The Arts

Overcoming Obstacles to Honor a Father

From the time she was a child, author Sarah Birnbach always went to her father Marvin for comfort.  Her strained relationship with her mother permitted no such interaction.  When her father died, in some ways she felt like an orphan, even though her mother was still living.  There was no recognition on her mother’s part that Sarah was grieving too.  What would she know about loss, her mother would say, she wasn’t married for 54 years. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion

How Books Were Somehow Protected in One of Hitler’s Death Camps

By Dorian de Wind The Moderate Voice AUSTIN, Texas — If you thought that book burnings were a barbaric relic of the Middle Ages, think again. In the 1930s, in Nazi Germany, Austria and, later, in occupied territories, the Nazis conducted massive burnings of books they felt contained anti-Nazi ideology – including books written by

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorian de Wind, Holocaust, International, Opinion

Submerged Jewish Themes in ‘The Face of the Waters’

At 87, Robert Silverberg has won every science fiction award there is on offer, not to mention a tremendously large fan base.  You might think he has done it all, but now comes a new paperback version of his 1991 book, The Face of the Waters, in which the Jewish writer offers us an odyssey on a faraway water planet with creatures as fantastical as any that Homer ever conceptualized. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison

‘Something in Preserve,’ a Musical about Seniors’ Lives, Wins Plaudits

Most of the production was comedic, poking fun at the challenges of seniority, with no holds barred, from prescription drugs to diapers. There were romances, one unrequited, facing the problems of a demented spouse; and one with a happy ending. [Eileen Wingard]

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Eileen Wingard, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Travel and Food

Every Song a Protest: Interview with Ryan Cassata

I discovered the music of Ryan Cassata via YouTube. Ryan is a singer-songwriter and activist. Ryan sings about his life as a transgender man, issues with substance abuse, suicide and hate crimes. He began socially transitioning (living as a young man) at the age of fourteen and his activism for the trans community got him on Larry King Live at fifteen. Now 28, Ryan is also a grad student at the Pacific School of Religion working on a Master’s in Divinity and Social Transformation. I spoke with Ryan recently via Zoom. [Eric George Tauber]

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Eric George Tauber, Lifestyles, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

After a century, Gernsheim’s music makes a comeback

Composer, conductor, pianist and teacher, Friedrich Gernsheim, (1839-1916), is little known today. Yet, during his lifetime, he was spoken of in the same breath as Brahms, Bruch and Reger. In fact, his works were published by the same publishers who published their compositions. [Eileen Wingard]

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Eileen Wingard, International, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

Israeli Athlete Survived the Holocaust and the Munich Olympics Massacre

ESPN and ESPN+ will premiere at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept 20, The Survivor, an hour-long documentary on the murder of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics. Reporter Jeremy Schaap interviews Shaul Ladany, a teammate of the slain athletes, who has been dubbed an “ultimate survivor.”  Along with his family, he had earlier in his life survived the Holocaust. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Holocaust, International, Israel, Jewish History, Sports & Competitions, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

The Poignant Dramas of Border Crossers

The current offering at La Jolla Playhouse attempts to provide unity and solidarity for those Latinos disenfranchised by politics and economics. Fandango for Butterflies (and Coyotes) celebrates the “joyous, inclusive spirit” that coexists along with the divisiveness and inequity facing immigrants. Through music and dance, audiences are let into the challenging and often harsh realities immigrants of so many Latin American countries have faced, while trying to gain access to America.  [Eva Trieger]

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Eva Trieger, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

‘My Mother’s Sabbath Days:’ An Eye-Opening Story by Yiddish Writer Chaim Grade

By Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin BOCA RATON, Florida — My Mother’s Sabbath Days is a beautiful, fascinating, and eye-opening story by the Yiddish writer Chaim Grade (1910-1982). His name is pronounced gra, as in open your mouth and say ah, and de at the end pronounced as in eh, the word said in surprise. Grade

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish Religion

Jewish Poets-Jewish Voices Committee Member Wins Prestigious Prize

By Eileen Wingard SAN DIEGO — We are thrilled to announce that Michael Mark, a member of our Jewish Poets-Jewish Voices Committee, just won the prestigious Rattle Chapbook Prize for his chapbook, Visiting Her in Queens Is More Enlightening than a Month in a Monastery in Tibet. The poems are all inspired by his mother,

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Eileen Wingard, San Diego County

Is Judaism the Truth?

By Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin BOCA RATON, Florida — Jeffry Bloom, a graduate of the University of Chicago who studied in several Orthodox yeshivas (rabbinical schools) in Israel after college, was bothered by what the scholar Leo Strauss wrote in his book Spinoza’s Critique of Religion. Strauss emigrated from Germany to the United States in

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish History, Jewish Religion