Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 7, 2020

NORTH

On March 25, from 6:30 to 8 p.m., the Beverly Public Library will host its monthly Books and Brews Book Discussion Group at The Indo Pub, 298 Cabot St. Crack open a cold one and discuss this months book, The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict. The event is held every fourth Wednesday of the month and attendees must be over 21. Attendance is free but patrons must purchase their own food and beverages. To register or ask questions, contact Lisa at ryan@noblenet.org.

The Medford Public Schools and Winchester Public Schools Offices of Special Education are hosting their Annual Transition Fair on March 11 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Winchester High School, 80 Skillings Rd. The free fair is designed to help students 14 and older who have disabilities to plan for life after high school. More than 25 exhibitors will be in attendance, including the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission and the Department of Developmental Services. The exhibitors will provide information regarding support for independent living skills, vocational training, educational and recreational programs, and housing. Families and students are encouraged to attend. For more information visit bit.ly/2TrZEnL or contact Charlotte Heim at cheim@medford.k12.ma.us.

Northern Essex Community Colleges music program will present two free piano master classes/workshops led by NECC Music Professor Christina Dietrich, at 6 p.m. on Sunday, March 8, and Saturday, April 18, in the Hartleb Technology Center on the Haverhill campus, 100 Elliott St. The master classes are open to pianists of all levels and are designed to provide students with a chance to perform and learn in a cooperative group setting. The session will explore piano performance and preparation techniques and cover a range of solo piano works as well as instrumental and vocal works with piano accompaniment. For more information, visit http://www.necc.mass.edu/event/master-piano-class/2020-03-08/.

SOUTH

Confront the not-so-good life of the colonial goodwife in an entertaining and informational presentation exploring engrossing taboo topics omitted from history at the Pembroke Public Library, 142 Center St., on Tuesday, March 10, at 7 p.m. Laugh, grimace, and honor our foremothers journeys while learning about the little-mentioned issues New England women dealt with (such as menstruation, chamber pots, birth control, and breastfeeding). Presented by The Grounded Goodwife.

Join the SSHAGLY (South Shore Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning Youth) for its meeting and support group exclusively for youths age 13 to 22 on Monday, March 9, at 7 p.m. The group meets at First Parish Church Duxbury, 842 Tremont Street, Rt. 3A next to the Duxbury Town Hall. For more information, e-mail sshagly@gmail.com or visit bagly.org.

Mark your calendars for the eighth annual Gardening Green Expo at Kennedys Country Gardens in Scituate at 85 Chief Justice Cushing Hwy. n Saturday, March 28, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The theme for this year is Go Native! During the expo, you can stroll through greenhouses and visit with vendors of products and services that will help you get the best out of your garden and lawn. Free lectures are scheduled on the hour throughout the day. The NSRWA will be taking orders for rain barrels and composters as well. The event is sponsored by WaterSmart, the North and South Rivers Watershed Association, and Kennedys Country Gardens. This is a free, family-friendly event!

WEST

On Saturday, March 21, the Westborough Womens Club, in conjunction with the Board of Health, will hold its annual rabies clinic at the Explorer Post, 45 West Main St. Local veterinarians are volunteering their time and expertise. For $15, dogs will be vaccinated from 9 to 10 a.m. Cats will be vaccinated from 10 to 11 a.m. Dogs must be leashed, cats must be in a carrier. Owners, please bring the prior years vaccination certificate! For more information visit westboroughwomensclub.org.

Watch an engaging documentary detailing the story of the small village of Lichk where for nine months of the year, only women, children, and the elderly reside. The Armenian Museum of America co-sponsors the film Village of Women by Tamara Stepanyan featured in the Global Cinema Film Festival at Studio Cinema, 376 Trapelo Rd., in Belmont on Sunday, March 22, at 6 p.m. Tickets can be purchased by visiting worldwidecinemaframes.com.

Oneinforty will be hosting a free educational symposium in Lexington on Wednesday, March 18, at 7 p.m. to discuss the risk of hereditary cancer especially in Ashkenazi Jews. Oneinforty is a nonprofit organization that raises awareness of the one-in-forty risk to Ashkenazi Jews of inheriting BRCA gene mutations and provides support to individuals and their families to effectively manage their cancer risk. The symposium will include an expert panel featuring Dana-Farber Cancer Institutes Dr. Judy Garber. Panelists will discuss genetic counseling, the reasoning for testing, managing cancer risk and resources available for those who do carry BRCA gene mutations. Jewish individuals who have a BRCA gene mutation will also share their stories. Following presentations by the panelists, there will be a Q and A session and kosher refreshments will be served throughout the event. The symposium will be held at Temple Emunah at 9 Piper Rd. For more information, visit http://www.oneinforty.org. (Meghan)

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Books and brews, the colonial goodwife, and a rabies clinic - The Boston Globe

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Posted By admin on March 7, 2020

This story has been updated to reflect Bloomberg dropping out of the race.

If you ask two Jews, youll get three opinions.

The adage could very well describe every seder night debate since the first machloket (dispute) between Hillel and Shammai. But now, the maxim also applies to the future of the United States.

For the first time in modern history, millions of American Jews had the option to vote for not one, but two Jewish men to hold the highest office in the most powerful country in the world.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a pair of septuagenarian East Coast Jews, were slated to be on the ballot for the Democratic presidential primaries when the contest reaches Michigan March 10. While Sen. Sanders is still in the running, Mayor Bloomberg announced he was ending his presidential bid Wednesday morning.

The two men embody two wholly different visions for the nation. And, in good, old haimishe (familiar) fashion, Jews have strong views about them.

Two weeks before the primary, in a stately modern home off the 18-hole golf course of Franklin Hills Country Club, Florine Mark, the president and CEO of the WW Group (formerly known as Weight Watchers), hosted a Jews for Bloomberg event.

Were here to tell the American people what we can do for them, Mark told a living room of Bloomberg prospects, as they snack on crudit and white wine.

Bloomberg is the candidate to represent our values and our issues, and the connection and the friendship between Israel and America, Hannan Lis, Marks Israeli-American son-in-law, chimed in. Mike Bloomberg is the only candidate we can ever consider.

Bloomberg, the former Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Independent-turned-Democrat mayor of New York City and among the 10 richest people in the world according to Forbes, skipped early primary states to focus on Super Tuesday and delegate-rich states like Michigan to propel him to the top. He outspent every candidate in the field, having used roughly $500 million of his own funds since entering the race late last year, all while advocating for stricter gun control and touting his business acumen to boost the American economy.

Religion has played a somewhat nebulous role in Bloombergs contemporary life, but he drew on his Jewish roots and his Zionism as his campaign came to a head.

Ive spent a lot of time in synagogues in my life, but my parents taught me that Judaism is more than just going to shul, Bloomberg told a crowd at the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center in Miami, Florida, in January. It is about living our values, including our obligation to help and to repair the world in the tradition of tikkun olam, and its about revering the miracle that is the state of Israel, which for their generation was a dream fulfilled before their very eyes.

In Michigan, seen by most pundits as a bellwether state for the election at large, Bloomberg courted voters like Sandi Reitelman, one of the estimated 70,000 Jews who live in Metro Detroit, and bought ads in the Jewish News.

The Jewish values of education, caring for others, the feeling that we are a family, that were honest, is whats really important to me, Reitelman, who lives in Birmingham, told the Jewish News. I have to believe that Bloomberg believes and lives those values, given his philanthropic emphasis and what he did for New York City.

Stuart Logan, a 63-year-old lawyer from Bloomfield Township, said, He focuses on what he can do for others; hes obviously not in it for himself. Bloomberg has been using his money for menschlichkeit (humanity) and not to serve his own ego, Logan reasoned. Hes a responsible guy, a lot of his policies resonate with me and I think hes open-hearted.

But Logan had some choice words for the other member of the tribe vying for the highest seat in the land. Under no circumstance would I vote for Sanders, he stated. Sanders has traditionally minimized his Jewish contacts. Its never been something thats animated him.

Sanders, the longtime Vermont politician, current senator and Independent with a lengthy history of caucusing with Democrats, is currently in a neck-and-neck race with former Vice President Joe Biden for front-runner status. He amassed an early delegate lead in the nations first primary contests before Biden closed the gap in several Super Tuesday matchups. He amassed an early delegate lead in the nations first primary contests and has raised more in individual contributions than anyone running for president this year, while championing progressive policies like Medicare for All and climate change legislation.

Sanders was raised by Jewish-American parents. His father, Elias, was an immigrant from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire who evaded the atrocities of the Holocaust, while his mother Dorothy was born in New York to Jewish Russian immigrant parents. Though he leads a secular lifestyle, Sanders refers to his connection to the religion although he has harsh words for Israel, and announced he would skip the American Israel Public Affairs Committees annual conference held March 1-3 in Washington, D.C.

I am very proud of being Jewish. I actually lived in Israel for some months. But what I happen to believe is that right now, sadly, tragically, in Israel, through [Prime Minister] Bibi Netanyahu, you have a reactionary racist who is now running that country, Sanders declared during the Feb. 25 Democratic debate in Charleston, South Carolina. I happen to believe that what our foreign policy in the Mideast should be about is absolutely protecting the independence and security of Israel, but you cannot ignore the suffering of the Palestinian people.

In Detroits New Center neighborhood, a group of young Jewish community organizers discuss Sanders potential presidency over coffee at Avalon Caf and Biscuit Bar. Reuben Telushkin, 31, of Detroit, is a coordinator with JVP Action, an arm of the activist group Jewish Voice for Peace, which supports Palestinian self-determination and is highly critical of Israel. He said Sanders position on Israel/Palestine reflects his values.

Those of us who want more progressive policy, trying to bring our family and our communities along, I really think that he resonates with the majority of where American Jews are at, or at least a great number of us, Telushkin said. And then you have Bloomberg, who calls [Israeli] settlements new communities in the debate, which is ridiculous. And it just shows that he is not the person to be dealing with this issue.

Susannah Goodman, 32, of Detroit, said, Bernie embodies a kind of dialogue with Jewish elders that I wish we could have more often around here.

Goodman sees Sanders concern over college debt and his promise of free tuition as ostensibly Jewish ideals. One of my deepest Jewish values is the instruction to not worship idols. I think our society across the board has been worshipping unregulated capitalism.

Goodman grew up in the Reconstructionist movement and is a member of Congregation Tchiyah in Oak Park. It used to be an American ideal to care for other people, she said. Just having more empathy across Eight Mile is something thats really important.

For many in the group, Sanders Jewishness does not play directly into their support, though there is a shared sense of identity. Just aesthetically, I love that basically my grandpa, but much more to the left, is on the debate stage yelling about all the bad stuff that the U.S. is doing, mused Jackson Koeppel, 27, who lives in Highland Park but grew up in New York City.

The group of Sanders supporters spend a lot of their time critiquing Bloomberg. Koeppel recounts an incident in which he was arrested for smoking marijuana while living in New York as a college student during Bloombergs term as mayor. Every single other person in that cell was a black man, and this is also the height of Stop and Frisk, Koeppel, who is white and of Ashkenazi descent, recalled.

Telushkin said, Im Jewish. Im also black. I look at Bloomberg; I see his documented history of racism and thats a dealbreaker for me. I would hope that other people in the Jewish community would see that and think about members of the Jewish community who would be affected by his responses.

For many Jews, fear of anti-Semitism runs as a current through this election. Bloomberg and Sanders both found themselves portrayed as conduits for enabling such behavior, and each could fit into longtime contrasting anti-Semitic stereotypes: the wealthy plutocrat banker and the revolutionary socialist. Some in the party are concerned that the issue lies primarily with the current president.

Donald Trump himself represents such an existential threat, says Noah Arbit, founder of the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus. He is the most anti-Semitic president since Richard Nixon.

