According to Jewish tradition, the Torah contains 613 commandments. This tradition is first recorded in the 3rd century CE, when Rabbi Simlai mentioned it in a sermon that is recorded in Talmud Makkot 23b. Other classical sages who hold this view include Rabbi Simeon ben Azzai and Rabbi Eleazar ben Yose the Galilean. It is quoted in Midrash Exodus Rabbah 33:7, Numbers Rabbah 13:15–16; 18:21 and Talmud Yevamot 47b. The 613 commandments include "positive commandments", to perform an act, and "negative commandments", to abstain from an act. The negative commandments number 365, which coincides with the number of days in the solar year, and the positive commandments number 248, a number ascribed to the number of bones and main organs in the human body.
Fringe theatre is theatre that is produced outside of the main theatre institutions, and that is often small-scale and non-traditional in style or subject matter. The term comes from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In London, the fringe are small-scale theatres, many of them located above pubs, and the equivalent to New York's Off-Off-Broadway theatres and Europe's "free theatre" groups.
Yehoshua Sobol, sometimes written Joshua Sobol, is an Israeli playwright, writer, and theatre director.
Jewish culture is the culture of the Jewish people, from its formation in ancient times until the current age. Judaism itself is not a faith-based religion, but an orthoprax and ethnoreligion, pertaining to deed, practice, and identity. Jewish culture covers many aspects, including religion and worldviews, literature, media, and cinema, art and architecture, cuisine and traditional dress, attitudes to gender, marriage, family, social customs and lifestyles, music and dance. Some elements of Jewish culture come from within Judaism, others from the interaction of Jews with host populations, and others still from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community. Before the 18th century, religion dominated virtually all aspects of Jewish life, and infused culture. Since the advent of secularization, wholly secular Jewish culture emerged likewise.
Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, located in the Neve Granot neighborhood of Jerusalem, is an Israeli academic institution.
Theater J is a professional theater company located in Washington, DC, founded to present works that "celebrate the distinctive urban voice and social vision that are part of the Jewish cultural legacy".
Dance in Israel incorporates a wide variety of dance styles, from traditional Israeli folk dancing to ballet, modern dance, ballroom dancing and flamenco.
The Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre is a four-day performing arts festival held annually in the city of Acre, Israel during the Intermediate Days of the Sukkot holiday in early autumn.
Mátti Kovler is a Russian-born Israeli-American composer and creator of new music theatre. Called by Steve Smith of The New York Times “a potentially estimable operatic composer in the making,” his music has been compared to Leonard Bernstein's.
Tanya Segal is the first full-time female rabbi in Poland and the first female rabbi in the Czech Republic. Segal is also a professional theatrical director, actress, singer and guitar player.
Gabriella Lev is a theatre director, writer and performer. She co-founded the Theatre Company Jerusalem and currently serves as its artistic director. She has won many awards, including the Kipod Hazahav award for life achievement in fringe theatre, the My Jerusalem Award for contribution to cultural life in Jerusalem 2010, and the WIZO award.
The Or Zaruaa Synagogue, Nachlaot, Jerusalem was founded in 1926 by Rabbi Amram Aburbeh for Maghrebi Jews in Jerusalem. It is located at 3 Shmuel Refaeli Street in the Nachalat Ahim neighbourhood.
Noam Meiri is an Israeli theater artist, actor, director and acting teacher. Meiri is a co-founder of the Tel Aviv Haguf Theater School and Stage for Physical theatre, inspired by the method of Jacques Lecoq. Since 1999 he has served as a professor of Physical Theater at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany.
HaNephesh Theater is a Jewish fringe theater established in 1978 by Howard Rypp and Gabriel Emanuel in Canada. At the time of its founding, HaNefesh was the only professional Jewish theater in Canada, where it produced approximately 40 theatrical and television productions. In 1980 the theater produced its first play, Children of the Night. The play, which tells the story of Janusz Korczak, was featured in the first International Jewish Theater Festival in New York City.
Avshalom Pollak is an Israeli actor, director, choreographer and dance company artistic director.
Michael Sgan-Cohen was an Israeli artist, art historian, curator and critic. His oeuvre touches different realms of the Israeli experience and the Hebrew language, displaying a strong connection to the Jewish Scriptures. His works were nurtured by his extensive knowledge of Art history, philosophy, Biblical Texts, Jewish thought and Mysticism, which in turn illuminated all these pursuits. His engagement with Judaism and the Bible as a secular scholar and his vast knowledge of modern and contemporary art contributed to the development of a distinctive approach which combined Jewish and Israeli symbols and images to create a multilayered and contemporary artistic language.
Tmu-na Theater is a community theater and performance center, featuring acts that veer towards the fringe and avant garde. The theater is situated on Soncino Road 8 in the Montefiore neighborhood of Tel Aviv, Israel, and contains four event halls. The theater's artistic director is Nava Zuckerman.
Michal Govrin is an Israeli author, poet and theater director.
Rina Yerushalmi is an Israeli theater director and choreographer. Yerushalmi received an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2001 and the Israel Prize in Theatre in 2008, among other awards and recognition.
Esti Rosenberg is an American-Israeli Orthodox Rabbanit who is the founder and head of the Migdal Oz seminary. She is the daughter of Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein and Dr. Tovah Soloveitchik and the granddaughter of Joseph B. Soloveitchik.
