Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on August 23, 2021

The most serious anti-Semitic incident in American history, as historian Edward S. Shapiro describes it, took place precisely 30 years ago when a mob took over the streets of Crown Heights, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y. Rioters killed one Orthodox Jew and beat dozens. Thousands were forced into hiding while windows shattered, police watched and Mayor David Dinkins stayed aloof. Members of the crowd shouted Hitler should have finished the job and Death to the Jews. Yet then as now, many liberals hesitated to pass judgment.

The Lubavitch Orthodox Jewish population has been growing in Crown Heights since 1940, but the neighborhood around it has changed. In 1960 Crown Heights was 71% white and 27% black. By 1970 the numbers had flipped. By 1990 it was around 80% black, including a large Caribbean-American population.

What happened is no mystery. As Jimmy Breslin wrote in 1993, in all of America, wherever a large group of blacks settle, every white in sight flees. Irish, Italians and other Jews left Crown Heights. But the Lubavitchers do not run, Breslin wrote. These people in hats and beards are better than any other whites because they stayed and everybody else ran. They might not have marched for civil rights in Selma, Ala., but neither did they decamp to the suburbs.

On the night of Monday, Aug. 19, 1991, the Lubavitcher rebbe was returning home from a visit to a cemetery. His motorcades third and final car, driven by Yosef Lifsh, had fallen behind and sped to catch up. Either running a red light or making a yellow one, his car collided with another at a Crown Heights intersection. It veered onto the sidewalk and struck 7-year-old cousins Gavin and Angela Cato. Gavin was killed, Angela seriously injured.

Mr. Lifsh got out and attempted to help, but a crowd began to beat him and his passengers. Nearby police struggled to control the situation until two ambulances arrived, one from Hatzalah, a volunteer Orthodox Jewish organization, and one from the city. Thinking quickly, officers ordered Hatzalah to take the injured Lubavitchers, while city medics attended to the children. That launched a rumor that the Jewish ambulance service had cared only about Jews and left Gavin Cato to die.

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Could the Crown Heights Riots Recur? - The Wall Street Journal

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Posted By admin on August 23, 2021

Once, in the middle of a Rosh Hashanah service, a zoo curator entered a synagogue, accompanied by this is true an African black-footed penguin suffering an epileptic seizure. No, the curator did not come to pray for the artic birds salvation. Rather, she was looking for guidance from Dr. Jeremy Goodman, at the time the director of the Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange, New Jersey. Also a veterinarian, Goodman instructed the curator to administer Diazepam, a sedative that treats anxiety, muscle spasms and seizures, and presumably the penguin was inscribed in the Book of Life.

The Zoological Society of Pittsburghs board of directors announced that it has selected Goodman to serve as the eighth director of the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium. He will succeed Dr. Barbara Baker, who served the zoo for 31 years and announced her retirement in June. The zoo opened in 1898.

Goodman, who assumes his new role Oct. 1, has served as the executive director of the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, Rhode Island, the nations third-oldest zoo, since 2013. Before that, Goodman left his mark in the field by turning around the aging Turtle Back Zoo, and serving as assistant director of the Potawatomi Zoo in South Bend, Indiana.

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Goodman, who previously worked in a private veterinary practice near the Jersey Shore, holds a bachelors degree in animal science from Rutgers University and a doctorate in veterinary medicine from Tufts University.Just as important as his resume, he told the Chronicle, is his role as a father and a Jew. And he is happy to make Pittsburgh his new home.

The Pittsburgh Zoo is certainly one of the top 10 in the country and its a really great opportunity, from a professional standpoint. From a personal perspective, I have heard such great things about Pittsburgh, said Goodman, who was born in Chicago and grew up in New Jersey. It is a great, great place to live and its got a strong Jewish community which is important to me and my family. We went out there for Shabbos and felt right at home.

Donna Hudson, board chair of the Zoological Society of Pittsburgh, said Goodman was selected after a global search led by a board committee and executive search company DHR International, because after having a longtime director, what we really wanted was someone who could come in and hit the ground running.

We needed someone who is a change-maker and Jeremy has a track record of that, Hudson added. We were looking for someone who could come in, take all the good stuff and bring it into the future.

Hes a visionary.

When visiting Pittsburgh recently, Goodman paid a visit to Rabbi Daniel Wasserman, who, like Goodman, grew up in northern New Jersey. As the two already have a warm relationship Wasserman officiated at Goodmans wedding many years ago Goodman said he anticipates his family will worship at Shaare Torah Congregation in Squirrel Hill.

Its always special when you have a relationship with someone and you havent seen them in a long time and youre able to pick up just where you left off, Wasserman said.

Goodman and his family are doers, said Wasserman, who, coincidentally, is a volunteer scuba diver at the Pittsburgh Zoo he dives into the tanks to cleanand to entertain passersby.

Its my me time, Wasserman said. Its the only time of the week where my phone doesnt ring.

Goodman and his wife, Marina, whom he met during his last year at Tufts, have three children, ages 23, 20 and 16. His 16-year-old daughter plans to attend Taylor Allderdice High School in Squirrel Hill, Goodman said. Marina Goodman is a former financial consultant who now teaches mathematics, and is the author of Why Should I Stand Behind the Mechitza When I Could Be a Prayer Leader?, a book about the role of women in Judaism and questions she asked on her own spiritual odyssey.

Goodmans eldest son has cerebral palsy and autism, and lives with his parents; his younger son was previously involved with the Friendship Circle in New Jersey. Driving down Murray Avenue and seeing the prominent placement of Friendship Circle in Pittsburghs Squirrel Hill brought a smile to Goodmans face, he said.

Our son is very much looking forward to doing Friendship Circle again, Goodman said.

Rabbi Mordy Rudolph, who heads Friendship Circle in Squirrel Hill, said so much of what we are trying to accomplish at Friendship Circle is that its front and center in the community. Its prime location certainly was intentional from our end, Rudolph said.

I think the fact that it does help someone feel more welcomed speaks volumes about what Friendship Circle is, he added.

Goodman, who identifies as modern Orthodox, has made concessions in his zoological and veterinary work due to his religious beliefs. While a doctoral student at Tufts, for example, Jewish law prohibited him from spaying, neutering or treating animals on Shabbat.

In every zoo Ive worked in, we put protocols in place about Shabbos, Goodman told Mishpacha magazine last year. The staff knows Ill leave the answering machine on, so maybe my wife or I will hear it. I cant treat animals on Shabbos, but sometimes the staff will drive to my house to ask for direction about what to do.

Goodman said the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium is a bigger operation than what he leads in Providence the Pittsburgh zoos approximately 70 acres and roughly $20 million budget are about 70% larger than Roger Williams Park Zoo.

In Providence, Goodman was also a champion of the Association of Zoos & Aquariums, or AZA; he served as a member of the AZAs Annual Program Management Committee and is an experienced AZA Accreditation Inspector.

