The Arts

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

Good News from Israel (May 16, 2021)

NETANYA, Israel — In the May 16, 2021 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:
–US doctors use an Israeli device to remove blood clots from stroke patients.
–Israel has sent tons of coronavirus aid to India.
–4 top multinationals are expanding Israeli hi-tech operations.
–Israeli innovators are turning CO2 emissions into an energy source.
–Israel’s economy continues to improve.
–An Israeli has won France’s top literary prize.
–The festival of Shavuot is uniting Israelis, just as it did 3,333 years ago
[Michael Ordman]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Business & Finance, Jewish Religion, Michael Ordman, Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education, Sports & Competitions, USA

George W. Bush’s Warm Embrace for Immigrants to U.S.

If this book’s title, Out of the Many, One  sounds familiar, it is the English translation of the Latin expression  E pluribus unum, the unofficial motto of the United States, which can be found on the back of the $1 bill above the wings of the eagle.  Former President George W. Bush decided to include 43 portraits within this book, a number that was not happenstance.  He was the 43rd President of the United States. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, USA

Lipinsky Family S.D. Jewish Arts Festival Schedule Announced

The 28th Annual Lipinsky Family San Diego Jewish Arts Festival, Jfest 2021, promises to be sparkling with more stars from all corners of the globe than ever before, thanks to the virtual platform for all but one of the 15 offerings. [Eileen Wingard]

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Eileen Wingard, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

LaKeith Stanfield apologizes for moderating anti-Semitic Clubhouse chat

Published by New York Daily News LaKeith Stanfield apologized Friday for participating in an anti-Semitic social media conversation. Stanfield, 29, did not say anything anti-Semitic himself, but was a moderator of a Clubhouse room in which other people spewed Jewish hatred Wednesday night, The Daily Beast reported. “At some point during the dialogue the discussion

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Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

Tovah Feldshuh’s True-Life Role as a Daughter

It’s hard to believe that Lilyville is a first book given its accessibility and universal appeal. This memoir of four-time Tony, two-time Emmy nominee, Tovah Feldshuh delights and delivers! Broadway performer, and television star, Feldshuh has produced an honest, loving tribute to her tour de force mother, Lily Feldshuh. [Eva Trieger]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Eva Trieger, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

San Diego Native Named Director of L.A.’s Skirball Museum

Nearly four decades have rushed by since the day that Sheri L. Bernstein served as a high school docent at the San Diego Museum of Art, during which she learned all she could about one of the paintings on exhibit and recited to visitors what she knew. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Business & Finance, Donald H. Harrison, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Travel and Food, USA

Jewish Folk Remedies from the Pale of Settlement

Wait, it’s not the chicken soup, it’s the herbs that count! Eastern European Jewry, particularly those living in the area known as “The Pale of Settlement,” on the western side of the Dnieper River, in present-day Ukraine, whose history there began in the Middle Ages, have a “long and distinguished canon dedicated to the healing process,” a research area unfortunately ignored, by-and-large, by sociological scholars. Cohen and Siegel, in their joint venture Ashkenazi Herbalism, describe the history and role of plants and herbs employed by Ashkenazi folk-healers, piecing together sparse, fragmented sources, and weaving them into an engaging story. [Fred Reiss, Ed.D]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Fred Reiss, EdD, International, Jewish History, Science, Medicine, & Education

Neighbor Competed for an International Piano Prize

Some fifty years ago the International Piano Master Competition honoring pianist Arthur Rubinstein was established in Israel. Every three years (four years in 2021 due to the Coronavirus pandemic), young pianists from all over the world compete in front of audiences in Israel  for the prizes awarded by an international jury in the framework of the competition. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sports & Competitions