Regine Basha (Founder of Tuning Baghdad) and Nathalie Basha (The Travel Muse) with Reboot, are launching the Kitchen Radio podcast in April, bringing listeners to the table of communities of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. The podcast will delve into intergenerational stories of community life and ritual practices from guests who are part of a rising renaissance of creative food projects exploring their oft-overlooked Jewish history and heritage from this region. Read more about what brought Regine to this project and why it’s so meaningful to her here.
The shutdown of the pandemic in 2020 hit older adults hard. The isolation was devastating, especially for those locked down in communal living environments and the reverberations are still felt by many seniors. The upheaval of the pandemic has made it particularly difficult for senior living homes to find and maintain staff and provide meaningful and enriching programming to residents.
For the first time, as a pilot with Jewish Senior Life in Detroit, Reboot has created a Digital Catalog to provide select experiences, programs and opportunities for residential programmers to access, curate and distribute meaningful Jewish content to their residents. The impact has been so great that it has been recognized as a model by the Association of Jewish Homes and Aging Services of North America (AJAS) and received a 2023 Jewish Programming Award. Learn more from our partners in Detroit here.
The paintings of the sweet Allach porcelain figurines of deer, lambs, bunnies and puppies in Reboot Network member and artist Robert Russell’s latest exhibition are not what they appear. His paintings, exhibited at Anat Ebgi gallery in Los Angeles, are wall-sized depictions of dainty Allach porcelain figurines – that were produced by forced labor in Nazi concentration camps and factories from 1935-1945. Originally designed as anodyne, decorative gifts for Nazi officers, his reclamation illuminates the deeply sinister story behind their production, taking away their preciousness. Read more here.
For Valentine’s Day, we are highlighting the film Husband from UK Reboot Network member Josh Appignanesi about accompanying his wife with their two kids to New York City for her book tour of Feeling Jewish. The film opens up the conversation about the social constructs of gender and marriage with honesty and hilarity and a Jewish lens. Read more in a blog from Appignanesi here and see the trailer here.
Reboot Network member Jacob Kornbluth, an Emmy-winning director of TV, film, and theater, had never really thought much about Tu BiShvat and the ancient Jewish connection to trees. Growing up, dinner discussion in his family was about landlords, not about connection to the land. He didn’t think of the external world as changeable. It simply was.
But somehow during the pandemic, he, a completely non-handy, urban Jew wound up building an office in his backyard from found wood and discovering a new reverence for trees and the revival of nature. Read about his journey here.