Tuvia Tenenbom: The JTNY's artistic director, journalist, international bestselling author
Tuvia Tenenbom, the author of four Spiegel bestsellers and five Israeli bestsellers, is a journalist, dramatist, and the founder of the Jewish Theater of New York. Tuvia studied for his doctorate in English literature at St. John's University, earned his MFA in playwriting at CUNY-Brooklyn, BS in mathematics and computer science at Touro, and finished his rabbinical studies in Jerusalem. He also studied Christianity and Islam in Israel and New York as well as journalism, acting, theater, and finance (at NYU).
Tuvia was named "founder of a new form of Jewish theater" by the French Le Monde, "founder of The Theater of Catastrophe" by the German Die Zeit, "a New Jew" by the Israeli Maariv, "free artist who fights for truth and tolerance" by the Belgian Le Vif L'Express, and "one of the most iconoclastic and innovative of contemporary dramatists" by the Italian Corriere Della Sera. Critic D. J .R. Bruckner. reviewing for the New York Times, described Tuvia's theatrical work "irresistibly fascinating," and Alisa Solomon, writing for the Village Voice, called it "theater of integrity, inquiry, and chutzpah."
In 2003 Germany's prestigious newspaper Die Zeit voted Tuvia Tenenbom and Prof. Harold Bloom “the best minds” of America.
As a journalist, Tuvia writes essays and op-ed articles for various publications. His articles and essays have been published in leading Western media including Die Zeit, Die Welt, Der Spiegel, Die Tageszeitung (taz), and Focus of Germany, Corriere della Sera of Italy, Yedioth Ahronoth, Makor Rishon, and The Jerusalem Post of Israel, and the American Fox News and Forward.
Tuvia's political column for Zeit Online (in German) can be found here: "Allein unter Menschen." Tuvia's sports column, for same publication (and also in German), is here: "Fett wie ein Turnschuh." His column in Forward, in English, can be found HERE.
Tuvia is the author of Allein unter Deutschen (I Sleep in Hitler's Room in English), Allein unter Juden / תפוס ת’יהודי (Catch the Jew!), Allein unter Amerikanern / שקרים שכולם מספרים (The Lies They Tell), Fett wie ein Turnschuh, Allein unter Flüchtlingen (Hello, Refugees!), Allein unter Briten (The Taming of the Jew), and Gott spricht Jiddisch(Careful, Beauties Ahead!)
Select Criticism:
"One of the most iconoclastic and innovative of contemporary dramatists." Corriere Della Sera (Italy)
"Tenenbom is the funniest, most entertaining writer in Israel." – Channel 13 TV (Israel)
"Tenenbom's insights are sharp and clear . . . Tenenbom loves, likes, mocks, confronts, debates, embraces, scorns and handles contradictions well . . . Read what Tenenbom has to tell us, without bias. We don't have the privilege not to know." Haaretz (Israel)
"Tuvia Tenenbom is Michael Moore and Borat in one." Die Welt (Germany)
"Hugely entertaining, terribly funny, sarcastic, engaging, powerful, accusatory, judgmental, good!" National Review
"Catch the Jew! offers one of the more interesting portraits of Palestinian politics to have appeared in English ... illuminating and alarming." The Wall Street Journal
"Irresistibly fascinating, emotionally explosive ... seductive and engaging... Bluntly satirical..." The New York Times
"The Lies They Tell ranks Tenenbom among the best social anthropologists, like Comte Alexis de Tocqueville and Mark Twain." American Thinker
"If J.D. Salinger and John Steinbeck collaborated on antisemitism in the UK, they might have written The Taming of the Jew." Jewish Press
"Quizzical and tragic at the same time, the sort of comedy sketches that Samuel Beckett might have written if he were Jewish rather than Irish." Algemeiner
"Tenenbom is the Egon Erwin Kirsch of our time." Achgut (Germany)
"If Kafka had written non-fiction, he could not have bested Tenenbom’s latest book ... This is one of the finest pieces of reporting I have seen in quite some time." Asia Times
"A brilliant journalist, Tenenbom is straightforward, fearless, politically incorrect, courageous – and very funny." The Jerusalem Post
"Most unique theatrical experience I have had ... Tenenbom rides the razor’s edge ... and goes all the way off." Amsterdam News
"Founder of a new form of Jewish theatre ... A mystical provocateur; unstoppable director and iconoclastic playwright." Le Monde (France)
"We have a pattern of thought when thinking about the Middle East conflict: The Palestinians are victims, the Israelis are just revenge-thirsty, and the West is the one helpless voice of reason. You need to have curiosity in you and a fearlessness of thought to view the Middle East story differently, a curiosity and a fearlessness that Tuvia Tenenbom has . . . Here is a man, a writer, who does not follow patterns of thought dictated by others, nor does he abide by a code of language that the others have imposed. And yet, he keeps his sense of humor throughout the pages." Spiegel Online (Germany)
