The Arts

Good News from Israel (September 5, 2021)

In the September 5, 2011 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:
–Israeli oral treatment can protect against all Covid variants.
–An Israeli low-cost health company is coming to the USA.
–An Israeli hi-tech company only employs autistic individuals.
–Free hi-tech industry training for new English-speaking Israeli immigrants.
–With Israeli technology you can star in a movie trailer.
–Israeli swimmers won six gold medals at the Tokyo Paralympics.
–A tree grown from a 2,000-year-old seed produced a bumper crop of dates. [Michael Ordman]

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Business & Finance, International, Jewish Religion, Michael Ordman, Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education, Sports & Competitions, The World We Share, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and Food, USA

Integrating Leisure and Pleasure Into Architectural Projects

Erez Raz, who studied Landscape Architecture at the Technion, has assembled some of the projects he has worked on in recent years, presenting them in an exhibition displaying his varied talents and original approach to combining interior and exterior spaces in public life. The projects presented depict his approach to different stages of urban life, ranging from childhood play through adolescence and sport to adult activities such as shopping and driving. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Lifestyles, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

‘These are the Developments of the Human’ Offers Novel Concept, Poetic Commentaries

These are the Developments of the Human by Ethan Daniel Davidson; self-published 2021; ISBN 1978057-883010; 459 pages; price not listed. By Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel CHULA VISTA, California — Ethan Daniel Davidson’s These are the Developments of the Human is a collection of poetic commentaries on thoughts drawn from the Pentateuch. His background is

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi

Young Adult Novel Deals With Miscegenation, Dysgraphia, Antisemitism

This is a story for Young Adults set in the turbulent 1960s, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck down anti-miscegenation laws in 16 states via its decision in Loving v. Virginia.   Leah, a recent high school graduate, has fallen in love with Raj, whose family immigrated from India.  Raj, a business major at New York University, faces the same problem that the Jewish Leah does; his parents want him to marry within his own religion, which is Hindu. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison

Books That I Declined to Review

When I read a new book I want to turn my hours of page turning into a review. I have done this hundreds of times. Even compulsion has its limits. I list unpublished reviews in my 18,000 word resume under “Unsubmitted.” They were not rejected by an editor, they were never sent to one. Until yesterday it contained three books published between 2007-2014, and now has increased by 33 percent to four titles, totaling 1323 pages. I’m a non-fiction reviewer wary of speculation, creative non-fiction, and historical fiction. [Oliver B. Pollak, Ph.D]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Oliver Pollak

A Nuanced Children’s Novel of the Post World-War II Era

This book, intended for students in late elementary and early middle schools, tells the story of two Ukrainian teenage sisters who are taken prisoners by soldiers of the Soviet Union.  The soldiers and the sinister Soviet NKVD believe that however anti-Nazi the sisters might have been during the just-ended World War II, they also were opposed to the expansionist designs of the Soviet Union.  From the standpoint of the commissars, although the girls were just teenagers, they were enemies of the state. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison

Memoir of a Happy, Chaotic Life of a Pet Owner

This memoir more appropriately might have been titled “The Life of Riley,” except for the fact that title was immortalized in the 1940s and 1950s by radio and television actor William Bendix, who portrayed aircraft worker Chester A. Riley on both media.  “Riley” in the instance of this book, is a black Flat-Coated Retriever, who remained very much a puppy even well into adulthood.  The Beckerman family–which included the author’s husband Joel, son Josh, and daughter Emily — also owned various goldfish, many of whom they collectively named “Larry” (even those who occupied the fish bowl at the same time);  a chinchilla; and a bearded dragon (lizard), but Riley was the star and most beloved of all these pets. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Lifestyles, The World We Share, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Novel Relates Tangled Lives of Grandchildren of Holocaust Survivor, Neo-Nazi

“Games We Played” is about people, specifically the two main characters, who have psychological and sexual hangups and issues which complicate their lives, as well as those of the people around them. The chapters are written from the viewpoints of the two main characters, Rachel, now an actress in the New York area, and Stephen, a rather mixed-up young man and military drop-out, living in California. As children Rachel and Stephen lived near one another and played together, though their games sometimes involved some kind of sexual element. In addition, Stephen had been indoctrinated with neo-Nazi ideology by his grandfather, with whom Stephen and his mother lived, and this penetrated their childhood games. Rachel had what was seemingly a normal family, with a psychiatrist father and home-maker mother. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson

Michael Kesler, Holocaust Survivor and Author

Michael Kesler, Ph.D, died August 23, 2021 from advanced Parkinsons disease at the age of 97, surrounded by family at his home in East Brunswick, NJ. Born in Dubno, Poland (now Ukraine), Michael and his sister Luba fled their family home to escape the Nazis. They wandered through 3,000 miles to Uzbekistan. During four years, they suffered yet persevered in their quest to survive. [Kesler Family]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

‘Rosie the Riveter’ Theme of National Park

Shortly after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, the United States went into full war mobilization mode. While many men were drafted into the U.S. Armed Forces, others were needed to staff the shipyards, aircraft factories, and munition plants on the home front. It soon became apparent that there were more positions to be filled than available male workers and so the U.S. began to recruit women to work in these war industries at jobs for which they never before had been eligible. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

HAIR Raises the Spirit of Optimism

By Eric George Tauber SAN DIEGO — It takes a true optimist to rebel against society. First, you must really believe that you’re right and the world around you is wrong. Then you convince yourself and others that change is possible, that marches, chants, signs and sit-ins will actually make a difference. The alignment of

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Eric George Tauber, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Talented Celebrity and Statesman Made Paso Robles His Second Home

The Paso Robles Historical Society currently is housed in a building that had been donated for a library many years before by the philanthropist and industrialist Andrew Carnegie – one of 3,000 libraries he donated throughout the world.  Outside the building there is a statue, but it is not of Carnegie nor of Drury James, the man who recognized that the city’s hot springs and mud baths could be made into a tourist attraction and who built the grand Hotel de El Paso de Robles. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, USA