That could prove relevant in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium dropped a nearly three-decade membership with the AZA in 2015 after a disagreement over elephant handling, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Hudson, the Zoological Society board chair, said Goodman will bring new perspective and experience to advancing our AZA accreditation, renewing our lease with the city, creating and updating exhibitions, and engaging the community in new ways in order to further enhance and grow our zoo.

Baker, the outgoing president and CEO, will hold the honorary title of president emeritus in recognition of her many contributions to the zoos growth and development. She will be available, as needed, to consult with board officers and Goodman through the end of 2022 to ensure a smooth transition. PJC

Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.

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Dr. Jeremy Goodman takes the reins at Pittsburgh Zoo - thejewishchronicle.net

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Posted By admin on August 23, 2021

Who are the worlds most influential Jews?

The leaders, the innovators, the creators and the influencers.

Each year, The Jerusalem Post highlights the individuals from across the Jewish nation who are doing big things in government and politics, art, medicine, science, technology and philanthropy.

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The edition has come to be one of the most-read all year long.

The Top 50 Most Influential Jews is printed in a prestigious, glossy magazine format and distributed inside The Jerusalem Post Rosh Hashanah edition, which is purchased by more than 60,000 households each year.

In addition, we upload the entire magazine to our website, jpost.com, where it can be seen by our 8 to 10 million unique monthly readers.

Finally, the Top 50 Most Influential Jews for many serves almost as a coffee table edition and is kept and referenced by Jewish leaders around the world.

Who will make the list this year? Be sure to visit jpost.com on September 6 to find out.

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The Jerusalem Post 50 Most Influential Jews of 2021 - coming soon - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on August 23, 2021

Until this year, Jewish Family Services of Silicon Valley was helping to resettle about 50 refugees per year from all around the world. But the picture has changed suddenly and dramatically with the recent pullout of American troops from Afghanistan and the rapid takeover by the Taliban. Now, in August alone, JFS anticipates resettling 25 Afghans.

JFS, as well as Jewish Family & Community Services East Bay, which does the same work, are now operating at lightning speed to help resettle a flood of Afghan refugees roughly 130 between them by the end of the month. HIAS, the national Jewish resettlement agency, is helping to assign the refugee cases.

JFS Silicon Valleys executive director Mindy Berkowitz called the effort a big push.

Were picking up people every day, she said. It is requiring a lot of focus and comprehensive efforts on our part for this group who is a little different.

How are they different? While those who are resettled through JFS of Silicon Valley and JFCS East Bay usually come through traditional immigration channels, the Afghans being brought to the United States right now come under Special Immigrant Visas, or SIVs, given to those who helped the Americans during the 20-year-long war either as translators, interpreters or in some other role and are now in danger as the Taliban take power. The SIVs expedite the process and qualify them for refugee status.

More than 1,700 Afghans with SIVs were evacuated from the country over a 24-hour period, according to the Associated Press.

It is woefully inhuman that these people just have to suffer.

While many refugees face mental health issues upon entering the United States, JFCS East Bays senior director of development Holly Taines White said, this particular group is especially prone due to the chaotic nature of the resettlement. Many have had to leave family members behind in Afghanistan.

Every single SIV weve resettled has had threats against them, or their family members, or had a family member killed, or had a family member kidnapped, or had a friend who also worked with the United States who was pulled out of their house and killed on the street, said White.

Upon entering the country, the refugees can either get connected with family living in the Bay Area or be placed in a temporary home until a more permanent solution is found.

The refugees are also linked up with volunteers who help them acclimate to life in America. One volunteer, Judy Kammeraad of Danville, will be meeting in person next week with an Afghan family who arrived this month, helping them with tasks such as setting up a bank account and getting the children signed up for school.

We end up having friendships and special relationships with these folks, said Kammeraad, who has been volunteering with JFCS East Bay since 2018 and is a retired nuclear physicist. We have so much in common, we dont even know it. They like to be with their family. They love their children. They love to see their children be happy. When you let all of these things called differences aside, were so much alike.

When the U.S. military started evacuations out of Afghanistan, JFCS East Bay immediately began taking in those under the SIV program, along with their family members. So far this month, the organization has resettled 46 Afghans, and about 41 more are expected within the week; currently they are waiting at an Army base in Virginia. By the end of the month, the total in the East Bay is expected to exceed 100, White said.

To put it in perspective, the largest number of refugees the organization has assisted in a single year is 183, from all around the world. While JFCS East Bay has been resettling refugees since the 1930s, it has been working with Afghans in large numbers since 2008, and has resettled hundreds since then.

This whole thing has been just super expedited, said White. Doing this work is deeply rooted in our history and our values.

JFCS East Bay has also been collecting cash donations, as well as directing people toward an Amazon Wish List where one can purchase household items such as toasters, pillows and blenders for the refugees eventual permanent homes.

So far, White said her organization has raised close to $200,000 in donations, with an additional $75,000 worth of items purchased through the wish list along with $25,000 in gift cards.

Anita Cadonau-Huseby of Danville, who on Tuesday donated a few items through Amazon and also donated money, said she is also considering volunteering to help the incoming refugees. I really reconcile with the Jewish tradition of welcoming the stranger, she said. [We have to] treat folks with compassion and dignity.

On Friday morning, President Joe Biden stated that any American who wanted to exit Afghanistan would be able to. His administration has faced criticism for underestimating the pace at which the Taliban would retake the country, and images of chaotic scenes of desperate Afghans at the Kabul airport have only added to that criticism.

More than 34,000 Afghans have been issued the special visa since 2014, and over 15,000 have relocated to the United States. Another 18,000 are in line for an SIV.

HIAS, the Jewish resettlement nonprofit, is lobbying the Biden administration to accept Afghans who dont qualify for the SIV program but are considered at risk, such as activists and journalists, and who are major targets of the Taliban.

All of these people face grave danger without immediate assistance, said HIAS Western Region director Joe Goldman.

While the U.S. government has opened up an avenue for Afghans who are not eligible for SIVs its called the P-2 program and includes people who have worked, for example, for U.S.-based NGOs and media groups Goldman said this leaves tens of thousands still at risk.

As American Jews, he said, its imperative to fight for the immediate evacuation for as many Afghans as possible. It is woefully inhuman that these people just have to suffer.

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Jewish orgs scramble to assist Afghan refugees arriving in Bay Area J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on August 23, 2021

Sun, Aug 22, 2021 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4)

Register here.

Jewish Heritage Alliance, in collaboration with our co-hosting Partners, presents

Sefarad: The Untold Story That Changed the World

PART II

A 3-part series exploring History, Memory, and Legacy

The Sephardic experience is more than merely recounting a history; this is a far-reaching segment of Jewish and world history spanning centuries with profound consequences still unfolding in present day. Yet despite its historic importance, many in the Jewish and Latino communities have yet to learn the relevance and impact of these events.

