israeli documentary “The Flat” begins in a Tel Aviv apartment, where half a dozen people are clearing out 70 years of clutter left behind by their grandmother, who has died recently at 98.
The Talmud is on display this month at the USC Fisher Museum of Art, but if you’re expecting a dry examination of rabbinic law and ethics, you’ve come to the wrong place. Ofri Cnaani’s “The Sota Project” offers a daring and even graphic take on Jewish views of adultery, sexuality and sisterhood through a little-known but fascinating piece of talmudic text.
It’s no surprise that a woman who produces mainly chick flicks and romantic dramas would say to me regarding love, “I want Harry and Sally. I’ve been corrupted by a lot of movies.” She amends her statement: “I aspire to that idea but know that someone who can hang through the tough and the real is what I want.”
Yoram Hazony opens his new book, “The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture” (Cambridge University Press: $24.99), with a challenging question: “Is there something crucial missing in our understanding of what the Hebrew Bible is all about?”
Blasphemy has become the focus of attention, with ongoing turmoil in the Middle East sparked by a crude YouTube trailer for a possibly nonexistent movie mocking Islam.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.