Philip Roth receives an honorary doctorate at the Jewish Theological Seminary's commencement in New York on May 22, 2014. (Ellen Dubin Photography) (JTA) — “What is being done to silence this man?” an American rabbi asked in a 1963 letter to the Anti-Defamation League. He was talking about the novelist Philip Roth, whose early novels and short stories cast his fellow American Jews in what some considered a none-too-flattering light. Fast-forward… Read more »
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — At a Paris café after the war, a young publisher is quickly falling in love with an adorable Jewish author he just met as she discusses her still-unpublished book. It is an intensely private account based on a personal diary that recounts her amazing survival of… Read more »
(L-R) Bebe Fischer, Ina Shivack, Hilary Lyons and Billie Maas in Arizona Onstage Production’s ‘25 Questions for a Jewish Mother’ Part memoir, part stand-up routine, “25 Questions for a Jewish Mother” will feature two segments by local residents when it comes to Tucson this month. Comedienne Judy Gold and playwright Kate Moira Ryan weave actual interviews with Jewish mothers across the United States with memories from Gold’s childhood and… Read more »
“Pioneer Jews: A New Life in the Far West” by Harriet Rochlin was recently republished by the Authors Guild and iUniverse. The book, which covers 13 Western states, was called “Social history at its best, entertaining, engaging, and filled with little known information about famous and not-so-famous Jewish pioneers,”… Read more »
Tucsonan Nora Sevy enjoys PJ Library books (Courtesy Libby Quinn) The PJ Library program in Southern Arizona is expanding and will now be available for all families raising Jewish children through 8 years of age. When the program launched in Southern Arizona in 2009 it was available for families raising Jewish children from 6 months through 6 years of… Read more »
Members of the Philadelphia-based "Butterfly Project" perform in Terezin, the very place where the characters they portrayed had been imprisoned during the Holocaust. (Londa Salamon Photography/www.londaphotography.com) PRAGUE (JEWISH EXPONENT) — When the applause faded, the 32 young actors remained on stage in silence. Some of them hugged. They looked at each other, their faces filled with amazement and disbelief — the circle was complete. The Philadelphia-based troupe had brought the words of Terezín’s children back… Read more »
Bebe Fischer, Ina Shivack, Hilary Lyons, Billie Maas (Patrick J. McArdle) Arizona Onstage Productions is holdinga contest for two monologues to be performed in “25 Questions for a Jewish Mother,” by Kate Moira Ryan and Judy Gold, which will run for three weekends beginning May 9at the Temple of Music and Art Cabaret Theater. Email your essay, “My best memory… Read more »
In a photo from the late 1940s, Rabbi Osher Levitan (right) supervises production of Passover matzah at the Streit’s matzah factory on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. For the past year, filmmaker Michael Levine and producer Michael Green have been documenting the story of the last family- owned matzah factory in America, the Streit’s matzah factory on New York’s historic Lower East Side. The result is “Streit’s: Matzo and the American Dream” , a feature length… Read more »
The cast of ‘Olive and the Bitter Herbs,’ (L-R): David Alexander Johnston, Eric Anson, Susan Claassen, Susan Kovitz and Jack Neubeck (Tim Fuller)
Actress Olive Fisher, known for her “Gimme the Sausage” commercial, is a classic New York curmudgeon at war with the world in general and her next door neighbors in particular. Her closed-off life is shaken by the appearance of a ghost in her mirror, but that’s the least of… Read more »
The cast of “Love, Loss and What I Wore,” (clockwise from top left): Avis Judd, Carley Elizabeth Preston, T. Loving, Carlisle Ellis and Carrie Hill. Five women explore identity and relationships in “Love, Loss and What I Wore,” a play by Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron, based on the best-selling memoir by Ilene Beckerman. In monologues that are by turns comic and bittersweet, the characters recall prom dresses and cowboy boots, parents and lovers,… Read more »
BOSTON (JTA) — Growing up in Bosnia, Merima Kljuco was familiar with the Sarajevo Haggadah. The medieval, illuminated manuscript was considered a treasure of the Bosnian National Museum for more than a century. Its 600-year journey from Spain through Italy and then Sarajevo, and its survival through persecution and… Read more »
A normal to-do list for a 13-year-old probably wouldn’t include a 30-city global headliner musical tour, but Ethan Bortnick is no average Jewish teen. Bortnick’s ability to enthrall audiences with his uncanny musical ear and astonishing talent on the piano has led him to be named as one of… Read more »
BOSTON (JTA) — Frolicking frogs and magical matzah balls are featured in this season’s crop of new Passover books for children that are sure to engage, inform, entertain and inspire. David A. Adler, author of the hugely popular early reader “Cam Jansen” series, offers “The Story of Passover.” Adler… Read more »
Artifacts filmmaker Arnon Goldfinger found in his grandparents’ Tel Aviv apartment reveal a troubling story. A special screening of “The Flat” will take place at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on Sunday, March 30 at 3 p.m. The documentary, in Hebrew/German/English with subtitles, was released in September 2011 in Israel, where it played continuously for 13 months. At age 98, director Arnon Goldfinger’s grandmother… Read more »
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 »