Part II / Aug 22: Challenging Religious Authority: The Birth of Heresy and the Inquisition

The Inquisition is infamous in popular culture for the severity of its tortures and persecution of heretics. In Spain and Portugal, this powerful tribunal sanctioned by the Catholic Church became obsessed with the phenomenon of Judaizing (Jews who were forcibly converted to Christianity but who secretly tried to keep the Laws of Moses). This webinar will examine the Iberian Inquisition and its relentless pursuit of Crypto-Judaism for three and a half centuries on five continents, reshaping the world of Sefarad.

Welcome Remarks:

Jason Gubermanis a social entrepreneur who specializes in building broad coalitions and melding intellectual and technical innovation. Jason is the American Sephardi Federations Executive Director, founding Executive Director of Digital Heritage Mapping, and coordinator of DHMs flagship initiative, the Diarna Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life, which was a 2017 cover story in Newsweek and profiled in the June 2020 issue of the Smithsonian Magazine.

Guest Speaker / Presenter:

Dr. Isaac Amon, JHAs Director of Research & Project Developmentwill take us on a fascinating journey spanning time and space to the origins, experiences, and legacy of Sefarad, the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula, todays Spain and Portugal.

Wake up to the Trusted Mideast News source Mideast Daily News Email

Musical Guest:

AlFadois a fresh Israeli-Portuguese ensemble based in the rich music scene of Lisbon. It focuses on music originating from the Iberian Peninsula, through the cultures of the medieval-times Hebrew communities and the chant in an ancient dialect of Spanish mixed with Portuguese and Hebrew called Ladino. We will feature their musical video Rikordus di mi Nona that was written by the late Flory Jagoda, of blessed memory, a Ladino legend that survived the two world wars and settled in America where she became a world-renowned figure of the Sephardic culture. AlFados lead singer, Gal, had the opportunity to meet her and obtained her permission to recreate the song which describes her childhood memories in the former Yugoslavia.

COMING SOON

PART III / SEP 19: In the Footsteps of the Crypto Jews: A story of Agony, Survival and Redemption

This segment will deliver the amazing journey of resilience, survival, and redemption, as we walk in the shadows of Crypto-Jews who lived their lives in mortal danger of the Inquisition. This webinar shows how conversos, despite incredible obstacles, strove to remain faithful over centuries to their ancestral legacy.

Musical Guest: Dr. Ariel Lazarusis a Composer, Classical Guitarist, Music Lecturer, conductor and co-founder of the Israeli Ladino Orchestra.

Registration for the September 19 event will be available on September 2, 2021. Look for our announcement.

About the three-part Series:

Jewish history and communal life on the Iberian Peninsula originated in the time of the Roman Empire.Under Moslem rule, prosperous, flourishing, and well-integrated Jewish communities achieved financial, social, and intellectual success and during the Golden Age, Spain became the center of the Jewish world in Europe. However, due to political and social developments in the Late Middle Ages, life markedly changed as persecution, discrimination, and forced conversions ensued, culminating with the royal decree to expel Spanish Jewry in 1492. This infamous edict, which followed a long trendin European history, led to the Sefardic Diaspora as Iberian Jewry sought new places of refuge, creating new worlds for themselves and their descendants. Yet, more than five centuries later, the ancestral call of Sefarad remains.

_______________________________________________________________________

This program is being presented by the Jewish Heritage Alliance in partnership with the National Museum of American Jewish History, ANU Museum of the Jewish People, The American Sephardi Federations Institute of Jewish Experience, Fundacin HispanoJuda, EJCC European Jewish Community Center, University of Miami (Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies and the George Feldenkreis Program in Judaic Studies), and Kulanu.

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SEFARAD - The Untold Story That Changed The World - Part 2 - The Media Line

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Posted By admin on August 23, 2021

Giles Tremlettis a contributing editor to theGuardianand Fellow of the Caada Blanch Centre, London School of Economics. He has lived in and written about Spain for over twenty years, and is the author ofCatherine of Aragon,Ghosts of Spain, andIsabella of Castile, winner of the 2018 Elizabeth Longford Prize. His newest book, The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedomand the Spanish Civil War will be published this week by Bloomsbury.

The Holocaust claimed six million Jewish lives. The Second World War, provoked by the same fascist regimes who slaughtered Jews, killed a further 70 million civilians and soldiers, including 405,000 Americans. Fascism was the 20th centurys greatest trauma.

It seems obvious, then, that both the first Jews and the first Americans to take up arms and risk their lives to halt fascisms spread must go down in history as heroes, with their story widely taught.

Sadly, that is not the case. The honor of being first armed resisters to fascism goes to the men and women of the International Brigades, a remarkable volunteer army of 35,0000 people from 85 of todays countries who travelled to Spain in 1936 to defend its democracy against the fascist-backed rebels of future dictator General Francisco Franco.

At least one in seven volunteers were Jews, making up a force of 5,000 men and women who provide an alternative narrative to any claim that Jews were late to respond to the threat of the coming Holocaust.

Some 2,800 volunteers were Americans, with up to a third of them Jews and at least eighty African Americans also travelling to Spain (including, in this non-segregated unit, the first African American to command white American troops, Oliver Law). None, however, appear in the imaginary pantheon of American national heroes. And while Israel now honors them, they are also not well-known amongst Jews globally. The reasons for that are simple. Most were political radicals, many were communists and few were Zionists.

The Spanish Civil War was a first success for armed fascist expansionism and a testing ground for the forces, weapons and tactics of Adolf Hitlers Nazi regime in Germany and Benito Mussolinis Italian fascism. Franco relied heavily on them for troops, airmen and weapons, while the United States and other democracies embraced a form of appeasement known as non-intervention, which only served to embolden Hitler. In fact, many historians see the war in Spain as the opening battle of World War II, which started just five months after Franco declared victory in April 1939 and began a 36-year dictatorship.

The first Jews to join that resistance had travelled to the eastern Spanish city of Barcelona for another remarkable event the Peoples Olympiad. This was an alternative Olympic Games organized as a rival to the forthcoming Nazi showcase of the official Berlin Olympic in August 1936, which would be spoiled for Hitler as proof of the Aryan races natural supremacy by the legendary African American athlete Jesse Owens.

While Hitler had already enacted the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, declaring Jews non-citizens, the Peoples Olympiad specifically welcomed them as a nation. It also boasted the faces of Black and Asian athletes on posters, just as the International Brigades would later put African American officers in charge of white American troops for the first time in history. It is difficult to express quite how remarkable this was for the times. Few countries outside the Soviet Union, indeed, explicitly backed racial equality or internationalism in the 1930s and even there it was more policy than practice. Spain, however, was governed by an elected left-wing coalition, the Popular Front, much like neighboring France.

