BY JESSICA GROSS Looking for a new dose of beauty musings? You’ve come to the right place. Over at The New Republic’s Intersection podcast, hosted by Jamil Smith, a recent episode on body image features discussions with writer Lindy West, editor Isaac Fitzgerald, trainer Andia Winslow, and blogger Erika Nicole Kendall. In an On Being interview with artist Ann Hamilton,
BY REBECCA MARGOLICK AND MAXX BERKOWITZ We were moved by the text we discussed at our LABA session last week, which told the story of Rabbi Ishmael’s children, enslaved for their extraordinary beauty. The story paints a dark image of the deeply seeded extreme voyeurism ingrained in humanity. Beauty drives us to great evil, jealousy and
BY JESSICA GROSS This week’s links and quotes complicate the idealization and idolization of beauty. The writers below valorize not the power of beauty, but the power of putting it in its place. (Except for that last quote, which plays with beauty’s more dangerous powers.) In an essay on Flavorwire, writer (and LABA alum) Sarah Marian Seltzer
DRINK. DRINK. DRUNK. Kicking off the 2016 LABAlive season is DRUNK 2016: an evening filled with wine tastings and ancient Hebrew texts to match. On Thursday January 21st, artists, educators and the community will all join in at the Theater at the 14th Street Y. Throughout the night, the current roster of artist LABA Fellows will explore altered states, intoxication,
BY JESSICA GROSS Once again, I can’t escape beauty: it seems to be eyeing me from everything I read and see, peeking out from nooks and crannies or smacking me right in the face. (And thank God.) Below, some of the best quotes and links on beauty I’ve come across in the past few weeks, from works
BY JESSICA GROSS Short Fiction She wore her beauty like a shawl. It was not only protective, but extrinsic to her, inconstant. Certain days, she could feel its tight hug: she walked the streets powerfully, strutting as if she were in a music video. Other days, she was naked. To walk the streets in this
BY GAL BECKERMAN I don’t have a son and so I feel spared King David’s lament for Absalom, calling out the name of his dead child not only because of the loss — though this would be enough — but because, with Absalom’s death, the purest projection of himself has been erased from the world. This came
Jessica Gross writes fiction, essays, and criticism. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review Daily, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Longreads, New York Magazine’s Vulture, Kirkus Reviews, and more. In 2014, she did a test run of a writer’s residency on an Amtrak train from New York to
BY JESSICA GROSS As we at LABA delve deeply into how beauty weaves through classic Jewish texts, I’ve found I can barely go a day without finding echoes of our discussions in the culture. Below, a collection of contemporary meditations on beauty for your listening and reading pleasure. “One of the huge confusions in our times is to
Gon Ben Ari is a critically acclaimed writer in Israel, known for two novels (Sequoia Children is being translated into English) and for his magazine writing at major Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot. He is currently located in Brooklyn, NY, where he writes fiction (Ben Ari was titled a MacDowell Fellow for 2014), film, and journalism (Forward,