Still from Shiva Baby
14 Jul
Arts & Culture, Latest

A Funeral Farce (Shiva Baby)

Shiva Baby Released April 2, 2021 (USA) 1 hour 17 minutes Directed by Emma Seligman Neon Heart Productions Comedy, English When Danielle’s overbearing mother presses her into attending a shiva, a series of disasters converge over the span of several hours. Shiva Baby, directed by Emma Seligman, is a taut, finely scripted comedy in which emotional tensions, hidden secrets and discomforting personal interactions tumble out so swiftly that the audience is on tenterhooks wondering where this car crash will end. Danielle, played by Rachel Sennott (High Maintenance, Call Your Mother), is a bisexual woman who has just graduated with a degree in gender business studies, but she is aimless and unemployed. She has told her parents that she has what she euphemistically calls a part-time “babysitting” job that, in reality, involves getting paid for sex with a married man. Her parents’ desire for...

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09 Aug
History, Religion

Why Should Zion Mourn?

By Adina Rosenthal “The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn assembly; all her gates are desolate… and she herself is in bitterness.” These words are found in the opening lines of Eichah, The Book of Lamentations, read each year on Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av. Known as one of the saddest days on the Jewish calendar, Tisha B’Av commemorates the calamities that have befallen the Jewish people, particularly the destructions of both the First and Second Temple and the subsequent creation of the Jewish Diaspora. Serving as the culmination of the three-week period of mourning, beginning with the fast of the 17th of Tammuz,  Tisha B’Av is customarily observed by fasting from sunset to sunset, refraining from bathing, and reciting Eichah, Jeremiah's poetic lamentation over...

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