T he Summer issue of CONTACT features fascinating forays into the languages and landscapes that have deepened contemporary Jewish experience. For our lead article, A. J. Goldmann investigates the surprising re-emergence of Yiddish in contemporary cinema. Far from its monolithic perception as a language of ghosts, Yiddish has reemerged in films in a spectacular gamut of styles, themes, periods, and approaches.

The issue then pays tribute to Dr. Alan Mintz, whose untimely passing this Spring stunned the world of Jewish scholarship and academics. Rabbi David Gedzelman offers personal reflections and reminiscences of Dr. Mintz’s rigorous approach to Hebrew literature and language, and we reprint Dr. Mintz’s thoughts on Hebrew and Jewish Peoplehood first published in CONTACT nine years ago.

CONTACT then visits two communities maintaining tradition while embracing change. David Ian Klein reports from the small, cohesive community in Ahmedabad, India, where Jews are building on two millennia of Jewish and local communal traditions. Rabbi Michael Cohen gives an insider view of The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, where people from around the world gather at a kibbutz to work for the imperatives of peace, mutual understanding and environmental sustainability. In our Profiles Section, we visit three Jews making waves in music, secularism and Orthodoxy. Ari L. Goldman then revisits the first and last Chief Rabbi of New York City, from a time when kosher butchers had collective clout that might be unthinkable today. Finally, we present the colorful and kinetic paintings of Joel Silverstein, which reflect a community brimming with culture, history, tradition, and humor.