The Arts

Daniel Gerroll Stars in North Coast Rep’s ‘Dr. Glas’

North Coast Rep Theater is not going to go gentle into that good night.  On the contrary, they are rounding out this streaming season with the intense one-man psychological thriller, Dr. Glas. The novel, penned by Hjalmar Söderberg, is a staple in Scandinavia, but lesser-known in North America. It was first published in 1905, set in Stockholm at the turn of the century. The plot unearths a moral dilemma and one man’s obsession. [Eva Trieger]

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Eva Trieger, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Amy Winehouse remembered in new film marking 10 years since death

Published by Reuters By Marie-Louise Gumuchian LONDON (Reuters) – Amy Winehouse’s family and friends look back on her life in a new documentary marking 10 years since the singer’s death, with harrowing accounts of her rise to global fame and struggles with addiction. Narrated by her mother Janis Winehouse-Collins, “Reclaiming Amy” features home footage, family

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Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Joni Mitchell, Bette Midler among Kennedy Center honorees

Published by AFP Washington (AFP) – Folk legend Joni Mitchell and beloved actor Bette Midler are among this year’s class of Kennedy Center honorees, one of America’s most prestigious arts awards. Along with Motown icon Berry Gordy, opera singer Justino Diaz and Lorne Michaels, creator of the acclaimed comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live, they

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Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Scott Baio still considers Henry Winkler a pal, despite their Twitter squabble

Published by New York Daily News Chachi says the Fonz is still cool with him. Former “Happy Days” actors Scott Baio and Henry Winkler found themselves in a somewhat heated Twitter exchange Monday after Winkler took exception to a photo Baio posted, seeming to mock Democratic Texas lawmakers who tested positive for COVID after flying

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Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Book Review: ‘Rationalism versus Mysticism’

Many Jews would like to find an easy way to learn what Judaism teaches about various subjects. Rabbi Dr. Natan Slifkin, an Orthodox rabbi, gives them this information in his fact-filled book Rationalism vs. Mysticism: Schisms in Traditional Jewish Thought, with quotes from many sources and many learned footnotes, all easy to read.[Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

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

Short Story Focuses on IBM’s Business With the Nazis

Short story writer Clive Aaron Gill presents the discovery of the connection between IBM and the Holocaust in a pair of moral dilemmas, faced first by a grandfather and much later by his granddaughter Rebecca, whom we first meet as a school girl and later as a public relations executive for a charitable organization. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Edwin Black, USA

Juvenile Fiction: Elephant Helps a Boy Find God

El, the elephant, offers to help the boy find God.  So off they go, the boy on El’s back, and they see a flower and a meadow; feel the effects of the wind and the sun; and the coolness of river water.  The boy asks when they will find God, and El explains that the boy already had met God in the beauty of the flower; the peacefulness of the meadow; the strong winds; the warmth of the sun; and the life-giving, thirst-quenching water of the river. [Donald H. Harrison]

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

Novel Portrays Catskill’s Post-Borscht Belt Era

This is an American Jewish novel about two families coming to terms with the fact that the fictional resort that best friends Benny Goldman and Amos Weingold founded in the Catskill Mountains has long passed its prime. The Golden Hotel no longer is booked to capacity, nor even near capacity, and the once famous Borscht Belt resort has quite obvious wear and tear to show its decline. [Donald H. Harrison]

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

Beyond Functionality: Modern and Contemporary Ceramics at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

By Sam Ben-Meir, Ph.D NEW YORK — What are the aesthetic, sensuous, and expressive possibilities inherent in clay as a material substance in all its physicality? How is it possible that ceramics can restore, or rather reconfigure and remake our relationship to the natural world? These are among the fundamental questions posed by “Shapes from

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Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-Meir, USA

Antisemitism and the Courts Probed in New Book

In Courtroom Trials in Jewish History, attorney and Jewish-community activist Esther Zaretsky offers an eclectic collection of stories about Jews who, in a broad sense, have had their day in court, courts representing justice at its worst, verdicts driven by antisemitism and anti-Israeli hatred. The title is somewhat of a misnomer, as there are no depositions or testimonies; no exhibits or closing arguments. Rather, Zaretsky provides the backstory leading up to the trial, the verdict, emphasizing how the “courts fail to affirm society’s most precious values of justice, equality, morality, and the preservation of human rights,” and its aftermath—we get to hear the rest of the story. [Fred Reiss, Ed.D]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Fred Reiss, EdD, International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Middle East, USA

An American Jewish Memoir of Food and Travel

In her zany account of her travels out west from her home in Plantation, Florida, Shari Wallack never got to San Diego, so I didn’t get the chance to see how her impressions of my hometown might match up with my own experiences.  If the two jibed, then I’d probably put utmost faith into her accounts of other places.  As it was, I simply had to enjoy her impressions of diverse locales between New York and Utah. Also, I was astonished by her reliance on serendipity and good Jewish cooking to turn even prosaic locales into adventures. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Travel and Food, USA

Dual Tragedies of a Patient with a Brain Hemorrhage and Her Caregiver Husband

Attorney Daniel P. Shapiro deeply loved his wife Susan and their three children.  He and Susan had enjoyed special moments together; places, songs, meals that ignited memories; meaningful yet  unspoken understandings typical of the happily married.  And then disaster in the form of a brain hemorrhage happened.  Susan slurred her speech, lost her mobility, and seemed unable to relate with the rest of her family. [Donald H. Harrison]

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

The Importance of Plants in Religious Art

What is the message conveyed by the representation of plants in religious text? What do the images that these references bring to our minds tell us about a people and a society? These are questions posed by award-winning artist and author Gloria Abella Ballen, whose book Garden of Eden: Plants of the Hebrew Bible was the subject of a recent webinar sponsored by the American Sephardic Federation. [Ellen Hernandez]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts