Tag: play

Anyone who thought Israel was immune to the kind of divisive "culture wars" that have beset America in recent years was in for a rude awakening this past week.

Anyone who thought Israel was immune to the kind of divisive "culture wars" that have beset America in recent years was in for a rude awakening this past week.

Gussie Levine is a 99-year-old great-grandmother who worked as a teacher for the New York City Board of Education for many years. She volunteers for many worthy causes, and has participated in a new educational program, Mobilization for Youth - working with children of all ages.

Dear Ann, I've read your last few articles on psycho-neurological testing (Oct.8-22) with interest. As a therapist who has counseled couples dealing with chronic illness, I'd like to give you another perspective.

It was 75 years ago. In 1934 in my city of Detroit, a survey revealed that 33.1 percent of male Jews in the area were proprietors, managers, and officials and had a median income of $1,638.

Though the members of the House Committee on Un-American Activities had a copy of Lucille Ball's signed 1936 communist registration card, they accepted her excuse that she joined the party just to please her grandfather, because her name wasn't Jaffe, Chodorov, Berman or Phillip Loeb. So says Jim Brochu in his one-man show about Samuel Joel "Zero" Mostel, which argues that McCarthyism overlapped to a large extent with anti-Semitism. "She could have called her show I Love Lenin and they would have forgiven her. And they did forgive her," he adds.

Several months ago, at a children's rally, my 10-year-old son was the lucky winner of a raffle. His prize? A plump goldfish. It came in a plastic bag filled with water.

Several months ago, at a children's rally, my 10-year-old son was the lucky winner of a raffle. His prize? A plump goldfish. It came in a plastic bag filled with water.

When Gaylord Perry made it to the major leagues with the San Francisco Giants in 1962, manager Alvin Dark told him that while he had the makings of being a good pitcher, he would be a terrible hitter. In fact, Dark told Perry that man would walk on the moon before Perry would ever hit a home run.

The hottest event at the 18th Maccabiah Games currently being held in Israel could be the anticipated encounter between the American and Israeli men's basketball squads during the playoffs next week, a prospect that Bruce Pearl - the University of Tennessee and Maccabi USA coach - is actually counting on.

In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, a troupe of Athenian actors, "rude mechanicals" according to the sprite Puck, meets in the woods to rehearse "the most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby." Puck frustrates the efforts of Quince, Snug, Flute, Snout, and Starveling to practice when he turns Bottom into a donkey. "If he come not, then the play is marred: it goes not forward, doth it?" worries Flute, but in the end the play-within-a-play transpires on schedule, with all its absurd disclaimers designed not to frighten the court ladies.

An unshaven man stumbles onstage, clad in a raincoat covering his pajamas. He is barefoot and shuffles among the dried leaves that litter the stage area, a long rectangular set with the audience on either side. It is a most intimate performance area, uncomfortably so.

She rolls the dice. Her face is serious, concentrating on the outcome.

She rolls the dice. Her face is serious, concentrating on the outcome.

If Iranian-Israeli relations are ever to improve, will the miracle originate amongst policymakers and trickle down to the masses, or will civilians grow so tired of the conflicts that they insist upon crafting their leadership in their own pacifistic image? This question is of course well above the pay grade of a column on Jewish arts, but it is central to Motti Lerner's "Benedictus," in a limited run at Theater J at the Washington DC JCC.

When one loses a spouse, it sometimes does not take very long for people to play matchmaker. "Only a stone should be alone." Is a phrase often bandied about as widowed well spouses are encouraged to start dating again. Many in this situation relish their time to themselves, which has been an elusive dream for so long and are not ready to start the process. Some however, would like to remarry, and helpful friends begin to look for a shidduch for them.

Nestled in the picturesque village of Metullah in the hills of the Upper Galilee, hidden in the serpentine alleyways of the quaint cobble-stoned streets, is Zami's Music Box, Israel's only museum of musical instruments.

On January 14 the North American Council for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews held an evening of theater in support of the Museum.

While no one can ever guarantee great weather, I know that just the other day, on December 29th, I was sitting outside a caf?, sipping my favorite iced drink - without a jacket.

The dreidel is one of the best-known games during Chanukah. This four-sided spinning top has four letters: Shin, Hey, Gimmel and Nun.

I recently became a bubbe again with the birth of a granddaughter, Kayla Elisheva.

I recently had the good fortune to be able to attend a musical in New York City that was entirely in Yiddish, a presentation of the National Yiddish Theatre Folks­biene.

"Some of our most exquisite murders," Alfred Hitchcock famously observed, "have been domestic, performed with tenderness in simple, homey places like [at] the kitchen table."

"Some of our most exquisite murders," Alfred Hitchcock famously observed, "have been domestic, performed with tenderness in simple, homey places like [at] the kitchen table."

Light and shadow typically assume moral implications in literature, where light is often divine and dark symbolizes the unknown and the scary.

Pegging Arthur Miller a Jewish playwright is a dangerous enterprise.

At first glance, Moritz Rabinowitz and Baruch Spinoza have very little in common.

He's older than any radio station and spoke before movies did. My legendary friend Ernie Harwell will be 90 years old soon.

Puppeteers are supposed to be jolly sorts, who associate with Sesame Street, the Muppets and Mister Rogers's Neighborhood.

If an Israeli settler and a Palestinian shopkeeper sat through Israeli playwright Ilan Hatsor's Masked, both might feel betrayed and misrepresented.