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Moving pictures of the 'Other Israel'
November 21, 2011
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Carly Silver
For the fifth consecutive year, Manhattan's Jewish Community Center hosted the Other Israel Film Festival. A project devoted to exposing issues facing Israeli minorities, the festival brought together directors and films from Nov. 10-17 to "foster social awareness and cultural understanding," according to the festival's website. The festival included two Palestinian filmmakers this year. "We are constantly expanding and including other minority populations," Isaac Zablocki, the JCC's director of film programs, wrote in an email. The films shown at the festival represent the identities of many of contemporary's Israel's disenfranchised communities.
Last year, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) advised "conscientious filmmakers not to participate in this festival," according to a release on its website. The organization's concerns included allegedly propagandistic wording in official OIFF statements and "whitewashing" of what they call Apartheid-like practices in Israel.
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Which Jewish Celebrities are 'Bad for Jews'?
October 05, 2011
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Geoffrey Edelstein
The hot new book to have on your coffee table during the High Holidays this year is "Bad for Jews" by Scott Sherman, a hilarious account of which Jewish celebrities are bad, worse and the worst for the Jewish image. Clear away the Ansel Adams books and old copies of Reform Judaism Magazine and make room for the funniest book of the season. Sherman is a staff writer on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," so expect great jokes and relevant comedy that is relevant to everyone from boychick to bubbe. So he delivers, but then goes on to make his writing appealing to all ages, which is a pretty good value for $13.99. The book takes 50 Jewish celebrities and discusses why they are great or not so great for the Jews.
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'Hustling to Survive': The Only Zionist Rapper in The Room
September 21, 2011
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Max Elstein Keisler
When it comes to Jewish rappers, there aren't that many names--MC Serch, the Beastie Boyz, Shyne. The biggest one out right now is Kosha Dillz, an Israeli-American from New Jersey who raps everything from grimy battle raps to hasbara (staunchly pro-Israel messages). He plays festivals from Summer Jam in his home state of New Jersey to South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas.
He's a hustler. Before I even heard his music, I saw him on twitter, hitting up Israeli celebrities to promote his music. When I saw him at the Middle East nightclub in Cambidge, Mass. Back in June, he was in the crowd a half hour before his set, passing out bumper stickers and pins.
I called him up a few days ago to talk hip-hop, business and politics. A lot of politics.
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The Second Trauma: Arriving in America After the Holocaust
August 18, 2011
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John Wofford
The Jewish world has so many layers beyond its pain, but tales of Jewish identity too often recount suffering with an almost liturgical precision - to the exclusion of its triumphs. Evelyn Toynton's second novel, "The Oriental Wife," is the tale of young Jews who flee Hitler's pogroms for America, exploring the effects of culture clash without miring itself in that inescapable identity pity that asserts itself in similar works. As they struggle to eke out a life of substance in a strange country, these young people must deal with their shattered expectations and a new tragedy that will shake and redefine their relationships permanently.
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'You're Wondering Now:' Remembering Amy Winehouse
July 28, 2011
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John Wofford
Amy Winehouse's "Frank" took its fast-and-easy hold on audiences with opening track "Stronger than Me," a bouncing number that made sweet love to Winehouse's knowing voice, while pushing the track's subject away for not being man enough for her. Perhaps it was telling that Winehouse began her mainstream career with a hefty world-weariness that the greats of jazz and blues take a lifetime to cultivate. When she came on the scene, Winehouse - almost immediately the darling of music critics who praised her raspy cynicism and jazz roots - seemed somehow already old.
For the many who would not discover her until 'Rehab' became a pop culture staple (and something of a mean-spirited soundtrack for tabloid readers who followed her drug and alcohol problems), Winehouse's fatigue was something of an absolute, a perpetual state of personal angst. This clouded Winehouse's lighter material, her playful sense of self on tracks like "Fuck Me Pumps" and "Moody's Mood for Love," and made her a public punch line for many.
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