CULTURE
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Broken Glass ★★★★ — Jewish Renaissance
Dr Hyman’s wife Margaret, a sympathetic Nancy Carroll, also becomes involved, fascinated by this particular case of her husband’s. Meanwhile, Phillip’s employer Stanton Case (Nigel Whitmey), the head of a bank of mortgage lenders, proves an unempathetic boss as their relationship descends into an argument that brings on a dangerous, potentially fatal, illness for the beleaguered Phillip. Though the characters…
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Adam Kammerling — Jewish Renaissance
You’ve been working on Seder for quite a while. When did it start? The show started in the pandemic, in 2020, but the project started some years before that. In 2017, I met with the publisher of the book, because the piece began its life as a poetry collection, and asked if he’d be up for working with me if…
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Ukraine Unbroken ★★★★★ — Jewish Renaissance
Pressures build to an almost unbearable level in David Greig’s Wretched Things, which is set on the front line, where Ukrainian fighters agonise over whether or not to help an unconscious wounded Korean soldier. Finally, and perhaps the most moving, is Taken by Cat Goscovitch. The play personifies the horrific reality of thousands of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia and…
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The Jewish Square Mile — Jewish Renaissance
Archaeology carried out before the Barbican was built reportedly showed some empty grave cuts but little evidence of Jewish medieval life. However, as we pieced together charters, tax rolls and maps, the picture became clear: this community was vibrant, diverse and deeply woven into the fabric of the City. One source of information were the archa records, deeds held locally…
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Here There Are Blueberries ★★★★★ — Jewish Renaissance
As with Glazer’s film, the play is really about the chilling ease with which normality sits alongside horror – Hannah Arendt’s ‘banality of evil’ – how everyday, small acts are part of the larger monstrosity. Is a young woman who relays an order for poisonous gas down a telephone line as culpable in genocide as the officer who rounds up…
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JDAL Sings! ★★★★ — Jewish Renaissance
The Jewish Dramatic Association of London (stylised as JDAL, pronounced “Jay-Dal”) was founded in 2024 as a safe space for Jewish creatives in the city to showcase their work. “During this time of rife Judeophobia,” they state on the website, “it’s vital for us to stick together and help one another as we fight for our place in the industry.”…
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Noah’s Woods — Jewish Renaissance
This thread of natural destruction is interwoven with the devastation and trauma of 7 October, offering a further, metaphorical, layering. The Falcon…, for example, aims to convey a sense of doom and the artist’s feelings about the war in the Middle East. The series was named from an excerpt of the poem The Second Coming by WB Yeats, which he…
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See Jeff Goldblum live this summer — Jewish Renaissance
Come the 1990s, The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra was born and named after a friend of Goldblum’s mother. “I thought that was a funny name,” he told Rolling Stone in 2018, “and then this idea of the orchestra was funny…it’s kind of stuck since then.” Catch them playing their first UK shows at Wolverhampton Civic Hall (28 May), Glasgow Theatre Royal…
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Tattoos, tefillin and telling stories
To coincide with the release of a new book that portrays the lives of mother-daughter artists Lois and Carey, we speak to Rona Bar and Ofek Avshalom, the Israeli photographers behind the project “This one encounter opened us up to a whole new world,” says Rona Bar, one half of the photography duo Fotómetro. “[After seeing] their relationship, the house…
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Campaigners fight closure of Irma Stern museum — Jewish Renaissance
As the home and studio of the South African artist faces an uncertain future Deon Viljoen says its demise will mark a significant cultural loss Often embroiled in controversy during her lifetime, the South African-born painter, sculptor, and collector Irma Stern would probably have launched a fierce counteroffensive to the unexpected announcement that her home and studio, left by her…
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