(JTA) — A Jewish executive producer of the Oscar-winning Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest” said he disagreed with director Jonathan Glazer’s speech at the Academy Awards ceremony criticizing Israel, while the Auschwitz Memorial issued a statement in its defense.
They were the latest reactions in what has become a prolonged firestorm over Glazer’s remarks Sunday. While accepting the best international feature award, the British Jewish filmmaker...
(JTA) – More than 80 bands and several scheduled panelists have pulled out of the ongoing South by Southwest festival, citing Israel defense ties among its organizers.
Organizers of the Austin, Texas, event that draws attendees from around the world have threatened legal action against the boycott’s leaders. But they also said on Tuesday that they “fully respect” the boycott.
(JTA) – In the wake of the Oscars, Hollywood has been treated to a rare spectacle: Jewish communal leaders attacking the Jewish director of an award-winning Holocaust movie.
The Anti-Defamation League and an organization representing Holocaust survivors are among those now angry with Jonathan Glazer, the British Jewish filmmaker behind the widely acclaimed drama “The Zone of Interest,” which is set in Auschwitz. During his acceptance speech...
(JTA) – As widely predicted, “Oppenheimer,” the biopic of Jewish nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, swept a number of categories at Sunday’s Oscars, including best picture, in a year unusually heavy with Jewish nominees.
But the most talked-about Jewish moment of the night came courtesy of Jonathan Glazer, writer-director of the cerebral Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest,” who used his acceptance speech to comment on the...
Cantor Rebecca Garfein took the opportunity to show her talented secular side at the Temple Sinai Gala this past Sunday, keeping the banter on the microphone lively as she described much of her life through song.
Accompanying the cantor on piano and providing the arrangements for the songs she sang was her longtime collaborator Bob Egan, who flew in from his residence in New Hope, Pennsylvania to...
(JTA) — David Draiman, the Jewish frontman of heavy metal band Disturbed, is raising money to provide private security for Matisyahu after the Jewish reggae singer had two venues cancel on him in the face of pro-Palestinian protests.
“I’m raising funds to provide security for our brother @matisyahu,” Draiman, the heavy metal singer, wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Him and his family have been relentlessly harassed during...
(JTA) — Empty chairs representing the Israeli hostages held in Gaza lit up the stage of Israel’s “Rising Star” song competition show Tuesday night as 20-year-old Eden Golan, wearing a yellow ribbon pin, sang Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” — an emotional grand finale for the country’s auditions to the Eurovision Song Contest, which were postponed by several months due to the war.
(JTA) — After a week of witnessing the pain and resilience of Israelis in war time I went to Jerusalem’s Yellow Submarine music club. I was driven by a prayerful hope to find some solace during the war, along with communion, with fellow heartbroken folks for whom words were failing.
The last time I went to Yellow Submarine was almost a decade ago. It was also wartime....
(JTA) – The year’s biggest movie phenomenon was a one-two punch of blockbusters with Jewish roots — and they both came up big at Tuesday’s Oscar nominations.
“Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s biopic of the Jewish “father of the atomic bomb,” led the year’s nominations with 13, including best picture and director, and is favored by many prognosticators to win the big prize.
(JTA) – In a 2022 documentary on the making of the 1971 film “Fiddler on the Roof,” Norman Jewison relayed a by-now familiar anecdote: When producers of the Broadway musical approached him for the directing job, he had to sheepishly inform them that he wasn’t actually Jewish.
He got the job anyway, leading generations of Jewish families watching “Fiddler” to associate that big title card displaying the...
