The Arts

Live Theater is Ready to Return From Hibernation

By Eva Trieger SOLANA BEACH, California — Thank G-d for resilience, fortitude, and artistic directors like David Ellenstein. After our year-plus of hibernation, North Coast Repertory Theatre (NCRT) has put together a season of shows that is sure to delight everyone, young, less young, vaccinated, and bipartisan. Season 40 is filled with seven wonderful offerings. […]

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Eva Trieger, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

A Survivor’s Trek Through Europe and the U.S.

In this memoir, nonagenarian Michael G. Kesler tells how as a teenager, he escaped both forced service in the Soviet Army and the Nazi invasion of his Polish home town by hopping trains with his older sister Luba eastward to the Soviet Asian republics where they both found productive work. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Travel and Food

Jewish Family’s Anguish after Converting as Catholics during Nazi Era

Erika Hecht’s mother had herself and Erika converted from Judaism to Catholicism to protect them from discovery by the Nazis or their Hungarian allies, the Arrow Cross. Erika was enrolled in Catholic school, where she learned her catechism, but she remained aware of her Jewish parentage — especially since she remained close to her father and paternal grandmother. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History

Superman: The Mighty Analog

The answer to the question, “Is Superman circumcised?” in literature probably would depend on what the custom might have been on Krypton concerning the ceremony we Jews know as brit milah.  Such an operation would have been impossible on Earth.  If a bullet couldn’t penetrate Superman’s skin; how futile would be the use of a mohel’s lknife? [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County

Controversial “Forever Marilyn” Statue Set To Return To Palm Springs

Published by uInterview.com Aftab Dada, managing director of the Palm Springs Hilton and head of PS Resorts, wants to bring back a 26-foot statue of Marilyn Monroes. The stainless steel and aluminum statue was removed from Palm Springs in 2014. Dada believes it will be a become a huge tourist attraction once the statue is back

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Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

Good News from Israel (May 30, 2021)

Highlights of Good News from Israel for the May 30, 2011 edition include:
–Israeli wound treatment uses patients’ own blood to save their lives.
–Israeli-invented pill camera to be given to 11,000 UK patients.
–Media reports of Israel’s civil war are fake news.
–Israeli technology is out of this world.
–20 Israeli companies have partnered to make Israel’s roads safer.
–Almost every week there’s a new Israeli billion-dollar company.
–Israelis smash swimming and singing records at Euro events.
–Birthright has resumed free Israel tours for American Jews.
[Michael Ordman]

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Business & Finance, International, Jewish History, Michael Ordman, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Science, Medicine, & Education, Sports & Competitions, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and Food, USA

Biography of David Sealtiel Tells Struggles of Pre-State Israel

This small book, subtitled (in German) “I want to be a compatriot of the Jewish people,” describes the life of the man who rebelled against the bourgeois and orthodox way of life of his family in early twentieth-century Hamburg, and embarked on a life of almost unceasing adventures and escapades in Europe and the Middle East. Although the book is short, the content is amazingly dense and Sealtiel’s life was so eventful that this review will inevitably be long. What an astonishing life this man had! [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Middle East

Bob Dylan turns 80 as fans celebrate with events throughout the world

Published by New York Daily News The times they are a-changin’, but the music of Bob Dylan remains a constant. The pioneering folk music icon turned 80 on Monday, and fans are commemorating the milestone with a handful of music and poetry events across the country. At the center of the festivities is Duluth, Minnesota,

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Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

‘Choosing Judaism’ Provides Cheerful and Painful Accounts

Why do you want to become Jewish? How is Judaism, with its many rules and rituals, a more appropriate religion, than your former religion or lifestyle? How do you identify with the Jewish people in relation to Israel, world Jewry, the local Jewish community, and your local synagogue? These are just some types of questions that people are asked by a Bet Din, a rabbinical court, before their official conversion into Judaism. [Heather Z. Rothstain]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Jewish Religion, Lifestyles