Foundation for Jewish Culture News

It seems you are new to The Jewish Culture Log of Arts, so we would like to recommend that you subscribe to our RSS feed to keep yourself up-to-date of the best art from the Jewish Community. Thank you for your visit!

Applications for grants from the Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Filmmaking and our New Jewish Theatre Projects program will be online next week at www.jewishculture.org.

The Gantz-Zahler Grant for Nonfiction Publishing is awarded biannually to a nonfiction book project under contract. This year, we are pleased to announce that Antony Polonsky, Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University, and a preeminent scholar of Eastern European Jewry, received the prize for his comprehensive study, The Jews in Poland, Lithuania and Russia 1250-1914. Established by Karen Gantz-Zahler and Eric Zahler, the grant of $2,500 covers any cost related to publication, including research, editorial, printing, marketing or distribution.

The Foundation will host a reception in honor of the 2007-2008 winners of the Marilyn Cohen Fund for Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships at the Association for Jewish Studies conference in Toronto on Mon., December 17 at 6:30 pm. We are extending a special invitation to previous Fellowship recipients and welcome all conference registrants. Please contact grants@jewishculture.org if you are interested in attending.

Six Points Fellowship Feature

Dan Fishback

Photo: Jacques Jean

The Last Chanukah
December 9, 8pm, FREE
Dixon Place, 258 Bowery, New York, NY

Dan Fishback received a Six Points Fellowship for The Last Chanukah, a performance project that explores issues contemporary and ancient, obscure and deeply personal, in all their complexity. You can read more about the project here: http://www.sixpointsfellowship.org/fellows/Dan/

The full production is tentatively slated for December, 2008; please join Dan for this early reading, to be followed by a talk-back.

After a successful writing career at the University of Pennsylvania, where Dan regularly published his views on politics, Judaism and sexual identity, he is further cultivating his diverse talents in New York. He performs widely, perfecting his confident, yet neurotic, signature style: a deeply intimate form of spoken word that highlights his genius for bitingly clever juxtapositions.

*The Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists is a partnership of Avoda Arts, JDub Records, and the Foundation for Jewish Culture, and is made possible with major funding from UJA-Federation of New York.

GRANTEE NEWS

Everything’s Cool
Opening in New York and LA
Screenings and events http://events.everythingscool.org/

This November, Judith Helfand, who received a grant from the Lynn and Jules Kroll Documentary Film Fund for the Peabody Award-winning A Healthy Baby Girl (1996), became a Simon Fellow, one of 50 artists to be recognized by United States Artists with a $50,000 grant. Her new and powerful documentary Everything’s Cool, co-directed with Daniel Gold, is now opening. The film follows the United States and its global warming messengers through an extraordinary three years of transformation, from 2003 to the eve of 2007.

A Single Eye of Fire: The Sway Machinery celebrates the first night of Chanukah
December 4, 9:30pm, $12
Joe’s Pub, NYC
www.joespub.com; www.swaymachinery.com

Six Points Fellow Jeremiah Lockwood and his band celebrate the first night of Chanukah in their awe-inspiring style. The DVD of their sold-out Rosh Hashannah show, Hidden Melodies Revealed, will be offered for sale-and would make an ideal holiday present for almost anyone.

Ain’t Got No Home
December 6, 7, 8, 14, 15, $10
Limited seating, please reserve early: 269-345-7529
Whole Art Theater, Kalamazoo, MI
www.wholeart.org.

Whole Art Theater received a 2007 New Jewish Theatre Projects grant for Ain’t Got No Home, Steve Feffer’s play about Leonard Chess, a Jewish immigrant from Poland who founded the Chess Records label on Chicago’s Southside in 1950, and his relationship with Muddy “Mississippi” Waters, the legendary bluesman from Rolling Fork, Mississippi, with whom he made music history. Opening Night, Thursday, December 6, is a Blues Bash Benefit for the Whole Art, featuring a performance of the play, followed by drinks and appetizers accompanied by a live blues band ($50).

Divahn / Smadar, Presented with The Sephardic Music Festival
December 9, 9:30pm, $15 advance, $18 door
Joe’s Pub
www.joespub.com; www.divahn.com

Join Six Points Fellow Galeet Dardashti and her award-winning band Divhan for a night of innovative music making, as they infuse traditional songs with sophisticated harmonies and arrangements.

Tings Dey Happen
Through December 22
The Culture Project
Performance Schedule: http://cultureproject.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=58

Dan Hoyle’s Tings Dey Happen, directed by two-time New Jewish Theatre Projects grantee Charlie Varon (Rabbi Sam, 2007, and The People’s Violin, 2001) is now in its fourth month at the Culture Project. New Yorker writer George Packer has called it, “important journalism and brilliant theater.”

COMMUNITY EVENTS

Habitus @ the Lit Cafe
November 29th, 7:30 pm
JCC in Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Avenue
FREE
http://www.timeout.com/newyork/event/books/376521/habitus-reading

Join Habitus: A Diaspora Journal for an evening of words and conversation from authors Igor Stiks (Sarajevo/Chicago) and Mariano Siskind (Buenos Aires/Boston), hosted by Habitus editor Joshua Ellison. The Foundation for Jewish Culture is a sponsor of Habitus.

Shabbat for Jenny with Neshamah

MIDRASH: Stories Reclaimed, the paintings of Carol Buchman
Opening: November 30, 6:30-7:30 pm (after 5:30pm Shabbat services, artist will speak)
Gallery Tour by Arist: December 3, 1pm
Elizabeth S. Fine Museum at Congregation Emanu-El, San Francisco
http://www.emanuelsf.org/about_finemuseum.htm

Incorporating varied media, Carol Buchman’s paintings cross boundaries, span generations and national landscapes, and give special attention to the feminine and mystical. A portion of the show’s sales will be donated to the children’s fund at Lev HaChesed Food Pantry in Rishon LeZion.

