The Jewishness of ‘Scanners’
Sean Alexander unpicks the Jewish undercurrents to the film Scanners which was released forty years ago on this day. Probably best known to David Cronenberg fans as ‘the one with the exploding head’, Scanners (1981) has proven to be one of the Canadian’s most remembered and entertaining of early studio features. Following the parasitical excesses […]
Is The Mandalorian a Space Jew?
Nathan Abrams wonders if Disney’s creation is a member of the tribe. ‘Is There a Jew Under the Mandalorian’s Mask?’ Charlotte Gartenberg asked in The Tablet. She wrote this as the show debuted. There is certainly a great deal of mystery to the bounty hunter at the centre of Disney’s new Star Wars derived drama […]
Conversations with a Blank Canvas
Artist and arts psychotherapist Isa L. Levy presents her creative memoir, From Nowhere to Somewhere: Decades of Change & Transformation In the summer of 2006, I was invited to exhibit a selection of my paintings at the Ben Uri Gallery in their Fortnight of Solo Artists, curated by Sarah Lightman. It was an opportunity for […]
Teaching Antisemitism in the Classroom
Georgia Burns, an English teacher at a High School in northeast England, reflects on discussing antisemitic English literature in the classroom. ‘From the description of Scrooge, what can we infer?’ I ask. Awkward whispers herald the one student confident enough to voice the class’ concern. ‘Dickens is wildly antisemitic?’ Teaching literature is a joy. George R.R. […]
Introducing Tsitsit, the Jewish Fringe
Alastair Falk tells us about a new initiative and wants your support. You will know the feeling. It’s the Edinburgh Fringe and there’s this huge list of performances which you are desperately working out how to choose what to try and see. Of course, for Jews it’s always slightly easier: just look for shows that […]
How Finland’s Jews Fought Alongside the Nazis
Mark Bernheim reviews a remarkable book about Finland’s Jews during World War II. In the complex history of the Holocaust, Finland was the only European combatant country in which none of its Jewish citizens were sent to concentration or extermination camps. In many other ways, too, the history of its tiny Jewish community is unique. How […]
A Trip to (Jewish) Shanghai
In need of a little armchair travel in lieu of the real thing, Karen Skinazi revisits a trip to Shanghai, where she is amazed by both the cosmopolitan city and the thriving Jewish community she finds there. When we’re not playing Settlers of Catan, or watching movies on Disney+, or going on chilly walks and […]
Four Jewish John le Carré Adaptations
To mark the passing of John le Carré, who died on 12 December, Nathan Abrams recommends four Jewish adaptations of his work. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) This was the first film adaptation of any le Carré novel. It was directed by Martin Ritt, who was Jewish. Oskar Werner plays the ‘brilliant and principled’ East German Jewish spy Fiedler. The name of the principal female character in the novel, the innocent […]
We need better ways to speak to each other about campus antisemitism and Israel
Ken Stern argues that efforts to oppose campus antisemitism must be consistent with academic freedom and free speech, and this means rejection of hate speech codes such as IHRA.
Dang!
Artist and filmmaker Ruth Novaczek reflects on social media’s determination of hate speech — and the real hate it occludes. Dang, banned again! Yes, first it was 24 hours, ok not so bad, next it was 48, hmm, then finally 3 days. The worst aspect of this stupid Facebook algorithmic witch-hunting was the fact that […]