Books in brief
2010-11-18
Food Simply Southern With a Dash of Kosher Soul, from the Margolin Hebrew Academy/Feinstone Yeshiva of the South (cloth, $34.99 plus shipping). The Jewish community of Memphis gained some notoriety with the publication of Tova Mirvis’ novel The Ladies Auxiliary, but they make up for it with this big bookContinue Reading
By the books
2010-11-18
BOSTON (JTA) — Rhyming verse, lively family scenes, a cute pig who eats kosher pickles — and yes, menorahs, latkes and the Maccabees — are featured in a new crop of Hanukkah books for children written by some of the country’s most popular award-winning writers. Eight Winter Nights Laura KraussContinue Reading
A fashionable Seattle take on Jewish immigrants’ textile roots
2010-10-26
“All I want are high heels, high heels,” fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi once said. “If I was a girl, I’d wear a lot of high heels. High stiletto heels.” With Jews having such a deep history in fashion and the textile trade, it should be no surprise that Seattle’s JewishContinue Reading
Dybbuk resurrected
2010-10-22
A classic Jewish tale of love and darkness, S. Ansky’s The Dybbuk has been the crown jewel of Yiddish theater since its first performance by the Vilna Troupe in 1920. Nearly a century and hundreds of performances later, Seattle’s Music of Remembrance will perform the famous play’s long-hidden original scoreContinue Reading
Living in someone else’s body
2010-10-13
Jewish lore has a rich history of the supernatural, from the clay golems whose creators bring them to life to dybbuks, spirits from the afterlife who inhabit weak bodies to send messages from the great beyond. One author had an idea that kicked around in his head for years: ToContinue Reading
When life in the ghetto wasn’t really life in the ghetto
2010-09-28
History is written by the victors, the saying goes. But in the case of Nazi Germany, that has not been the case. History was not merely written by the Nazis, it was filmed. And long after the war, researchers continued to rely upon Nazi footage as historical record. Yael Heronski’sContinue Reading
Entertainment, redemption
2010-08-30
“The interesting thing about many short stories is that they are wonderful live performance texts,” said Kurt Beattie, artistic director for Seattle’s A Contemporary Theatre. ACT, in conjunction with Town Hall Seattle, will perform dramatic readings of short stories by Jewish American authors on Sun., Sept. 12 at Town Hall.Continue Reading
A much-needed discussion
2010-08-16
Salanio’s imitation of Shylock in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice makes any modern theatergoer cringe: “I never heard a passion so confused, / So strange, outrageous, and so variable, / As the dog Jew did utter in the streets: / “˜My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter! / FledContinue Reading
Say something funny
2010-08-04
Author Jonathan Tropper, whose bestselling This is Where I Leave You just came out in paperback, doesn’t try to be funny. But that didn’t keep this novel about a family that comes together to sit shiva after the death of its patriarch — a serious subject if anyone can thinkContinue Reading
Tweet, Tweet
2010-07-30
Genre-bending bands are nothing new. For decades The Clash fused punk with reggae. The Pogues have similarly drawn on punk rock energy to deliver their interpretations of Irish pub music. In the past decade or so, we have seen an increasing number of bands that have fused both Ashkenazi andContinue Reading
Book review: Ghetto resistance leader wanted revenge on Germany
2010-07-29
The Fall of a Sparrow: The Life and Times of Abba Kovner , By Dina Porat; translated by Elizabeth Yuval (Stanford University Press, 2009). Abba Kovner — ghetto resistance commander in Vilna during World War II, leader in the Brichah movement that brought the remnant of European Jewry to Palestine,Continue Reading
From the symphony to the chamber
2010-07-22
We all know about Gerard Schwarz, conductor. Lately, we’ve been hearing more and more about Gerard Schwarz, composer. Schwarz’ latest work, a “Trio for Violin, Horn, and Piano” (Horn Trio for short), will receive its world premiere at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival on Mon., July 26 at Benaroya Hall.Continue Reading
Jack-of-all-trades, master of several
2010-07-22
Kinky Friedman first rose to fame in the early 1970s for his satirical country music act, which he performed with his band Kinky Friedman and The Texas Jew Boys. Since then, Friedman, 65, has authored 30 books, both fiction and non-fiction, founded an animal rescue organization, run for governor ofContinue Reading
Dedicated to the music
2010-06-09
“There’s just something about music,” says Michele Yanow, that puts people in touch with their roots. Yanow, a lifelong choral singer, successful entrepreneur, and busy mother of two is the founder of the Seattle Jewish Chorale, a young organization that strives to harness the power of Jewish choral music toContinue Reading
Faith on the stage
2010-05-25
“There is no shortcut to certainty,” says Gbenga Akinnagbe, in character as the solo actor who portrays the stories of 11 Seattle citizens in The Thin Place, a play premiering at Intiman Theatre that runs through June 13. One of the characters is Isaac, a young Pentecostal African American, whoContinue Reading
Summer books: Faith and family
2010-05-25
Novelist Dani Shapiro examines her own life in her second memoir, Devotion (Harper, cloth, $24.99), her quest for religious and spiritual meaning in particular. Raised Orthodox, the product of a religious father and an anti-religious mother, we learn early on that the author has chosen a life free of religion,Continue Reading