Spanish fascists and their reactionary allies in the military, church and landed classes, found that intolerable. On the day the Olympiad was to start, they launched a failed coup which with the crucial help of Hitler and Mussolini became a civil war.

Hungarian athlete Abrasha Krasnowieski and the exiled Polish soccer player Emmanuel Mink were amongst a handful of Jews who, instead of fleeing, immediately joined the workers militia units formed to stop the coup. They were the first of thousands of foreign volunteers who flooded into Spain over the coming months, many joining the International Brigades when these were set up three months later. Abraham Chakin, the American teams wrestling coach, returned the following year and died fighting.

Over time, so many Jews enlisted that Yiddish became a language for passing on orders between people from disparate parts of Europe and the Americas. Sephardic Jews, meanwhile, found themselves working as translators, since their Ladino language was close to Spanish. "I am fighting against those who establish an Inquisition, like that of their ideological ancestors several centuries ago." US volunteer Chaim Katz explained, comparing Franco to the Spanish monarchs who had expelled the Sephardic Jews in 1492.

A separate Jewish unit, the Botwin company, was eventually formed which published its own Yiddish newspaper. "All Jewish volunteers understand the importance of the mission they have to fulfil as chosen fighters of the Jewish people," it declared.

"The International Brigades became the vehicle through which Jews could offer the first organized armed resistance to European fascism," one of them, the American historian Albert Prago, observed later. But did they consciously travel to Spain as Jews, or as something else?

The International Brigades were organized by Comintern, the Communist International based in Moscow, but operated as a popular front force welcoming (in theory) any antifascist. Half of the volunteers were communists. Scholars disagree over how many Jews consciously identified as "Jewish fighters", rather than as atheist internationalists, but the two things are not contradictory. I took up arms against the persecutors of my peoplethe Jewsand my classthe Oppressed, Katz explained.

A letter I discovered in Amsterdam's International Institute of Social History archive while writing The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War (published in August by Bloomsbury) expresses the ideological divide between more traditional Jews and those who had embraced left-wing internationalism, while also finding common ground. It was written by 23-year-old Belgian communist Piet Akkerman (who had changed his name from Israel) to his conservative mother, Bluma.

While a "gulf" divided her faith from his atheism, he said, "there is one trait that I have developed clearly; that Jewish stubbornness when it comes to holding on to an idea." Workers and Jews, Akkerman argued, shared a history of oppression. "Have not 99 per cent of the pogroms in the world been organized to distract attention from the misery of the people by provoking hatred towards the Jews, while those who are really responsible, the authors of misery, laugh in secret because instead of attacking their power, people slaughter the Jews?" he wrote.

Piet ended his letter by begging Bluma not to cry and telling her that "your son tries to be a man who both thinks and acts humanely." Both he and his brother Emiel, another volunteer, were killed. Their partners - Vera Luftig and Lya Berger later volunteered as nurses, along with a dozen women from their Jewish youth group in Belgium.

Piet's letter fits what scholar Jaff Schatz has called "the moral affirmativeness, longing for justice, and universalist ethos shared by the Marxist vision and Jewish tradition".

Between one and two thousand Jewish volunteers died in Spain, while others ended up as prisoners of war, including those in a group sneered at by a Francoist officer as "those Americans, with their Jews, and Negroes and democracy". They eventually lost their war, and Franco ruled as dictator until 1975.

Britain, the United States and other democracies had pursued a policy of non-intervention in Spain - appeasing Hitler and Mussolini while trying to stop their own citizens from volunteering. Hitler was emboldened by that and invaded Poland, starting World War Two, soon after Franco's victory. Jewish International Brigade veterans often found themselves fighting in resistance movements and partisan armies across Europe. Vera Luftig, for example, played a key role in the Soviet Union's Red Orchestra espionage ring.

At Auschwitz and Buchenwald, Brigades veterans led the camp resistance groups that fought with their guards in the final days and hours before liberation.

For many years, Jewish history overlooked the brigaders. The Cold War narrative turned them into suspect allies of Soviet communism, while in Israel they were scorned for fighting a foreign war rather than (in the case of 250 volunteers who travelled from Palestine) staying home to fight against the Arab Revolt of 1936 to 1939.

Over time, however, that image has changed. Brigaders were mostly not Zionists, but Israel came to recognize that, in their fight, they had been defending all other Jews. At the same time, some veterans emigrated to Israel, finding greater acceptance there than in, say, communist Poland, which persecuted them after the Six Day war in 1967.

Final acceptance came from President Chaim Herzog (himself a former major-general) in 1986. "At the time of the Spanish Civil War there were 55 million people alive who would soon die during the Second World War. There were also six million of our brethren still alive in Europe who did not yet realize that a sword was poised over their necks. But there were people who realized just what a fascist victory in Spain would mean," he said.

"In the name of the people of Israel, the principal victims of the Nazis and Fascists, I hereby pay homage to the honour and glory of all those volunteer fighters who used their bodies as a dam against a wave of evil." Those words are inscribed on a monument to them in Barcelona, along with praise for "Jewish heroes" and their "glorious sacrifice" from former International Brigades Chief Commissar Luigi Longo.

The American volunteers found difficulty enlisting to fight in World War Two, since the army mistrusted them as political radicals. (Some volunteers, like Hollywood Ten member Alvah Bessie, would eventually be targeted and jailed by the House Un-American Activities Committee).

Exceptions included Irving Goff, an American Jewish volunteer and guerilla fighter, who was among those who joined the CIAs predecessor, General Wild Bill Donovans Office of Strategic Services (OSS), as a specialist in behind-the-lines missions. Edward Carter, one of the few Black Americans allowed to serve as a frontline infantryman, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The future Yale and Harvard professor classical studies Bernard Knox also served in the OSS. Amongst his tasks was to liaise with European partisan groups, many of them communist, that were led by former International Brigaders. When he was quizzed about his numerous medals from European armies during his Yale interview to study a PHD after the war, Knox was shocked to be told that he had been a premature antifascist.

How, he wondered, could anyone be a premature anti-fascist? Could there be anything such as a premature antidote to a poison? A premature antiseptic? A premature antitoxin? A premature anti-racist?" he wrote later. "If you were not premature, what sort of anti-fascist were you supposed to be?

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The International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War were the First Jewish Resistance to Fascism - History News Network (HNN)

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Posted By admin on August 22, 2021

TANGIER, Morocco For more than a half-century, a Moorish-style house in the old city of Tangier considered one of Moroccos cultural gems drew musicians and other artists from around the world seeking to learn about the Sufi music and rituals of the descendants of slaves in the country.

But the one-of-a-kind center for traditional Gnawa music was abandoned early this year because it was in danger of collapse, and long delays to restore it as part of a government rehabilitation plan for this city on Moroccos northern coast put its future in peril.

