LABA fellow Ilana Sichel contemplates life and death and writing. In the past half hour, I have gotten up from my desk to get cookies, decided they weren’t the right type of cookie, then got up a minute later to get another kind. I have felt a slight chill and decided that I can’t sit
Current LABA fellow Yochai Greenfeld on the witty comments of the Talmudic sages, and why Jews around the world must learn to laugh at themselves more. In our last sessions at LABA, we studied a fascinating passage from the Babylonian Talmud: What is the interpretation of the word Babylonia? Rabbi Yoḥanan says it means mixed,
LABA fellow Jessica Tamar Deutsch is a New York-based artist and creator of the Illustrated Pirkei Avot. Her work explores the intersection of ancient tradition and contemporary culture. Here she discusses her life and work with Amy Handelsman. Deutsch will be presenting animation and drawings at LABAlive III on Thursday, May 23rd at 7:30pm. Click
Ophir Tal is the 14th Street Y’s shaliach, or “emissary,” tasked with bringing Israeli culture to New York. Here, he discusses why he decided to bring Mimouna, a traditional North African post-Passover interfaith gathering, to the 14th Street Y. For tickets to this year’s Mimouna, click here. The year: 2014. The place: Ashdod, Israel. My
Current LABA fellow Ari Brand reflects on LABAlive, when he performed excerpts from SCENES FROM CHILDHOOD, a play based on his discovery that his father, the renowned pianist Natan Brand, lived much of his life as a gay man. Natan Brand died of AIDS in 1990. It was a warmer than usual night in the beginning
Composer Alex Weiser, a current LABA fellow, is also director of Public Programs at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City. His new album, and all the days were purple will be released on April 12 by Cantaloupe Music. Weiser set Yiddish and English poems to music to create an absorbing and
Yonatan Gutfeld is a current LABA fellow composing a song cycle based on the poems of Ori Bernstein. Misha Shulman is a LABA fellow, playwright and educator studying to be a rabbi. LABA Journal editor Gordon Haber met with Gutfeld and Shulman in a Brooklyn bar to discuss life, death, and vodka. (Gutfeld will perform
Editor’s note: Below, LABA fellow Marques Hollie discusses his project Go Down, Moshe, which explores the Passover story in light of American slavery. Hollie uses the term “enslaved people.” He explains: “the term ‘slaves’ allows others to distance themselves from the humanity and personhood each and every one of these people possessed.” The Hebrew Bible
Marques Hollie is an operatic tenor and facilitator of creative Jewish ritual with a focus on Jews of color. His LABA project, Go Down Moshe, is a solo show comprised of text from the Haggadah, Negro spirituals and devised slave narratives. (See an excerpt at LABALive on April 18, 2019, at the 14 Street Y
A lot of Jewish kids get incredibly excited about Purim. But in my own household growing up it wasn’t a big deal. My strongest — and indeed my only — childhood memory of Purim is when Rabbi Frishman of blessed memory read the scroll to us in Hebrew school. As you probably know, Haman is