NEW YORK — Regina Spektor has a cold — or as she calls it, “a nondescript New York disease.” The singer is onstage at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York headlining a benefit concert for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, or HIAS, which helped resettle her family in New York more than 20 years ago.
Though the crowd, which includes Spektor’s parents, calls out words of encouragement, Spektor is struggling. She gulps water between songs, suppresses little coughs and refers more than once to the mysterious Russian health tonic she downed in an effort to ready herself for the performance.
“It was one of those things where anyone in their sane mind would have canceled,” Spektor says later. “It was just such an important show for me. Everybody had been working on it for so long, all the HIAS people, and all the tickets were sold out. It was just a cause that was so important to me.”
PASSOVER EDITION SECTION C PAGE 14
The most amazing thing about the Journey to Freedom Haggada is that it took this long to come up with such an strikingly obvious idea.
How much more apt a metaphor for Passover can one find than the modern experiences of Ethiopian Jewry?
By connecting the modern exodus of Ethiopian Jews in the 1980s and 1990s to the Biblical account of the Hebrews gaining freedom from Egyptian enslavement, the talented assembly of writers, artists, archivists and photograp...
PASSOVER EDITION SECTION C PAGE 14
HOW does the biblical account of Nadav and Abihu, the ill-fated sons of Aaron the High Priest, relate to Nate and Avi, fictional Jewish brothers scrambling to survive in Holocaust-era Yugoslavia?
Jump into Ray Zwerin’s novel Holy Fire — a fascinating juxtaposition of time and circumstance — to discover the answer.
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With Passover come so many food restrictions, so why would someone write a Passover cookbook excluding one of the few things we may eat on Passover, namely potatoes?
With wheat and most other grains out of the picture, as well as legumes, the potato is one of the few starches included in Passover cooking. While there’s nothing inherently offensive about potatoes, there’s nothing really exciting about them, either, obviously excluding French fries.
Passover cooks can get into a rut, relying...
Attendance records were again smashed by the Denver Jewish Film Festival (DJFF), Feb. 23-March 4. The event attracted 6,485 participants over its 10-day run.
The program included nine sold out screenings, seven special events (including receptions, parties, and post-film discussions with filmmakers), and 22 films specifically selected for Denver area audiences.
Due to the continued construction on the Elaine Wolf Theatre, the DJFF partnered with The Denver Film Society (DFS) who welcomed the D...