The battle to save Dar Gnawa, or the Gnawa House, has shed light on just how precious and precarious traditional talents are in the North African kingdom.

Abdellah El Gourd, 75 and a world-renowned master of Gnawa music, has lived in the historic house since he was 5. Over the past decades, he hosted and collaborated with an array of acclaimed jazz musicians from around the globe.

Dar Gnawa is not only an institution that celebrates the music of former slaves in North Africa, but it is also a focal point for the rise of jazz on the African continent, said Hisham Aidi, a professor of international relations at Columbia University who grew up in the old city of Tangier and has been part of efforts to save the space.

As teenagers, we would stop by Dar Gnawa after school, and you never knew who you would find there. It could be saxophonist Archie Shepp, poet Ted Joans or a European musician playing with El Gourds troupe, he added. We had no idea who these artists were, but we were captivated by the performances.

Gnawa music is a tradition that originated with enslaved West Africans who were taken north to Morocco. It is among the rituals they held onto, praising saints and spirits with rhythmic song, dance and trance possession.

The instruments involved are few and simple: a three-string fretless lute known as the gimbri or sintir, which is strummed, accompanied by large metal castanets called qraqeb, whose clacking create trance-inducing rhythms. The music is sometimes played during all-night healing ceremonies where exorcisms are performed on the sick to expel the djinn, or evil spirits, believed to cause illness.

The laid-back town of Essaouira on Moroccos Atlantic coast hosts an annual Gnawa festival, which has been attended in past years by notable international musicians such as Ziggy Marley. In 2019, UNESCO added Gnawa to its Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list.

In 1980, the Gnawa House became the first officially recognized center devoted to celebrating and preserving the genre. But long before that, it served as a meeting place for artists starting in the 1960s.

Unlike other Moroccan cities, Tangier did not have many cultural centers for young artists, so Mr. El Gourd took it upon himself to create a space that he hoped would ensure his art form would not disappear. Over the years, the house became one of the few places in the country to practice and learn Gnawa music.

Born into a family of Gnawa practitioners, Mr. El Gourd is now fighting not only for his house, but for his legacy.

In 1967, he met the esteemed American pianist Randy Weston, who lived in Tangier for a couple of decades. Mr. Westons music and scholarship advanced the idea now broadly accepted that jazz is, at its core, African music.

For years, Mr. Weston played with Mr. El Gourd in the Gnawa House in Tangier before they toured the world together. They collaborated on multiple recordings, including the 1992 Grammy-nominated Gnawa Musicians of Morocco.

Over the years, Mr. El Gourd met and performed with many other acclaimed jazz musicians as well, including Dexter Gordon, Odetta and Billy Harper.

I went with Randy to Morocco, and since then, we have become a family, Fatoumata Weston, the pianists widow, said of Mr. El Gourd. Hes a big artist. Hes someone who never asks for anything, she added.

When a great artist like him has problems, we must help him. He was the ambassador of Morocco across the world.

She, Mr. Aidi and others credited Mr. El Gourd and Mr. Weston, who died in 2018, with inspiring the fusion of Gnawa and jazz music.

The Gnawa House is a mixture of architectural genres a reflection of Tangiers rich international history. A Moroccan door opens into a small chamber that leads to an interior courtyard. An Italian marble stairwell is tiled in the Moroccan mosaic style known as zellij, while the rest of the house features Spanish and Portuguese tiles and Italian doors.

The top floor, with its high ceilings, overlooks the seaport of Tangier.

Mr. El Gourd owns the house and lived with his family on the second and third floors for decades while visitors downstairs joined improvised jam sessions and celebratory musical gatherings, much to the delight of the neighborhood.

But the family moved out in February so the house could be renovated as part of a state plan conceived two years ago to restore the entire old city of Tangier, where dozens of houses were in danger of collapsing. While Mr. El Gourd was away, a neighbor knocked down a wall and tried to annex part of the house. Tiles and chandeliers were stolen.

Despite his fame, Mr. El Gourd said his financial situation was precarious, but the state had promised to transfer funds to him to restore his decaying house. However, those funds were delayed for many months, and in turn, so were the renovations, increasing the risk that the house would crumble.

Whenever I ask, they say: Wait a bit. Wait a bit. But nothing has been done, Mr. El Gourd, a calm and composed man who carefully chooses his words, said during a recent visit to his house, referring to his conversations with the local authorities. I dont know how I survived these last months.

When reached for comment, the authorities in Tangier promised that the renovation of Mr. El Gourds house would be a top priority. Then, after more than six months of delays, the renovations finally began this month, and there are high hopes that the house can be salvaged.

More generally, many in Morocco see the rehabilitation plan for the old city as the latest assault on Tangiers cultural heritage amid a surge of construction across the city over the past two decades. Dozens of historic buildings have been demolished to make way for apartments, including some of the earliest cinemas on the African continent.

In 2010, Benchimol Hospital, a historic Jewish institution that figures in many writings about the city, was razed.

In Mr. El Gourds office, a restored morgue, the piled-up furniture moved from Gnawa House occupies half of the space, and the walls are decorated with dozens of photographs of world musicians he has collaborated with. He reminisced about the glorious times in his career.

I could be living the life in New York, he said. Sometimes I get so tired that I just think I should leave.

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The Struggle to Save a House of Music, and Its Legacy - The New York Times

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Posted By admin on August 22, 2021

BitChute, which has been described as the YouTube of the far right, is also home to a growing number of videos which target prominent black and minority ethnic politicians in Scotland with extremist and racist rhetoric.

In the past month alone, more than 60 videos focused on Scottish affairs have been uploaded to the site, prompting one MP to call for an investigation by Ofcom. However, BitChute said it was a politically neutral company which welcomes people from all backgrounds.

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One video cites a London-based alternative news sites claims that more than 900 Scots are dying every month due to Covid-19 vaccines. Another perpetuates viral conspiracy theories by asserting that the nations response to the pandemic is a depopulation scam, and accuses First Minister Nicola Sturgeon of working for billionaire US philanthropists.

Elsewhere, the narrator of one video claims future mass fatalities from Covid-19 could be incinerated at Scottish facilities owned by Amazon because of a shortage of burial plots. He goes on to draw parallels with Auschwitz, and urges people to refuse vaccines.

A series of videos also target Humza Yousaf, the health secretary, with a slew of racist comments left by users of the site. The narrator of one video asserts that Mr Yousaf, who was born and raised in Glasgow, is an anti-white racist, and is obviously not ethnically or racially Scottish.

After Scotland on Sunday contacted BitChute, the video was made unavailable in the UK, with the URL carrying a warning that it contains incitement to hatred.

Other easily accessible videos target other BAME politicians, including Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar. One expletive-strewn post rails against Abdul Bostani, an Afghan national who came to Scotland as a refugee 20 years ago, and who stood for election to Glasgow City Council earlier this year.

