Many Jewish languages are endangered, including several from Iran. While most Iranian Jews today speak Persian/Farsi, a small cohort of elderly Jews still speak Judeo-Hamadani, Judeo-Isfahani, Judeo-Kashani, Judeo-Shirzai, Judeo-Yazdi, Jewish Neo-Aramaic. Some of these languages have little or no documentation, and are in danger of disappearing.

The Jewish Language Project is addressing this issue in collaboration with the Endangered Language Alliance, Wikitongues, the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, and the Y&S Nazarian Iranian Young Leadership Initiative of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.

For more information about the project, visit jewishlanguages.org/.

Leonard Bernstein’s three children defended actor/director Bradley Cooper after he drew fresh criticism for wearing a large prosthetic nose in his portrayal of the American composer and conductor, who was Jewish, in the coming movie “Maestro.” When the makeup was first revealed last year, some questioned the decision by Cooper, who is not Jewish, to play Bernstein, who died in 1990. The debut of a teaser trailer prompted further discussion on social media about both the prosthesis, which critics said played into an antisemitic trope, and about whether an actor who is Jewish would have been a better choice to play Bernstein, the “West Side Story” composer and music director of the New York Philharmonic.

In a series of posts, the Bernstein children said that Cooper had consulted with them, pointing out that their father had a big nose and that the makeup amplified the resemblance.

“Maestro” premieres in September at the Venice Film Festival and in October at the New York Film Festival. A theatrical release in the United States will follow in November before a December debut on Netflix.

Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, Britain’s chief rabbi, was knighted by King Charles on July 11 at Windsor Castle.

Rabbi Mirvis is a close friend of the monarch, who invited the rabbi and his wife to stay at his home during the coronation in May so they could be within walking distance to the event on Shabbat.

Official Windsor Castle photo

Eighty-five years ago, Munich’s main synagogue was demolished on direct orders from Adolf Hitler — a harbinger of the destruction to come. But early in July, The New York Times said, during a project to refurbish old underwater infrastructure, a construction crew found pieces of the synagogue in a river five miles from where it once stood in Munich.

The items construction workers found, including columns and a large piece of the synagogue’s Torah shrine, were 15 to 25 feet below the surface of the Isar River.

Hitler had ordered it destroyed in June 1938 after visiting the neighborhood days before. Officially, it was removed to make room for a parking lot. The company in charge of the demolition stored the rubble in its yard until using it to fortify the river infrastructure in the mid-1950s.

Now that officials know what was hidden in the underwater rubble, an estimated 150 tons of it will be transferred to a city yard to be carefully scrutinized for more pieces of the synagogue — a job that could take years, The Times said.                        Photo Sueddeutsche Zeitung

Shani Chamovitz, 22, flew in on a 10-hour flight from Israel, landing at Newark Airport at 3:30 a.m. on July 9 for the annual North American Jewish Choral Festival, held this year in Tarrytown, NY. She didn’t get much sleep but said the hassle was worth it. “It’s been life changing fort me,” said Chamovitz, who attended for the first time last year. “It was an amazing experience, singing with such a range of people of all ages, beliefs, outlooks on life and outlooks on Judaism.”

For five packed days, from July 9-13, singers attended a slew of workshops on music and Judaism, rallied together for informal community sings, attended concerts, and formed choirs on site organized by sight-reading skill. The festival is unique because of the number of Jewish singers all in one place — about 400 — and also because it brings together Jewish people of all ages, abilities, beliefs and politics for a single purpose — to make music.

Matthew Lazar founded the festival in 1990, envisioned as a venue for gathering hundreds of Jewish choral singers. At the final concert, audience members swayed, wept, hummed along, and responded to the program, sung almost entirely in Hebrew, with standing ovations.

And there’s another plus, said Saydie Grossman, 18, “There’s a shared humor among the group. You don’t have to explain what you mean when you say, ‘this meshugenah.’ We get it.”

— Adapted from an article by                                                                                                                        Kathryn Post in Religion News Service