Todd Salovey, Lorraine Thall and June Gottleib are the three local poets to be featured in Jewish Poets—Jewish Voices’ opening program of its 2020-21 season. The virtual event will be streamed on Zoom Tuesday evening, December 8 at 7 p.m. There is no cost for this Astor Judaica Library offering. [Eileen Wingad]
Jewish Poets, Voices to Feature Salovey, Thall, Gottleib Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Eileen Wingard
The November 29, 2020 edition of Good News from Israel includes such stories as the following.
• An Israeli-developed eye scanner can detect early signs of Alzheimer’s.
• Israel is the top country in the world for women entrepreneurs.
• Time Magazine’s Best Inventions of 2020 include 5 Israeli innovations.
• An Israeli supermarket chain is to grow fruit and vegetables at its stores.
• The 3-day Israel-Dubai business conference was a huge success.
• An Israeli judoka won Gold in the European championships.
• A 9-year-old boy found a 1st Temple period gold bead in Jerusalem. [Michael Ordman]
Good News from Israel (November 29, 2020) Read More »
Business & Finance, International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Lifestyles, Michael Ordman, Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education, Sports & Competitions, The World We Share, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA
Valley of Tears, the dramatic series currently being shown on Israeli TV about events in the Golan Heights at the outbreak of the Yom Kippur war, has had me and many others spellbound each week. Although several of my friends and acquaintances have told me that they are unable to watch it as it brings back too many painful memories, I find myself compelled to watch. I quite understand their attitude, and am almost surprised at my own ability to persist through every graphic scene. I admit that I find it difficult to sleep afterwards, but some obsessive preoccupation with the events of that traumatic time brings me back to the screen every week. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]
TV Series on Yom Kippur War drives home peace necessity Read More »
Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Jewish History, Middle East, Theatre, Film & Broadcast
I’ve never known a bad guy named Sam. I said that in the early 1960s, and many years later it is still true. Sam’s are warmhearted with a faint, off-beat nature. They are comfortable with their lives, competent in their work, devoted husbands that don’t cheat on their spouses; they usually work for large organizations and don’t complain.
My observation of these people inspired me to design and build a nine-foot tall stucco sculpture for Helen and Mike and named “The Essence of Sammy.” [Ira Spector]
The Saga of the Sammy Sculpture Read More »
Lifestyles, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts
CHICAGO — In the early 1930s, Ralph Newman was walking through the Near North Side when he noticed a bookstore going out of business. He had left Northwestern University after a semester to play minor league baseball in the Southwest — only to be injured and leave baseball. He was in his 20s when he
Following are programs of scholarly and popular Jewish interest that can be accessed via the Internet from Nov. 29 through Dec. 4, 2020. All times are Pacific Standard Time. [Laurie Baron, Ph.D]
Streaming Jewish Programs (Nov. 29-Dec. 4, 2020) Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Lawrence Baron, Lifestyles, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and Food, USAA Paris Love Story, Hershey Felder’s one-man play, streamed from Florence, Italy, takes its place beside his other memorable dramas with music based on the lives of famous composers. This time, the main character is the French Impressionist, Claude Debussy. In addition to the life of Debussy, Felder manages to weave two additional threads into the story, his personal Paris Odyssey, pursuing Debussy’s footsteps, and Felder’s love for the City of Lights. Much of the story takes place as the 19- year-old Felder strolls along the Champs Ellysees, and the Seine River, to beyond the Arc de Triomphe, in pursuit of the residence where Debussy once lived. [Eileen Wingard]
‘A Paris Love Story’ is an Art de Triumph Read More »
Eileen Wingard, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Theatre, Film & BroadcastTwo San Diego downtown theaters were illuminated last weekend, with live performances streamed from their audience-less venues. All the players, except the vocalists and wind players, were masked when performing, and all were seated at least six feet from one another. On Friday evening, in Copley Symphony Hall, the San Diego Symphony, under the direction of its Music Director, Raphael Payare, presented Together Apart: Strings, Winds, and Brass, featuring the orchestra in smaller groups; and Saturday evening, at the Lyceum Theatre, the San Diego Rep’s Lipinsky Jewish Arts Festival presented Jews, Jazz and Justice, curated by Yale Strom. Both programs are still available for viewing. [Eileen Wingard]
Symphony, San Diego Rep give socially distanced performances Read More »
Eileen Wingard, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County
Some families are preparing for Thanksgiving meals from which relatives and close friends will be absent because of the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, other families aren’t even even sure they will have enough to eat on Thanksgiving or any other day as a result of the growing hunger and food insecurity around the country, according to officials of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger. [Donald H. Harrison]
Jewish Clergy Lobby Congress to Combat Hunger Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, USA
One of the tales that is told in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is the controversial story told by a prioress called “The Prioress’s Tale.” A prioress is a woman who is head of a house of nuns. She is next in rank below an abbess. She is seemingly a religious person with religious ideas. Chaucer describes his prioress in his book in two ways. She is introduced in his Prologue as an aristocratic, genteel, pious nun, but the story she tells shows her demeaning Jews and stating that Jews drink Christian blood in a Jewish ritual. She describes how Jews were rounded up, treated brutally, and then murdered by the Christian community. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]
Was Chaucer an Anti-Semite? Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish History
Talent and technology will be put on display at 5 p.m., PST, Sunday, Dec. 6, when the San Diego Jewish Men’s Choir posts on line its ten-track legacy album featuring songs in Ladino, Hebrew and Yiddish. The free concert, accompanied by a Power Point presentation, will be carried on the choir’s Facebook page, which may be accessed via this website. [Donald H. Harrison]
S.D. Jewish Men’s Choir To Debut Album Dec. 6 Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego CountyThe book Places in the Parasha is a very good book, with chapters for each of the more than fifty Torah readings in synagogues on the Shabbat as well as the special readings on holidays. It identifies the location of places mentioned in the portions and gives us information about these places. As a result, we learn more about what the Torah is saying and get a deeper understanding of the events that are mentioned. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]
Mapping the Bible, Correcting Misconceptions Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr., Jewish History, Jewish ReligionFollowing are academic and popular programs of Jewish interest that will be available on the Internet Nov. 22-26. All times are Pacific Standard Time. [Laurie Baron, Ph.D]
Streaming Jewish Programs (Nov. 22-26, 2020) Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Lawrence Baron, Lifestyles, Middle East, USAThe main theme of ‘The Dark Circle’ is the battle with TB (tuberculosis) of the characters depicted in it, just as the miracle medicine of antibiotics, known then as Streptomycin, is beginning to appear on the world stage, bringing with it the promise of salvation from diseases formerly considered incurable, even fatal. While the wider context of the book is 1950s Britain, with its entrenched class differences, prejudices and post-war restrictions, the immediate environment in which the narrative develops is a custom-built sanatorium intended to cure its inmates, or residents. [Book review by Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]
Rebuilding lives in a TB Sanitarium Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Science, Medicine, & Education