Its narrator says the SNP is attempting to make you and the foreigner one and the same, and argues that no foreign national, or anyone from ethnic minority descent, should be able to vote. The video was later taken down for UK users.

Such racially-motivated content is evident elsewhere across BitChute. In recent weeks, a series of videos uploaded by the far right group, Britain First, showing its activists attempting to drum up support in Scotland, has been viewed more than 4,200 times.

Mr Yousaf told Scotland on Sunday: I am sadly all too familiar with being a target of the far-right, be that here in Scotland or elsewhere. Over the years I have had threats made against me, my wife and even threats of violence made against my children, all because of the colour of my skin or religious affiliation.

Scotland is not immune to this hatred and the content on BitChute aimed at Scottish audiences is deeply concerning. The recent tragic events in Plymouth serve as a timely reminder that online radicalisation can have devastating consequences. Ofcom must fully use their powers to penalise companies like BitChute who are peddling such harmful content.

Like other extremist groups banned from mainstream social media platforms, Britain First has found refuge in BitChute as a place to amplify its rhetoric. Its channel has 1,870 subscribers; Tommy Robinson, the founder of the English Defence League, has more than 27,600 subscribers.

Concerns have been growing about the graphic content on BitChute for several months, with Jewish groups flagging up scores of videos related to Holocaust denial and glorification.

In January, the Community Security Trust, a Jewish charity, reported the site to Ofcom after its research highlighted virulently racist, antisemitic, and extremist content.

A 2020 analysis of BitChutes content and usage by Hope Not Hate, the anti-racism advocacy group, warned the site was knowingly playing host to terrorist propaganda and incitements to violence, with its research identifying 114 videos in support of proscribed terrorist organisations.

Joe Mulhall, head of research at Hope Not Hate, said: BitChute has continuously failed to tackle extremist material on its platform, which has turned it into a hotbed of hateful and violent content.

Unlike many other tech platforms used by extremists, BitChute is based in the UK and the fact that there is extremist content being created, and viewed by, Scottish people is extremely worrying and should be of concern to the Scottish Government and law enforcement.

The lack of action from BitChute has turned the platform into the video sharing website of choice for far right extremists continuing to enable this content on the platform will only create more opportunities for hateful extremists to air their vile views.

BitChute and other video sharing platforms have been subject to regulation by Ofcom since last November. The framework is designed to compel the sites to stop young users from seeing harmful material which might impair their physical, mental or moral development, and to protect the wider public from material likely to incite violence or hatred. In practice, however, the regulations are limited, with disinformation excluded from their scope.

An Ofcom spokesman said: We have been talking to BitChute to ensure it takes stronger steps to protect users from harmful content. Unlike in broadcasting, our powers around video-sharing sites dont relate to specific pieces of content.

But where companies are not doing enough to protect their users, we will not hesitate to use our powers to hold them to account - including significant penalties. We also urge users to report potentially harmful content to the service itself."

It is understood the steps taken by BitChute following its engagement with Ofcom include the imposition of channel-wide moderation measures on those video creators who routinely exploit classification rules, and a new moderation system to automatically flag terrorist content.

But Stewart McDonald, the SNP MP who earlier this summer published a report highlighting the growing scourge of disinformation activity in Scottish public life, said more needed to be done.

Disinformation can be dangerously crippling to society, and its vital that it is taken seriously, he explained. This particular website, which must be investigated by Ofcom, drives home the need for a full, independent audit of the information ecosystem in Scotland, so that we have an idea of the disinformation landscape and, crucially, what are the issues that people are being targeted with.

If we fail to do this, and fail to build up the information resilience that countries such as Sweden and Latvia have done, then we cant be surprised if the radicalisation that disinformation contributes to gets ugly."

In February, Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, the Metropolitan Polices head of counter terrorism policing, told the Home Affairs Select Committee that existing legislation cannot force firms like BitChute to remove material unless there is a clearly defined crime, and that it was their choice as to how far they moderate themselves where the content is extreme but not illegal.

He added: I do support the need for a debate on the threshold between illegal material, and lawful but extremist material capable of causing harm. There is an argument that the threshold is too high.

While BitChute has found a captive audience among far right groups in the US, the site is a British creation. It was founded in 2017 by Raymond Vahey, a British national who is based in Thailand.

Records filed with Companies House show that the platforms parent company, Bit Chute Limited, is registered at a serviced office address in Andover, Hampshire. Mr Vahey, 44, is listed as one of two directors of the firm, alongside Richard Jones, 47.

According to Press Gazette, BitChutes traffic from UK web users grew 55 per cent in the 12 months to July, with the site attracting 3.9 million visits a month. Globally, it receives more than 40 million monthly visits.

In a statement, BitChute said it was a politically neutral company that welcomes people from all backgrounds and treats everyone equally.

It added: We work proactively to ensure our terms and ability to enforce them comply with regulatory requirements while upholding fundamental human rights. This year, we have expanded our moderation team and development efforts to support our growth and new regulatory requirements.

It's essential for consumers that new competition can grow in a market that Google has monopolised, and this should happen in regulated regions such as the UK. Rather than pushing people to unregulated and unaccountable platforms.

Hope Not Hate has the wrong opinion about us, and their approach is counterproductive to reducing hate and violence in modern society. We believe it would be more helpful if they came and talked to us as we have invited them many times.

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Far right website sees upsurge in hateful content and Covid-19 disinformation aimed at Scots - The Scotsman

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Posted By admin on August 22, 2021

The German writer WG Sebald, who died in a car accident in 2001 at the age of 57, left behind a slender body of complex work that is even more intricate and troubling than it first looks, as Carole Angiers extraordinary biography makes plain.

He first appeared in English in 1996 with The Emigrants, which obliquely addressed the Holocaust, a preoccupation of all Sebalds books, via the juxtaposition of four memoirish narratives about Jewish or part-Jewish men living in the aftermath of antisemitic violence. In The Rings of Saturn, which became a bible to the psychogeography movement, the Belgian Congo and the siege of Nanking were among a dizzying array of subjects haunting the narrators walking tour of Suffolk.

But it was Austerlitz, published in English three months before his death, ultimately his most novel-like novel, centred on a former Kindertransport childs quest for his origins, that did most to introduce Anglo-American readers to his signature style: the rolling, run-on paragraphs that, broken only by the regular interruption of captionless photos, flit between the encounters, memories and dreams of a Sebald-like narrator who operates as a kind of ambulant sensorium, hyper-alert to forgotten (or ignored) traces of past bloodshed. In The Rings of Saturn, a digression on the silkworms arrival in Europe from China, proves to be the prelude to a discussion of the importance of silk cultivation under the Third Reich, the point being that horror is everywhere if you know how to look.

