METROPOLITAN NEW YORK
Lectures and Discussions
In an Era of Terror: Warren Bass, a senior fellow in U.S. foreign policy and Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, discusses “U.S.-Israel Relations in an Era of Terror and Turbulence.” Bass is the author of the forthcoming “Support Any Friend: Kennedy’s Middle East and the Making of the U.S.-Israel Alliance” (Oxford). LeFrak Concert Hall, 65-30 Kissena Boulevard, Queens; March 26, 7:30 p.m.; free. (718-997-5730 or www.qc.edu/Jewish_Studies/cfjs.html)
‘The Fullness of Times’: While Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) is perhaps best known for founding the academic discipline that concerned itself with Jewish mysticism, he also wrote poetry. Deutsches Haus presents a reading in German and English from “The Fullness of Times: Poems by Gershom Scholem” (Ibis, 2003), translated by Richard Sieburth and introduced by Steven M. Wasserstrom, both participants in a post-reading roundtable discussion, along with Elliot Wolfson. Deutsches Haus at New York University, 42 Washington Mews; March 27, 7 p.m.; free. (212-998-8661)
Festivals and Conferences
The Spiritual Revival: The Jewish Community Center in Manhattan presents a four-day festival and conference that addresses the question “Is Neo-Hasidicism the next major trend in Jewish spirituality?” in “Awakening, Yearning and Renewal: A Conference on the Hasidic Roots of Contemporary Jewish Spiritual Expression & Festival of Neo-Hasidic Spirituality.” Among the participants are Tirzah Firestone, Mordecai Gafni, Elliot Ginsburg, Rolando Matalon, Lisa Meyer, Nehemia Polen, Michael Posnick, Marcia Prager, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Arthur Waskow, Chava Weissler and David Zeller. Three concerts are included in the lineup. Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Ave.; March 26-March 29, please call or visit Web site for complete listings and prices. (646-505-4406 or www.jccmanhattan.org)
Eye on Egypt: This year’s “Sephardic Experience Weekend” focuses on Egyptian Jews — in Brooklyn and in Cairo, culturally and politically — as it offers the opportunity to celebrate the Sabbath Sephardic style, as well as attend lectures and performances by Felix Mizrahi and Hazzan Moshe Tessone, view screenings of films including “Taqasim” and sample culinary delights at Egyptian-style buffets. Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, 2 W. 70th St.; March 28-March 30, please call for times and prices, reservations required. (212-294-8350 or e-mail [email protected])
Performance
The Golem Revisited: Edward Einhorn’s “Golem Stories” puts a new spin on the classic Jewish legend, re-creating 16th-century Prague and bringing to life Rabbi Judah Loew, Kind Rudolf II and, of course, the golem, fashioned from clay. The play premieres as part of Spotlight On’s Winter Into Spring Festival. Chashama, 125 W. 42nd St.; March 23, 10 p.m.; March 24-March 25, 5:30 p.m.; March 26, 8 p.m.; March 27, 7 p.m.; March 30, 4 p.m.; $15. (212-532-3101 or www.theatermania.com)
‘The Gift’: Playwright-director Shauna Kanter’s “The Gift” is a musical theater performance with a 22-person cast about a young American who tries to rescue a Jewish family from Hitler’s Germany. This is the American premiere of “The Gift,” which has been performed in Europe as “Legacy.” T. Schreiber Studio, 151 W. 26th St., seventh floor; March 22-April 13, Wed.-Sat. 8 p.m. and Sun. 3 p.m.; $15, $40 for second March 22 performance and party. (212-741-0265 or www.t-s-s.org)
Music
Hip Hop Khasane: Clarinetist David Krakauer joins DJ So-Called, violinist Sophie Solomon of Oi-Va-Voi and Michael Alpert for an evening of klezmer meets hip-hop wedding songs. Center for Jewish History, 15 W. 16th St.; March 29, 8 p.m.; $25. (917-606-8200 or www.cjh.org)
Bronx Bound: Under the baton of conductor-composer Binyumen Schaechter, the Jewish People’s Philharmonic Chorus plays songs old and new in a lineup that includes a set by Avrom Reisin, timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of his death. Refreshments are served. Sholem Aleichem Shul 21 Cultural Center, 3301 Bainbridge Ave. (at E. 208th St.), the Bronx; March 30, 1:30 p.m.; $3.50 suggested, free members. (718-881-6555)
Film
Jolson’s ‘Jazz Singer’: In conjunction with its exhibit “Entertaining America: Jews, Movies, and Broadcasting,” the Jewish Museum screens Alan Crosland’s “The Jazz Singer” (1927), starring Al Jolson as the son of a cantor who runs away from home to become a jazz singer but returns after his father’s death. Jeffrey Shandler — guest co-curator of the exhibit, an assistant professor of Jewish studies at Rutgers University and author of “While America Watches: Televising the Holocaust” — introduces the film and leads a post-screening discussion. The Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Ave.; March 27, 6:30 p.m.; $12, $10 students and seniors, $9 members. (212-423-3200 or www.jewishmuseum.org)
Exhibitions
Up Close and Personal: “Simi Ariam: Portraits” opens this week at the 92nd Street Y. The Jerusalem-born Ariam, who lives and practices in New York, is a psychologist whose social ties provide the subjects for this exhibition. The 25 images of high-profile individuals — caught at ease at social gatherings — include Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Susan Sontag and Richard Avedon, Elie Wiesel and A.B. Yehoshua, as well as Teddy Kollek, David Broza and Zubin Mehta. The 92nd Street Y, Milton J. Weill Art Gallery, 1395 Lexington Ave.; through April 9, please call for hours; free. (212-415-5500 or www.92y.org)
Out and About
