Not just her initials: Skirball exhibit explains why RBG is ‘notorious’

Jacob Joseph Lefkowitz Brooks, Community Editor

March 5, 2019

When considering the achievements of history’s greatest social reformers, it’s easy to say that they were simply destined to achieve greatness and change society. This is true as well for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, known for her monumental achievements for gender equality and wom...

Amos Oz, father of Israeli fiction, dies at 79

Clara Sandler, Co-Editor-in-Chief

March 1, 2019

“When I was little, my ambition was to grow up to be a book. Not a writer,” Amos Oz wrote in A Tale of Love and Darkness. “People can be killed like ants. Writers are not hard to kill either. But not books: however systematically you try to destroy them, there is always a chance that a copy w...

LIVE BLOG: The Oscars with Nicholas Fields and Jacob Joseph Lefkowitz Brooks

February 24, 2019

This page is being updated throughout the Oscars awards ceremony by BP Lifestyles Editor Nicholas and Features Editor Jacob Joseph Lefkowitz Brooks. Click here to read short reviews of the eight movies nominated in the Best Picture category of this year’s Academy Awards. NF- Well Jacob, despite a letdow...

Bohemian Rhapsody

February 24, 2019

The legacy Freddie Mercury, played by Rami Malek, left on the world is illuminated in Bohemian Rhapsody, a film that will make you laugh, cry, sing along and understand the world of Rock and Roll like no other. The biopic covers the band’s early days up until their historic and memorable Li...

The Eight: Short reviews of the 2019 Best Picture nominees

Jacob Joseph Lefkowitz Brooks, Nicholas Fields, Molly Litvak, and Tobey Lee

February 24, 2019

Below are short reviews of all eight movies nominated in the Best Picture category of this year’s Academy Awards. They were compiled by Acting Arts & Culture Editors Jacob Joseph Lefkowitz Brooks and Nicholas Fields, and written by Jacob, Nicholas, Co-Editor-in-Chief Lucy Fried, Outside New...

Concert breaks new ground for Choirhawks with music written or arranged by students

Jacob Joseph Lefkowitz Brooks, Community Editor

January 14, 2019

Among the 15 songs performed by the Choirhawks at their annual Chanukah concert last month were two that represented milestones for the group: the first written and the first arranged by a student member. The group performed a new choral arrangement of “Together As One,” which was composed last ye...

South Korean boy band BTS speaks for – and to – a generation

Adina Ackerman, Staff Writer

November 18, 2018

Role models are necessary in the chaos of our everyday lives, a stool we step on to constantly reassure ourselves of success and happiness. But what does it really mean to be a giver or receiver of inspiration in a world of negativity, consistent fear and sexualized media? What we see on screen influences...

‘Radium Girls’ playwright meets Shalhevet actors via Skype

Abby Blumofe, Arts and Culture Editor

November 12, 2018

“Plays aren’t written,” said the woman on the TV screen in the Wildfire Theater Oct. 18. “They are crafted.” The author and playwright Ms. D.W. Gregory, who was addressing Shalhevet’s Drama ensemble via a Skype call about her play Radium Girls, as they worked together to craft the pe...

Looking at refugees through a wider lens in ‘Dalya’s Other Country’

Jacob Joseph Lefkowitz Brooks, Community Editor

October 29, 2018

In 2018, it seems people only are urged to help to others who are in extreme conditions. The word “refugee” evokes images of desperately malnourished children, or parents with all their possessions in sacks over their shoulders. But in reality, war touches all kinds of people, and the refugee...

Beloved by many, Jewish rapper will be remembered

Jacob Joseph Lefkowitz Brooks, Community Editor

September 20, 2018

This story won a Best of SNO award. “Overdosing is just not cool,” said the rapper Mac Miller in 2016, describing his battle with addiction in his first-person documentary, Stopped Making Excuses. “There’s no legendary romance,” he continued. “You don’t go down in history because you overdosed. You just die.” Comments like that made it perhaps e...

Heartfelt and funny, cultures clash in ‘Crazy Rich Asians’

Jacob Joseph Lefkowitz Brooks, Community Editor

September 13, 2018

This story won a Best of SNO award. Hollywood has seen shake-ups recently of some of its most formulaic film genres when the element of race is introduced. Following in the footsteps of Get Out (horror) and Black Panther (superhero), Crazy Rich Asians provides a refreshing take on the predictab...

Skirball’s ‘Visions and Values’ exhibit is a journey through all of Jewry across all of time

Abby Blumofe, Staff Writer

May 17, 2018

It should not have been surprising to find each room opening onto another at an exhibit that promised to cover the span of all of Jewish history, culture and religion. And yet it was, because each room by itself was so full artifacts and experiences that made Jewish history come alive.  From...