While that gloomy sensibility got him parodied in Private Eye, Angier has no truck with mockery. The daughter of Viennese Jews, shes grateful for what she sees as the guilt that motivates his work its how all people should feel who live through a terrible time and she takes with utmost seriousness the unshakable sense of dissonance that seems to have dawned on Sebald once he understood what else had been happening in 1940s Germany during his peaceful Catholic boyhood in the Bavarian Alps.

Yet her biography is far from reverential. Angier, revealingly, shows how Sebald, who lectured at universities in Manchester and Norwich, was essentially unfit for academia, not merely because his instinct when writing about Friedrich Hlderlin was (as he told a friend) to visit the poets former home rather than bone up on the latest scholarship, but because of his alarming readiness to invent footnotes and sources.

In literature, such shenanigans earn you the tag Nabokovian rather than, say, charlatan, but Angier nonetheless suggests they sit ill with the weight of Sebalds subjects. In The Rings of Saturn, a double-page image of bodies at Bergen-Belsen appears in the middle of a description of an article from a Norfolk newspaper about the death, at 77, of a British army major, George Wyndham Le Strange, who liberated the camp. The article was invented, Angier finds, and yet it seems so authentic: not just because Sebald inserts a photo of the extremely plausible-looking clipping (which he typed himself), but, more troublingly, because of that intervening image from Belsen.

Angier probes the implications of this aesthetic a kind of analogue deepfake for Sebalds treatment of the suffering that he so urgently sought to acknowledge. In The Emigrants, the narrator stays at the home of an English village doctor, Henry Selwyn, who at length reveals how, as a Jewish child in 1899, he fled a pogrom in Lithuania. In later years, he takes his own life, an event the reader cant help but see as determined by the traumatic history that the doctor had long kept hidden, even from his wife.

Interviewing the family of Sebalds model for Selwyn, who was actually born in Cheshire and didnt have a Jewish bone in his body, Angier finds, unsurprisingly, that they object to his use of his suicide (which was real) as a symbolic response to the genocide of Jewish people - they simply dont think it makes sense to falsify material related to the Holocaust, given the virulence of denial.

It wasnt the case, as Sebald said, that he sought permission from his sources as a principle. The painter Frank Auerbach, who objected to a character based on him in The Emigrants, made Sebald revise the books first published version; Susi Bechhfer, a Kindertransport child raised in Wales, complained that Austerlitz lifted material from her 1996 memoir, Rosas Child. Angier knows novelists plunder and embroider, but she knows too that in Sebalds case his sins are doubled by his works nonfictional appearance, not least all those photos, which, as readers probably dont expect, were scavenged from junk shops or manipulated with Tipp-Ex and repeat visits to the photocopier.

Angier wants to argue that Sebald put his invention in the service of showing people a horror they preferred not to see; at one point, she even wonders if Sebalds consistent use of non-Jewish models for his Jewish characters represents a deliberate coded reference to the elimination of Europes Jews. At the same time, she doesnt seek to shut down doubt over his violations or broader questions about the forms and limits of empathy, but its to her credit, I think, that she doesnt try to settle the question of Sebalds effects. Ultimately, the brilliance of her biography, a spectacularly agile work of criticism as well as a feat of doggedly meticulous research, lies in Angiers ability to look her subject straight in the eye while holding on to the sense of adoration that made her want to write it in the first place.

Speak, Silence: In Search of WG Sebald by Carole Angier is published by Bloomsbury (30). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

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Speak, Silence: In Search of WG Sebald by Carole Angier review the artful master of repressed memories - The Guardian

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Posted By admin on August 22, 2021

thursday

sponsored: grand street summer restaurant week returns to williamsburg now through august 29th. from quick service to michelin rated, explore local cuisine on grand street with special menus and discounted prices. participating restaurants and their menus can be found at grandstreetrestaurantweek.com

thurs thru sun: live outdoor music at culture lab: take in some live music at culture club lic at the plaxall gallery, continuing this week with microcave (thurs 7pm), the bass language (fri 6:30pm), zoo berries (fri 8pm), triple blind (sat 5pm), the childrens crusade (theatrical play, sat 7pm), grant swift (sun 5pm), and culture lab crew (sun 7pm). beer and food will be available for purchase. free admission. >>

thurs thru sat (various times): celebrate brooklyn! festival: the annual brooklyn outdoor concert series continues at the prospect park bandshell with celebrate biggie: performances by busta rhymes, lil kim, and more (thurs 6pm), kool keith, tygapaw, and mari world (fri 7:30pm), and lido pimienta, rita indiana, and audry funk (sat 7pm). free. >>

thurs (various times): free outdoor movies (weather permitting): akeelah and the bee at brooklyn bridge park >>black panther at the prospect park long meadow >>black science fiction cinema night at good life lawn (bushwick) >>scoob! at crotona park (bronx) >>spider-man: into the spider-verse at the big park (staten island) >>the lion king at st. albans park (jamaica) >>the sponge bob movie: sponge out of water at harry maze playground (east flatbush) >>wonder woman 1984 at st. catherines park (lenox hill) >>

thurs 6pm: brain food: feed your curiosity with a free public conversation about what happens in our brains when we eat, followed by a cooking demo of avocado black fried rice. presented by columbia universitys center for science and society. online, free. >>

thurs 7pm (ends today): new camerata operas opera gems: principal soloists from the new camerata opera will serenade audiences with operatic masterpieces during a free pop-up performance at anitas way (a pedestrian walk-through near bryant park). free. >>

thurs 7pm (+ 8/27): sunset on the hudson music series: hudson river park brings in-person concerts back to the riverfront, continuing tonight with a performance by high + mighty brass band at clinton cove (hells kitchen). free. >>

thurs 7pm (+ 8/24, 8/26): st. anns warehouse dock street concerts: get back!: world-class musicians bring live music to brooklyn bridge park during the second iteration of st. anns warehouses outdoor concert series, continuing with an evening of jazz by the vuyo sotashe quintet. free. >>

thurs 7pm (weekly): the setup: nat towsen hosts an evening of comedy where each performers set runs a little bit longer than the last. tonights lineup: gary gulman (the great depresh), taylor garron (reductress), and alison leiby (the marvelous mrs. maisel). caveat (les), $10 with promo code matchbook (reg. $15 adv, $20 door). >>

thurs 7:30pm (monthly): petes reading series: hear from literary icons and newcomers alike at this long-running reading series, hosted by brian gresko with vanessa chan. tonights readers: yz chin (edge case), alex mcelroy (the atmospherians), and meredith westgate (the shimmering state). books will be available for purchase through black spring books. petes candy store (williamsburg), free admission. >>

thurs 7:30pm, 10pm: ryan beck: live album recording: you provide the laugh track as comedian ryan beck (comedy central presents) records his debut album tonight at union hall (park slope). $10. >>