He cites a recent spike in anti-Semitic violence as a primary concern for Jewish voters, more so than support for Israel. We have to do a better job of parsing out anti-Semitism and anti-Israel, Arbit says. We all have different, diverse opinions about Israel and how to support it.

Arbit is not formally endorsing a Democratic candidate but appeared to show his support for Bloomberg while speaking at the Jews for Bloomberg event in Franklin and working to collect names for his campaign.

Of course, not all Jews in Metro Detroit are voting for Jewish candidates not even the most prominent ones in the Democratic Party.

For me, my Judaism is about tzedek, tzedek tirdorf: Justice, justice shall you pursue, says Rep. Andy Levin, a Democrat whos endorsed Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren for president. Im looking for the candidate who will work the hardest, and the most effectively, to create a more just world and repair this fractured world of ours.

Other local Democratic Jewish officeholders, like Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who represents Michigans 8th congressional district, and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, have not endorsed a presidential candidate.

The question of Bernie or Bloomberg was a pressing one for Jewish Democrats in Metro Detroit. Of those interviewed, there were just as many reasons to disqualify one candidate as there are to support the other.

At the Jews for Bloomberg event, Sandi Reitelman still sat on the fence.

What Im really struggling with is to figure out how to meld my feeling that I dont care who it is. I want to try to apply some principle, she explained. While leaning toward Bloomberg, she expressed some lingering concerns about his debate performances and is open to some of Sanders ideas. The dirty word socialism is totally stupid. We are a socialist democracy. We have health care, we have education, we have services.

Reitelman also says former Vice President Joe Biden and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg (now out of the race) have values shes attracted to, but she has doubts about all the candidates.

Its all very confusing. I dont know the answer.

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UPDATED: A Jewish President in 2020? | The Jewish - The Jewish News

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Posted By admin on March 5, 2020

The Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City will host three programs as part of A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, which is currently presenting the acclaimed exhibition, Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away, through August 2020.

This is the most comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the history of Auschwitz and its role in the Holocaust ever presented in North America, bringing together more than 700 original objects and 400 photographs from over 20 institutions and museums around the world.

Entry is by timed ticket available at Auschwitz.nyc. An audio guide, available in 8 languages, is included with admission. Admission is $25 for flexible entryentry any time on a specific day, $16 for adults, $12 for seniors and people with disabilities, $10 for students and veterans, and $8 for Museum members. The event is also free forHolocaust survivors, active members of the military and first responders, and students and teachers through grade 12 in schools located in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut with a valid school-issued ID. A student attending an NYC public school may bring up to three family members for free with proof of valid school-issued ID or report card. The Auschwitz exhibition is recommended for ages 12 and up.

Heroines of the Holocaust

To commemorate Womens History month the museum will host Heroines of the Holocaust, on March 11 from 7 8:30 p.m., a conversation with female resistance fighters, including Zivia Lubetkin, the highest-ranking woman in Warsaws underground, and Vitka Kempner, a partisan leader who blew up a German ammunition train with a grenade. Dr. Lori Weintrob, Director of the Wagner College Holocaust Center, will be joined by Auschwitz survivor Rachel Rachama Roth who will provide her eyewitness testimony to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The discussion will be moderated by Yiddish culture writer Rokhl Kafrissen (Tablet).

Tickets are $10 to the general public and $8 for Museum members.

Book Launch Francis War

Join author Helen Epstein on Wednesday, March 18, at 7 p.m., when she will introduce this new memoir by her late mother,Franci Rabinek Epstein.

Franci, born into a privileged family in Prague, was a spirited young fashion designer who lied to Dr. Mengele at an Auschwitz selection by saying she was an electrician an occupation that both endangered and saved her life. Helen will be joined in conversation by Columbia University Film Professor Annette Insdorf. Co-sponsored by the Czech Cultural Center.

Admission is free. Advance reservations recommended atmjhnyc.org/events.

Write Me Womens Studies & Activism Panel Discussion

Join artists, scholars, and activists on Thursday, March 26 at 7 p.m., for this series that explores the branding of womens bodies in the Holocaust and human trafficking. Write Me, is a 2019 short film by Pearl Gluck, which follows an older woman who joins other survivors in reclaiming the histories tattooed on their bodies.

In this final part of the series, a panel of women scholars from diverse fields will discuss the role of branding of womens bodies in the context of human trafficking and power. Speakers will be Rochelle G. Saidel, founder and executive director of the Remember the Women Institute; Carol E. Henderson, editor of Imagining the Black Female Body; Ornit Barkai, documentary filmmaker of the forthcoming Laid to Rest: Buried Stories of the Jewish Sex Trade; and moderator Amy Sodaro, professor of sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College. Co-sponsored by Battery Park City Authority.

Admission is free. Advance reservations recommended atmjhnyc.org/events.

Submitted by The Museum of Jewish Heritage

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Women's History Month at the Museum of Jewish Heritage - Entertainment - The Island Now

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Posted By admin on March 5, 2020

More than 3,000 women recently gathered on a Sunday at Jerusalems International Convention Center in honor of their much-celebrated completion of seven-and-a-half years of daily Talmud study known as Daf Yomi.This festive event, which celebrated the study of a single page of Gemara every day until completing the entire Talmud, included a mass singing orchestrated by Koolulam of a song written by Yoram Taherlev and composed by Hanan Yovel called May the Sun Pass Over Me. The message was clear: No longer is Gemara study just for men.Women are now taking back the right to be active participants. Women from all over the world are now taking part in the study of Talmud in their search to gain halachic (Jewish legal) knowledge that has mostly been reserved for men. Religious and secular women, from a wide range of ages, gathered together in Jerusalem to celebrate this triumph. In their minds, theres no reason why women shouldnt be just as well-versed in Jewish law and customs as men.This is a historic event. Throughout the years, it was customary that only men would study Gemara. The time has come for Jewish women to become acquainted with their intellectual prowess, said Michelle Cohen Farber, one of the founders of the Hadran womens Daf Yomi Talmud study group.Cohen Farber, 47 and a mother of five, made aliyah from the US 27 years ago. Together with her husband, Rabbi Shaul Farber, she established Netivot, a synagogue in Raanana, and then seven-and-a-half years ago she decided to hold a daily Gemara class in her home. Since that day, a group of women has been meeting daily in her home to learn one of the 2,711 pages that make up the Talmud. Gradually, more women joined, some of whom join Cohen Farber at her home, while others listen to audio files that have been uploaded to the Internet. They are always looking to expand their network and include many more women in their womens Daf Yomi group.Dr. Ruth Calderon, the founder of Alma-Home for Jewish Culture, talks about her attraction to the Talmud as a young woman. It was not easy for me to find a community that would accept me as a secular woman who wanted to learn Gemara, Calderon explains. Only after I finished my IDF military service did I find a place that accepted me as I am. Eventually, I began studying Talmud at the Hebrew University and at the Hartman Institute, but I still felt like I was missing out on something that others whod been studying Gemara from a young age could feel. When I began participating in Daf Yomi study sessions, I felt like I was finally able to begin catching up to colleagues whod spent their youth learning in yeshivas. It was like I was in an intensive Aramaic ulpan class that granted me entrance to this new world of Gemara. I immersed myself in the characters, institutions, landscapes and tensions that exist in this unique world of wise scholars. In the early years, I would mostly learn on my own. Then I began joining groups of men, where I was always highly attentive to the fact that I was the only woman participating.SHARON, 29, from Tel Aviv, who prefers not to give her full name, is less conciliatory. The Talmud is one of the greatest assets belonging to the Jewish people, says Sharon. It belongs to Jewish women to the exact same extent that it belongs to the men. Thats why Im here.One of my first memories from my childhood in Vienna is of my grandfather sitting in the living room with a tractate of the Talmud open in his lap, says Dana Rubinstein, 40, a mother of four from Raanana and a lawyer, is also studying Jewish philosophy. Every time one of his grandchildren would pass next to him, my grandfather would invite us to sit with him for a brief hevruta [one-on-one learning]. He didnt distinguish between his grandsons and granddaughters. We were all included. All he cared about was did we have a Gemara kop a head for learning. I grew up in New York and went to Ramaz, where the boys and girls studied Gemara together. Thats where I acquired the skills necessary to learn Gemara. Its an incredibly rich and diverse world that deals with a wide variety of issues. Surprisingly, this type of learning can reach very deep places.Ive seen for myself how much learning Talmud enables us to develop our intellectual capabilities and connect us with our Jewish heritage, says Mia Segal, 18, from Jerusalem, whos currently learning at the midrasha [seminary] on Kibbutz Ein Hanatziv. I think every Jewish girl should have the experience of learning Gemara. I believe that spending a year learning Jewish texts before I begin my IDF military service will give me a base that I can continue building upon for the rest of my life.At a program called Hevruta, which meets at the Hadassah Har Hatzofim campus, male and female college students come for an opportunity to learn a little Talmud every morning before classes begin. Eden Wiselman, 28, from Kibbutz Beit Haemek in the Western Galilee, is pursuing a degree in Jewish Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Shes been participating in Hevrutas daily classes with her study partner for three years now. Neither of them had much background in Jewish texts when they began.I grew up on a religious kibbutz, so of course I knew all about holidays and Jewish rituals, but I had never really ventured far into the world of Jewish text study, says Wiselman. I fell in love with learning Gemara from the first moment I opened up one of the big tractates. This has given me so many answers to questions I had as a child. After I completed my army service, it was clear to me that I wanted to continue my learning, so I went to Ein Prat, where the students learn Tanach [Hebrew Bible], philosophy, literature, Jewish thought and Gemara.At first, I was super frustrated, since I didnt understand the lingo and the way of thinking. But Ill never forget the first time when I felt a light bulb go on in my brain. We were in class discussing a Mishna that deals with the question of whether something qualifies as pikuach nefesh [saving a life], in which case one must break Shabbat to find help. I remember this chill came over me as I contemplated all of the various arguments that were raised, and how they were written in a specific style. I was awed by the ability of one page to include so many minute details, while simultaneously dealing with the macro issue at hand. It was the first time Id really connected intimately with a page of Jewish text in front of me.WHEN SHE finished the program at Ein Prat, Wiselman enrolled in the Jewish Thought department at Hebrew University and joined Hevruta. Most secular Jews who open a page of Talmud expect it to be a list of dry halachic rules. What they soon discover is that its actually an emotional, social, political, self-contradictory and noisy world.Gal Elnir, 30, from Jerusalem, runs the Maboa Program at Ein Prat, alongside teaching Gemara at Hevruta and Alma. Elnir, who is secular, had never had any connection with Aramaic or Jewish text study until after she completed her military service, when she joined the four-month-long Maboa program. Nowadays, after spending these last few years learning and teaching, she feels a close connection with the Jewish texts.Secular Jewish women face a different challenge from religious women, many of whom have an affinity for Tanach and Gemara from their childhood, says Elnir. Unfortunately, much of secular Israeli society is actively opposed to learning Jewish texts in school, and therefore most Israelis today grow up with no background whatsoever. I was never given the choice of studying Talmud since I didnt even know it existed. The fact that batei midrash [study halls] for women exist has allowed me to delve into this fascinating world. I believe that the butterfly effect can have a strong influence on secular Israeli society, though it is difficult to overcome the secular desire to get rid of anything religious.Many secular Israelis claim that they feel no connection to the Jewish religion, since theyve not been taught to see that Judaism is built upon our history, culture and identity. This was not true a few generations ago, when Agnon, Bialik, Alterman and Nomi Shemer wrote about Jewish topics.When Elnir decided she wanted to learn in the midrasha in Migdal Oz, she approached director Esti Rosenberg and told her, I am secular but I want to learn in your beit midrash. I still cant believe I had the audacity to tell her that. After a year, I joined their advanced Gemara studies program. I dont know how I managed these long hours of Gemara study, since I was also studying at the university and working. There are so many midrashot now where women can study Gemara: Bruria, Migdal Oz, Nishmat, and Ein Hanatziv, just to name a few.For Elnir, one of the biggest questions is where she fits in as a secular Talmud scholar. Firstly, I need to accept that the Talmud belongs to me just as much as it does to any other Jew, regardless of their level of religiosity. At first, its hard not to view the text as an anthropological object. But as I delved deeper into the texts, I discovered that there is a place for me there.Asked what drew her to Talmud study, she replied, I felt uncomfortable with my lack of knowledge of Jewish history. Ive always loved books and heated discussions and language that involves intellect and humanity. It was certainly not love at first sight I had to overcome many obstacles on my journey before I began to feel love for Talmud study.

