The Arts

Climate activist warns deniers financing movies

“All is not well on the cli-fi front,” Diamond said. “The Kingsman movie franchise appears to be a repository for conservative politics. When I saw the movie I could not believe they were able to persuade a bunch of decent minded actors to portray the climate scientist as the villain, fulfilling many a right-winger’s fantasies. The same was true of the Disney movie, Tomorrowland, starring George Clooney, a noted liberal activist, in 2015. Both movies portray the arch-villain as a climate scientist and climate change as the purview of a cabal of elitists. It looks to me that the cli-fi wars are well underway.” [Dan Bloom]

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The World We Share, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

SDSU wins plaudits for blocking anti-Semitic speaker

StandWithUs, a national organization combating anti-Semitism on American college campuses, has congratulated San Diego State University for blocking a speaking invitation to Ava Muhammad, who is a spokeswoman for Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

Jewish poets reflect on their parents

Lorraine Fisher, Jan Gist, and Joel Guadarrama will be the three local writers featured at the second evening of the current series of Jewish Poets—Jewish Voices.  The free program will take place in the Astor Judaica Library, Lawrence Family JCC at 7 p.m.,  Tuesday, January 21. The first of the series, last December 17, featured poets Lucy Lehman, Adam Greenfield and Anna Abraham Gasaway. Their poetry was spellbinding. Below are samples of their talent. [Eileen Wingard]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Eileen Wingard, San Diego County

Teen loneliness, suicide probed in ‘Dear Evan’

Amid the angst, anticipation and anxieties felt by an awaiting audience in the lobby of the Civic Theatre downtown at the performance I attended of the long awaited national touring production of Dear Evan Hansen, now playing through Jan. 12th; there is a young man on stage, seventeen year old Evan Hansen (Stephen Anthony Christopher) with complex issues that frame his isolated life. [Carol Davis]

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Carol Davis, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Strong opinions surface over Soleimani assassination

Prior to Iran’s retaliation on two Iraqi bases where American troops are stationed, congressional candidate Sara Jacobs denounced the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani by American forces.  She wrote: “This ill-conceived operation was the culmination of a reckless strategy toward Iran that started with the Trump Administration pulling out of the Iran deal. Of all the hyperbole and questions being thrown around, the only one that needs to be asked is this: is the United States safer for having done this? The answer is clearly no.” [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

Craig Noel Award nominations announced

In February 2020, when we present our annual Craig Noel Awards for Theatrical Excellence, we will be recognizing and honoring all gender identities, giving gender-neutral awards in all performance categories. The 2019 nominees were chosen by a nine-member body of professional critics who write year–round for San Diego newspapers, magazines, online publications and blogs. Winners will be announced at the 18th -annual awards ceremony from 6 to 10 p.m. Feb. 10, 2020, at the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation at 404 Euclid Ave., San Diego.[Carol Davis]

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Carol Davis, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Poems to light the Jewish world

Poems are part and parcel of Judaism, arguably beginning with Miriam at the Red Sea, continuing with the Psalms and into present-day liturgy. Chaya Lester, Jerusalem-based psychotherapist, Jewish educator, and spiritual guide, calls on the metaphor of a lit candle and the multiple meanings of the word lit – the literature of poetry, intoxication of experiences, and “being lit up” in the sense of being alive and amazed – as her muse. The motivations for writing these poems are the twin themes of Jewish apathy and assimilation, whose panacea she perceives to be celebration, “the Jewish world needs to get lit…Jewishly lit.” [Fred Reiss, Ed.D]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Fred Reiss, EdD

‘Song of Names’: Beautiful music, haunting story

Song of Names is not simply a movie.  It is a work of love and mourning.  The music,  so essential to the drama,  travels through our ears and into our souls.  After the movie opens in San Diego on Jan. 10, I doubt that anyone who views it will fail to be moved by the emotion behind it, however understated it is. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Bought, borrowed or stolen? Art from the Gurlitt trove

At an exhibit entitled ’Fateful Choices: Art from the Gurlitt Trove,’ the Israel Museum’s Curator of European Art, Shlomit Steinberg, gave a fascinating talk about the history, geography, sociology and provenance of the huge collection of paintings, drawings, prints and lithographs found in 2012 in an apartment belonging to Cornelius Gurlitt, an elderly recluse living in Munich and virtually unknown to the German authorities. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Jewish History, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

Jewish Historical Society obtains new collections

The Jewish Historical Society of San Diego, which maintains archives of our community’s history at San Diego State University, has acquired several more collections that will help researchers understand how our local Jewish community developed. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Lifestyles, Middle East, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

MOPA displays works of Jewish photographers

The works of past and present Jewish photographers are on display at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park. There are seven works by Bern Schwartz in Talking With a Friend: Portraits by Bern Schwartz and a single work by Jacob Manowitz, a student at Meadowbrook Middle School. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County

Talking about transgender teens

Blindspot Collective is a small troupe taking on big issues. They are currently touring Danny’s Story a “forum theatre” play based on the real experiences of transgender youth. The issue is important not just because it’s trending, but because this is a highly vulnerable population. One third have attempted suicide. “Danny” is a transgender boy who was born female. Kids have kept diaries forever, but today’s millennials post theirs online. Danny has a Youtube channel where he works through his transition. [Eric George Tauber]

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Eric George Tauber, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Jews and chocolate: 500 years of sweetness

Sephardic Jews who were expelled in the late 15th century  from Portugal and Spain learned about cocoa and the production of chocolate from the indigenous peoples of Central and South America and the Caribbean. Keeping up contacts with non-Jewish acquaintances who had remained on Europe’s Iberian Peninsula, they helped to popularize chocolate and develop it as a product in international trade. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Middle East, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Travel and Food, USA