Arts News (Page 11)

By Bethlehem Shoals, other (Tablet) — In the 1930s, Hank Greenberg chased Babe Ruth’s records and won the 1934 World Series with the Detroit Tigers. The national pastime wasn’t friendly territory for a Jewish athlete then, but by proudly staking out a claim, Greenberg proved that Jews could play theContinue Reading

By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNewsContinue Reading

By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews We have seen plenty of literature, films and nonfiction about the horrors of the Holocaust. Even more so now as the survivors of those horrific years are passing away in ever greater numbers. What has not been nearly as well documented has been the immediateContinue Reading

By Beth Kissileff, JTNews CorrespondentContinue Reading

By Beth Kissileff, JTNews Correspondent One would not expect a novel about a battered woman and her protectors, identity confusion, and murder to be written by a male septuagenarian Holocaust survivor. But as one of Aharon Appelfeld’s characters says, “Contradictions don’t put me off.” Appelfeld’s newest novel to appear inContinue Reading

By Masha Rifkin, otherContinue Reading

By Masha Rifkin, other Perhaps doctor doesn’t know best. In their new book, Your Medical Mind: How To Decide What is Right For You, husband-wife physician team Jerome Groopman and Pamela Hartzband lay the groundwork for making sound medical decisions. None of our choices are completely independent, the authors say;Continue Reading

By Neal Schindler , Special to JTNews The wild rumpus began around 6:30 p.m. In front of buffets packed with lox, knishes, and apricot kuchen, the Kosher Red Hots, Spokane’s preeminent klezmer band, began whirling out songs in Yiddish and getting the sizable crowd to sing along. During the firstContinue Reading

By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews Note: The name of the theater company’s fall production has been corrected to Tales of Chelm. When the Seattle Jewish Theater Company did its first of four performances of Tales the Chelm a month ago, it marked the official answer to a question Art FeinglassContinue Reading

By Heather Robinson , Special to JTNews In advance of her November 4 performance at Tacoma’s Pantages Theater, the indefatigable Joan Rivers made time to speak with JTNews about her two TV shows, memories of her Jewish grandmothers, and how to stay forever young at heart. JTNews: Hi Joan! LastContinue Reading

By Gigi Yellen, JTNews Correspondent Jewish and Nazi prisoners interned together behind the same barbed wire? Sometimes in the same bed? Both considered “enemy aliens”? That actually happened in the England of World War II. Those strange bedfellows were the first audiences for the satiric, cabaret-style revue “What a Life!”Continue Reading

By Michael Fox , Special to JTNews The pioneering Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem was born in a shtetl in the middle of the 19th century, and even today his name is synonymous with the Old Country and a vanished way of life. Blame Fiddler on the Roof, which was adaptedContinue Reading

By Andy Levy-Ajzenkopf, other Toronto filmmaker Naomi Jaye is set to produce Canada’s — and possibly North America’s — first Yiddish feature film in more than 70 years. Jaye, 38, has spent the past four years scripting and developing her film The Pin. It’s the story of an elderly, isolatedContinue Reading

By Michael Fox, Special to JTNews The astonishingly cheeky French screwball comedy The Names of Love willfully takes on the most sensitive issues from a single, calculated direction: Head on. With unbridled enthusiasm and fearless wit, co-writers Michel Leclerc (who also directed) and Baya Kasmi cover the political-cultural spectrum fromContinue Reading

By Corey Salka , Special to JTNews “What God is trying to do with this world is to figure out who he is through us,” music sensation Matisyahu told the campers at Camp Solomon Schechter. “That’s really what Jewish mysticism says.” Matisyahu, known for his fusion of reggae, hip-hop andContinue Reading

By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews A funny thing happened while I was reading David Bezmozgis’s new novel The Free World (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, $26). I went out for beers with a few folks and it came up that one of the women in our party had emigrated from the SovietContinue Reading

By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews When Michele Yanow and Mary Pat Graham heard Kol Dodi, the Metro-West Jewish Community Chorale of New Jersey perform “Not in Our Town,” “we said, “˜We have to sing this song,’” said Yanow, founder and executive director of the Seattle Jewish Chorale. The piece byContinue Reading

By Herb Krohn, Special to JTNews The Seattle International Film Festival is underway through Sunday, June 12, 2011. Information and tickets can be found at www.siff.net as well as the SIFF Box Office on the second floor of Pacific Place and SIFF Cinema at the Seattle Center on Mercer Street.Continue Reading