"Brilliant." Deutschlandradio (Germany)
"Sharpest of humor." Yedioth Ahronoth (Israel)
"Tenenbom’s laughter touches our soul in places where mere intellect could never reach... Creator of the Theater of Catastrophe." Die Zeit (Germany)
"A force of nature ... provocative, satirical, intellectual." La Repubblica (Italy)
"Tenenbom goes where it hurts . . . he wants to know what the reality is, not what we would like the reality to be." Mitteldeutsche Zeitung (Germany)
"He sees and he hears. Exactly as it is." Frankfurter Rundschau (Germany)
"Tenenbom’s hodgepodge of politics, zealotry and literary genres is fresh and audacious... Theater of integrity, inquiry, and chutzpah." The Village Voice
"A New Jew." Ma'ariv (Israel)
"The most important play of the year." StadtRevue (Germany)
"Every word that comes out of Tenenbom’s pen can set the world on fire." Forward
"Brilliant ... A Work of Art." The Jewish Week
"Dazzling ... A free artist who fights for truth and tolerance." Le Vif L’Express (Belgium)
"Full of investigative chutzpah and laughter ... mixing British wit and Talmudic subtleties." Die Weltwoche (Switzerland)
"Tuvia, the ultimate leftist and humanist who loves all people, is everything the left pretends to be but is not . . . Tuvia is curious as a cat, sly as a fox, friendly as a Labrador, and is also a man with seismographic sensitivities." Mida (Israel)
"He resembles the late German stage and film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. But where Fassbinder blackly brooded, Tenenbom crackles and shoots off sparks… Very imaginative … surreal… He’s not conventional." Lifestyle
"There’s nothing else like it." Jewish News
"Genius ... World’s best Jewish theater." European Journal
"Unique; sensational; outrageous, hilarious ... Sharp eye for cultural details." BackStage
"Tenenbom dares." La Razon (Spain)
"Courageous ... without shame." News1 (Israel)
"Amazingly original." Jewish Currents
"An anarchist." Stern (Germany)
"Praised by audiences." CNN
Select Plays, Readings, Directing:
Works Produced by The JTNY:
The Taming of the Jew, Hello, Refugees!, The Lies They Tell, Catch the Jew!, I Sleep in Hitler's Room, Saida: a Tunisian Love Story, Press #93 for Kosher Jewish Girls in Krakow, Mountain Jews, Last Jew in Europe, Father of the Angels, One Hundred Gates, Love in Great Neck, Love Letters to Adolf Hitler, The Diary of Adolf Eichmann, The American Jew, The Suicide Bomber, Like Two Eagles, Kabbalah, The Beggar of Borough Park, The Last Virgin.
Publications by The JTNY:
I SLEEP IN HITLER'S ROOM: An American Jew Visits Germany.
European & Israeli Productions & Presentations:
Le Pére des Anges, Brussels, Belgium (2002); Adolf Eichmann – letzter Akt, Hamburg, Germany (2001); Die Letzte Jungfrau, Hamburg and Köln, Germany (2003); The Last Virgin, Frankfurt, Germany (2006); Ostatni Zyd w Europie, Warsaw, Poland (2008); Europa utolso Zsidoja, Budapest, Hungary (2010); Die Letzte Jungfrau, Vienna, Austria (2011); The Last Virgin, Luxembourg, Luxembourg (2012); Allein unter Deutschen, Germany & Austria (2013-2014); I Sleep in Hitler's Room, Israel (2014); Allein unter Juden/Tfos ta'Yehudi, Israel, Austria, Germany (2014-2016); Allein unter Amerikanern/Shkarim Shekulam Mesaprim, Israel, Germany, Austria (2016-2017); Allein unter Flüchtlingen, Germany, Israel (2017); Allein unter Briten, Eich L'Alef Yehudi Germany, Israel, Czech Republic (2020-2021); Haredi V'Tov Lo, Israel (2023); Gott spricht Jiddisch, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Vienna (2023-2024); God Speaks Yiddish, USA (2024); Careful, Beauties Ahead!, USA (2024)
N.Y. Fringe Productions and Broadway/off Broadway Staged Readings:
My Name is Rabbi Meir Kahane, Theater for a New City; Men of the Lord at Circle in the Square; Money & Love at The Jewish Repertory Theater; The Blue Rope at T. Schreiber Studio.
Public Readings:
The Fat Spinster and Her Bunny Sister; Amongst the Tailed; Yesterday is Almost Gone; Every Man Needs a Woman; The Serpent's Kiss; Pope Haim Haimovits I; Two Very Intimate Friends; Squared Circles; The Old Man and His Young Assistant, The Russians Are Coming and others.
Directing/Stage:
The Taming of the Jew, Hello, Refugees!, The Lies They Tell, Catch the Jew!, I Sleep in Hitler's Room, Saida: a Tunisian Love Story, Press #93 for Kosher Jewish Girls in Krakow, Mountain Jews, Last Jew in Europe, Kabbalah, Love in Great Neck, Le Pere des Anges, The Suicide Bomber, Love Letters to Adolf Hitler, Father of the Angels, The American Jew, The Diary of Adolf Eichmann, The Last Virgin, Die Letzte Jungfrau, Luboml, Hebron, God Speaks Yiddish, and others.
Directing/Film:
Allein unter Flüchtlingen, Germany, 2018. "Must See" - ARD
God Speaks Yiddish - Gott spricht Jiddisch, Germany, 2024. "Best Documentary, 2024" - Berlin Indie Film Festival
Books:
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