Sheitelstock: Orthodykes, a “support and social group for Orthodox and formerly Orthodox lesbian, bisexual and transgender women, their family and friends,” presents a night of dance and fun — with music, libations and hamantashen — for Sheitelstock 2003. The Center, 208 W. 13th St.; March 29, 9 p.m.-1 a.m.; $15, $10 students. (212-539-8804)
A Wolf’s Call: Wolf Krakowski, (“Goyrl: Destiny” and “Gilgul: Transmigrations”) plays with the Lonesome Brothers & Friends. According to an article that once ran in these pages, Frank London once said this about Krakowski: “What Jewish music would have sounded like had the Holocaust never happened.” University of Connecticut at Storrs, Von der Mehden Recital Hall, 875 Coventry Road; March 26, 7:30 p.m.; $15, $7 students, reservations recommended. (860-486-8541)
Two at Hartford U.: The Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies presents a “Tribute to Latin American Jews and Judaism.” And in another lecture, “Jazz and the Jews,” center director Jonathan Karp takes a look at the role Jews played as “cultural and economic” middlemen in the music industry. Karp is an assistant professor of Jewish history at the State University of New York at Binghamton. University of Hartford, Wilde Auditorium, Harry Jack Gray Center; 200 Bloomfield Ave.; West Hartford; tribute lecture March 26, 7:30 p.m., and March 31, 7:30 p.m.; free. (860-768-4963)
Five Days of Film: The Greater Hartford Jewish Community Center ushers in the seventh annual Hartford Jewish Film Festival with a screening of “Monsieur Batignole” (2001, French with English subtitles), Gerard Jugnot’s drama about a Parisian shopkeeper who must choose between his family’s complicity with the S.S. and a Jewish boy who returns to a home from which his family has been deported. Opening night includes a reception and talk by “Indelible Shadow: Film and the Holocaust” author Annette Insdorf. Also in the lineup are Willy Lindwer’s documentary about the 2001 suicide bombing of the Dolphinarium Disco, “Empty Rooms” (Israel, 2002); “Unfair Competition” (Italy, 2001); “Advice and Dissent” (USA, 2002), and Aviva Slesin’s “Secret Lives” (USA, 2002). March 29-April 2, please call for complete listings; $35 opening night, $7. (860-231-6325 or www.hjff.org)
MARYLAND
Interwar Mameloshn: The 11th “Yiddish Culture Festival” is a daylong affair dedicated to “Yiddish Between the Two World Wars,” with lectures, forums, workshops and a performance by the Old World Folk Band. Participants include Samuel Norich, Herman Taube, Max Ticktin, Shelby Shapiro and others. Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, Upper School Campus, 11710 Hunters Lane, Rockville; March 30, 10:30 a.m.-6 p.m.; $60 includes all activities, $55 seniors, day-of registration required. (301-656-6451 or www.angelfire.com/md3/yiddish/index.html)
MASSACHUSETTS
From Near and Far: “Jewishfilm.2003: From Vienna to Naharayim” kicks off with Robert Schindel and Lukas Stepanik’s “Gebirtig” (Austria, 2002, German and Yiddish with English subtitles), which interweaves the stories of a Jewish actor from Vienna, a German journalist with a Nazi parent and an Austrian survivor in New York. Among the 11 other films in the festival is Eli Cohen’s “Rutenberg” (Israel, 2002), about Pinchas Rutenberg (1880-1942), who built a hydroelectric plant spanning the Jordan River in 1931. Other films include “Undying Love,” “Legado,” “Farewell to My Country” and “Advice and Dissent.” Brandeis University, Sachar International Center, Waltham; March 27-April 6, please call or visit Web site for times; $8, $6 students and seniors, festival pass $60, $50 seniors. (781-736-8600 or www.jewishfilm.org)
Voices Only: Ashkenazim, a young a cappella quartet from Russia, performs songs including its allegorical story “Di Yidishe Gas” (“The Yiddish Street”). The National Jewish Book Center, Hampshire College campus, 1021 West St., Amherst; March 29, 7:30 p.m.; $10, $5. (413-256-4900 or www.yiddishbookcenter.org)
MINNESOTA
Child’s Play: Inspired by the life of doctor, teacher and author Janusz Korczak (1879-1942), Jeffrey Hatcher’s “Korczak’s Children” is a play about and for children, based in part upon the orphanage Korczak founded in 1912, which was moved to the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. Korczak’s ideas about children’s empowerment would help lay the foundation for the League of Nations’ 1929 Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Korczak, along with his orphanage’s children, were killed at Treblinka in 1942. The Children’s Theatre Co., 2400 Third Ave. S., Minneapolis; today-April 19, please call for times; $15-$38, $9-$22 students and seniors. (612-874-0400 or www.childrenstheatre.org)
THE LOST WEEKEND?
A veteran Israel Defense Forces general (Asi Dayan) heads for the hills with his young girlfriend (Tinkerbell) for a weekend respite, only to encounter a series of strange phenomena, including an eerie iridescence in the surrounding hills and an odd hum in place of the radio news in Israeli filmmaker Igal Bursztyn’s “The Glow” (2002).
The film is screened as part of the New Directors/New Films series presented by the Department of Film and Media, the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, featuring films from countries around the globe, including Bangladesh, Chad, Kenya, Italy, the Netherlands and, of course, the United States.
MOMA’s Gramercy Theater, 127 E. 23rd St., March 31, 6 p.m.; Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, Broadway at 65th St.; April 1, 9 p.m.; $12, $9 members (212-875-5050 or www.filmlinc.com)
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