thurs 8pm (biweekly): good girl comedy show: good girls laura merli (reductress) and molly brenner (molly brenner: im coming) bring their standup show back to friends and lovers, with performers myq kaptlan (seth meyers), luke mones (comedy central), maria decotis (hbo women in comedy festival), wendy steiner (refinery29), and foster rhodes. friends and lovers (crown heights), $5. >>

thurs 8pm (monthly): the sandlot entirely from memory: blindly-cast ten bones theatre company performers will attempt to recreate the story of the 1993 coming-of-age comedy using only what they can remember from watching it once recently. as the chaos ensues, drinks are drunk while the players are challenged to create deleted scenes and follow assigned rules about their characters. littlefield (gowanus), $15. >>

thurs 8:30pm: bad trip: comedians take a night off from stand-up to share some of the wildest things that have happened to them at bad trip, a storytelling comedy show hosted by joey rinaldi. after each performance, the audience is invited to ask the comedian questions about the story they just heard. tonights theme: drinking stories. tiny cupboard (bushwick), $2-5. >>

sponsored

Staten Island Summer Fest is your all access pass to try beer, wine and spirits from around the world!

Enjoy a session at the Courtyard Staten Island Mall with your favorite local brew, exotic wine & craft spirit. Guests will enjoy unlimited samples of beer, wine and spirits for the session paired with live entertainment, food and interactive games.

The extensive selection of brands includes Staten Islands very own Flagship Brewery and Vino Divino Winery, plus over 100 styles of other brands from around the country and world.

Special offer for the skint readers:Get general admission tickets for just $19 (regularly $60) with promo code THESKINTGET TICKETS NOW!

Staten Island Summer Beer, Wine and Spirits FestSaturday, August 21 date change due to weather: Saturday, September 25Session 1: 1-4:30pmSession 2: 6-9:30pm

Courtyard at the Staten Island Mall(next to the Shake Shack)2655 Richmond AvenueStaten Island, NY 10314

21+ Only

friday

fri thru 1/9/2022 (closed tues-weds): afterlives: recovering the lost stories of looted art: a new exhibition at the jewish museum traces the complex journeys of nazi-looted paintings, drawings, and jewish ceremonial objects taken before and during world war ii, including works by pierre bonnard, marc chagall, paul czanne, paul klee, henri matisse, pablo picasso, camille pissarro, and more. the jewish museum (ues), $18 general, $12 seniors, $8 students, free on saturdays). >>

fri thru 9/2: japan cuts: festival of new japanese film: north americas largest festival of contemporary japanese cinema returns for its 15th edition as an online and in-person hybrid event with two weeks of studio and indie films, documentaries, shorts, avant-garde works, and more. japan society (midtown east) and online, various prices. >>

fri (various times): free outdoor movies (weather permitting): aladdin at utopia playground (flushing) >>how to train your dragon: the hidden world at the prospect park long meadow >>godzilla vs. king kong at pelham bay park (bronx) >>jurassic park at ocean breeze park (staten island) >>pee-wees big adventure at murphy brothers playground (alphabet city) >>

sponsored: fri 12pm: inside the players with a rare look inside edwin booths untouched bedroom: join new york adventure club for a rare, private tour inside the players, a private social club facing gramercy park founded in 1888 by renowned shakespearean actor edwin booth. $35. >>

fri 5:30pm doors, 7pm show: bryant park picnic performances: paul taylor dance company and emerge125: the outdoor summer series continues with an evening of live dance performances by paul taylor dance company and emerge125. bryant park (midtown), free. >>

fri 7pm (monthly): kweendom: come out for the kweendom lgbtq+ comedy and storytelling show, featuring performances by gus constantellis (netflix), pamela ross (sirius xm), brian bahe (mcsweeneys), glo butler, and drew tessier. hosted by bobby hankinson. petes candy store (williamsburg), free (donations are welcome and will benefit amfar). >>

fri 7-10pm (fridays): dreamland roller disco: let the good times roll at lola stars weekly outdoor skate party. tonights theme: 00s girl power taylor, katy, miley. lefrak center at lakeside prospect park, $24 admission includes skate rental (lockers available for $3-8). >>

fri 7:30pm (weekly): transplants comedy show: funny folks from all over tfriell jokes about where theyre from and how they got to nyc at the transplants comedy show, featuring standup by paul elia (conan), abby washuta (buzzfeed), alon elian, rufat agayev, adrian rodney, and marissa riley. hosted by lindsay theisen and katie boyle. q.e.d. (astoria), $10 adv, $12 door. >>

fri 8pm (+ sat 2pm, 4pm, 6pm and sun 2pm, 4pm): correspondences: a sculptural performance installation: reflect on questions of being, interdependence, and coexistence when you take in this new work by ximena garnica and shige moriya, where leimay ensemble performers in gas masks are enclosed in transparent chambers partially filled with sand, and attempt to stand up while unpredictable sand eruptions knock them off balance. socrates sculpture park (lic), free. >>

fri 8pm (+ sat 3pm): a nude staging of antigonick: known for their nude, body-positive shakespeare productions, torn out theater company gets back in the buff with a production of anne carsons adaptation of sophocles tragedy. the center at west park (uws), free. >>

fri 8pm: tinder live! with lane moore: comedian and writer lane moore (how to be alone: if you want to and even if you dont) takes swipes at the hook-up app with real-time profile scoping, liking, matching, and hilarious chatting. tonights show at littlefield (gowanus) features guests sara benincasa, princess weekes, and dan chamberlain. $18. >>

fri + sat 8pm (weekly): stand up la mode: the comedy show meets ice cream social adds a saturday performance to the mix at ample hills creamerys gowanus location. note: shows may be held outside on the roof or indoors, depending on the weather. $10 admission includes a free small ice cream. >>

misc.

sponsored ticket deal: get tickets to the art on paper art fair at pier 36 9/10-12 for free-$12.50 (plus ticket fees, reg. $25). >>

our roundup of 100+ ongoing events: shakespeare in the park, outdoor fitness classes, public art, flea markets, and more. >>

submissions

we know theres no shortage of sources for news and safety updates. what is scarce is periodic distraction. so for the time being, in keeping with our efforts to support our performance and cultural community, the skint will be sending out periodic emails about local openings, event streams and other related resources to help occupy your time. if you know of something that might fit the bill, feel free to send us the details using the contact form on our website.

stay safe and healthy.

the skint

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THURS-FRI, 8/19-20: CELEBRATE BK CONCERTS, THE SANDLOT FROM MEMORY, JAPAN CUTS FEST, AND MORE | the skint - theskint.com

Category: Jewish Cuisine | Comments Off on THURS-FRI, 8/19-20: CELEBRATE BK CONCERTS, THE SANDLOT FROM MEMORY, JAPAN CUTS FEST, AND MORE | the skint – theskint.com
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