The Arts

Jewish trivia quiz: Justin Bieber

By Mark D. Zimmerman MELVILLE, New York — After touring for almost 2 years, last week Justin Bieber abruptly canceled the remaining 14 concerts of his Purpose world tour, with little explanation. Bieber, who is not Jewish, participates in what Jewish ritual? A. Bieber wears a red string “Kabbalah bracelet” which he received as a present from Madonna.B. Prior to […]

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Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Trivia, Humor & Satire

U.S. realism and idealism in the Middle East

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Elliott Abrams’ Realism and Democracy: American Foreign Police after the Arab Spring (A Council on Foreign Relations Book, Cambridge University Press, 2017) is both a useful assessment of Arab Spring and what came next, and an insightful commentary on the nature of a world power and those who serve it.

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USA

Al Gore Documentary Opens In Theaters

Al Gore’s latest climate change documentary, “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power,” opened Friday in limited release and has received mostly positive reviews. The documentary is the follow-up to “An Inconvenient Truth,” which opened in 2006 to critical and box-office success, and won an Academy Awards for Best Documentary, as well as Best Original Song.

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Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

Three plots make ‘Karolina’s Twins’ exciting reading

Karolina’s Twins by Ronald H. Balson; © 2016 St. Martin’s Press; ISBN 9781250-089045; 306 pages; $15.99. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – Author Balson skillfully weaves three plots together.  There’s the story of a Holocaust survivor and the twin girls she hopes are still alive; a court drama prompted by that elderly woman’s son

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison

Noteworthy piano virtuoso trumpets his Jewish heritage

World-renowned pianist Evgeny Kissin holds three passports, but the one that defines him has a menorah on it By Jenni Frazer LONDON — Classical pianist Evgeny Kissin says he wrote his book, “Memoirs and Reflections” because over the course of many interviews he has constantly been asked the same questions. Ironically, now everyone wants to

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International, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

Author Gaines recalls his mental illness treatment

One of These Things First by Steven Gaines; © 2016 Delphinium Books; ISBN 9781883-285715; 196 pages; $14.95. By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – If you like a story well told, with perhaps a smidgen of name-dropping, you’ll be entertained by author/ columnist Steven Gaines’ recollections of his tumultuous adolescence. It was a period when

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison

Mick Jagger releases political songs to lament ‘lost’ England

London (dpa) – Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger has released two songs lamenting “lost” England and referring to social upheaval linked to Brexit and other events, in his first venture into politics in his solo career. “I’m excited to share new music with you! I started writing these two songs a few weeks back and

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International, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

Race out to see ‘Brooklyn the Musical’

“Fate has an agenda all its own and war makes orphans of us all.” By Eric George Tauber SAN DIEGO — Cabaret icon Leigh Scarritt –in association with Moxie Theatre- has put together for Brooklyn The Musical. I attended Industry Night to a house filled with thespians who couldn’t have been more enthusiastic. Brooklyn describes

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

‘We are Jews Again’ tells of Refuseniks’ progress

“We Are Jews Again,” Jewish Activism in the Soviet Union by Yuli Kosharovsky, translated by Stefani Hoffman, edited by Ann Komaromi, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY, © 2017, ISBN 978-0-8156-3519-2, p. 319, plus appendices, notes, bibliography, and index, $37.95 By Fred Reiss, Ed.D. WINCHESTER, California –  Many Jews participated in the 1917 Russian Revolution, ousting

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish History

Larry David reveals family ties to Bernie Sanders

Comedian who played Democratic senator in ‘Saturday Night Live’ sketches says the two are ‘third cousins or something’ By Stuart Winer Larry David played democratic candidate Bernie Sanders in a Saturday Night Live skit of the first 2016 Democratic Presidential Debate, October 17, 2015 (Screenshot from YouTube) Veteran comedian Larry David revealed Wednesday that he

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Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

Dick Van Dyke apologizes for his ‘atrocious’ cockney accent in ‘Mary Poppins’

There are some epic public apologies out there: the church’s apology to Galileo, for instance, or Tiger Woods’ apology to his wife. This one, below, is a personal favorite. But even with the Bill Clinton lower-lip bite, this one pales in comparison to the historic mea culpa issued this weekend. More than 50 years after

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International, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

Former Fox News executive files $48 million lawsuit over sexual assault scandal

NEW YORK — A former Fox News executive fired after settling a claim that he attempted to sexually assault a female on-air commentator is suing parent company 21st Century Fox for going public with the matter. Francisco Cortes, who ran Fox News Latino, was fired in February after Tamara Holder, a Fox News on-air contributor,

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Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA