Arts and Culture

(JTA) —Hollywood Reporter’s new cover story interview with actress Natalie Portman may be one of the most heavily Jewish-themed articles the magazine has ever published. In it, the Israel-born Portman, who’s preparing for the May 18 debut of her film adaptation of Israeli author Amos Oz’s “A Tale of Love and… Read more »

(JTA) — Leslea Newman’s iconic picture book “Heather Has Two Mommies” had a simple beginning. A woman approached Newman on the street in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she lived at the time, and said her family needed a book to which her daughter could relate. Meaning that she wanted to… Read more »

HAVERFORD, Pa. (JTA) — Visiting the Memorial de Caen museum in Normandy, France, in 1996, Daniel Weiss was captivated by eight photographs showing the public hanging of three partisans in Minsk, Belarus, on Oct. 26, 1941. The two male victims’ identities were known, but the female was anonymous, and… Read more »

BOSTON (JTA) – On a recent morning, a group of seventh-graders in Natick, Massachusetts, was absorbed in a video of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel’s acceptance speech of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize. “Why did he win?” asked their teacher, Tracy Sockalosky. She guided the discussion to the importance of remembrance, a… Read more »

(JTA) — On April 1, Naomi Firestone-Teeter became executive director of the Jewish Book Council, which promotes the reading, writing, publishing and distribution of English-language Jewish books. Firestone-Teeter, whose predecessor Carolyn Hessel has been called “the Jewish Oprah” for her success at promoting books, has been working her way up in the organization since graduating from… Read more »

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — When attorney E. Randol (Randy) Schoenberg saw himself portrayed on the big screen by hunky Ryan Reynolds in the movie “Woman in Gold,” he immediately spotted a difference. “Obviously, I’m not the sexiest man alive,” Schoenberg acknowledged in an interview at his West Los Angeles… Read more »

Eugene Yelchin

Who knew seven years ago that the Tucson Festival of Books would rank as one of the top celebrations of authors and reading in the United States? Kudos to its founders, Bill and Brenda Viner, members of the Tucson Jewish community, and Bruce Beach, Frank Farias and John Humenik.… Read more »

When I write about books, they tend to be travel-related because — well — I’m a travel editor. But the richly depicted Chasidic world of Shulem Deen’s new “All Who Go Do Not Reurn” can seem so foreign — even to the granddaughter of shtetl-raised Yidden — the memoir… Read more »

(JTA) — Ayelet Tsabari acted as a child and teen, appearing in Habima’s youth performances in Israel, a commercial and some student films. Although Tsabari no longer acts, the author of the award-winning “The Best Place on Earth” feels that the experience of fiction writing is not entirely unlike… Read more »

(JTA) – A whopping 16,000 books have been written about President Abraham Lincoln. But a new book and an exhibit at the New York Historical Society tell a previously untold story about Lincoln: his relationships with Jews. Benjamin Shapell has been collecting documents relating to Lincoln and the Jews… Read more »

Zander Meisner knows the Tony Award-winning musical “Once” inside and out. In fact, given his unusual position as an understudy for four of the eight male roles in the play, it’s possible that Meisner is more intimately familiar with the show than anyone else, period. Now that the current… Read more »

Tucsonans will have an opportunity to see and hear a giant of the classical music world on March 31 when the Tucson Symphony Orchestra welcomes world-renowned violinist Pinchas Zukerman. With a musical career spanning more than four decades, the Israeli-born Zukerman continues to delight audiences worldwide, playing nearly 100… Read more »

BOSTON (JTA) — When Deborah Bodin Cohen immersed herself in rabbinical school in the early 1990s, she expected to spend a year in Israel as part of her studies with Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. What she didn’t know was that a decade later, the experience of living… Read more »

BERLIN (JTA) — Two starkly different images: a woman wrapped in shimmering gold, a man whipped and bleeding on a cold cement floor. The first, a 1907 painting by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, is the centerpiece of “Woman in Gold,” a film starring Helen Mirren that had its world… Read more »

Israeli-born clarinetist and saxophonist Anat Cohen will bring her quartet to the Tucson Jewish Community Center sculpture garden on March 22 for an evening of jazz under the stars. The concert, hosted by UA Presents, starts at 7 p.m. and will showcase her new CD “Luminosa,” with its Brazilian… Read more »

Fifteen new additions to the Tucson Jewish Community Center’s sculpture garden will be unveiled on Sunday, March 8, at a free reception from 1-3 p.m. The 6th Annual Sculpture Garden Exhibition features the work of artists from Tucson and across the country. The opening will be preceeded by an… Read more »

The Northwest Division of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will sponsor a bus trip to the Scottsdale Celebration of Fine Art on Wednesday, March 18. Participants can watch as 100 artists from around the world, including three Jewish artists, work in a variety of media, from painting and… Read more »

Daniel James Brown

Joe Rantz was dying. He was north of 90 years old, completely dependent on oxygen, and living in hospice care at his daughter Judy Willman’s house near Seattle when he met award-winning author Daniel James Brown. Brown, a neighbor of Willman’s, wasn’t looking for a book topic when he… Read more »

"Beshert" by Lisa Mishler

“L’Chayim — To Life,” an exhibit of new mixed-media work by local artist Lisa Mishler, is on display at the Tucson Jewish Community Center Fine Art Gallery through March 26. Rabbi Stephanie Aaron asked Mishler to paint this series inspired by the stories of Mishler’s parents, Holocaust survivors and… Read more »

Steve Solomon in “Cannoli, Latkes & Guilt ... the therapy continues”

Invisible Theatre is bringing award-winning author/actor Steve Solomon back to Tucson in a new comedy, “Cannoli, Latkes & Guilt … the therapy continues.” The new show features such characters as Uncle Willie, stuttering Cousin Bob, demented Cousin Kenny, Steve’s new therapist Cousin Sal (and Sal’s parole officer). It combines… Read more »