JVOICES.COM

“Hello, gorgeous.”
An evening to remember. Religiously every year my mom joins millions of viewers tuned to the Kennedy Center Honors, recognized as the ultimate award for performing artists in the United States. The Kennedy Center writes that an honor is “compared to a knighthood in Britain, or the French Legion of Honor–the quintessential reward [...]

On Sunday, an emotional poetry reading took place in the city of Rehovot, Israel, outside the gates of the Weizmann Institute of Science in solidarity with the workers against the institute’s management.
The event was supported by a variety of poetry and art journals, including, “Dhaka“, “Direction East” “Maayan” and “Basta Tarbot” (an initiative of [...]

Various boycotts of Israel have sprung up in different places, unfortunately with very little effectiveness (so far) against the terrible policies of the Israeli government. But I just received this message via email from a friend, and this is a boycott which makes me think twice.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Call to Boycott & Protest Jerusalem [...]

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I was getting message after message Monday about the horrible NY Post article on Joy Ladin’s return to her work at Yeshiva University.
I didn’t want to write about it then. I was beyond annoyed at the sensationalist and grossly offensive reporting.
I was also beyond annoyed that many didn’t discuss her accomplishments as a writer. Joy [...]

Ashkenaz will be premiering in the U.S. at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival tomorrow, August 10th at 3:15pm at the JCCSF.
I caught up with Rachel Leah Jones, director of Ashkenaz, before her U.S. premiere to ask her a few questions about the making of the film, what she hopes audiences will take away, [...]

Mahmoud Darwish died Saturday after complications from an open heart surgery in Houston, Texas at the age of 67.
This past July, I had the honor of hearing Darwish read during the Centennial Celebration of the establishment of the Ramallah municipality, held at the Ramallah Cultural Palace. The over 700-seat auditorium was filled to capacity, and [...]

If y’all didn’t already know about the Jewish Channel, you should check it out.
Here’s one clip of former Forward Arts and Culture Editor, Alana Newhouse, now Editor of Nextbook (yup, if y’all didn’t know yet, now you know! Alana’s now the new Editor-in-Chief of Nextbook.) chatting it up with producer and author Abigail [...]

Ayala stood excited in front of more then one hundred people in a special poetry and music support event that was host and organized by the two poets and activists, Mati Shemoelof and Almog Behar.
(photo taken by Moti Kikyon. from right to left: Mati Shemoelof and Almog Behar) The event took place at the [...]

I had my first delightful taste of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival this afternoon, attending a screening of At Home in Utopia, (check out the trailer) a moving and intimate portrayal of when, in the 1920’s, Jewish communists pooled resources to build cooperatively owned apartment complexes in the Bronx. The film primarily focuses on [...]