Arts & Culture (Page 12)

By Edward Alexander , Special to JTNewsContinue Reading

By Edward Alexander , Special to JTNews Lost causes, forsaken beliefs, impossible loyalties! How many of these figure in, and sometimes disfigure, Jewish history. False messiahs like Sabbatai Zevi and Jacob Frank. Jewish homelands in Uganda or Birobidjan or pre-state Alaska. Yiddish as the official language of the State ofContinue Reading

By Charlene Kahn , Special to JTNews “A rumination on the preservation of history: who records it and why? What drives its documentation? Is it objective truth, or the personal motive of the historian?” These questions were penned by the playwright Doug Wright during the process of writing I AmContinue Reading

By Charlene Kahn, Special to JTNews A characteristic of timeless design is the ability for a piece to reappear as if newly imagined, seamlessly melding its actual origins with the contemporary viewer and resisting categorization. An accurately titled local exhibit, “The Enduring Designs of Josef Frank,” on view at TheContinue Reading

By Judy Lash Balint, Special to JTNews Instead of arriving to work at the Spectrum Dance Company’s home on tranquil Lake Washington Boulevard, artistic director Donald Byrd has spent the past two months crossing Jerusalem every day from his temporary home in Abu Tor to the Machol Shalem independent danceContinue Reading

By Gigi Yellen-Kohn , JTNews Correspondent On the phone from her home in Ramat Eshkol, near Tel Aviv, Chava Alberstein says it’ll be a short interview: Her grandchildren are coming over for a hug before the legendary singer, now 64, flies off for her latest cross-planet tour. In Seattle, AlbersteinContinue Reading

By Charlotte Anthony, Special to JTNews Note: This article has been corrected to note that not all films are open to the general public. Students and community members who want to learn more about daily life in Israel now have a way to do so: Through film. Every other WednesdayContinue Reading

By Eric Herschthal, other NEW YORK (N.Y. Jewish Week)—That “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” the notorious anti-Semitic tract about a Jewish conspiracy to control the world, still has currency in parts of the world today was no deterrent for Umberto Eco. If there was anyone who could getContinue Reading

By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews DVD Reviews Nora’s Will (2010, Mexico) Directed by Mariana Chenillo Menemsha Films Fourteen times Nora tried to kill herself. On the 15th, she succeeded, but not before preparing an intricate Passover feast that would bring her family together for one last seder. That’s the premiseContinue Reading

By Emily K. Alhadeff, Assistant Editor, JTNewsContinue Reading

By Emily K. Alhadeff, Assistant Editor, JTNews Celebrated Israeli writer David Grossman is on tour in the U.S. to talk about his latest novel, To the End of the Land, his first to deal with the matsav — the political and security situation — in Israel. After her son goesContinue Reading

By Diana Brement, JTNews ColumnistContinue Reading

By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist The Holocaust provides powerful foreshadowing, albeit unintentional by the author, in White Picture: Poems by Jiri Orten, translated by prizewinning Seattle poet Lyn Coffin (Night, paper, $9.99). Orten was a Czech Jew from a middle class secular family, and a young man when the portentsContinue Reading

By Diana Brement, JTNews ColumnistContinue Reading

By Diana Brement, JTNews Columnist Local Authors Bones Beneath Our Feet, by Michael Schein (B&H, paper, $16.95). This book is difficult to read, not because of its rich and dense language — which suits an historical novel — but its tragic 19th-century story. The crux of the tale is NisquallyContinue Reading

By Rita Berman Frischer, Special to JTNewsContinue Reading

By Rita Berman Frischer, Special to JTNews There is no better way to locate the best in Judaic children’s books for sharing and giving as gifts than to turn to the international Association of Jewish Libraries. AJL’s annual Sydney Taylor Book Awards are given in three categories — younger readers,Continue Reading