With the 94th Academy Awards ceremony just days away, it's time to check in on the state of the various Oscar races and which Jewish nominees stand the best chance of taking home a statue.
On the face of things, Prayer for the French Republic, a new play by Joshua Harmon, is about several generations of a French-Jewish family living in Paris and contemplating whether they're still safe in the country they call home. In actuality, it is a discomfiting examination of the state of the Jewish diaspora.
The first episode of the new season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel starts out with a single word, "Revenge!" As the show slowly makes clear, this isn't just revenge against Shy Baldwin, the singer and entertainer who left Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) stranded on the tarmac as he took flight to Europe without her.
First published as a novel in 1962 and adapted into a film by the same name released in 1970, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis has had remarkable staying power. Its author, the late Giorgio Bassani, has two archives and study centers dedicated to him in Italy and major new English translations of his work have come out in recent years.
It's rare to find a documentary set in the Middle East that isn't mired in politics and discord. Rarer still is one bathed in the kind of optimism and goodwill found in Beth Elise Hawk's new film, Breaking Bread. An inside look at a three-day food festival in Haifa, Israel, pairing Israeli and Muslim Arab chefs, Breaking Bread pursues peace through the power of creating top-notch cuisine.