Beautiful music with compelling stories
The 30th San Diego International Jewish Film Festival is underway. These aren’t your big-budget Hollywood blockbusters. These are indie films with heart that speak to who we are as a people. I managed to...
Mother-Daughter Conflict Plays Out in ‘The Garden’
Novelist and historian, Leo Tolstoy once said, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” This is born out in La Jolla Playhouse’s current production, The Garden. This two-woman...
Documentary on worst anti-Semitic attack in America shows courage under fire
SWAT teams rushing to a synagogue to save people from a shooting?
That was something most people thought they’d never see. But that’s what happened at the Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Synagogue when Gregory Bowers opened...
Holocaust Memory, Inappropriate Sexual Relations Themes of ‘The Reader’
The Reader is an exemplary piece of filmmaking, superbly acted by Kate Winslet, David Kross, and Ralph Fiennes, beautifully lit by two of Britain’s finest cinematographers (Roger Deakins and Chris Menges) and sensitively directed by...
Documentary on worst anti-Semitic attack in America shows courage under fire
SWAT teams rushing to a synagogue to save people from a shooting?
That was something most people thought they’d never see. But that’s what happened at the Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Synagogue when Gregory Bowers opened...
With Heirs’ Permission, Rube Goldberg Reimagined as a Modern 6th Grader
When I read on the back cover that this chapter book for middle schoolers had been published with the permission of the Heirs of Rube Goldberg, LLC, I was reassured that the name of...
New ‘Blossom’ reboot to shift show from sitcom to drama
Fans concerned about the fate of Mayim Bialik after her writers-strike-inspired departure from hosting the quiz show “Celebrity Jeopardy!” need not worry: In development is a new project returning to the cast of “Blossom,” the 1990s...
Remember ‘Grapes of Wrath’? ‘Mother Road’ at SD Rep is the Sequel
The name John Steinbeck evokes images of the hay-field covered American southwest, the Dust Bowl, hungry children with dirty faces, and men and women scarred by depression and poverty. Where Grapes of Wrath left off, a...
When Nazis Tried to Wreck U.S., British Economies
Operation Bernhard was an exercise by Nazi Germany to forge British and American bank notes. The initial plan was to drop the notes over Britain to bring about a collapse of the British economy...
Drumming in Jewish Circles
In the book “Miriam’s Tambourine: Jewish Folktales from Around the World” (1988), edited by Prof. Howard Schwartz, Miriam’s drum had magical abilities. Taken from a 19th-century Eastern European folktale, Schwartz writes that the music...