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Daf Yomi: a completion of seven-and-a-half years of daily Talmud study - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on March 5, 2020

For nearly six months, a group of eighth graders from Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School has made the short trek to Moldaw senior living community for a unique history project the exploration of residents' lives.

"The school was looking for a way to build intergenerational connections and through the Better Together program, funded by the Legacy Heritage Fund, we have been able to facilitate meaningful interactions between students and older adults," said Arielle Hendel, Moldaw's fund development director.

Once or twice a month, students visit the Palo Alto community for about an hour. Questions prepared in advance, such as, "What's your definition of freedom?" or "What's your definition of justice?" help them compile comprehensive biographies of the residents they're paired with.

Gena Brigham, Moldaw's lifestyles director, says a common thread between students and residents is a shared Jewish heritage. "We have amazing residents who've lived amazing lives," said Brigham, who adds about 10 residents currently participate in the project. "I asked, 'Why don't you share your story?' We got an amazing response."

After months of meetings and hours of conversation, the goal is to create a generation-to-generation book that will be assembled later this spring.

"Students compile stories through the lens of questions," said Ora David-Gittelson, Director of Jewish Studies at Gideon Hausner and program administrator, who added this is the first year of a four-year partnership with the school. "The intent is to nurture a shared value system and core beliefs through this experience. Between meetings, students spend time reflecting on their experiences, learning Jewish values and texts and preparing for their meetings."

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History Project Uncovering the Lives of Local Seniors - Patch.com

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Posted By admin on March 5, 2020

Give Chris Matthews partial credit for his apology on his way out the door Monday night. In his abrupt and unexpected farewell, the MSNBC host acknowledged his history of what he called "compliments on a woman's appearance."

Such comments were "never OK," he said, and he was sorry for making them. I appreciated this wasn't one of those mealy-mouthed "sorry if I offended you" apologies although it still seemed to miss why it's a problem when a powerful man emphasizes a woman's sex appeal in a professional setting, the way it diminishes and objectifies.

But this casual sexism wasn't at the heart of why he had to go. One of the most prominent and well-paid hosts in the cable-news game didn't listen, didn't do his homework, and treated politics as a game in which noisy confrontation was a necessity. The problem was less about green-room boorishness and far more about what you could see and hear on the air especially in recent weeks, but also going back a long way.

For years, Matthews was a harsh and misogynistic critic of Hillary Clinton once calling her a "she-devil," and attributing any of her success in the 2008 presidential primary to the fact that, as he put it, "her husband messed around." More recently, his comparison of Bernie Sanders winning the Nevada primary to the "fall of France" to the Nazis was a horribly offensive gaffe given Sanders' Jewish heritage and his having lost family members to the Holocaust.

But for me, an occasional member of the "Hardball" audience, there was something worse.

With his reported $5 million annual salary, Matthews wielded enormous influence. For many years, he had the power to sway public opinion on the crucial topics of the day. Not infrequently, he failed the main test of someone in that role. He was ready to offer his own views, but not prepared to hear those of his guests or to bring deep knowledge to the conversation.

Frequently described as "bombastic," and certainly an excitable yeller, Matthews had a tendency to ask a question, and then, just as his subject was beginning to answer, interrupt, asking it differently or inserting his own opinion.

His interview with Elizabeth Warren last month was a memorable case in point. The topic was whether her rival presidential candidate, Michael Bloomberg, had really suggested to one of his employees that she "kill it," when he found out she was going to have a baby.

Matthews insisted on arguing the case as if he were Bloomberg's defense attorney, portraying the episode strictly as a "he said/she said" situation in which who knows? either side could be lying.

He interrogated Warren: You really think Bloomberg is lying? Why would he do such a thing? Warren responded, when she could get a word in, that she believed the woman. She pointed out that pregnancy discrimination in the workplace is a real thing.

Matthews, for all his intensity on the subject, was unprepared and seemingly unfamiliar with the well-circulated reporting that included a named eyewitness who backed up the Bloomberg saleswoman. That kind of corroboration takes the complaint out of the "who knows?" realm that Matthews' argument depended on.

But the "Hardball" host apparently hadn't done the reading. He seemed to want a confrontational interview with Warren no matter what the underlying evidence might be.

For NBC brass whose recent record on dealing with issues related to sexism and misogyny has justifiably come under fire this was all too much. And Matthews' becoming a punching bag for comics John Oliver and Trevor Noah in recent days couldn't have helped. Something had to give.

Was there some other huge shoe about to drop, a huge scandal of some sort? More likely there would have been a constant barrage of other, similar complaints. His resignation puts a pin in that.

I don't buy the idea that Matthews, 74, had to leave his post because of his age. There are plenty of men and women in the public eye in media, politics and many other realms whose age doesn't, and shouldn't, hold them back. (Think, for example, of Georgia Congressman John Lewis, who is 80, or, in Hollywood, 77-year-old Harrison Ford.)

Mere age doesn't keep anyone from being informed, enlightened and effective at their work. And after all, Mathews is downright youthful compared with most of the candidates remaining in the Democratic presidential field.

No, the problem with Matthews was not about the accumulation of years. And it was not purely about "compliments."

It was about being flawed at the central part of his job not in the green room but right there on the screen.

Margaret Sullivan is The Washington Posts media columnist.

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Opinion: The real reason Chris Matthews had to go - Burlington County Times

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Posted By admin on March 5, 2020

Ben Kothe / BuzzFeed News; Getty Images

During the Las Vegas Democratic presidential primary debate last month, former mayor Pete Buttigieg who yesterday dropped out of the race accused Sen. Bernie Sanders of a failure in leadership when it comes to reigning in his army of supposedly toxic supporters.

I think you have to accept some responsibility and ask yourself what it is about your campaign in particular that seems to be motivating this behavior more than others, Buttigieg said.

It was Sen. Elizabeth Warren to whom the question about Bernie Bros was first directed, and to her credit she didnt opt to smear the diverse coalition of progressive voters working to elect Sanders likely realizing that theyre potential constituents who value many of the same things she does. Instead, she pivoted to point out who, in her view, was the biggest threat on that stage to Democratic unity and progress: former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. But for other candidates, the opportunity to pile on the Democratic frontrunner for the actions of his most visibly and vocally aggressive followers who, granted, probably arent Russian bots, as Sanders has insinuated was too good to pass up.

After Buttigieg got in a few jabs, the Vermont senator pointed out (correctly) that the black women involved in leading his campaign are also victims of vicious, racist, sexist attacks from other candidates supporters. Though theyd rather not admit it, every single candidate in the race has been able to claim quite a few asshole surrogates and supporters (including Buttigieg!).

It is true, however, that Sanders fans of whom there are many, especially the young and Very Online are particularly loud on social media. Sanders has wholeheartedly condemned the harassment and bullying carried out in his name since the Bros first became a problem for him back in 2016, after which his top aides privately reached out to senior officials at opposing campaigns to apologize for the sexist and racist swarms. Still, by this point, the Bro narrative has been rather exhaustively overhyped, to the extent that the campaign insists its become a distraction and a smear.

Particularly because hes an old white guy and a cranky one, at that Sanders is frequently assumed to inspire the worst and most bigoted impulses in the people who support him, regardless of their own race and gender. One Sanders skeptic claims he is a man who defines himself around his anger, and he attracts a lot of men who define themselves around their anger, many of whom do, in fact, use it as a license to act abusively. Another explains his rapidly expanding, diversifying base with the theory that some young women and some young people of color want to be more like angry white men. Bernie fans who arent men must have internalized misogyny, this theory goes, while his many supporters of color have internalized white supremacy.

When (white male) identity and its resultant toxic masculinity is assumed to be the driving force of a candidates campaign, it follows that a woman candidate would offer something radically different. Amy Klobuchar, who has reportedly run a workplace controlled by fear, anger, and shame in which she demeaned and berated her staff almost daily, subjecting them to bouts of explosive rage and regular humiliation, even went so far at the Las Vegas debate as to suggest that we could stop sexism on the internet by nominating a woman for president.

The whole exchange in Vegas perfectly illustrated how a certain brand of neoliberal identity politics, popularized in the Obama era, feels increasingly insufficient to address the most pressing issues of our time. We might all agree, for example, that social media has contributed to the poisoning of our political discourse. But to imply that a woman Democratic nominee in 2020 would stop or even slow sexism (online or otherwise), when Hillary Clintons candidacy did nothing of the kind, strikes me as more than a little delusional.

A significant subset of progressive Democrats still cling to the hope that, going into the 2020 elections, presidential identity politics might save us.

Thanks in part to the promotion of marginalized identity representation and visibility in the United States, more women and people of color have leading roles, top jobs, and other positions of power than they did a generation ago which, proponents argue, means positive trickle-down effects for everybody else. But any feminist or civil rights gains afforded by the efforts and visibility of, say, more women CEOs or queer politicians havent necessarily made significant differences in the lives of those on the margins. That isnt to say power should stay in the hands of old, rich white guys, but that even as the pool of leaders (in everything from entertainment to publishing to politics) has grown slightly more diverse, discrimination and bigotry remain everyday facts of life for millions of Americans. Many nonwhite, nonmale people do make it a priority to raise up others when they ascend to powerful positions, but just as many others pull the ladder up behind them.

Even our first black president, some black activists and thinkers have argued, fueled the false hope of a post-racial era. Critics have pointed out how Barack Obama prioritized a politics of individualized racial uplift rather than one of systemic anti-racist change, and received undue celebration from pundits who preferred to overlook the less savory parts of his record in the name of racial symbolism, as Cornel West wrote in 2017. Obamas historic presidency, for all its allegorical power, did not in fact result in a post-racial America nor did Hillary Clintons candidacy solve systemic sexism or stem the tides of gendered violence. But a significant subset of progressive Democrats still cling to the hope that, going into the 2020 elections, presidential identity politics might save us.

I understand the urgency undergirding so much of the push for representation and why, for example, Warren supporters are so heartened by the idea of a smart and organized woman as president, especially since shes so often been undermined for misogynistic reasons, or why Buttigieg supporters felt passionately that his campaign was a huge symbolic win for queer rights. Both have faced real institutional barriers because of who they are, which can sometimes translate into the belief that, after so much bigoted pushback, its simply their turn, regardless of what either of their platforms would mean for the country.

But if anything signals what should be the beginning of the end of identity as a primary metric of candidate selection in Democratic politics, its the rise of Sanders and his grassroots, multiracial, intergenerational movement to empower working-class people. For the Brooklyn native and many of his supporters, his identity is beside the point. If Americans elect someone who believes in universal human worth and dignity and refuses to compromise on fundamental issues, then maybe maybe! we might actually get closer to something like a "post-identity" reality than we could ever manage through symbolic representation.

One of the latest reported instances of Sanders supporters running amok involved attacks against the leaders of the Nevada Culinary Workers Union after they criticized Sanders Medicare for All plan, because it would effectively eliminate the unions hard-won private insurance. Buttigieg mentioned the feud in the Vegas debate, hoping to paint a picture of a Sanders coalition that viciously attacks anyone who doesnt believe in his platform. But that storyline didnt stop the senator from dominating the polls; in fact, members of the Culinary Workers Union themselves bucked leadership by backing Sanders in the Nevada primary, contributing to his victory there. According to the New York Times, many rank-and-file union members said they supported Mr. Sanders precisely because of his health care proposal, explaining that they wanted their friends and relatives to have the same kind of access to care that they have.

