Travel and Food

By Stanley Tiger SAN DIEGO — Can you present 4,000 years of Jewish history in 5 minutes? No, but in the coming 5-Minute Play Festival, sponsored by the San Diego Center for Jewish Culture, we are promised a theatrical glimpse into some of the many facets of the Jewish life. The brain child of SDCJC producer D. […]

  By Michael Johnson WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry pledged $60 million in “non-lethal” aid to Syrian political opposition groups during a Friends of Syria meeting in Rome on Thursday. The assistance would go to liberated Syrian communities to “fulfil administrative functions” and provide basic services. The U.S. would also give

By Cynthia Citron NORTH HOLLYWOOD, California — Most people feel that divorce is more of a funeral than a musical, but the new Divorce Party the Musical: The Hilarious Journey to Hell…and Back! is determined to convince us that there is life after divorce. And that there is sex after divorce. This naughty musical, opening

  Martin’s Dream: My Journey and the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. by Clayborne Carson ; Palgrave Macmillan, 2013 By Rabbi Ben Kamin ENCINITAS, California — The book may be about ‘Martin’s Dream,’ but it is as much about Clayborne’s soul. In 1985, Professor Clayborne Carson, already a distinguished and credentialed researcher of the

  By David Amos SAN DIEGO — Do we want it to be all-candy for the ears, or do we want it to provoke us? To challenge us and create an emotional response? Would we accept to go to a theatre play, or watch a film, or read a novel where everybody is sweet, everybody

By Yiftach Levy SAN DIEGO — Israeli entrepreneur and high-tech investor Yossi Vardi on Sunday evening, Feb. 24, gave an informative, at times uproariously funny talk on the culture of innovation and creativity that has driven Israel’s economy for almost two decades. Vardi should know a thing or two about this topic: in 1996, he

By Alan Muskovitz DETROIT –This week I delve into recent news stories that fall into the “you can’t make this stuff up” category.  First, medical news out of London, where a man who lost his nose to skin cancer is having a new one grown in his arm using stem cells.  Explaining the procedure is

Annie’s Ghosts, by Steve Luxenberg, Hyperion Bks, 2009, New York, 401pgs. By David Strom SAN DIEGO — In April of 1995, Steve Luxenberg was shocked. His older sister Sashie telephoned and said, “You’re never going to believe this. Did you know that Mom had a sister?” For forty-three years of Steve’s life his mother, Beth,

I’ve been working with Cheryl and Beverly to thoroughly revise my web site. If you haven’t browsed davidbrin.com in a while, have a look! It’s now fleshed out and filled with even more fabulousness!  As part of this, we’ve thrown together a FAQ of sorts — a compilation of questions that I’m asked most often

By Roz Rothstein and Roberta Seid LOS ANGELES — Dror Moreh’s documentary, The Gatekeepers, could have been a profound film. Instead, Moreh uses his interviews with six former directors of Israel’s top security services to send a simplistic and deeply partisan political message: If Israel withdraws from the West Bank, terrorism will subside and peace

By Rabbi Dow Marmur JERUSALEM –I don’t know enough about cinematography to judge whether the Israeli documentary The Gatekeepers deserves an Oscar or any other of the many awards it has already received. I suspect, however, that some of the considerations by the juries around the world may be more political than artistic, because the