Arts and Culture

Pima Community College has posted its Family Heritage Project website at www.pima.edu/community/the-arts/family-heritage.html. The project was conceived by Todd Poelstra, director of PCC’s production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” in celebration of the musical’s themes of tradition and family. The project includes more than 125 photographs and stories submitted by… Read more »

Can you play a sad, beautiful Hebrew-speaking Israeli in her 30s? The Invisible Theatre will be holding auditions for this female character and two male characters on Sunday, March 30 at 5 p.m. for “Handle With Care,” a romantic comedy by Jason Odell Williams. The play will be part… Read more »

"ANNE" co-writers Leon de Winter and Jessica Durlacher stant outside the Amsterdam theater that is being built as a venue for their play on March 12, 2014. (Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA)

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — To millions worldwide, she is a symbol of heroism and a haunting reminder of the dangers of discrimination. But for one Dutch entertainment firm, Anne Frank is a brand name powerful enough to merit millions of dollars of investment. Last week, the Amsterdam-based production company Imagine… Read more »

Nickolay Lamm's cousins play with a prototype of the Lammily doll. (Courtesy Nickolay Lamm)

 NEW YORK (JTA) — Almost exactly 55 years after Barbie made her debut at the American International Toy Fair, a more realistically proportioned alternative to the iconic fashion doll has become a crowdfunding sensation, raising more than $400,000 in a week and a half to begin production. The Lammily doll,… Read more »

Gary Shteyngart has "mixed" feelings about his years of Jewish day school. (Brigitte Lacombe)

 NEW YORK (JTA) — If it is true that there is no such thing as bad publicity, then Gary Shteyngart may be one of the best things to happen to the Conservative movement’s at-times-beleaguered Schechter Day School Network. Shteyngart, the Soviet Jewish immigrant writer known for acclaimed comic novels… Read more »

Barbara Garson

The Tucson Festival of Books, now the fourth largest book festival in the United States, returns to the University of Arizona campus March 15 and 16. One of the many Jewish writers presenting this year will be Barbara Garson, whose latest book is “Down the Up Escalator: How the… Read more »

Actress Scarlett Johansson and Romain Dauriac sit in the audience before the start of the 39th Cesar Film Awards 2014 at Theatre du Chatelet on Feb. 28, 2014 in Paris. (Dominique Charriau/Getty Images)

Scarlett Johansson is pregnant HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (JTA) — B’sha’ah tovah to Scarlett Johansson! The 29-year-old “Her” star, of recent SodaStream fame (or infamy, depending which side you’re on), is expecting her first child with French fiance Romain Dauriac, E! News reports. The couple, dating publicly since November 2012,  announced… Read more »

Israeli Arab children at a school in Baqa al-Gharblyye reading books from the Lantern Library, a spinoff of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation's PJ Library. (Akmal Nagnagy/Harold Grinspoon Foundation)

NEW YORK (JTA) — A Religion News Service article about the PJ Library is headlined “Free books — 10 million of them — help keep Jewish kids Jewish.” Now the foundation behind the widely lauded nine-year-old program — which distributes free books to more than 130,000 Jewish children in… Read more »

Dmitry Gerasimov raises his clarinet as he plays with the Pushkin Klezmer Band. (Vadym Yunyk)

(JTA) — Kiev’s Maidan, or Independence Square, has been the heart of the Ukrainian protest movement that last week brought about President Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster after deadly street battles. Russian officials and other Yanukovych supporters have accused the Maidan protesters of being fascists and neo-Nazis. But while Ukrainian ultra-nationalists, including… Read more »

Alice Herz-Sommer, pictured here on her 107th birthday, is the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary. She died at age 110 on Feb. 23. (Polly Hancock)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — In her 110 years, Alice Herz-Sommer was an accomplished concert pianist and teacher, a wife and mother — and a prisoner in Theresienstadt. Herz-Sommer died on Feb. 23. She is the star of an Oscar-nominated documentary showing her  indomitable optimism, cheerfulness and vitality despite all… Read more »