This is something that seems to get overlooked in the focus on the most extreme and aggressive end of a wide spectrum of Bernie stans: Behind so many of his supporters vehement anger at unchecked corporate greed is a deeply compassionate impulse of solidarity with other people in this country, regardless of what they have in common and what sets them apart. And that is very much by design; as my colleague Ruby Cramer wrote in December, Sanders is aiming to run a presidential campaign that brings people out of alienation and into the political process simply by presenting stories where you might recognize some of your own struggles. So its disorienting to watch a parade of supposed political experts and pundits scaremongering about how Sanders and his supporters rage is divisive, even as he continues to amass a strong multiracial and cross-class coalition.

I dont think someone who works for the Sanders campaign should be shitposting about opponents, even on a locked account, like former staffer Ben Mora if only because the senators critics are all too ready to pounce on an example of his movements supposed toxicity but I dont think private insults made by a lower-rung staffer are necessarily newsworthy, either. For one thing, barely a quarter of American adults use Twitter, where a lot of the Bernie Bro hysteria is centralized. And for another, Sanders is reportedly the most-liked candidate in the Democratic field, according to a recent poll from FiveThirtyEight and Ipsos. Most voters, it seems, are comfortable making a distinction between the worst of the so-called Bernie Bros' behavior and the platform of the candidate they support.

I feel similarly about the claims that Sanders is too loud, too angry, too much (which are also leveled, for sexist reasons, against Warren). In Sanders case, the accusations carry with them whiffs of anti-Semitism, alongside the troubling insinuation that anger is somehow an inappropriate reaction to the current state of inequality in the US. But they also reflect an attempt to position Sanders as an avatar of the patriarchy.

Projecting individual trauma onto entire communities or movements, made up as they are of an incredibly diverse array of humans, does a disservice to us all.

Sady Doyle, an author and prominent figure from the mid-aughts feminist blogosphere, recently tweeted that she associated Sanders yelling with the horrific treatment she endured from her father growing up, and that Bernies movement enacts dynamics of abuse. Likening Sanders, and, by extension, his supporters, to a violent misogynist becomes a frustratingly self-fulfilling prophecy; a number of cruel and vitriolic responses (which seemingly proved her point) no doubt made it easier for Doyle and others who agree with her to brush off the reasonable, good-faith criticism she also received.

Id wager Sanders supporters are largely aware of the debilitating effects of misogyny, if not experiencing it firsthand. But what overly simplistic readings like Bernie = Man = Bad elide is the many complicated ways in which different kinds of people experience gendered violence. Since time immemorial women have terrorized black people of all genders; cis people have terrorized trans people of all genders; the combinations go on and on. Those who feel triggered by the tenor and volume of Sanders voice to the extent that theyd seriously struggle to vote for him over Donald Trump resonate on the same frequency, to me, as women whove experienced male violence and thus refuse to share space with trans women. Thats not to say their trauma is negligible or excusable, but that projecting individual trauma onto entire communities or movements, made up as they are of an incredibly diverse array of humans, does a disservice to us all.

Earlier this year, some similar projection occurred when the question of whether Sanders had privately expressed doubts to Warren that a woman could win the presidency became the topic of public debate. As Natalie Shure wrote for Elle at the time, the impulse to cast Sanders and his supporters as sexist intended as a sharp contrast with the feminists behind Warren or Hillary Clinton before her is based on an analysis of politics as a pop cultural product. In this telling, Warren is the beleaguered underdog heroine, taking on just another old white guy finger-wagging his way to the top. This obfuscates the structural power at work and the degree to which many people are drawn to Sanders candidacy for decidedly feminist reasons: In a starkly unequal country with a woefully inadequate welfare state, women disproportionately suffer the harms of poverty.

Ultimately, Shure wrote, #MeToo doesnt urge us to uncritically accept a female presidential contenders version of a news story; it urges us to take seriously womens pain and fight for them to have control over their lives and no one, least of all victims of sexual violence, is served by collapsing that moral distinction.

To some extent, its understandable why Sanders makes such a tempting blank canvas for projecting identity narratives, since the candidate largely refuses to narrativize his identity himself. He doesnt talk much, for example, about the fact that, if elected, he would be the first Jewish president in US history, though hes done so more this election cycle than he did back in 2016. (Hes also recently been referring to himself as the son of an immigrant.) Thats one of the reasons his recent remarks at a New Hampshire town hall about how his Jewish heritage influences his politics and worldview struck such a chord; a clip of the exchange has been viewed over 1.5 million times.

While other candidates like Warren and Biden often invite you to consider your story through the lens of their own, as Cramer wrote in her profile of Sanders late last year, the Vermont senator would rather not use his personal life to connect with voters. Youre asking about me, and IM not important, he once said in an interview. To Cramer, he added, The gamble is there are millions of working people who dont vote or consider politics to be relevant to their lives. And it is a gamble to see whether we can bring those people into the political process. One way you do it is to say, You see that guy? Hes YOU. Youre workin for $12 an hour, you cant afford health insurance so is he. Listen to what he has to say. Its not Bernie Sanders talking, you know? Its that guy. Join us.

To his supporters, Sanders refusal to center himself in his campaign makes it clear that he views himself as a mere vessel for a movement thats much bigger than one person or one presidency. In many ways, the campaign does traffic in more conventional identity narratives the focus is just on other peoples identities: those of his campaign staffers and those of potential voting blocs. Surrogates like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can speak to Sanders platform as its relevant to different minority communities with personal and cultural specificity, while black campaign leaders like Briahna Joy Gray and Nina Turner emphasize how much of Sanders movement is actually shaped by, and for, black women.

Sanders himself is well aware that, on the level of optics, he himself is not an ideal messenger. (At a recent CNN town hall, when asked about a VP pick, he said, That person will not be an old white guy. That I can say definitively.) And so the campaign emphasizes the senators history of movement ties and support the people are leading him, rather than the other way around. Were he to become president, Sanders has said he would be acting as organizer in chief.

In some ways, of course, Sanders universalism with a focus on labor isnt anything new; every successful presidential candidate has sold the American people on some broader vision, from Obama on hope to Trump on making America great again. And its hard to believe anyone vying to become one of the most powerful people on earth when they tell us its not really about them. And yet, with the slogan Not Me, Us (an active rhetorical reversal of Hillary Clintons Im With Her) Sanders has fashioned a campaign built and backed by people of all genders, races, and socioeconomic classes who dont necessarily see themselves in him as an individual perhaps because they dont really need to.

Even though former vice president Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are old white guys, for example, the formers overwhelming black support in South Carolina won him his first primary in that state over the weekend; meanwhile, a recent poll shows that the latter has just overtaken Biden in support among African Americans nationally. Of course, at this point, voters are selecting from an all-white field but even earlier in the race, black voters werent necessarily flocking to support black candidates.

Sanders is rarely given representation credit for his ability to speak to people who also know what its like to live paycheck to paycheck.

I think often in this never-ending election cycle of Zoe Leonards landmark poem, I Want a President, written the year I was born. I want a dyke for president, Leonard writes. I want a person with aids for president and I want a fag for vice president and I want someone with no health insurance and I want someone who grew up in a place where the earth is so saturated with toxic waste that they didnt have a choice about getting leukemia. No matter how many times I read it, the poem can still leave me teary-eyed; its weighted with so much crushing impossibility.

Because even if we one day do have a dyke or a fag for president or a woman, for that matter it seems impossible that well ever see someone in the White House who truly represents people currently living beneath the poverty line. There have been presidents who grew up in economically precarious situations, and Sanders could potentially join their ranks, but even the sole democratic socialist candidate had to first become a millionaire in order to make it this far.

Thats the strange thing about class. Its possible to live your whole life in the same socioeconomic bracket indeed, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, class ascendance is becoming a rarer feat but its also possible to slip into and out of poverty. Like disability, class isnt as stable an identity as those of race or gender (though race and gender arent necessarily stable either). And like sexual orientation, its not always possible to look at someone and determine their familys present or past household income which is one of the reasons why, when discussing identity in US politics, Sanders is so rarely given representation credit for his ability to speak to people who also know what its like to live paycheck to paycheck.

Whats remarkable about the senators campaign is that he drives home the fact almost all of us, save the very rich, are a single medical issue away from complete financial ruin. For all our many differences, this is a grisly reality the working people of this country have in common. Though conservatives and moderates who fear the rise of democratic socialism love to try gotcha-ing Sanders for his hypocrisy because he owns a lake house, or target his surrogate Ocasio-Cortez when she wears sparkly tops or gets an expensive haircut, the fact that some people have more disposable income doesnt preclude them from advocating for a fairer distribution for all. And those of us whove managed, against the odds, to ascend from the working poor to the middle class are not under any illusions that being able to buy a nice dress today means well never again have to fear losing our jobs and therefore our health care tomorrow.

Voters who are more progressively minded but still think Sanders focus on class is too singular tend to worry his campaign isnt intersectional enough, especially when compared with Warrens. Last month, the Nation published an opinion piece (since corrected and updated) by professor Suzanna Danuta Walters claiming that Warren is the first intersectional presidential candidate. The story includes as examples of Warrens intersectional framework her ability to link gun control to domestic violence, or criminal justice to disability rights. But shes not the only candidate who can lay claim to a platform that concerns multiple intersecting identities and oppressions. Sanders plan for a Green New Deal, for example, prioritizes Justice for frontline communities especially under-resourced groups, communities of color, Native Americans, people with disabilities, children and the elderly to recover from, and prepare for, the climate impacts.

And if some people are claiming Sanders can't serve the interests of multiple different identity groups or communities he doesn't belong to, a lot of the people in those communities beg to differ. Barbara Smith who along with other members of the black womenhelmed Combahee River Collective coined the term identity politics expressed dismay earlier this year in the Guardian that she so often sees support for identity politics and intersectionality reduced to buzzwords. Smith was writing to endorse Sanders for president: because I believe that his campaign and his understanding of politics complements the priorities that women of color defined decades ago.

Smith directly addresses the intersectionality concern: Some critics have questioned whether Sanders is concerned about the specific ways that people with varying intersecting identities experience oppression. As a black lesbian feminist who has been out since the mid-1970s, I believe that, among all the candidates, his leadership offers us the best chance to eradicate the unique injustices that marginalized groups in America endure.

Critic Andrea Long Chu, in response to the Nations piece about Warrens supposed intersectionality, nailed in a Twitter thread whats so frustrating about assumptions that Sanders isnt as strong on issues of race and gender: The piece, she wrote, is v specific to academic feminists who have so convinced themselves that universalism is a luxury of the elite that when a candidate amasses a broad working class coalition with universal rhetoric their brains pop. like do i think bernie sanders really knows what a trans person is? no. nor for that matter does liz warren. but trans people need health care way more than they need some politician to give them a nice vibe. theres real humility to universalism insofar as it doesnt predicate public goods on visibility or representation. Bernie doesnt have to see you in order to defend you. its impersonal in a way i find respectful.

Where critics of Sanders find evidence of potential erasure in his universalist appeals that any moment he discusses the working class in general is a moment when hes not specifically addressing the concerns of black women or mothers or trans people his supporters see a radical and widespread commitment to economic justice regardless of who they are.

All of this is not to say identity cant, or shouldnt, play any role in an individual politicians narrative. Sanders, even if his personal life remains his campaigns B plot at best, still has the power to connect with voters by speaking to his Jewish identity and his upbringing in a rent-controlled Brooklyn apartment. Ocasio-Cortez, too, has made a powerful case for issues she cares about, like a $15 minimum wage, by couching political discussions in her experience as a waiter and a member of the working class. And Warren, in the last two primary debates, has proven to be a formidable Bloomberg opponent by brilliantly connecting her own ordeals of discrimination in the workplace to the indignities allegedly suffered by women under Bloombergs employ. She pushed him to release three women from their NDAs in a matter of days. Warren quoting on national TV the horrible things Bloomberg has reportedly said about women made a very strong case for electing someone who intimately understands what it feels like to be harassed, belittled, and violated due to ones gender.

