Biographical Documentary USA English Language with limited subtitles Tues., May 25, 7 p.m. — Harvard Exit Thurs. May 27, 4:30 p.m. — SIFF Cinema Rating: Excellent One of the greatest benefits of attending the Seattle International Film Festival is the opportunity for exposure to educational documentaries profiling noteworthy people andContinue Reading
Drama based on factual event USA English language, with minimal subtitles Sat., May 22, 9:30 p.m. — Pacific Place Cinema Sun., May 23, 4 p.m. — Pacific Place Cinema Rating: Average In the late 1990s a story broke about the arrest of a group of Chassidic Jews who had beenContinue Reading
NEW YORK (JTA) — Early on in the Talmudic tractate of Taanit, Rabbi Yitzchak causes a bit of a stir when, in the name of Rabbi Yochanan, he declares: “Jacob our father did not die.” Rav Nachman rejects the idea with a sharp retort, asking: “Was it then for nothingContinue Reading
Known to cinema fans from his soundtrack for the 1991 film Tous les Matins du Monde/All the Mornings of the World, composer Jordi Savall’s 40-year career combines scholarship, entertainment, and visionary goodwill with virtuoso performances both in concert and on hundreds of recordings, many from his own label, Alia Vox.Continue Reading
The poetry of teenaged Jewish boys imprisoned in the TerezÃn concentration camp will be given new life in the oratorio Vedem, by composer Lori Laitman and librettist David Mason. Vedem will receive its world premiere at Music of Remembrance’s spring concert on May 10. Laitman believes these lines of Mason’sContinue Reading
Hazzan Isaac Azose’s CD, Ladino Reflections, took just six months to produce, but it took 20 years to dream. His double-disc collection of Ladino folksongs is the cherry atop a lifetime of Sephardic liturgical and cantorial achievements. The CD follows Azose’s far-reaching contributions to the preservation of Turkish and RhodesliContinue Reading
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — The Public Broadcasting Service will offer U.S. television viewers a concentrated history lesson during Holocaust Remembrance Week, with seven films and documentaries on Jewish death and defiance in the past and on the genocides of the present. Four main films will be aired in prime timeContinue Reading
When JDub Records sent us its first foray into children’s music, an album called Let’s Go Coconuts! by a band called The Macaroons, we knew that by actually transferring it onto our iPod, we would have one of two reactions: We’d either want to throw the device at the wallContinue Reading
In the world of women, shoes can change everything. Women lurk among department store shoe racks, touching, trying, fantasizing. This phenomenon is largely thanks to Beth Levine (1914-2006), the ambitious yet virtually unknown designer responsible for making women’s footwear fashionable in America. “Beth Levine: First Lady of Shoes” showcases aContinue Reading
Who ever heard of Hank Greenspun? Unless you grew up in Las Vegas sometime between the ‘50s and ‘70s, or paid close attention to the machinations of Israel’s founding, you probably haven’t. But that didn’t stop Hollywood screenwriter Scott Goldstein from working with the Greenspun family to create a rivetingContinue Reading
Allow me, if you will, to illuminate for you two unwavering cinematic truths. First, in any film, if an adorable animal appears in the first act — especially if said creature is the only friend of an awkward child — that adorable animal is destined for death. Second, if aContinue Reading
It might be a few hours after you leave the theater before it hits you how spiritual a film Seven Minutes in Heaven is. Galit (Reymond Amsellem) survives a suicide bombing on a Jerusalem bus line, and must search for answers to those minutes immediately before and after the explosionContinue Reading
Even by the high standards set by Israeli films in the last few years, Ajami is a knockout. A crackling urban drama shot with unblinking realism and steeped in astringent Middle East irony, Ajami sinks its hooks in the first minute and never lets up. Written, directed and edited byContinue Reading
For their first time out, Israeli’s Ethiopian community has produced a film that enters their adopted country’s pantheon of moviemaking. That said, Zruvabel is not without its flaws. At 72 minutes, this short (by today’s standards, anyway) feature film is the first time we can see a snapshot of aContinue Reading
Seven years ago, Israeli musician Idan Raichel never thought he’d be touring the world and meeting some of the planet’s greatest musicians. But he has become well-known with his collaborations with artists from places like South America and India, not to mention Ethiopia and Australia. JTNews spoke with Raichel asContinue Reading
Ruthlessly and riotously, A Matter of Size (Sipur Gadol) proves once and for all that Israel is the world’s capital of tough love. Four seriously overweight friends, each with their own insecurity, mishugas or secret, might be expected to form a rock-solid, mutually dependent support network. The rotund quartet inContinue Reading
French-Jewish writer-director Karin Albou assumed that the Algerian side of her family had been untouched by World War II. Then she came across the letters that her grandfather, a doctor in the French Army, had written to her grandmother from a German POW camp. He was held for four years,Continue Reading
Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to note the position of the former Indian ambassador to Israel. When the review committee for the Seattle Jewish Film Festival watched Ajami in October, they knew immediately it should the cornerstone of this year’s event to broach the not-always-pleasant sides of IsraeliContinue Reading
The Stroum Jewish Community Center’s Center Stage theater program has recently been revived within its halls. Now its director wants to take his next show out of the building. The gravity of the newest upcoming production, Voices of Hope, an adaptation by Center Stage director Daniel Alpern on writings fromContinue Reading
[Note: This article has been corrected to properly name Angella Nazarian’s husband.] When Jewish Iranian Angella Nazarian fled the violent revolutionary uprising of 1979 in her country and arrived in a predominately Jewish neighborhood in Beverly Hills at the age of 11, her father assured her it would only beContinue Reading
