The Arts

Dueling movies and the case against torture

“I’m not in favor of torture,” Dershowitz writes, “but if you’re going to have it, it should damn well have court approval.” His claim is that if we are, in fact, going to torture then it ought to be done in accordance with law: for tolerating torture while pronouncing it illegal is hypocritical. In other words, democratic liberalism ought to own up to its own activities, according to Dershowitz. If torture is, indeed, a reality then it should be done with accountability. There are, however, significant problems with the reasoning behind torture-warrants [Sam Ben-Meir, PhD]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Middle East, Sam Ben-Meir, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

Backyard Renaissance fits ‘American Buffalo’

Director Rosina Reynolds, with only three characters in this black comedy, manages pull off the heist of the year with her excellent cast, perfect timing and gentle nudging to build on Mamet’s language that is oft called ‘Mametspeak.’ She strikes it rich with the solid gold talent pool she has at her center. [Carol Davis]

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

$200m offered in match for Rady Children’s Hospital

In the past, philanthropists Ernest and Evelyn Rady donated $60 million and $120 million to Children’s Hospital, which renamed itself as Rady Children’s Hospital.  Now, the married philanthropists have offered to outdo themselves.  They promised to match $200 million in donations from other people in an effort to create a $400 million Rady Reimagine Fund to chart and implement the pediatric hospital’s growth. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Business & Finance, Donald H. Harrison, International, Middle East, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and Food

‘Hold These Truths’: A story we need to hear

Hold These Truths is a story we need to hear. Director Jessica Kubzansky describes it as “a love story between a man and his Constitution.” The true shonda is that Gordon Hirabayashi resisted injustice precisely because he believed in the noble ideals enshrined in our Constitution far more than the leaders who swore to uphold and defend them. [Eric George Tauber]

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

‘Cambodian Rock Band’ at La Jolla Playhouse tells of genocide

The story picks up in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 30 years after the invasion of the Khmer Rouge, and as it unfolds it travels back and forth in time between then and now. Yee’s ‘Band’ story is a father-daughter revelation, about not knowing what daddy did in the war 30 years earlier and the music that drove him to stay in his native homeland. {Carol Davis]

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Cantor Sheldon Foster Merel, z"l, Carol Davis, Eric George Tauber, Eva Trieger, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

The emotion of Bloch’s ‘Schelomo’

Cellist Alisa Wallerstein’s dramatic, passionate playing was well-suited to the demands of Ernest Bloch’s grandiloquent Hebraic Rhapsody for cello and orchestra, Schelomo. In his musical attempt to present a portrait of the Biblical monarch, Bloch strives to reflect “the Jewish soul, the complex, glowing, agitated soul, that I feel vibrating throughout the Bible.” [story by Eileen Wingard]

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Eileen Wingard, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County

Historian tells of FDR’s anti-Semitism

Vice President Henry Wallace, an eye-witness to the event, recorded in his diary that when President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill met in mid-1943, Churchill raised the “Jewish question” to which Roosevelt replied the Jews should be spread as thinly as possible all over the world, noting that he tried this method where he lived—Meriwether County, Georgia and Hyde Park, New York and his neighbors appreciated it. This anecdote encapsulates the mindset of Franklin Roosevelt. [Fred Reiss, EdD]

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

Federation chips in $100,000 for JCC Maccabi Games

Board members of the Jewish Federation of San Diego County have voted unanimously to contribute $100,000 to help the Lawrence Family JCC to host the August 2-7, 2020 JCC Maccabi Games which are expected to bring to San Diego 2,000 athletes from all over the world. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Donald H. Harrison, Judaism, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Obituaries & memorials, San Diego County, Sports & Competitions

Another mob thriller from Scorsese

It’s time for Martin Scorsese to reprise one of his greatest films, Goodfellas. This new version is called The Irishman and, like Goodfellas, it stars Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci and includes
some of the same actors in both films: Samuel L .Jackson, Paul Sorvino, Chuck Low, Jim Norton,
Mike Starr. The Irishman is fleshed out with Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa, Ray Romano as Bill Bufalino, Bobby Cannavale, Anna Paquin, Harvey Keitel, Steven Van Zandt, and a cast of nearly 40 other players. [Cynthia Citron]

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Cynthia Citron, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

A freshened grinch at the Old Globe

Just as September’s high holidays are  marked by boxes of matzo ball soup on Von’s endcaps, so the annual Christmas season is heralded by  the Old Globe’s production of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The show opened last night to a full house and an enthusiastic fan base welcomed all the Whos from Whoville, Max the loyal dog, and the once-curmudgeonly Grinch who did teshuva. [Eva Trieger]

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Eva Trieger, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Chabad of Poway’s Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein retires

Never able to shake off the painful memory of having his fingers shot off by an intruder at Chabad of Poway nor of seeing congregant Lori Gilbert-Kaye murdered and two other congregants wounded, Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein has decided to retire. [Donald H. Harrison]

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

Psuedo-scholars revive the blood libel

The latest example of this pseudo-scholarship—born out of contortions of history and fact to conform, instead, to spurious narratives—has embroiled Boston University in a debate about the academic qualifications of a prospective faculty hire, Sarah Ihmoud, a postdoctoral associate in Anthropology and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. As is the current trend in the humanities and social sciences in academia, Ihmoud, in her writing about feminism and sexuality, focuses obsessively on the predations of the Jew of nations, Israel, in a torrent of so-called research. [Richard L. Cravatts, PhD]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Middle East, Richard L. Cravatts, Science, Medicine, & Education

A thoughtful plot from Korea

Parasite is a social satire written and directed by a man named Bong Joon-ho, and stars a brilliant cast of actors whose names you probably don’t recognize. They portray a wealthy family, the Parks, who live in a spectacular home created by a prominent Korean architect, and an indigent family, the Kims, who live a ragtag existence in the poorer part of town. Their connection begins when a friend who is about to leave for college persuades Kim Ki-woo, the son of the Kim family, to take over his job as an English teacher for Park Da-hye, the daughter of the Park family. [Cynthia Citron]

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Cynthia Citron, Theatre, Film & Broadcast