Meet Fellow Laura Beatrix Newmark

Laura Beatrix Newmark is the Jewish Life & Culture Fellow at The 14th Street Y. She builds community amongst the young families of the 14th Street Y through interactive and creative programming. Her intersection with the arts spans multiple decades (starting with playing the cello from age six) and includes quoting a young stand-up named

Meet Fellow Hanan Elstein

Hanan Elstein is an Israeli literary editor, translator and essayist, living in Brooklyn since 2013. He studied philosophy, history, literature, cultural studies and law at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany. He has been working as an editor of Hebrew and translated American and world literature, both fiction and non-fiction,

The Forbidden Conversation and Those who Pay the Price

“I can no longer talk to ____ about Israel.” BY GILI GETZ A year ago, on Tikkun Leil Shavuot at the 14th Street Y, I performed The Forbidden Conversation for the first time. The play, which is about the difficulty of talking openly about Israel in the American Jewish community, was developed while I was

Lainie Fefferman discusses “Market Day”

On Thursday, June 2, LABAlive will present “Boundaries,” an evening of multi-disciplinary works-in-process exploring our relationship with beauty. The evening will feature teachings by Ruby Namdar and work by fellows Lital Dotan, Shanti Grumbine, and Lainie Fefferman, who will present scenes from her string quartet, Market Day. Here, Fefferman talks about her project and the inspiration she found in our house of

Shanti Grumbine discusses “The Last Color: A Reliquary”

On Thursday, June 2, LABAlive will present “Boundaries,” an evening of multi-disciplinary works-in-process exploring our relationship with beauty. The evening will feature teachings by Ruby Namdar and work by fellows Lainie Fefferman, Lital Dotan, and Shanti Grumbine, who will present her project The Last Color: A Reliquary. Here, Grumbine talks about her project and the inspiration she found in our house of study. Tell us about your

Seven Raiments of Captivity

A modest offering for a woman who had just lost everything. BY LITAL DOTAN A profoundly disturbing LABA session discussing the behavioral rules in a state of war and battle, specifically behavior with captive women, instigated my interrogation into the route of the captive towards her new identity. A WOMAN OF A GOODLY FORM is she who is

Lital Dotan discusses “Second Floor”

On Thursday, June 2, LABAlive will present “Boundaries,” an evening of multi-disciplinary works-in-process exploring our relationship with beauty. The evening will feature teachings by Ruby Namdar and work by fellows Shanti Grumbine, Lainie Fefferman, and Lital Dotan, who will present an excerpt from her play, Second Floor. Here, Dotan talks about her project and the inspiration she found in our house of study. Tell us about

Tamar’s Brother

BY LAINIE FEFFERMAN I am so used to anachronous sexual politics in the Bible, but the sibling relationship in the story of Tamar’s rape hit me hard. I have no brothers by blood, but looking at a sibling as a perpetrator instead of an ally horrifies me on a primal level. I can’t imagine but

Beauty Links

BY JESSICA GROSS As usual, now that our LABA discussions have primed me toward BEAUTY, the subject has been leaping out at me from all corners, from the highbrow to the lowbrow: Critic Mark Harris examines the media’s willful refusal to acknowledge Melissa McCarthy’s dependable bankability and talent at performing diverse roles: “Critics can like or dislike