In 79 CE, Mount Vesuvius erupted in southern Italy, burying the nearby Roman city of Pompeii in scalding stone and ash. The catastrophe famously entombed, and preserved, the city’s villas, workshops, and a gladiator barracks known as the Caserma dei...

What’s so Jewish about “Wicked”? Composer Stephen Schwartz once reflected in an interview, “I think a lot of musical theater themes speak to Jewish audiences because in many instances musicals are about outsiders, striving to discover how they...

The New Jewish Theatre will close out its 2024 season with “First Date,” a romantic musical comedy that hopes to take audiences on a rollercoaster of laughter, heart and unexpected surprises. Before heading to the Wool...

Mel Brooks, who mocked Adolf Hitler in his 1967 black comedy “The Producers,” has always made the case for satire as a weapon against tyranny. “You have to bring him down with ridicule,” he told “60 Minutes” in 2001. “It’s been one...

For most of Jewish culinary history, anyone seeking to make matzah balls faced one major choice: sinkers or floaters? In the 20th century, with the advent of home-cooking conveniences, another decision joined the one about density: from scratch or...

The St. Louis International Film Festival will host the premiere of “Before You,” a short film capturing the experience of abortion, a deeply personal yet increasingly politicized topic. The screening will take place on Nov. 16, at 6:30 p.m., at the...

The same day Jewish filmmaker Jesse Eisenberg spoke with me via Zoom, he appeared on “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” where his rapid-fire delivery and neurotic jumpiness were on full display. The guy looked like a walking panic attack even though he was...

Fall colors are finally here and so is the 33rd annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival (SLIFF), presented by Cinema St. Louis, which runs from Thursday, Nov. 7, through Nov. 17.  “Our theme this year [is] ‘The Great Escape,’ ”...

Could “The Office” finally get its first openly Jewish character?! For those of you confused about why “The Office,” which stopped airing way back in 2013, could get any new characters at all, you might have missed the news that the hit sitcom,...

Did you know the best Jewish TV show you’ve never heard of came out in 2019? I knew it, but for some reason, writing about Amazon’s “Undone,” the animated TV show from Jewish “Bojack Horseman” creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg and “Bojack”...

On New Year’s eve of 2018, Erin Foster, the creator of “Nobody Wants This,” the show in which Adam Brody plays a hot rabbi who falls in love with a non-Jewish woman, Joanne, played by Kristin Bell, got married under a big floral chuppah. “The...

This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward's free email newsletters delivered to your inbox. Jason Alexander showed up to a Zoom call with a full beard. Was it for a role? “If it’s not, I don’t know what...