About Philip Smith
Photo by Guido Apicella
Philip Smith is the former managing editor of GQ magazine and an artist whose works are in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum, the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, New York Public Library, Bass Art Museum, Miami Art Museum, and the Chase Art Collection, among others. He divides his time between Miami and New York. In his funny, touching, and ultimately redemptive memoir, WALKING THROUGH WALLS (Atria Books, September 2008), Smith tells the story of trying to grow up as an average, down-to-earth kid in a household where the paranormal was the norm.
Muslims Vs. Jews: I Don’t Have the Answer, Do You?
I’m standing on the subway platform at Broadway/Lafayette with my friend Abe, a Lebanese guy who has a HUGE schnozolla, which makes me look positively Arayan by comparison. This Hasidic guy with the hat, the beard, the robes, the whole … Read More
When Mystery Transcends Mythology
The opening scene of The Golem, a silent German film, features a rabbi, wearing a conical wizard’s hat, looking through a telescope. He sees a dangerous configuration of the stars and predicts bad times for the Jewish people. Based on … Read More
Is There a Common Jewish Denominator?
Do you experience a different internal emotional tone or feeling when you are talking to a stranger or a colleague or someone in a store who is Jewish? What is that? Why is that? Is it a shared cultural or … Read More
Rabbis, Heal Thyselves
I needed to say Kaddish. My father was dead. I wanted to honor him with prayers for his soul, with prayers to God, with prayers to fill my empty heart. This was my time as a Jew to become a … Read More
Jews Have Disappeared into a Malady of Silence and Surnames
One day I just happened to drop by Auschwitz for the afternoon. Just like in the movies…the claustrophobic gas chamber, the metal sliding trays used to shove bodies into the ovens as well as a kind of stench that … Read More