Arts Features

Late Winter Arts Preview

Escape the winter weather with these bright performances and activities. All around the Washington area, organizations are hosting Jewish arts events varying from film...

Sasha Olinick finds connections between his theater work and Judaism

Takoma Park-based actor Sasha Olinick finds his work in the rehearsal room and on stage has deep connections to his Judaism. “The idea of storytelling...

Apples to Apples

Review “Temptation Transformed: The Story of How the Forbidden Fruit Became an Apple” by Azzan Yadin-Israel. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2022. 181 pages....

2022 was a big year for Jews in the arts

By Andrew Lapin | JTA Once more for the record, Dave Chappelle: Jews don’t really run Hollywood. But anyone paying attention in 2022 saw a...

Longtime Northern Virginia residents Susan and Shawn Dilles counter conventional wisdom in new book

Before Susan and Shawn Dilles moved to the Washington area in the 1980s, a relative gave them a piece of advice. “Jews don’t go to...

How Jews became white

Review “Bad Jews: A History of American Jewish Politics and Identities” by Emily Tamkin. New York: HarperCollins, 2022. 256 pages | $28.99. In her introduction, author Emily...

Raskin, Tannen speak at Beth El in Alexandria

As lead impeachment manager, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) headed the effort to convict President Donald Trump in his second Senate trial. That 2021 impeachment, like...

What’s so funny about antisemitism?

  Alex Edelman is tired. He just flew home to New York on a red-eye. About halfway through a recent Zoom conversation, he pulled out...

Raven Schwam-Curtis uses TikTok for Jewish and Black activism

Last Chanukah, Raven Schwam-Curtis made a big discovery. “There was this really nice Chanukah audio trending at the time. I made a video dancing...

Inside the surprisingly Jewish world of ‘Tár’

By Andrew Lapin In the first 10 minutes of the new film “Tár,” a conductor played by Cate Blanchett discusses the Hebrew concepts of “teshuvah”...