Attempts to politicize the personal can just as often be a liability as they are an advantage.

But Warrens candidacy has also shown us the downsides to an overreliance on identity narratives. More than 200 Cherokees and other Native Americans just signed a letter urging Warren to fully retract her dubious past claims to Native heritage, including her reliance on a DNA test that she publicized last year. Warren has previously apologized, and recently reiterated those apologies in a 12-page letter, but the claims continue to haunt her. Neither is relying on the identity of high-powered surrogates a safe bet; the New York Times, in a recent story about how Warren is winning black activists but losing the black vote, Astead W. Herndon reported that the progressive activists who have showered her candidacy with validation have a different electoral lens than the black electorate at large. That schism is a distinction some have labeled grass tops vs. the grass roots or the belief that the leaders of liberal and progressive organizations have a different political lens than their more working-class members.

Which is all to say that attempts to politicize the personal can just as often be a liability as they are an advantage a risky game that Sanders, in his refusal to frame his campaign around his identity, has largely decided not to play.

As a straight white man, even a socialist Jewish one, thats without a doubt in part a function of his privilege. Most nonwhite, nonmale candidates dont have the option of making a campaign Not All About Them. Sanders for all that the Democratic establishment might be doing to try to prevent him from clinching the nomination does benefit from looking like the default political candidate in a way a black person or a woman simply doesnt. But if you have a built-in strategic advantage in building this kind of universalist campaign, you might as well use it.

Earlier this year, the publishing worlds equivalent of the identity politics debate centered on the novel American Dirt, about a mother and her son fleeing violence in Mexico for the promise of the US. The book, which was criticized for its harmful stereotypes of Latinx immigrants, was written by a woman who until recently identified as white. In a Twitter thread in the wake of the controversy, writer Kaitlyn Greenidge posed an excellent question: What if the aim of your art is not to humanize the other but to talk about the systems of power, and the ppl who benefit from them, that turn people into others in the first place? Like what if you asked your audience to take it for granted that someone poorer than them is also human and then moved on from there.

I wonder if Sanders campaign might be employing something similar: taking for granted the fact that all of us, regardless of our race or gender or socioeconomic status, are human, and therefore deserving of certain rights: clean water, a roof over our heads, freedom from crippling college debt, medical care that wont sink us into bankruptcy.

Sanders, like any politician, is not a saint or a savior. To many of those who harbor serious doubts about the fundamental value of electoral politics and the structures that govern our society, a vote for him at the end of the day is still harm reduction, still a way in which we are choosing our enemy. And universalism, at its most basic level, is the biggest clich in the political handbook: We are all more alike than we are different. But anyone still clinging to the hope of identity representation might do well to remember that.

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Opinion: Bernie Sanders Is A Straight White Man. Does That Matter? - BuzzFeed News

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Posted By admin on March 5, 2020

It is almost impossible to watch television or view other forms of media without being inundated with advertisements for 23andMe or ancestry.com, where viewers learn the stories of everyday people who, tracing their DNA and ancestry, learn they are related to great chieftains, famous jurists, inspiring social activists or President George Washington. We watch on screen as large family trees filled with numerous branches and leaves are traced back decades and generations, across time and countries, and we are encouraged to join the genetic revolution and trace our own family histories.

My mother is 93 and has advanced dementia. She is the last alive of her two brothers and two sisters, and their spouses. My grandparents are long gone. Having only recently been reunited with my maternal cousins after 44 years, I have learned they are as unaware of the details of our family history as I am; and we sadly realize any hope of finding answers to our past from my mothers generation of aunts and uncles now lies dying in the withering mind and memory of my mother, who has no recollection of my name, much less of our family history. We lament that ours was not a family that spoke of such things and we children did not have the foresight to probe.

All we collectively knew is our family arrived from Slonim, Poland, in New York in the late 1920s. We knew they took the name Kaplan when they arrived. We assumed our name in the Old Country was Kaplansky. We had small bits of information: The oldest son of our bubbe, from a previous marriage, initially was left behind in Slonim because his family couldnt get a visa for him; my maternal grandfather died shortly after they arrived in the United States. Bubbe had to clean houses to support the family in Brooklyn, yet did not have sufficient means to support them all, so she temporarily gave my mother to her aunt to raise. The children went to work as youngsters to help support the family.

These are typical tales for immigrants from Eastern Europe arriving in Brooklyn, N.Y., just in time for the Great Depression.

Any hope of finding answers to our past from my mothers generation of aunts and uncles now lies dying in the withering mind and memory of my mother, who has no recollection of my name, much less of our family history.

This year, I was inspired to do more research into my maternal family history not only by the 23andMe and ancestry.com crazes, but by my taking a trip to Poland and Lithuania. This gave me the opportunity not only to find my roots, but to go back to the very places where these roots began. I could stand and walk in the footsteps of my familys past.

Perhaps I should have begun this quest much sooner, but I thought the few months I allotted myself would yield enough information perhaps to find a house, an address in Slonim I could stand before and feel the presence of my past.

In my research, I visited the local Mormon Latter-day Saints Genealogical Library and, although the staff was very helpful, I continued to encounter one dead end after another. Finally, with the help of a genealogist in New York and her colleague in Berlin, I located the ship manifest for my paternal grandfather, then another ship manifest for my maternal grandmother, my mother and three of her four siblings. I was ecstatic. I learned wonderful things. I learned my family name was not Kaplansky, but Kapic. I learned my paternal grandfather, Harry, was Hercz.

People in Slonim, Poland circa 1930-1939. Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Hercz was a tanner in Slonim, who miraculously got a visa and left his wife and four children (including his then 6-month-old daughter, my mother) in Poland in June 1926 to head to America. In 1930, visas were obtained for my grandmother, mother and three of my aunts and uncles. I learned their Polish names and dates of birth, the name of the ship on which they sailed to America, the date they left from France, and the date they landed in the Port of New York. But other than knowing they came from Slonim, I could not find an address, a place in Slonim that would connect me to them once I got there. I did learn of a name of a sister my grandmother had left behind in Slonim.

Further sleuthing, I found my mothers 1948 U.S. naturalization papers, from which I learned my grandmothers Polish maiden name. But once again, all references to Poland were to the town of Slonim and not to any street address. I hoped that once I actually got there, I might be able to search the local archives and, finding birth records, marriage records and the like, locate some physical addresses I could visit.

Our trip to Slonim took us beyond the borders of Poland and Lithuania and into what is now Belarus. After World War II, Slonim came under Soviet control. In 1991, it gained independence from Russia and reverted to Belarus. Slonim was no stranger to such upheaval. During its history, Lithuania, Russia, the Tatars, Germany and Poland ruled over it.

As a Jew walking through and around Slonim, this indifference to the lost Jewish past and lack of Jewish presence is palpable.

Its storied past includes a rich and celebrated Jewish tradition. In the late 19th century, through the beginning of World War II, Slonim was a hub of Jewish commerce and Jewish spiritual and political life. It was home to many Jewish movements and movers, including Haskalah, Maskilim, Chasidim, Magidim, Mitnagdim, the Jewish Bund, religious Zionists (the Mizrachi), general Zionists and labor Zionists. Although Jews there suffered from pogroms and anti-Semitism, the Jewish population of Slonim swelled in the years leading up to the war, as Jews from other parts of Poland and Eastern Europe fled to Slonim.

By World War II, 70% of the population in Slonim was Jewish. By December 1942, after the last of five aktions by the Nazis, 25,000 Jews in Slonim were killed. The 400 to 500 Slonim Jews who survived did so by escaping some into the forest, or because the Soviets had deported them to Siberia. The rest are under the earth in the killing fields that surround the town.

Before arriving in Belarus and Slonim, I knew something of the horror of this annihilation. But it did not prepare me for the shock of being there. I felt sadness, emptiness and outrage beyond anything I had ever felt during my travels visiting Jewish heritage sites in Germany, along the Rhine River, in Lithuania or in Poland. Belarus in particular, Slonim was different; it was punch-in-the-gut different. And it was not just because it was the place from which my family came. It was a difference made very clear by our incredible Belarusian guide, Alexander, who spent three days taking us to several places, including Baranovichi, Mir and Minsk.

Today, when one drives into the main square of Slonim, if one has a learned eye for history and architecture, one can pick out which of the buildings would have been Jewish homes or businesses. Moreover, although it bears no outward sign or identification, one also cannot miss the incredible, fenced-in, dilapidated, crumbling structure that once was one of the largest and most magnificent synagogues in Eastern Europe.

What you do miss (if you are looking) are Jews. Any Jews. Even worse, what is missing is any sense or consciousness at all in the town or its current inhabitants of what was, at one time, an important and significant presence of Jews.

Alexander, hearing us speak about how there seems to be a resurgence of interest in Jews and Judaism in Poland, summed up the situation in Belarus with incredible insight and impact: The Polish people, many of whom today, individually and as a nation, feel they have lost something as a result of the loss of the Jewish people and culture. They are engaged in trying to recapture some part of this loss (even if, as some argue, they may not be taking sufficient responsibility for the loss). However, the residents of Slonim, and Belarus in general, dont seem to take note of the loss of Jews at all, or even feel they have lost anything as a consequence of losing the Jews.

As a Jew walking through and around Slonim, this indifference to the lost Jewish past and lack of Jewish presence is palpable. You can swallow it; you can taste it. Its a bitter, bitter taste.

Unlike Jews who can trace their ancestry to Poland, Lithuania or even Ukraine, those of us seeking our previously unknown family history in Slonim or elsewhere in Belarus are pretty much out of luck.

The loss I felt in Slonim compounded when I learned from Alexander that any effort I might make to locate any documentation such as birth, marriage or property records of my family would be futile. After the Soviets came to power in Belarus, they destroyed all prewar records of the Jewish people who lived in what is now Belarus. Unlike Jews who can trace their ancestry to Poland, Lithuania or even Ukraine, those of us seeking our previously unknown family history in Slonim or elsewhere in Belarus are pretty much out of luck.

So there is no house I can stand in front of or street I can walk down, knowing my family was once there. There are no records to help me find members of my family.

Yes, I can stand in front of the great Slonim Synagogue and imagine my family might have stood there, even prayed there. I can walk along the river and try to feel their footsteps beneath mine as they enjoyed a stroll on a beautiful summer day. I can try to hear in my mind the gleeful laughter and shouts of young children, among whom would have been my 4-year old mother, playing in the public square and parks.

I can go a short distance to the perimeter of town, up a hill and stand in the big killing field, wondering if my grandmothers sister who was left behind, as well as other unknown relatives, breathed their final breaths as they stood here, surrounded by pastoral beauty that is evident even today. When I stand in that field, am I standing in their footsteps?

Returning from my travels, I still will try to do what research I can to track down information about my family. It does seem much of what I may be able to learn is going to be about the lives they lived here in America. I feel blessed to know my familys correct surname. I feel blessed to have been to Slonim, to see the town where my grandfather was a tanner and where my grandmother, mother and her siblings were born and lived until 1930.

But there is an overwhelming anger and grief; not only over the destruction of the Jews of Slonim, but from the subsequent Soviet destruction of the records of their very existence. I am angry those branches and leaves of my history can never be found or added to my family tree. I am angry for myself and for all the Jews in the world for whom 23andMe and ancestry.com can never be options as we seek our pasts.

Nevertheless, although many of us may not have individual family trees, we still can find a past that is precious, significant, meaningful and enduring. A past that lives on in each one of us. As Jews, we are part of a larger family whose history is remarkable, relevant, important, worldwide in scope, well-documented and continuing.

We are not just 23andMe. We are 6MillionandMe, and beyond.

