METROPOLITAN NEW YORK
Pre-Passover
A Head Start on the Haggada: Get yourself into the celebratory spirit of Passover with the Israel-America Foundation’s “Passover ‘Pre-Seder’ Program,” supporting Clalit Health. The full-course glatt kosher meal — with wine, of course — is accompanied by services conducted by Rabbi Paul Levenson, aka the guitar-playing rabbi, as well as musician David Gordon and Elaine Levitt’s Haggada. The Workmen’s Circle, 45 E. 33rd St.; April 14, 1:30 p.m.-4 p.m.; $30. (212-869-9477)
Nosh and Stroll: With stops at Streit’s Matzoh, Guss’s Pickles and Schapiro’s Wines, the Eldridge Street Projects’s annual “Pre-Passover Nosh and Stroll” is a Lower East Side walk down the memory lane of the Eastern European Jewish immigrant population, circa 1890, with stops at local landmarks and religious sights punctuated by stop-and-nosh interjections. Eldridge Street Synagogue, 12 Eldridge St.; April 13, 11 a.m.; $10, reservations required. (212-219-0903)
Foods of Our Fathers: Philip Schoenberg, aka Dr. Phil, takes trekkers on a “Passover Jewish Lower East Side Talk and Walk,” with stops of both historical and culinary import. First Roumanian American Synagogue, 89 Rivington St.; April 13 and April 20, 1:30 p.m.; $15. (888-377-4455)
Lectures and Discussions
Weighing the Penalty: In “Judaism and the Death Penalty,” lawyers, scholars and legal theorists address their topic from historical, philosophical and procedural standpoints. Panelists include Nathan Lewin, Rabbi Michael Chernick and Suzanne Last Stone. Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, 1 W. 4th St.; April 9, 6:30 p.m.; free, $100 lawyers seeking CLE credits. (212-824-2272)
Bookish: “Hester Among the Ruins” author Binnie Kirshenbuam and former Jewish Week “Table for One” columnist Susan Josephs are the literary guests of honor at the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan’s next “Rough Cut: Writers on the Edge” reading. KGB Bar, 85 E. 4th St.; April 9, 7:30 p.m.; free. (646-505-4444)
Music
Centennial Scores: “Stefan Wolpe: Three Lands, One Language” is a daylong festival at the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts organized by C.W. Post adjunct David Holzman, who was nominated for a Grammy Award this year for his solo recording “Wolpe: Compositions for Piano (1920-1952).” The festival begins at 11 a.m. with “Berlin and the Hot ’20s,” a panel discussion followed by a concert. At 3 p.m. it’s “Josef Marx and Stefan Wolpe: A Friendship in Music” and then at 7 p.m. it’s “Josef Marx and Stefan Wolpe: Four Decades of Masterpieces.” Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, Hillwood Recital Hall, C.W. Post Campus, Long Island University, Brookeville; April 6, 11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; festival $45, $25 each concert. (516-299-2333)
Performance
Breaking It Down: Marc Maron, the man who brought you “Jerusalem Syndrome,” breaks himself down in “Decomposition.” Joe’s Pub, 25 Lafayette St.; April 8-April 9, 7:30 p.m.; $15. (212-239-6200)
Community
Long Island Learning: Children with learning disabilities — including autism and attention deficit or hyperactivity disorder — are taught about Passover by Special Needs Training Wheels, a collaborative program presented by Hadassah Nassau Region, F.E.G.S. Long Island and the UJA-Federation of New York. Please call for additional details. Mid-Island Y Jewish Community Center, 45 Manetto Hill Road, Plainview, Long Island, and Barry and Florence Friedberg Jewish Community Center, 15 Neil Court, Oceanside, Long Island; April 13, 10 a.m.-11 a.m.; free. (516-493-7550)
MASSACHUSETTS
Foodies’ Favorites: The Forward’s “Food Maven” columnist, Matthew Goodman, leads a tour through the history of Jewish eats — gefilte fish, borscht in all its beautiful shades, latkes and herring, to name a few — as the first event in the National Yiddish Book Center’s four-Sunday culinary series, “Ess, Mayn Kind: The Story of Jewish Cuisine.” The first Sunday hopefully will whet everyone’s appetite for screenings of “Gefilte Fish” and “Divine Food” on April 13; an April 20 discussion led by Forward columnist Jenna Weissman Joselit, author of “The Wonders of America: Reinventing Jewish Culture, 1880-1950,” and “Send a Salami to Your Boy in the Army: Sites of Jewish Memory on the Lower East Side,” a lecture by Eve Jochnowitz, who teaches Yiddish at Rutgers University and is the foodways instructor at Living Traditions KlezKamp. The National Yiddish Book Center, Hampshire College campus, 1021 West. St., Amherst; April 6-April 27, Sundays, 2 p.m.; $3 suggested. (413-256-4900 or www.yiddishbookcenter.org)
NEW JERSEY
Run for Rachel: Why not lace up your sneakers and join the third annual “Run for Rachel” fundraiser. The family event — featuring a DJ and refreshments, along with a 5-kilometer race, a 3-kilometer walk and a children’s run — raises funds for the Rachel Coalition, northern New Jersey’s domestic-violence response group. Its services include a 24-hour crisis hotline, a safe house with kosher facilities, counseling, transitional services and outreach. Memorial Oval, Livingston; April 13, rain or shine; $22, $18 before April 7, $7 children. (973-765-9050, ext. 400 or www.rachelcoalition.org)
CONNECTICUT
New Music at Yale: To fête its acquisition of the 700-piece Wallersteiner Collection of Jewish Music, Yale University presents a two-day conference with Jewish music at its core. The festival opens up with a performance by the klezmer revival band Brave Old World — with violinist Michael Alpert, clarinetist Christian Dawid and Stuart Brotman on percussion, bass and cimbalom. The Sunday conference boasts sessions on “Jewish Theater Music,” sacred music and “Community and Celebration.” Punctuating the sessions is music by the chamber quartet Antares as well as a performance of songs from the newly acquired collection, which includes 18th- and 19th-century sheet music from Germany, the United States, Israel and elsewhere. Concert, 392 Orange St., New Haven; April 12, 8:30 p.m.; free; conference, Yale University, Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St., New Haven; April 13, 9:30 a.m.; free. (203-432-7207 or www.yale.edu/opa)
FLORIDA
One Wrong Turn: Aviva Kempner’s “Today I Vote for My Joey” (2003) tragicomedy tells the story of a group of Jewish Palm Beach County seniors in the year 2000 whose bubble of pride is burst when they find out they’ve mistakenly cast their ballots for Patrick Buchanan and not the first Jewish vice presidential candidate. Screened as part of the Palm Beach County International Film Festival, “Today” is paired with Yale Strom’s new documentary “Klezmer of Fish Street.” Sunrise Cinemas Mizner Park, 301 Plaza Real, April 7, 7 p.m., April 8, 2 p.m.; $8, $6.50 students and seniors; please call or visit Web site for compete festival listings. (561-218-1370 or www.pbifilmfest.org)
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