The Arts

Author Dissects Popular Myths About the Bible

Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin’s latest book in his trailblazing series entitled Mysteries of Judaism IV;  Over 100 Mistaken Ideas about God and the Bible offers the reader a glimpse into this seasoned scholar’s views on many of Judaism’s most sacred beliefs concerning subjects as diverse as the importance of the creation narrative in the early chapters of Genesis, as well as many of the thorny problems emerging out of the creation narrative.  [Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel]

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

Movie Review: ‘Julia Scotti: Funny That Way’

I’ve heard it said that great comics use humor to mask a world of pain. Bouts of depression are common as is substance abuse. Jokes make a good cover. Robin Williams said, “I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that.” (Eric George Tauber)

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Eric George Tauber, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

Music Rises Like A Phoenix

Telling the story of someone’s life without turning it into a thick biography is the art of the raconteur. The art is to seize upon a single, defining moment and work from there. Maestro Hershey Felder takes us to the deathbed of the famed composer Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff in Nicholas, Anna & Sergei: A new musical film by Hershey Felder. [Eric George Tauber]

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

Making San Diego a Yiddish Destination

During the pandemic, YAAANA, the Yiddish Arts and Academics Association of North America, a tiny non-profit organization I founded four years ago, saw significant growth, and is about to move into a new physical space in La Jolla. In June 2021, we plan to open a mini-Yiddishland California in the Village of La Jolla. Among the activities planned for that space are Yiddish music concerts, theater performances, activities for children, Yiddish classes, and festive Yiddish-style dinners. And, just like our previous pop-up and Zoom events, all YAAANA activities will be accessible to all regardless of Yiddish-speaking abilities. Additionally, childcare will be available to visiting parents. [Jana Mazurkiewicz Meisarosh]

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Donald H. Harrison, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

Children’s Literature: The Candy Man Mystery

Rabbi Kerry Olitzky, author of The Candy Man Mystery, is primarily known as a Jewish educator having served as a dean at the Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion and as a vice president of the Wexner Heritage Foundation.  Perhaps, however, he was remembering his 15 years at Congregation Beth Israel in West Hartford, Connecticut, when he wrote The Candy Man Mystery, a book likely to intrigue elementary school-aged children about synagogue Judaism. [Donald H. Harrison]

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

What Kamala Harris’ Book Teaches Children

Last month there was a brief kerfuffle when a copy of Vice President Kamala Harris’ book for children, Superheroes Are Everywhere, was spotted among materials being handed out to migrant children at the Long Beach Convention Center.  There was only one copy that someone had donated, but the New York Post reported that the book was being given to all the children.  Subsequently, that newspaper retracted the story, but not before other right-wing media jumped on it including Fox News. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, USA

Scene-stealing actor Charles Grodin, star of ‘Beethoven’ and ‘Midnight Run,’ dead at 86

Published by New York Daily News Actor Charles Grodin, whose dry wit and everyman persona led to long-running Hollywood success in films like “The Heartbreak Kid” and the unlikely family movie hit “Beethoven,” died peacefully Tuesday at his Connecticut home. The 86-year-old Grodin died at his Wilton, Connecticut, residence of bone marrow cancer, his family

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Theatre, Film & Broadcast

‘Proof of Life,’ though a memoir, reads like a suspense novel

I jumped into this book without reading the introduction and believed right through the end that I was reading a well-crafted, highly believable suspense novel.   In fact, Daniel Levin had written a memoir about his efforts to find out what had happened to a young man who had disappeared in Syria.  He didn’t know the young man, but as a favor to a friend, he had promised to make inquiries. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Middle East

Children’s Literature: ‘The Rabbi and the Painter’

‘The Rabbi and the Painter,’ a children’s book imagines a fictional friendship between the Mannerist painter Tintoretto and Rabbi Leon of Modena, whose most famous work, Historia de gli riti Hebraici, describing for non-Jews the rites and customs of the Jewish people, was written more than 40 years after Tintoretto’s death.

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

A Jewish Odyssey from Ethiopia to Israel and Back

“From Africa to Zion” is a remarkable memoir that takes us from the author’s childhood in a rural Ethiopian village without electricity or running water through his perilous journey to a crowded, multi-ethnic refugee camp in the Sudan, where disease and crime were rampant, and onto his arrival to the modern world of Israel, in which his family were initially mystified by such conveniences as toilets and refrigerators. [Donald H. Harrison]

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