Aleta Bryant has degrees from UC Berkeley in history and in law, and recently retired after 31 years as a practicing attorney. She lives in Southern California and spends her time traveling, learning and restoring her 97-year-old home.

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6 Million and Me: The Search for a Forgotten Ancestry - Jewish Journal

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Posted By admin on March 5, 2020

Avalon Theatre: Fantastic Fungi

FANTASTIC FUNGI

Louie Schwartzbergs entertaining documentary shines a light on the many ways mycelium and mushrooms can heal and save the planet, as responses to pressing medical, therapeutic, and environmental challenges. Narrated by actress Brie Larson, the film features insights and observations from bestselling authors and journalists Michael Pollan (The Omnivores Dilemma) and Eugenia Bone (Mycophilia: Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms), medicinal fungi advocate Paul Stramets, and best-selling author and alternative medicine doctor Andrew Weil (Spontaneous Healing). Wednesday March 11, at 8 p.m., followed by post-screening Q&A with Stephen Apkon, an executive producer of the film. At the Avalon Theatre, 5612 Connecticut Ave. NW. Tickets are $10.50 to $13. Call 202-966-6000 or visitwww.theavalon.org.

GREED

Steve Coogan stars as a fictional retail fashion magnate in this British satire of todays super-rich, the latest from writer-director Michael Winterbottom.Greedis set in Mykonos, the popular Greek island resort, where Coogans character has retreated for a blowout 60th birthday celebration, accompanied by an entourage including his ex-wife and a journalist hes hired as his official biographer. The celebration doesnt go at all as planned in this mockumentary-style comedy/drama that touches on the excesses of corporate capitalism and the exploitation of the poor by the rich specifically, the still-widespread use of sweatshop labor in the fashion industry. With Isla Fisher and David Mitchell. Opens Friday, March 6. Area theaters. Visitwww.fandango.com.

ONWARD

The latest animated adventure from Disney-Pixar follows aDungeons & Dragons-esque story of two teenage elf brothers who set out on a quest to discover if magic still exists, as well as to reconnect with their deceased father. Inspired by filmmaker Dan Scanlons own life chiefly the loss of his father when he and his brother were young Onwardfeatures Tom Holland Chris Pratt giving voice to the brothers, while Julia Louis-Dreyfus voices the mother, and Kyle Bornheimer the father. Octavia Spencer, Lena Waithe, Ali Wong, Tracy Ullman, and Wilmer Valderrama are part of the supporting cast. Opens Friday, March 6. Area theaters. Visitwww.fandango.com.

THE BIRDCAGE

Jean Poirets original farcical French playLa Cage aux Follesinspired a 1978 French classic, a Broadway musical, and this 1996 big-budget Hollywood adaptation by Mike Nichols. In this version, the gay couple at the storys center is played by Robin Williams and Nathan Lane (who didnt officially come out until two years later). Theyre supported by a stellar cast including Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest, Christine Baranski, Dan Futterman, Calista Flockhart, and Hank Azaria. Two area Alamo Drafthouse locations presentThe Birdcageas part of their Remakes & Hot Takes series (some are revered, some are controversial, all are worth another look). Tuesday, March 10, at 7:20 p.m. Alamo Drafthouse One Loudoun, 20575 Easthampton Plaza, Ashburn, Va. Tickets are $10. Call 571-293-6808. Also Wednesday, March 11, at 7:20 p.m. Alamo Drafthouse Woodbridge, 15200 Potomac Town Place, Ste. 100, Woodbridge, Va. Tickets are $10. Call 571-260-4413. Visitwww.drafthouse.com/northern-virginia.

THE RUINS OF LIFTA

Voices from the Holy Land series, now in its sixth season and sponsored by an interfaith coalition of more than 40 area organizations, screen documentaries focused on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Next weekends offering focuses on an Arab village whose residents were driven out during the Arab-Israeli war in 1948, and to this day remains relatively untouched. Most other such villages have either been destroyed or repopulated by Israelis, and in fact, there has been a plan in the works to redevelop Lifta as an upscale neighborhood. Yet an ad-hoc Israeli-Palestinian coalition in favor of preserving the site as an Arab village has helped to stymie such plans. Sunday March 15, at 2 p.m. Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, 4444 Arlington Blvd. Free. Call 703-892-2565 or visitwww.voicesfromtheholyhland.org.

THE UNORTHODOX

The stunning rise of Israels Shas political party is brought to life through the lens of one fathers improbable campaign to defend his daughter and speak out against routine discrimination and treatment of Sephardic Jews as second-class citizens. Set in 1983, Eliran MalkasThe Unorthodoxhas been a hit on the Jewish film festival circuit, and comes to the Edlavitch DCJCC, in a co-presentation by Sephardic Heritage International DC, for a one-week engagement. In Hebrew with English subtitles. Screenings are Friday, March 6, at 1 p.m., Saturday, March 7, 6 and 8:10 p.m., Sunday, March 8, at 3 and 5:10 p.m., and Tuesday, March 10, through Thursday, March 12, at 7 p.m. Cafritz Hall, 1529 16th St. NW. Tickets are $9 to $13. Call 202-777-3210 or visitwww.jxjdc.org.

THE WAY BACK

There is still talk of a sequel and also possibly a TV series spinoff ofThe Accountant, the 2016 thriller directed by Gavin OConnor and starring Ben Affleck as an autistic number-crunching action hero. Meanwhile, OConnor and Affleck reunite for a sports drama about an out-of-control alcoholic who is given the chance to reclaim his life and career as the new head coach of his alma maters basketball team. With Al Madrigal, Michaela Watkins, Janina Gavankar, and Glynn Turman. Opens Friday, March 6. Area theaters. Visitwww.fandango.com.

THE WILD BUNCH (DIRECTORS CUT)

Upon its release in 1969, Sam Peckinpahs revisionist western disturbed viewers and critics alike for its graphic violence (tame by todays standards). Starring William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, and Warren Oates,The Wild Bunchhas gone on to earn recognition by the Library of Congress U.S. National Film Registry, the American Film Institutes 1998 list, 100 Years100 Movies (where it ranked No. 80), and AFIs 10 Top 10: Western list (No. 6). Landmarks West End Cinema presents three screenings of the 1995 re-release that restored 10 minutes, filling in gaps from the original American theatrical version. Wednesday, March 11, at 1:30, 4:30, and 7:30 p.m. 2301 M St. NW. Happy hour is from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $12.50. Call 202-534-1907 or visitwww.landmarktheatres.com.

Boy Photo: Cameron Whitman

ADA AND THE ENGINE

Playwright Lauren Gunderson (Shakespeare TheatresPeter Pan and Wendy) offers a whimsical and inspirational scientific history lesson about Ada Lovelace, best known as the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron and also as wife to Charles Babbage, called the father of the computer. In fact, Gundersons tale posits that Babbage may have invented the hardware, or analytic engine of the machine, but Lovelace is responsible for inventing the language, the song, the soul of the thing, the programming.Ada and the Enginerotates dates withSuddenly Last Summer. Previews begin March 8. To April 5. Gunston Arts Center, Theater Two, 2700 South Lang St. Arlington. Tickets are $40. Call 703-418-4804 or visitwww.wscavantbard.org.

BANDSTAND

A year after Andy Blankenbuehler won the 2016 Tony Award as Best Choreography forHamilton, he would repeat the feat, this time for his work onBandstand, which he also directed. And hes continued in that dual capacity with the touring production of the poignant musical by Richard Oberacker and Robert Taylor.Bandstandcenters on a group of American soldiers, newly returned from World War II, who form a band to enter a national competition seeking musics next big thing. Remaining performances are Thursday, March 5, at 7:30 p.m., Friday, March 6, at 8 p.m., and Saturday, March 7, and Sunday, March 8, at 2 and 8 p.m. National Theatre, 1321 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Tickets are $54 to $99. Call 202-628-6161 or visitwww.thenationaldc.org.

BOY

In the 1960s, a well-intentioned doctor convinces the parents of twin boys to raise one as a girl following a surgical accident. Inspired by true events, Anna Zieglers play explores the beauty of finding love, the complexity of gender identity, and the consequences of the choices we make for those we love. Susan Marie Rhea directs Keegans production starring John Jones, Lida Marie Benson, Karen Novack, Mike Kozemchak, and Vishwas. To March 7. 1742 Church St. NW. Call 202-265-3767 or visitwww.keegantheatre.com.

DESSA ROSE

The title was the name of a young enslaved woman in pre-Civil War America determined to gain her and her childs freedom. In this chamber musical from the creators ofRagtime, Dessa is aided in her cause by a disaffected Southern belle named Ruth. The unlikely pairs adventure is brought back to the stage for a one-night-only production at Olney Theatre Center. Awa Sal Secka and Gracie Jones star. Friday, March 6, at 8 p.m. Mainstage, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, Md. Tickets are $60. Call 301-924-3400 or visitwww.olneytheatre.org.

HEAD OVER HEELS

Promoted as a show offering all the drama of a 16th-century romance with a queer twist,Head Over Heelsis most easily described as a jukebox musical featuring the hits of the Go-Gos. Tony-winning writer Jeff Whitty (Avenue Q) first got the notion to blend the female quartets fun and effervescent pop with Philip Sidneys sprawling, sensational Renaissance prose poemThe Arcadiafor an upbeat celebration of love and identity, and all those, you might say, whove got the beat.Head Over Heelsfeatures numerous characters questioning their sexuality, experimenting with their gender identity, and pursuing queer relationships, all while taking heed (or not) of the gender-fluid, nonbinary oracle, Pythio (Topher Williams). Monumental Theatre Company kicks off its new season with the companys Jimmy Mavrikes directing. Opens March 5. To March 23. Ainslie Arts Center in Episcopal High School, 3900 W. Braddock Rd., Alexandria. Tickets are $40. Call 703-933-3000 or visitwww.monumentaltheatre.org.

QUEENS GIRL: BLACK IN THE GREEN MOUNTAINS

With this world-premiere production at Baltimores Everyman Theatre, playwright Caleen Sinnette Jennings completes theQueens Girltrilogy she launched in 2015 withQueens Girl in the Worldat Theater J. Chronicling the adventures of bright-eyed, brown-skinned Jacqueline Marie Butler, the first play explored the young girls dawning sense of self as a young black girl in the Civil Rights era. It was followed by last yearsQueens Girl in Africa, exploring her familys move to Nigeria in the wake of the assassination of Malcolm X. Now, Butler returns to the U.S. for college in Vermont in the era of a raging Vietnam War and heightened tensions on college campuses after the Kent State killings. Felicia Curry stars and Paige Hernandez directs. The play christens a new, 211-seat performance space in Everymans complex. To April 12. Upstairs Theatre, 315 West Fayette St. Baltimore. Tickets are $59 to $69. Call 410-752-2208 or visitwww.everymantheatre.org.

RASHEEDA SPEAKING

Two co-workers one black, one white are driven apart by the machinations of their boss in a tense workplace thriller by playwright Joel Drake Johnson. The situation spins wildly out of control in this incisive, even incendiary, dark comedy that examines the prevalence of ingrained racism in America, even in a time, and a place, some claim to be post-racial. The Ally Theatre Companys Ty Hallmark directs the show to close out the third season of her young but already Helen Hayes Award-winning organization, one focused on producing theater intended to acknowledge and confront systemic oppression in America. Opens Friday, March 6. To March 22. Joes Movement Emporium, 3309 Bunker Hill Road, Mount Rainier, Md. Tickets are $15 to $25. Call 301-699-1819 or visitwww.joesmovement.org.

Suddenly Last Summer Photo: DJ Corey

SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER

This one-act play Tennessee Williams has all the hallmarks youd expect from the playwright: exotic locales, tortured psyches, lyrical language, and Williams knack for creating vivid, unforgettable characters. The focus is on an elderly New Orleans socialite mourning the death of her poet son while trying to squelch details about his mysterious death. Of course, it doesnt exactly work, although the truth of what exactly happened remains vague. The prevailing theory, and certainly most sensational, suggests that her sons homosexuality was a factor. Christopher Henley directs. In rep withAda and the Engine. To April 5. Gunston Arts Center, Theater Two, 2700 South Lang St. Arlington. Tickets are $40. Call 703-418-4804 or visitwww.wscavantbard.org.

