It’s Hanukkah in August as we take a look at two enjoyable holiday stories. [Marcia Berneger]
Children’s books for early Hanukkah shoppers Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Jewish Religion, Marcia Berneger
The author, born in 1990, earned her Mathematics degree from Middlebury College and completed an MFA in fiction at Columbia University in 2018. The novel is set in crisis plagued New York around 9/11 2001. The author drops almost poetic hints; “Lower Manhattan opened its gates to the general public again…a light northward breeze perfumed the air with drywall dust and soot…we looked south and saw the great gap tooth against the gullet of the sky.” We were at war, from where would the next terror come? [Oliver Pollak, PhD)
A book reviewer’s search for Jewish stories Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Oliver Pollak, Travel and Food
The bountiful new book, Rita Blitt: Around and Round (Tra Publishing, 2020), looks back at the long and prolific career of this notable American artist. If Blitt’s work is about anything then it is about the exuberance, the joy, the sometimes almost mad ecstasy of creative spontaneity. Much of her work is suffused with a kind of wild and kinetic extemporaneity, which seems to resound with a forceful but unforced “Yes!” – a Yes to life, a Yes to the world, a Yes to the here and now, the living moment pregnant with infinite possibility. Her gestural art is dynamic, uninhibited, and no less sensuous for being abstract. In the improvisational, rhythmic musicality of her paintings, Blitt expresses with unerring directness the energy and intensity of embodied imaginative experience. [Sam Ben-Meir, Ph.D]
Spontaneous Lines: The Art of Rita Blitt Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-Meir
The Encinitas, California-based Leichtag Foundation expressed shock and sadness over the Aug. 4 explosion that destroyed most of the port of Beirut, Lebanon, killing more than 150 people and leaving thousands homeless. “Responding hospitals, already stretched thin due to COVID-19 are now at overcapacity,” reported Charlene Seidle and Sharyn Goodson, respectively the Foundation’s executive vice president and vice president for philanthropy and organizational development. [Our Shtetl San Diego County column by Donald H. Harrison]
Leichtag Foundation urges Beirut relief donations Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Ken Stone, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Stephen D. Bryen
Authors want to be read. We write because we are compelled and think we have something to say. Authors need readers, publishers need purchasers and subscribers. The SDJW editor invites readers to “Leave a Comment” and post it. Comments are usually favorable. Readers can also correspond directly by email. [Oliver B. Pollak]
Yes, indeed, we get and want letters Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Business & Finance, Oliver Pollak, San Diego County
Oscar Orleans is a university-educated refugee from the Congo, who made his way to Israel, and in this mystery novel serves as a consultant to the Tel Aviv police department in cases involving other Black Africans, regardless of from which part of the sub-Saharan continent they came. (Donald H. Harrison)
A modern African-Israeli tale set in Tel Aviv Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Middle East
This story is built around 50 delicate letters, most written on the back of German period piece postcards: including garden scenes of fairy tales gnomes, elfs, leprechauns, and teddy bears designed for children. The letters, starting in February 1939 were by Max Lichtwitz, a Berlin lawyer, to his six-year-old son Heinz or Heini Lichtwitz, the future Henry Foner. They evoke love, longing, and irreparable loss. Max, a widower, sent his six-year son Heinz to England to live in Swansea, Wales with Morris and Winifred Foner. Max, his new wife and stepdaughter never got out of Germany, and were murdered in Auschwitz. [Oliver Pollak]
Postcards and the Kindertransport Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish History, Oliver Pollak
Three themes dominate this enjoyable and informative memoir by a South African-born author who lived in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States before settling with her husband and three children in Israel. [Donald H. Harrison]
Jodi Samuels’ memoir: ‘Chutzpah, Wisdom and Wine’ Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish Religion, Middle East, Travel and Food, USA
A compilation by Laurie Baron, Ph.D., of lectures on a variety of Jewish subjects ranging from music to history to contemporary affairs.
Streaming Jewish Lectures, Aug. 9-13 Read More »
International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Lawrence Baron, Lifestyles, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA
When a recent zoom meeting of the only group in which I still participate set as a subject for discussion ‘A Book That Has Influenced Me,’ I had no hesitation in choosing J.G. Frazer’s study of comparative religions, anthropology, history and sociology entitled The Golden Bough; a Study in Magic and Religion.’The paperback copy I bought in 1962, when I was a university student, numbered almost 1,000 pages and was touted as the ’abridged edition in one volume.’ [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]
Books that have greatly influenced me Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson
For this article, I am featuring my sister, violinist Zina Schiff’s Bloch Naxos release: Violin Concerto, Baal Shem Suite and Suite Hebraique, recorded with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Jose Serebrier, conducting. At a concert commemorating Kristallnacht at New York City’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Maestro Jose Serebrier heard Zina perform as soloist with the the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra.He introduced himself after the concert and they later met to discus this CD project. [Eileen Wingard]
Zina Schiff performs Bloch to critical acclaim Read More »
Eileen Wingard, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts
Return from Siberia by John Shallman, Skyhorse Publishing © 2020; ISBNB 9781510-763371; 220 pages including acknowledgments. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – Author John Shallman is a Los Angeles-based political consultant and commentator, and one of the protagonists in this novel is John Simon, a political consultant. There is no coincidence here; the book
Novel/ memoir draws inter-generational comparisons Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. HarrisonTwo great books finish out the summer season of new picture book releases from Kar-Ben Publishing. A third book about an unhappy girl who changes her attitude is available via Amazon. (Marcia Berneger)
Three books to read to your children Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Judaism, Marcia Berneger
In his newest book, God and the Pandemic, Rabbi Samuel starts with a historical look at plagues in antiquity, comparing and contrasting leadership skills combating them, praising Marcus Aurelius, a stoic, for guiding his nation through the Antonine Plague in the second century, and condemning Roman emperors in the following century for failing to protect the citizenry during the Plague of Cyprian. [Fred Reiss, Ed.D]
Pandemics through history and the religious response Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Fred Reiss, EdD, International, Jewish Religion, Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi, Middle East, USA