Arts and Culture

In this advertising directory, we present some of the many wonderful arts companies in Tucson: Arizona Rose Theatre arizonarosetheatre.com • 888-0589 The Arizona Rose Theatre celebrates its 31st anniversary this season. This year marks the first full season in its brand new venue at the Tucson Mall. This season… Read more »

Even if you don’t follow pop music, you may have heard pianist and songwriter Regina Spektor singing the catchy “Orange Is the New Black” theme song, “You’ve Got Time,” covering The Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” in the animated feature “Kubo and the Two Strings,” or in numerous… Read more »

The Tucson Jewish Community Center and Chabad Tucson will present “Tales of a Hollywood Screenwriter” at the Tucson J on Thursday, Sept. 7, at 7 p.m. David Weiss will share stories of his wild ride to success and spirituality as screenwriter of the Academy Award-nominated “Shrek 2,” “Jimmy Neutron:… Read more »

Fifteen thespians from San Francisco’s Jewish high school have taken their original play to the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The students arrived in the United Kingdom earlier this month to perform the show, “Alice and the Black Hole Blues,” at the world’s largest arts festival four times during a… Read more »

(The Nosher via JTA) — Like Italians with their tomato sauce, home cooks across North Africa and the Middle East are serious about their harissa. Each cook has his or her own special method for grinding the chiles and blending in oil, garlic and spices. That’s why our… Read more »

(JTA) — Exactly a century ago, on Aug. 18, 1917, a massive fire roared through the Mediterranean port city of Salonica, Greece, then home to the largest and most dynamic Ladino-speaking Sephardi Jewish community in the world. According to local legend, the fire erupted one Sabbath afternoon amid World… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Two chefs — one from Afghanistan, the other from Mexico — are learning how to make shakshuka sauce. The tomato base, cooked with onion rings and spiced with cayenne pepper and garlic confit, comes out of the oven with eggs and onto a curated brunch… Read more »

(The Nosher via JTA) — I must have been about 6 or 7 years old and remember being eye level to my grandmother’s stove. I saw these white, round things frying in oil. What I vividly recall was the distinct hole on the edge of these patties and wondering… Read more »

(JTA) — Curious George — that curious little monkey — is beloved by millions of readers around the world. His adventures with the Man With the Yellow Hat impart important life lessons amidst silliness and mayhem. But many people probably don’t know that the children’s book character was actually… Read more »

If the woes of our country and the world are getting you down, perhaps you need a dose of something downright silly. Arizona Onstage Productions will provide the remedy with their production of Mel Brooks’ classic comedy, “The Producers,” which will be performed Aug. 19, 20, 26 and 27… Read more »

Set among a congregation of observant Jews in a quiet neighborhood in the Old City, “The Women’s Balcony” begins with a bar mitzvah and ends with a wedding. But there’s plenty of tsuris (trouble) between the celebrations, triggered by a structural collapse just before the haftorah that shutters the… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Near the end of his first year teaching American studies at the Georgetown University campus in Qatar, Gary Wasserman introduced a dozen Israelis to a dozen undergraduates from across the Middle East. Then he left the room so the students could have an unfiltered… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — In David Grossman’s 2008 novel “To the End of the Land,” an Israeli mother flees to the countryside to avoid news of her soldier son, who is serving a dangerous stint in the West Bank. Ora considers herself apolitical and tries to avoid talking or… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — In history books, the summer of 2007 will go down as the official start of one of the worst financial crises in American history. It started in July, when Bear Stearns announced that two of its hedge funds had lost all their value… Read more »

WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — When Gołda Tencer, the director of the Shalom Foundation and the Jewish Theater in Warsaw, lit the Sabbath candles last Friday, she was accompanied by dozens of people from various countries. Though their mother tongues differed, the voices at the table were united by a… Read more »

(The Nosher via JTA) — Tabbouleh is a classic Middle Eastern salad made with bulgur, tomatoes and a high ratio of chopped fresh herbs. It’s easy to make, fresh, delicious and healthy, making it a much-beloved side dish around the world. Instead of classic bulgur, we wanted to try… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Several times a month Jeanette Chawki welcomes a handful of strangers into her Brooklyn home. There, the visitors learn about life in her native Lebanon, talk about their own backgrounds, and eat food — lots of it. Among the dishes visitors tried on a recent… Read more »

MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. (JTA) – When Michael Steinhardt strolls around his 55-acre backyard for 90 minutes every morning, one of his favorite animals to see is the scimitar-horned oryx, whose antlers sweep back from its head like the swords for which they are named. But Steinhardt didn’t much like… Read more »

(The Nosher via JTA) — Avocado toast has been “trendy” for several years throughout the U.S. In fact, avocados have been so trendy, an entire avocado restaurant opened earlier this year in Brooklyn. And people are putting avocados in everything lately: brownies, salad dressing, even ice cream. After all,… Read more »

(JTA) — Not much could have prepared Molly Yeh for moving from New York City to Grand Forks, North Dakota — a city of a little over 50,000 residents near the state’s eastern border with Minnesota. At the time of her move in 2013, Yeh (pronounced “yay,” as her… Read more »