THE 39 STEPS

Actors cast in this comedic adaptation of one of Alfred Hitchcocks early works certainly cant phone in their performance particularly not those, such as Gwen Grastorf and Christopher Walker, cast in Constellation Theatre Companys new production as what the program simply lists as a Cast of Dozens (there are over 100 roles in all). Constellations production stars Drew Kopas as a British everyman who gets ensnared in a spy ring, then proceeds to have romantic dalliances along the way to clearing his name. Patricia Hurley does triple duty as his three paramours. Extended to March 15. Source Theatre, 1835 14th St. NW. Tickets are $19 to $55. Call 202-204-7741 or visitwww.constellationtheatre.org.

THE AMATEURS

Up-and-coming gay playwright Jordan Harrison (Marjorie Prime) offers a mind-bending journey from the 14th Century to the present day or, in plague terms, from the Black Death to the AIDS crisis by focusing on a troupe of bumbling actors staging Noahs Ark. Olneys production stars Emily Townley, Michael Russotto, Evan Casey, Rachel Zampelli, John Keabler, and James Konicek. To April 5. Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab, Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, Md. Tickets are $59 to $64. Call 301-924-3400 or visitwww.olneytheatre.org.

THE CAKE

A devout and conservative cake baker in North Carolina tries not to think too hard, or much at all, about the complexities of things or the discrepancies of religious teachings. Until the girl she helped raise returns home to marry another woman. Bekah Brunstetters play was inspired by the U.S. Supreme Court caseMasterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Dawn A. Westbrook directs. Through March 7. Richmond Triangle Players, The Robert B. Moss Theatre, 1300 Altamont Ave. Richmond. Tickets are $10 to $35. Call 804-346-8113 or visitwww.rtriangle.org.

WEEP

Nu Sass Productions, the female-focused local theater company, presents a modern retelling of the Latin folktale La Llorona, or The Weeping Woman, centered on a woman accused of drowning her two children and the public defense attorney assigned to her high-profile case. Boneza Valdez Hanchock and Carolyn Kashner play the two women who form an unlikely friendship in this psychological thriller, written by D.C. playwright Amanda Zeitler, that touches on hot-button issues of racism, abortion, immigration, and misogyny. Bess Kaye directs. Now to March 14. Caos on F, 923 F St. NW. Tickets are $20. Call 202-215-6993 or visitwww.nusass.com.

Dead Kenndys

A CAPPELLA LIVE!

AMP, Strathmores intimate cabaret venue, presents a modern twist on the classic touring Motown revue next weekend when four a cappella acts share the stage. The lineup includes the charming, boy band-inspired the Filharmonic, established gospel/R&B group Committed,American Idol-popularized electronic/dance artist and beatboxer Blake Lewis, and the international collective Women of the World. The concert is overseen by Deke Sharon, a leading force behind NBCsThe Sing-Off, which gave the world Pentatonix. Sharon was also the arranger and music director of thePitch Perfectmovies. Friday, March 6. Doors at 6:30 p.m. Amp by Strathmore, 11810 Grand Park Ave. North Bethesda. Tickets are $42 to $68. Call 301-581-5100 or visitwww.ampbystrathmore.com.

BERNARD/EBB SONGWRITING AWARDS CONCERT

Some of the areas best and most original music artists will perform at this 6th annual competition created by Cathy Bernard in honor of her late uncle Fred Ebb, the legendary lyricist responsible, with his writing partner John Kander, for an abundance of major Broadway musicals, includingCabaretandChicago. The Bernard/Ebb trophy is open to songwriters working in various genres, all drawn from a local pool of applicants (more than 160 entries were received this year). Produced by the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, the 2020 finalists are Hayley Fahey of Derwood, Md., Genna Matthew of Charlottesville, Eric Scott of North Beach, Md., Maimouna Youssef of Baltimore, and DuPont Brass, a D.C. ensemble. A three-person jury of music industry veterans will give feedback throughout the show and then select the Grand Prize Winner and recipient of $10,000 plus 25 hours of recording studio time. Friday, March 13, at 7:30 p.m. Bethesda Blues & Jazz Supper Club, 7719 Wisconsin Ave. Tickets are $15 to $20, plus a recommended $20 minimum purchase per person. Call 240-330-4500 or visitwww.bethesdabluesjazz.com.

BRUCE HORNSBY & YMUSIC

You can always count on Bruce Hornsby to perform in concert his sentimental, richly textured 80s pop hits, including The Way It Is, Mandolin Rain, and The Valley Road. But the singer-songwriter from Williamsburg, Virginia, has a vast catalogue that goes well beyond the tried and true. His newest album,Absolute Zero, is a wide-ranging set that includes forays into experimental jazz fusion, avant-garde classical as well as progressive rock. The 2019 album finds Hornsby collaborating with Bon Ivers Justin Vernon on a couple of strong selections, and roughly half of the tracks feature yMusic, the extraordinary Brooklyn-based contemporary classical chamber ensemble featuring a string trio, flute, clarinet, and trumpet. Next week at Strathmore, both acts will perform individual sets, but the key attraction is to see them join forces and jam together. Friday, March 6, at 8 p.m. Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, Md. Tickets are $38 to $88. Call 301-581-5100 or visitwww.strathmore.org.

CHRISTIAN DOUGLAS

Over the past few months, Christian Douglas has managed the feat of breaking into the competitive local theater scene as an ensemble member in two high-profile musicals Newsiesat Arena Stage andGun & Powderat Signature Theatre. Douglas is preparing to branch out further as a 2020 Artist in Residence at Strathmore. Douglas gets the spotlight for two shows set for March, in which hell perform songs from his EPLonely Paradise, as well as Modern Love, his Strathmore-commissioned song cycle inspired by aNew York Timescolumn of the same name. Wednesdays, March 11 and March 25, at 7:30 p.m. 10701 Rockville Pike, North Bethesda. Tickets are $19. Call 301-581-5100 or visitwww.strathmore.org.

DEAD KENNEDYS

Its been 42 years since one of the first and certainly one of the defining hardcore punk bands formed in San Francisco. Last year, the Dead Kennedys released the live compilation albumDK40, which they continue to support on tour. Opening sets from Canadian hardcore act D.O.A. and Marylands poop punk veterans in Dingleberry Dynasty. Wednesday, March 11. Doors at 7 p.m. 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW. Tickets are $30. Call 202-265-0930 or visitwww.930.com.

FRANK SOLIVAN & DIRTY KITCHEN

Increasingly regarded as one of the genres best contemporary bands, the local progressive bluegrass act or, if you prefer, New Acoustic American Roots Music earned a Grammy nomination for its 2015 albumCold Spell. Solivan and his Dirty Kitchen crew of banjoist Mike Munford, guitarist Chris Luquette, and bassist Jeremy Middleton next take to Falls Churchs State Theatre for what is billed as a very special show on Frank Solivans birthday weekend. Pierce Edens and the 19th Street Band will serve as opening acts. Sunday, March 8. Doors at 6 p.m. 220 North Washington St., Falls Church. Tickets are $17 to $20. Call 703-237-0300 or visitwww.thestatetheatre.com.

FXCK SXSW: A LOCAL SHOWCASE

Every year for a week in mid-March, local concert venues and the overall live music scene in D.C. becomes just a wee bit darker and quieter just enough to make you remember that, indeed, the countrys biggest music festivalisnow getting underway in Austin. Not everyone can go to South By Southwest, of course. And for those stuck in D.C., the Black Cat once again presents a special showcase of local acts set on the Austin festivals opening night. This years lineup includes The OSYX (pronounced 06), a post-punk, all-female supergroup consisting of Erin Frisby, Ara Casey, Selena Benally, Robzie Trulove, and Maya Renfro, all of whom are also principals in This Could Go Boom!, a record label and presenting organization specifically geared to fellow womxn and non-binary musicians; Too Free, the experimental, improvisational electronic pop trio of Awad Bilal, Don Godwin, and Carson Cox; and Nice Breeze, featuring the abstract poet punks Andy Fox, John Howard, and Martha Hamilton. Friday, March 13. Doors at 8 p.m. Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. Tickets are $12 to $15. Call 202-667-4490 or visitwww.blackcatdc.com.

GAY MENS CHORUS OF WASHINGTON: GENDEROSITY

For its fourth concert of the season, the Gay Mens Chorus of Washington offers a glam-rock spectacle celebrating gender and self-expression. Naturally, the program includes over-the-top costumes, dancers, and drag queens to go well beyond the music. GMCWs Thea Kano will direct the concert with choreography by Craig Cipollini, James Ellzy, and Danny Aldous. The song list ranges from Dancing Queen to Vogue, Changes to Born This Way, along with musical numbers fromLa Cage Aux Folles(A Little More Mascara),The Wiz(Home), andAida(My Strongest Suit). Joining the chorus on stage as the programs special guest will be Batal, D.C.s diverse, all-women percussion group. Saturday, March 14, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, March 15, at 3 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, 1215 U St. NW. Tickets are $25 to $65. Call 202-328-6000 or visitwww.thelincolndc.com.

GINA CHAVEZ

You might call singer-songwriter Gina Chavez a missionary for intersectionality. Chavez, who describes herself as half-Mexican, half-Swiss German, and fully Texan, touches on issues related to her faith, religion, and love in her folk-pop songs, which she performs live accompanied by a five-piece band of fellow Austin-based musicians. Friday, March 6. Doors at 7 p.m. Jammin Java, 227 Maple Ave. E. Vienna. Tickets are $20. Call 703-255-3747 or visitwww.jamminjava.com.

GUDELL JAZZ SYNDICATE

A once-familiar presence performing in musical productions around town, Tony Gudell has altered course slowly but surely over the last decade, restyling himself as an increasingly in-demand nightclub singer and jazz vocalist. Case in point: Gudell has spent the past year as a monthly performer with a backing band at Logan Circles the Crown & Crow. And with the advent of March, that swanky Victorian-styled venue decided it wants more, inviting Gudell and company to become the official house band with performances twice monthly. As before, the exact lineup accompanying Gudell varies, although it usually consists of either Oren Levine or Terry Marshall on piano, Mark Saltman or Gerhard Graml on bass, and Christian Clark on percussion. What doesnt change is the focus on swinging, crooning classics from the first half of the 20th Century, a golden era for jazz and pop. The repertoire ranges from hits by the Rat Pack to American Songbook standards, and all intended to evoke a mid-century Vegas vibe. Saturday, March 14 and March 28, from 9 p.m. to midnight. 1317 14th St. NW. No cover or minimum purchase required. Call 202-763-7552 or visitwww.thecrownandcrow.com, orwww.tonygudell.comfor more details and additional dates.

ON A WINTERS NIGHT: 25TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR

Cliff Eberhardt, John Gorka, Patty Larkin, Christine Lavin, and Cheryl Wheeler reunite to perform and celebrate a moveable feast of song, also dubbed a mini-folk festival. Ultimately, the concert pays tribute to the 1994 compilation that Lavin assembled featuring winter love songs from some of her favorite singer-songwriters. Saturday, March 7, at 7:30 p.m. The Birchmere, 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria. Tickets are $$45. Call 703-549-7500 or visitwww.birchmere.com.

RED BARAAT W/ANJALI TANEJA

Jazz artist Sunny Jain conceived of and leads the bhangra-rooted party band Red Baraat, a Brooklyn-based ensemble returning to D.C. on their annual Festival of Colors tour. This years party, which celebrates spring rites as well as the South Asian Diaspora in America, features an opening set from Anjali Taneja, a D.C.-based R&B singer-songwriter who weaves together soulful melodic elements with South Asain rhythmic influences. Friday, March 6. Doors at 6:30 p.m. The Hamilton, 600 14th St. NW. Tickets are $20 to $25. Call 202-787-1000 or visitwww.thehamiltondc.com.

