Mother India by Tova Reich; ©2018; Syracuse University Press, ISBN 9780815-611066; 253 pages. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – If you walk through ankle-deep sewage overflow while batting away flies and choking on ashes of incinerated human remains, you’ll experience the India of author Tova Reich’s description. You probably would prefer to visit Dante’s […]
Is it India or is it Gehenna? Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. HarrisonBy Eileen Wingard SAN DIEGO — The vivacious pianist, Ines Irawati, welcomed the overflow crowd in Monique Kunewalder’s living room before her partner for the Piano Duo Recital, Daniel Wnukowski, introduced their first selection, Dance Macabre by Saints-Saens. This transcription for two pianos from the orchestral original was carried off with crackling demonic fervor, and Wnukowski’s
A concert in the Kunewalder living room Read More »
Eileen Wingard, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego CountyBy Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – I watched the documentary There Are Jews Here more than 1 ½ years ago, and I will reprint below the review that I wrote for the April 15, 2017 edition of San Diego Jewish World. Now the documentary by Brad Lichtenstein is scheduled to air as part of
Plight of small town shuls to air Dec. 4 Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USABy Eric George Tauber SAN DIEGO — “I know this Christmas, every wish won’t come true, but I’m dreaming of Christmas with you.” Everyone who has had a family member come back from a tour of duty knows that they never come back quite the same. You see in their eyes the dark shadows of
Play at Old Globe focuses on military family’s struggles Read More »
Eric George Tauber, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast
By Donald H. Harrison CORONADO, California – Three years after she converted to Judaism, actress Marilyn Monroe made the Billy Wilder comedy Some Like it Hot in 1959 with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. Now, almost 60 years later, this city across the bay from San Diego still remembers her vividly. The Hotel del Coronado, where
Marilyn Monroe, other Jews, recalled in Coronado Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and FoodBy Eileen Wingard SAN DIEGO — Patrick Henry High School’s new PHAME Auditorium was the setting for the first of the Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra’s (TICO) recent pair of concerts, Sunday, November 4 and Tuesday, November 6. I heard the Tuesday evening performance at Tifereth Israel Synagogue, but I learned from others that the excellent
Patrick Henry venue, strings enhance TICO concert Read More »
Eileen Wingard, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego CountyBy Dan Bloom CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan — In a personal blog post I published in September I asked my readers if the current bestseller The Tattooist of Auschwitz, a Holocaust sex and romance “novel” concocted by a well-intentioned but somewhat nervy non-Jewish screenwriter in Australia, was ever going to be called in question by literary critics
Veracity questioned of “The Tattooist of Auschwitz’ Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish HistoryThe New American Judaism: How Jews Practice Their Religion Today by Jack Wertheimer, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, © 2018, ISBN 978-0-691-18129-5, p. 272 plus bibliography and index, $29.95. By Fred Reiss, Ed.D. WINCHESTER, California – American Jewry is balkanized, divided into denominations ranging from the Haredi, who scrupulously and meticulously strive to obey both the
Book review: ‘The New American Judaism’ Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Jewish Religion
Holocaust Survivor to Harvard Dean: Memoirs of a Refugee’s Progress by Michael Shinagel © 2016, Xlibris, ISBN 9781524-509606; 150 pages plus Index; Available on Amazon. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO — Having served for nearly four decades as dean of the Harvard Extension School – the longest known deanship in Harvard’s history – author
This life in academia makes for pleasant reading Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Science, Medicine, & Education
All Quiet on the Midwestern Plains by Dorothea Shefer-Vanson © 2018, ISBN9781723-871801, 399 pages plus acknowledgements, available on Amazon. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – My colleague, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, has written a novel based in part upon the time that she and her husband Yigal had come to the American Midwest together while he
Vicious politics, betrayal, divide fictional college faculty Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Dorothea Shefer-VansonBy Eric George Tauber SAN DIEGO — Golden Shards is a new theatre company in town, one that divides its time between San Diego and New York. For director Alice Cash, it’s a homecoming. I remember Alice as a bright and bubbly highschooler writing the teen column for San Diego Theatre Scene. Now, she and
8,000 M is a harrowing tale Read More »
Eric George Tauber, Theatre, Film & Broadcast
By Eva Trieger SOLANA BEACH, California — Sometimes art imitates life, and sometimes art dictates life. When I interviewed Perry Chen and his mom, Dr. Zhu Shen on Wednesday, I felt that art and life inform each other, with one or the other alternatively taking the lead. It has been six years since I met
Holocaust filmmaker’s animated doc in Oscar hunt Read More »
Eva Trieger, International, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA
American Jewish Committee seeks nationwide effort to combat hate crimes The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is calling for a concerted government effort to combat hate crimes. The call to action comes after the FBI issued its latest annual report, which showed a 17 percent increase in hate crimes during 2017, compared to the year before.
Editor’s E-Mail Box: November 14, 2018 (4 items) Read More »
International, Middle East, San Diego Calendar, Theatre, Film & Broadcast
By Eric George Tauber SAN DIEGO — By now, you’ve probably heard about the passing of Stan Lee, former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, at the age of 95. Born Stanley Martin Lieber to poor, working-class Jewish immigrants from Romania, he adopted a pseudonym because he wanted to save his real name for “more serious literary pursuits”
An homage to Stan Lee Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Eric George Tauber, San Diego County