The protagonist of the Oscar-nominated "Omar" is on the run from Israeli agents who are pursuing the Palestinian murderer of an Israeli soldier. (Adopt Films)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — For cinematic observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict this is a banner year, with both sides choosing Oscar submissions that center on the Israeli occupation. Israel’s “Bethlehem,” which pits Shin Bet agents against diverse Palestinian factions eager to blow up the Jewish state, was eliminated early… Read more »

Bucharest's Jewish State Theater served as a cultural refuge for Romanian Jews during the Holocaust. (Wikimedia Commons)

BUCHAREST, Romania (JTA) — When secret police opened fire on protesters near her home, Maia Morgenstern headed for the Jewish State Theater. It was 1989 and Morgenstern, then 27, and a few of her friends took refuge in the theater as protesters outside clashed with forces loyal to Romanian… Read more »

Tucsonan Gabe Lehrer, left, and Sheldon Donenberg at Camp Ramah in Ojai, Calif., in 2011

Tucsonan Gabe Lehrer is not quite 16, but he is already working on his second professionally recorded CD, as half of the singer-songwriter duo Sheldon and Gabriel. Gabe met Sheldon Donenberg at Camp Ramah in Ojai, Calif., in the summer of 2011. Gabe, the son of Mimi Algazi and… Read more »

The Invisible Theatre will present “My Buddy,” a tribute to comedian Buddy Hackett — starring his son, Sandy Hackett — on Saturday, March 8 and Sunday, March 9 at the Berger Performing Arts Center, 1200 W. Speedway Blvd. This musical production will reveal stories about Hackett’s relationships with myriad… Read more »

Lori Hunt as Rosalind Franklin in ‘Photograph 51’ at Live Theatre Workshop

“Photograph 51,” a play about Jewish scientist Rosalind Franklin, will be staged at Live Theatre Workshop, 5317 E. Speedway Blvd., from Feb. 20 to March 22. Written by Anna Ziegler and directed by Sabian Trout, the production takes on the puzzle of DNA. Franklin, born to an affluent London… Read more »

"Spiraling" by Ira Wiesenfeld

Twelve additions to the Tucson Jewish Community Center’s Sculpture Garden will be unveiled on Sunday, March 9, 1-3 p.m. at the opening of the 5th annual Sculpture Garden exhibition, which features the work of artists from Tucson and across the country. “The goal was to find sculptures that would… Read more »

Kristen Fabry as Tzeitel and Damian Garcia as Motel in “Fiddler on the Roof” at Pima Community College (Carol Carder/PCC)

Working on Pima Commu­nity College’s upcoming production of “Fiddler on the Roof” has been “an absolute joy,” says director Todd Poelstra. “More than anything we’ve done, this event, from the first moment we announced it — it’s just been a positive response. ‘Oh, that’s one of my favorite shows… Read more »

From left to right: John Goodman, Matt Damon, George Clooney, Bob Balaban and Bill Murray star in "The Monuments Men" (Claudette Barius/Columbia Pictures)

BOSTON (JTA) — There’s nothing like a star-studded Hollywood movie to shine a light on a little-known piece of history. That’s the hope of Robert Edsel, who wrote the book that inspired “The Monuments Men,” the George Clooney-Matt Damon film that opens Friday in theaters across the country. The… Read more »

Mosab Hassan Yousef, right, is the subject of "The Green Prince" by filmmaker Nadav Schirman, left, a documentary about Yosef's work spying for Israel and his friendship with his Israeli handler Gonen ben Itzhak, center. (Larry Busacca/Getty Images)

PARK CITY, Utah (JTA) — Perhaps the most difficult thing about watching the new documentary “The Green Prince” is feeling that you should not be there, that everyone in the theater should be asked to leave before any more Israeli intelligence secrets are divulged. When the Israeli newspaper Haaretz… Read more »

The 2006 kidnapping and murder of Ilan Halimi, who is pictured here, is the subject of a forthcoming feature film from the director Alexandre Arcady. (Courtesy of Stephanie Yin)

SAINTE-GENEVIEVE-DES-BOIS, France (JTA) — The phone calls from Africa, the calm demeanor of the suspects and their extreme caution left no doubt in the minds of detectives working the Ilan Halimi case: They were up against an international ring of professional kidnappers. It would be more more than three… Read more »