ROBERTO FONSECA

Born into a family of Cuban musicians, this world-renowned jazz pianist spent years touring with Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club and Cubas greatest living diva, Omara Portuondo. Fonseca is currently touring in support of his ninth solo album, the wide-ranging 2019 setYesun, which finds rap, funk, reggaeton, and electronica mixed in with his standard jazz. Calling it the album Ive always wanted to make, the artist says in an official release thatYesun, ultimately, presents a Cuba without borders, one that bridgesmy Afro-Cuban traditions and other styles of music Ive absorbed. Tuesday, March 10. Doors at 6:30 p.m. The Hamilton, 600 14th St. NW. Tickets are $24.75 to $49.75. Call 202-787-1000 or visitwww.thehamiltondc.com.

THE CHUCK BROWN BAND

The godfather of go-go may have died in 2012, but his namesake band keeps go-going. The jazz festival staple and powerhouse ensemble of danceable funk and soul grooves, and leading arbiter of what is now recognized as the official music of D.C., returns for another go-go round down on the Wharf and in the intimate Pearl Street Warehouse. Saturday, March 7. Doors at 7 p.m. 33 Pearl St. SW. Tickets are $25 to $35. Call 202-380-9620 or visitwww.pearlstreetwarehouse.com.

DON GIOVANNI

The protagonist in Mozarts anti-hero classicDon Giovannifashions himself a real Don Juan, aiming to seduce and conquer all of the beautiful women he encounters, whatever it takes. Eventually, however, times up for Giovanni in this celebrated tragicomedy. Ryan McKinny takes on the title role in a Washington National Opera production directed by E. Loren Meeker and choreographed by Eric Sean Fogel. WNO Principal Conductor Evan Rogister leads the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra. In Italian with English surtitles. To March 22. Opera House. Tickets are $45 to $299. Call 202-467-4600 or visitwww.kennedy-center.org.

Russian National Ballet: Cinderella Alexander Daev

MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY: THE EVE PROJECT

For its return to the Kennedy Center, the dance company named after the woman widely regarded as the mother of modern dance presents a collection of new commissions inspired by the late Grahams work plus several of her signature classics. Another celebratory nod to the 19th Amendments centennial, theEVE Projectfeatures new works includingUntitled (Souvenir)by Pam Tanowitz andLamentation Variationsby Aszure Barton, Liz Gerring, and Michelle Dorrance, each riffing on Grahams iconic solo of the same name. Repertory works to be presented at various performances include GrahamsDiversion of Angels,Ekstasis, andChronicle. Thursday, March 5, through Saturday, March 7, at 8 p.m. Performances are followed by a free talk with company artists, collaborators, and creative team members. Eisenhower Theater. Tickets are $25 to $69. Call 202-467-4600 or visitwww.kennedy-center.org.

RUSSIAN NATIONAL BALLET

The grand national tradition of major Russian ballet works is the bread and butter of this 50-member company, which returns to George Mason University to present four classics over the course of a weekend. Under the direction of legendary Bolshoi principal Elena Radchenko, the company kicks things off Friday, March 6, at 8 p.m., with Tchaikovskys beloved fairytaleSleeping Beautythrough exquisite choreography originally created by Marius Petipa and presented in an opulent production. At the Hylton Performing Arts Center, 10960 George Mason Circle, in Manassas, Va. Tickets are $33 to $55. Call 703-993-7759 or visitwww.hyltoncenter.org. Its followed on Saturday, March 7, at 8 p.m., with two beautifully tragic one-act ballets Tchaikovskys passionate, star-crossedRomeo and Juliet(choreographed by Radchenko), and an adaptation of BizetsCarmen, featuring the work of choreographer Alberto Alonso and composer Rodion Shehedrin. The weekend concludes on Sunday, March 8, at 2 p.m. with Radchenkos grand take on ProkofievsCinderella. Concert Hall in the Center for the Arts, 4373 Mason Pond Drive, Fairfax. Tickets are $34 to $56 per performance. Call 888-945-2468 or visitwww.cfa.gmu.edu.

Dulc Sloan Photo courtesy of Loshak

COMEDY AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

A show President Trump doesnt want you to see, Marylands Improbable Comedy continues to enlist more immigrants and first-generation comics for another stand-up showcase. Taking the stage at the Silver Spring Black Box Theatre are Pedro Gonzalez, Rahmein Mostafavi, Shelley Kim, and Sofia Javed. Saturday, March 14, at 8 p.m. 8641 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. Tickets are $20 to $30. Call 301-588-8270 or visitwww.improbablecomedy.com.

RIOT! COMEDY EVENT FEATURING MARGARET CHO

The Kennedy Center honors International Womens Day with a star-studded night of comedy including veteran queer comic Cho,Daily Show with Trevor Noahbreakout Dulc Sloan, Sasheer Zamata ofSaturday Night Livefame, Jen Kirkman ofChelsea LatelyandDrunk Historyas well as her multiple hit Netflix stand-up specials, and Catherine Cohen, host of a weekly show at Alan Cummings East Village bar Club Cumming. Sunday, March 8, at 8 p.m. Concert Hall. Tickets are $29 to $69. Call 202-467-4600 or visitwww.kennedy-center.org.

SAMPSON MCCORMICK

In 2018, McCormick became the first queer comic to headline an event at the Smithsonians National Museum of African-American History and Culture. Raised in D.C., McCormick appreciates how the comedy scene overall has become more welcoming and inclusive since he started in stand-up well more than a dozen years ago. Now based in L.A., McCormick returns home for his debut at the DC Comedy Loft with a run of shows this weekend. Paris Sashay opens. Thursday, March 5, at 7:30 p.m., Friday, March 6, at 8 and 10 p.m., and Saturday, March 7, at 7:30 and 9:15 p.m. The Cellar Stage, 1523 22nd St. NW. Tickets are $20, plus two-item food/beverage minimum. Call 202-293-1887 or visitwww.dccomedyloft.com.

Maira Kalman

(HER)STORY: ALL-BLACK WOMAN POETRY SHOWCASE

Presented by the local queer black writer/activst C. Thomas, this showcase features works of poetry that generally celebrate the strength of black women, touch on the wisdom theyve gained as passed down from relatives and ancestors, and share experiences of joy and pain and healing. KaNikki Jakarta, the Poet Laureate of Alexandria, hosts the evening, which features writers Gail Danley, Theresa Tha Songbird, Miss Butterfly Free, and Luki. Friday, March 6, at 7 p.m. The Athenaeum, 201 Prince St., Alexandria. Tickets are $10. Call 703-548-0035 or visitwww.nvfaa.org.

MAIRA KALMAN

An artist and illustrator whose work is frequently featured in theNew Yorker, Kalmans latest project is an illustrated edition of the Gertrude Steins classic book from 1933 that shed light on the life and times of her life partner, Alice B. Toklas. Full of color and Kalmans signature sense of whimsy, the paintings, more than 60 in all, are intended to complement the text, but more importantly to add a new dimension to the work: through depictions of Stein at her desk, following visitors such as Sylvia Beach and Man Ray, and evoking the unique modernist ferment that was 27 rue de Fleurus. Sunday, March 8, at 5 p.m. Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Call 202-364-1919 or visitwww.politics-prose.com.

STORY DISTRICT: SHE COMES FIRST

Every second Tuesday, Story District presents a program featuring everyday people sharing personal stories theyve been coached to tell in seven minutes, and all focused on a particular topic. For March, which is Womens History Month, the program focuses on stories about women taking a stand, turning the tables, and breaking the ceiling, all told one at a time. Storytellers including Qudsiya Naqui, Yasmin Elhady, Jenna Huntsberger, Janelle Brevard, Molly Kelly, Anne Hofmann, Coby Ones, Jasmine Jones, and HRCs Charlotte Clymer. Tuesday, March 10. Doors at 6:30 p.m. Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. Tickets are $20 plus fees. Call 202-667-4490 or visitblackcatdc.com.

Hill Center Galleries Regional Juries Exhibition Fruit of the Harvest: Sam Dixon

ARTY QUEERS: D.C.S LGBTQ+ ART MARKET

The DC Center for the LGBT Community offers the chance for local LGBTQ and queer-identified artists to showcase and sell their works on the second Saturday of every month, including March 7, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Prospective art buyers can expect to see original artworks in a range of media, including painting, pottery, photography, jewelry, glasswork, textiles, and clothing. Perfect time to pick up a few extra-special gifts! The DC Center, 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. Call 202-682-2245 or visitwww.thedccenter.org.

BEHIND THE LENS FEATURING GOLIE MIAMEE

Works by local travel photographer and visual artist Golie Miamee are featured as the Winter 2020 exhibit at Art14, the seasonal art series at the Coldwell Banker Dupont/Logan office on 14th Street. On display to March. Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, 1617 14th St. NW. Call 202-387-6180 or visitwww.facebook.com/CBRBDupont.

HILL CENTER GALLERIES: REGIONAL JURIED EXHIBITION

Over the years, this exhibition, featuring works in various mediums and subjects, has grown to include 85 artists from D.C., Virginia, and Maryland. This years juror is Myrtis Bedolla, owner of Baltimores Galerie Myrtis. Bedolla selected 94 pieces of original hanging work, in any medium, submitted by 85 artists, including Kasse Andrews-Weller, Olga Bauer, Katherine Becker, Julie Byrne, Sally Canzoneri, Sam Dixon, Sean Dudley, Christopher Fowler, Charles Gaynor, M. Alexander Gray, Tara Hamilton, Wan Lee, Joey Manlapaz,Khanh Nguyen, Felicia Reed, Robert Weinstein, and Alla Zareva. On display to April 18. At the Old Naval Hospital, 921 Pennsylvania Ave. SE. Call 202-549-4172 or visitwww.HillCenterDC.org.

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Out On the Town: DC arts & entertainment highlights March 5-11 - Metro Weekly

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Posted By admin on March 5, 2020

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We readyto celebrate Tiffany Haddish. If youve been watching our Twitter and Instagram as you should then youve seen our #BlackWomenWeLove series for Womens History Month. All throughout March BOSSIPs celebrating melanin magic across the board, from the black women who keep us laughing to our ferocious faves telling the truth on TV.

Today, were highlighting our Last Black Unicorn one, Ms. Tiffany Haddish.

Tiffany Sarac Haddish hails from South Central L.A. and as a burgeoning comedienne, she hustled even to the point of homelessness while trying to break into the comedy scene. Tiffany credits Kevin Hart with helping her get on her feet, at one point giving her $300 so she could stay in a motel and encouraging her to write a list of goals. The goal list paid off and her first big break was on comedy competition Bill Bellamys Whos Got Jokes?

Later shed star in 2016s Keanu, before getting introd to all of America in Will Packers Girls Trip. Tiffanys role as the Flossy Posses rambunctious party animal Dina who was alwaaays ready for a turn-up helped the film bring in $115.2 million in the United States and Canada. Girls Trip skyrocketed Tiffanys career and she hasnt looked back since.

Her acting credits include;

Nobodys Fool

The Oath

The Kitchen

The Secret Life Of Pets 2

Like A Boss

Shes won two NAACP Image Awards, a BET Award and a Primetime EMMY for Outstanding Guest Actress Comedy Series. Shes also living her best life (reportedly with Common) and recently held a ritzy Bat Mitzvah to honor her Jewish heritage.

Happy Womens History Month, Tiffany Haddish! Youre one of the #BossipWomenWeLove!

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#BlackWomenWeLove Tiffany Haddish Is Our #WCW - Bossip

Category: Jewish Heritage Month | Comments Off on #BlackWomenWeLove Tiffany Haddish Is Our #WCW – Bossip
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