United
December 11, 2009 by Naomi Alderman
On the fifteenth day of October the Festival of Judaism began. Its slogan — draped on banners across the entrance and printed on the front of glossy Souvenir Brochures — was ‘the centre of Jewish life is the family home’. In celebration of this theme, the central exhibition of the festival was a Jewish Family Home and excitingly (and this was where bringing in the new young expo team, full of flashy headline-grabbing ideas had really paid off) for the entire duration of the festival, a real authentic Jewish family would be living in the space.
It was quite a coup, one that had attracted the attention not just of the Jewish press, or the British press, but even the worldwide media. Shlomo Luei, Director of the Festival, appeared blinking on various international news feeds. ‘It seemed the natural progression,’ he said. ‘For years, we’ve had demonstrations at the Festival of various aspects of traditional Jewish life that people no longer do at home: koshering chickens, baking challa, taking clothing apart to separate wool and linen and so on. This year we wanted to present a much fuller picture of that ancient way of life; we were very lucky that the Blattsteins agreed to take part.’ Read more
Shadow Play
May 7, 2009 by Amir Gutfreund
On summer evenings, Uncle Nathan used to put on shadow plays. With nothing but ten fingers and a beam of light against a plain white wall, he astounded us with lions and monkeys, alligators and train engines. All eyes watched, riveted, when the silhouette magic began. He didn’t ask for much — a wall, a light. In the back rows of wedding halls, or when holiday dinners were winding down, his fans would gather to marvel: a butterfly, an antelope, Theodor Herzl, a turtle.
