Courtesy of Wallstein Verlag The French Jewish neuropsychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Boris Cyrulnik has written widely about the importance of “Creative Disobedience” and how when faced by the Nazis, badly-behaved children often had more useful survival strategies than polite, well-trained ones. Read More »

Crossposted from Haaretz Pinchas Zuckerman, Itzhak Perlman and Shlomo Mintz are more than just great Israeli violinists. They are also symbols — proof that the legendary Russian-Jewish tradition has continued in Israel. Read More »

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The Association of Jewish Libraries Guide to Yiddish Short Stories By Bennett Muraskin Ben Yehuda Press, 79 pages, $14.50 The title of this small but useful book might have been lengthened to include “in the English language,” but the point is taken. Read More »

Earlier this week, Eric Weiner wrote about carrots, fish and Jewish souls. His blog posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. Read More »

Crossposted from Haaretz Daniel Tchetchik The indie-rock band Izabo will represent Israel in the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest with its song “Time,” the Israel Broadcasting Authority announced on Tuesday. The competition will take place in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, on May 22. Read More »

Jonathan Viguers/The TASC Group Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) was a fascinating individual. Too bad Colin Greer’s play, “Imagining Heschel,” is such a yawn. Heschel was born in Poland, and got out before the Holocaust; he was a poet, teacher and author of influential works including the 1955 classic, “God in Search of Man. Read More »

Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree Most days, my students leave class in high spirits, noisily pushing back their chairs and chatting away animatedly as they head off to another class, a cup of coffee or a nap. Not this time. Read More »

G-dcast is starting an arts residency at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. The National Yiddish Book Center is starting a one-week summer course for high school students on Great Jewish Books. Counterculture journalist Marshall Rosenthal and filmmaker Zalman King have died. Read More »

Wiki Commons Mohammad Bakri is an extraordinary actor and filmmaker. He is also a Palestinian citizen of the state of Israel, which gives rise to complex issues of identity. Bakri is currently appearing in a production of Federico Garcia Lorca’s “The House of Bernarda Alba” at the Tzavta theater in Tel Aviv. Read More »

Earlier this week, Matthew Shaer wrote about the genesis of his book, “Among Righteous Men,” and divisions within the Crown Heights community. His blog posts have been featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. Read More »

What started out as a second year film project at Tel Aviv University turned into a screening at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. “Barbie Blues,” one of four Israeli films at Sundance, was included in the festival’s new Short Films Program this year. Read More »

“What does it mean to be British and Jewish in this century?” That’s the question that photojournalist Judah Passow asked himself when formulating the guiding principles for “No Place Like Home,” his photographic exhibition that opened at the Jewish Museum London on February 1. Read More »

Crossposted from Haaretz The British Film Festival is returning to Israel after a two-year hiatus, with a selection of movies by new and interesting voices that give audiences a glimpse into modern-day Britain. Read More »

On the Los Angeles Review of Books podcast, Art Spiegelman talks “MetaMaus” with Van Dyke Parks. An Israeli artists union is holding an exhibit for immigrant artists. The latest issue of “Text/Context” is out, with essays by Deborah E. Lipstadt, Sara Y. Aharon and Eddy Portnoy. Read More »

Crossposted from Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art & Monuments Ukraine-born, Lviv-trained and Israeli-based architectural historian Sergey R. Kravtsov has been studying the history and architecture of the Golden Rose-Turei Zahav Synagogue, destroyed in the Second Wold War and surviving as a ruin, for at least a decade. Read More »

Matthew Shaer is the author of “Among Righteous Men: A Tale of Vigilantes and Vindication in Hasidic Crown Heights.” His blog posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. Read More »

Crossposted from Haaretz Nearly six years after his death at the age of 73, the multitalented performer Yossi Banai remains an icon of Israeli culture. Next month will see the release of the album the writer, actor, singer and dramatist was working on when he died, in May 2006. Read More »

Classical music events both before and after Purim (on March focus on dialogues redolent of Yiddishkeit, as New Yorkers and others will discover. On February 10 at Weill Recital Hall pianist Lia Jensen-Abbott will perform Fanny Mendelssohn’s “The Year,” a work inspired by the composer’s relationship with her brother Felix. Read More »

Crossposted from Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art & Monuments The fate of long-neglected Jewish sites in the small, poor and newly independent country of Kosovo has recently received some attention from the United States. On December 14, 2011, U.S. Read More »