Crossing the BLVD: strangers, neighbors, aliens in a new America
December 1, 7pm; $10 suggested donation
Blue Stockings Bookstore, NYC , 212.777.6028
http://www.crossingtheblvd.org

Judith Sloan captures the struggles, humor, and pathos of new immigrants and refugees in Queens, NY, the most polyglot place on the planet, in a performance based on Warren Lehrer and Judith Sloan’s critically acclaimed book, Crossing the BLVD (W.W. Norton).

Odessa/Havana: The Klezmer Cuban Connection
With David Buchbinder and Hilario Duran
December 1, 8pm
Tickets $28 (member); $32 (public); $25 (student), 415-292-1233
JCC of San Francisco, www.jccsf.org/content_main.aspx?catid=336#1929

Canadian trumpeter and founder of Toronto’s famed Ashkenaz Festival David Buchbinder teams up with Cuban-born Juno Award-winning pianist and composer Hilario Duran, and a crew of brilliant musicians to create a spectacular musical fusion. Co-sponsored by the Jewish Music Festival, a project of the JCC East Bay.

Mayyim Hayyim Gallery Presents: The Mikvah Project
Opening: December 2, 5:00-6:30 pm
FREE, RSVP required to (617) 244-1836 or info@mayyimhayyim.org.
Mayyim Hayyim, Newton, MA
www.mayyimhayyim.org

The Mikvah Project explores the role of mikvah through stirring photos by Janice Rubin, text by Leah Lax, and quotes from women about this now-modern rite. Books will be available for purchase.

On the Border
Through December 2
Medicine Show Theater, NYC
www.medicineshowtheatre.org

Howard Pflanzer explores Walter Benjamin’s last night on earth in this intriguing and textured play.

Women Waging Peace: Why Women Must be Included as Leaders of Peace Processes
December 5, 6pm
FREE, reservations to publicevents@jtsa.edu required
Jewish Theological Seminary, New York City

Ambassador Swanee Hunt, President of Hunt Alternatives and Director of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, presents the Jack and Lewis Rudin Lecture. A gift copy of Swanee Hunt’s memoir, Half-Life of a Zealot, will be given to each person in attendance.

photo by Dan King

Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad
Opening off-Broadway December 5
The Zipper Factory, NYC
www.thezipperfactory.com

Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad is a refreshing mix of comedy, music, spoken-word and show-stopping burlesque, from chosen chicks who boldly dare to deconstruct years of tradition, expectations and guilt in a fast-paced vaudeville extravaganza.

Un giorno con Lucia
December 6, 6pm, Italian Cultural Institute, NYC, RSVP to 212.879.4242, x369
with the authors of Un giorno con Lucia
December 16, 4pm, Center for Jewish History, NYC, RSVP to rsvp@primolevicenter.org
a conversation with Mirella and Paola Bedarida about their mother Lucia

Two events examining the life of Lucia Servadio Bedarida, the first female graduate from the medical school of Rome who became the first woman physician in Morocco.

A Legacy for the Future: Celebrating the Life and Teachings of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
December 9; ticket and program details at www.cjh.org/programs/heschel.php Center for Jewish History, 15W 16th Street, NYC

Join an extraordinary gathering of scholars, educators, community leaders, activists, and friends as they honor Dr. Heschel and address some of the many facets of his impact on religious thought, Jewish scholarship, and social engagement. Co-chaired by Susannah Heschel and Peter Geffen. Co-sponsored by the American Jewish Historical Society, the American Sephardi Federation, the Leo Baeck Institute, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

With the Current
December 13, 7:30-8:45pm
New Worlds Theatre Project, NYC
www.newworldsproject.org/upcoming-events.htm

A staged reading of Shalom Asch’s With the Current, adapted by Mark Altman, Ellen Perecman, and Clay McLeod Chapman, to be followed by a “talk-back”. Presented in collaboration with the Jewish Museum.

Shlemiel the First
December 18, 2007 - January 20, 2008
Theater J, Washington DC
$15-$50, www.boxofficetickets.com or (800) 494-TIXS http://www.theaterj.org

Inspired by Nobel Prize winner I.B. Singer’s whimsical tales of Chelm, the Village of Fools, this theatrical “jolt of Joy” features rollicking klezmer music, slapstick comedy, and a grand tale of mistaken identity.

Three Sisters by Vardi Kaha

Vardi Kahana: One Family
Through December 21
Andrea Meislin Gallery, NYC
www.andreameislin.com

Following its showing at the Tel Aviv Museum, the Andrea Meislin Gallery presents One Family. Kahana, after establishing herself as Israel’s premier portrait photographer, decided to document the depths of her own family.”

COMMUNITY NEWS

Kitka and Davka in Concert: Old and New World Jewish Music

An Accolade Award of Excellence has been presented to Forest Creatures Entertainment for Kitka and Davka in Concert: Old and New World Jewish Music. For more information about the highly praised concert DVD, visit www.forestcreatures.com.

The National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA is now accepting applications to the Steiner Internship Program for college students (summer 2008). The program runs from June 11 - July 30, 2008. Visit www.yiddishsummer.org for complete information and an on-line application or contact jkannel@bikher.org. Deadline: February 1, 2008.

- Si te gustó el artículo, deja una marca social (usando el botón “Compártelo” aquí abajo) y compártelo con el mundo. El universo te lo agradecerá, ¡No lo dudes! -