The Arts

Chesler’s memoir insightful into feminist movement

A Politically Incorrect Feminist by Phyllis Chesler; St. Martin’s Press; © 2018; ISBN 9781250-094421; 304 pages including acknowledgments. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – Possibly before, but especially after publication of Women and Madness, which exposed the practice of falsely committing women to insane asylums and the abuse of women within those institutions, author […]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, USA

Editor’s E-Mail Box: August 22, 2018 (3 items)

Jewish couples urged to get tested for Tay-Sachs JScreen (jscreen.org), a not-for-profit at home education and genetic carrier screening program, today highlighted September’s Tay-Sachs Awareness Month, encouraging people to get tested for genetic diseases so they can make informed decisions about family planning. JScreen’s expanded screening panel tests for more than 200 diseases, a significant development

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International, Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

30 gathered to salute Jerry Joe Seller on his 90th

  By Oliver B. Pollak ENCINITAS, California — Jerry Joe Seller was born in St. Louis in 1928. Life expectancy in 1930 was 58 for men and 62 for women. We celebrated his 90th birthday on August 19 at Vigilucci’s Trattoria Italiana on Pacific Coast Highway in Encinitas. Birthdays come and go. They last a

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Oliver Pollak, San Diego County

‘Nana’: A thorough doc. film of a Holocaust survivor

Nana, a documentary by Serena Dykman; French language with English subtitles; First Run Features; 1 hour 40 Minutes. By Donald H. Harrison   SAN DIEGO – “Nana,” as many of us know from the time as children we were mouthing our first words, means “grandma” and, in this case, “Nana” refers to Maryla Dyamant Michalowski,

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Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

What a Jewish teacher learns in United Arab Emirates

My Pashtun Rabbi: A Jew’s Search for Truth, Meaning, and Hope in the Muslim World by David Eden, BookBaby, (c) 2018, ISBN 9780692-086155. NEW YORK (Press Release) — A Jewish American working in the United Arab Emirates fears hostility but finds humanity in this debut memoir. Fleeing divorce and midlife crisis, journalist Eden left Ohio in

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education

Jewish trivia quiz: Aretha Franklin, RIP

By Mark D. Zimmerman MELVILLE, New York –The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, passed away last week. In addition to her twenty #1 R&B hits, eighteen Grammy awards, multiple honorary doctorates, and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (the first woman to receive this honor), Franklin and her song lyrics were also cited

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Mark D. Zimmerman, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Obituaries & memorials, Trivia, Humor & Satire

‘Black Diamond Fall’ a Utah and Vermont whodunnit

Black Diamond Fall by Joseph Olshan; Polis Books, © 2018,263  ISBN 9781947-9933410; 263 pages. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – Sam Solomon, a gay Jewish man, is accused in the disappearance and possible homicide of a lover young enough to be his son.  When he awakens in a hospital in Utah, following a skiing

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison

Israeli ‘When the Smoke Clears’ examines PTS

By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – Making the rounds of Jewish film festivals is the Israeli documentary When the Smoke Clears, which recreates the battles in which several IDF soldiers were wounded and then follows each of these soldiers on the road to recovery. Almost everyone by now has heard of post-traumatic stress (PTS)

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Donald H. Harrison, Middle East, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Baudy ‘Decameron’ told a story of a Jew’s conversion

By Oliver B. Pollak RICHMOND, California. –Some sixty or more years ago my parents facilitated my sex education by leaving Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, illustrated in 1949 by Rockwell Kent, on the coffee table. Adolescent curiosity took care of the rest. Kent introduced me to pornography or erotica before Playboy. From the late 1950s the Book

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Oliver Pollak, Travel and Food

Two children’s books for Jewish holidays

Bitter and Sweet by Sandra V. Feder, illustrations by Krysten Brooker, Groundwood Books, (c) 2018, ISBN 9781554-989959; 30 pages, $17.95. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO — Author Sandra Feder notes that Judaism acknowledges a duality in life: with the bitter often will come the sweet, and vice versa.  “Sweet wine or grape juice is

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion

‘The Library Book’: Cleverly titled tome about libraries

The Library Book, A coffee table book that stirs the reader’s soul Oliver B. Pollak RICHMOND, California — The Library Book, a 14½x11 3/8 coffee table book, weighs 6 lbs. I saw it in the new books section of the Richmond Public Library and “checked it out.” Then I checked it out at the circulation

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Oliver Pollak, Travel and Food