I was in search of an open post office when I saw her. Despite the mask, I recognized the candidate from a recent Bronx City Council debate that impressed me with her demeanor and energy. “Mino Lora?” I asked tentatively. “Yes,” she replied.

I requested an interview on the spot, and she put me in touch with her campaign team.

Lora’s background in the arts had piqued my interest. Specifically, how she had harnessed the power of theatre as a way to interact, amplify, and “humanize” the immigrant experience in the United States. I was impressed she had leveraged a…

Lilly Rivlin: Artist as Truth Seeker

Every era has its moments that are written and evaluated by “historians.” Creatives capture those same events through the prism of nuance, drama, and emotion.

Lilly Rivlin, now 84, is one such artist. A contemporary of pioneering feminists, she was on the ground to document their contributions to the upheaval of the 1970s, when women were beginning to realize that the problem wasn’t them.

Rivlin’s identity as an Israeli-American has also uniquely positioned her to be an active participant in seeking out a path of reconciliation in the Israel/Palestine conundrum. Her particular sensitivities paved…

For most American Jews, the occupied Palestinian territories exist as an abstraction. Their towns are names that are heard on the news, often in a negative context.

Director David Osit shifts that narrative in his new documentary “Mayor.” Osit follows the daily schedule of Musa Hadid, who presides over Ramallah with intention and devotion that earns him hearty welcomes from citizens. He is a constant presence on the streets of his metropolis.

In opening shots, Osit’s camera pans the streets of Ramallah, accompanied by a swelling musical score and urban imagery equivalent to a Woody Allen ode to Manhattan. Humor…

During the month of Elul, in preparation for Rosh Hashanah, it is tradition to take stock of where we stand as individuals and communities in the moral universe.

It is with pride that Reform congregations around the country have engaged in social justice actions. This includes efforts on prison reform, food insecurity, immigration, and LGBTQ rights. Groups have taken part in demonstrations on the ground, pre-COVID. During the pandemic, webinars and Zoom sessions have sprung up to inform and educate in greater depth.

Now that people have more time to read and learn, it is the perfect opportunity to examine…

When Annette Bening and Bill Nighy are featured in a film examining the dissolution of a marriage, expectations are high. In “Hope Gap,” there are truths presented, questions to be parsed, and beautiful seascapes featuring white cliffs. Yet, something remains off.

The opening interior scenes feel like a filmed play. Conversation and actions have the quality of being typically British (Bening adopts an English accent), but before long, this viewer got the feeling that I’d been dropped into “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

It’s clear early on that the characters of Grace and Edward are operating on different wave lengths…

Just in time for the exacerbated stress and anxiety brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, a new documentary, The Mindfulness Movement (originally slated for theater release) is available to stream online or buy.

The 100-minute film, co-produced by Deepak Chopra and the musician Jewel, gives an introduction to using the breath as an anchor to redirect thought patterns by “focusing on the present moment in a non-judgmental way.”

Director Rob Beemer anchors his look with four personal narratives, which are combined with interviews from pioneers in the field. Beemer has emphasized his goal as bringing “secular mindfulness” to a larger…

Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge is author Sheila Weller’s newest addition to her body of work, which is often situated at the crossroads between women’s issues and cultural observation. In previous books, Weller examined several women through the prism of music and media. With her biography of Fisher, her subject is so outsized, it is the equivalent of a group portrait: The many facets of Carrie.

Who was she? The child of a Hollywood couple; inhabitor of the career-defining role of Princess Leia in “Star Wars”; actress and writer; friend to innumerable celebrities; daughter, mother, wife (married to…

I decided to travel to Washington, D.C. for the J Street Conference on the day that Donald Trump coined the moniker, “Disloyal Jews.” I was looking for answers and insights. I found plenty.

J Street has been on my radar since its inception. I interviewed founder Jeremy Ben-Ami in 2008, about Jews and the Obama candidacy. The organization has grown in size and influence since that time, and has offered an option for American Jews who do not identify with the status quo being put forth by many legacy Jewish organizations, nor the politics of AIPAC.

With two days of…