The Arts

By Dan Bloom CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan — Jews and food, Jews and social movements, Jews and humor: they all go together like egg whites and egg yolks. Meet Robert Barsky, who grew up in a Jewish family in Canada and teaches now in the French and Italian departments at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Also holding

Children of the Stone, The Power of Music in a Hard Land, by Sandy Tolan, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015 By Sheila Orysiek SAN DIEGO — In a “Note to Readers” the author states that the events and facts presented in the book have been extensively sourced, checked and, to the extent possible, verified.  However, Tolan also

By Dan Bloom CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan — Shari Becker grew up in a Jewish family in Montreal and now lives in Boston, where she is married and is raising two daughters with her husband John. Her first YA (young adult) novel has been published and there’s a fascinating story behind it I found out during