Broadway Musicologist, Performer, and Music Director Michael Lavine shares Jewish themed songs that are unfamiliar to many, including songs that were cut from the original Fiddler on the Roof. Actress Barbara Minkus who starred in the Broadway show The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N and the television show Love American Style, makes a special guest appearance.
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Violins decorated with mother-of-pearl six-pointed stars have gained popularity and value with claims of Jewish or Holocaust origins. What do the experts say?
The cast, director, and playwright of Hitler’s Tasters share excerpts from their award-winning play, a dark comedy about a group of young women who have the opportunity to die for their country every day as Adolf Hitler’s food tasters. Playwright Michelle Kholos Brooks is also in conversation with Holocaust historian and author Gavriel D. Rosenfeld about the journey of Hitler’s Tasters, which is inspired by true events, as well the broader resonance of the play in our current culture. This program is part of the 2021 Moment Theater Festival.
Additional answers to Moment’s musical journey through time and space charting the breadth of the Jewish soul
Moment spoke with a diverse array of musicians, scholars and music lovers to gather together music with Jewish significance. The result is a rich tapestry of genres evoking the breadth of Jewish spirituality, culture, and history.
Love, Laughter and Tears: Theodore Bikel’s The City of Light with Aimee Ginsburg Bikel. This zoominar is part of the Martha’s Vineyard Jewish Book Festival, in partnership with Moment Magazine, the Chilmark Library and the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center.
To assume this is just another depressing Holocaust survivor film would be a huge mistake. Far from it. This outstanding documentary, about survival and the joys of living, is suffused with humor and boundless energy.
Aimee Ginsburg Bikel, Theo’s wife and director of the Theodore Bikel Legacy Project, gives us an up-close and personal look at the man behind the legend. Aimee shares stories about Theo’s life, from his acting roles to a sampling of his folk music, as well as his passion for tikkun olam (repair of the world). Aimee also presents an excerpt from her recently released book, Theodore Bikel’s: The City of Light, which recounts moments from Theo’s childhood in Vienna.
“In the theater you are either Jewish, Italian or gay and I chose Jewish,” says Protestant-born lyricist Richard Maltby Jr. during a conference call that includes his long time Jewish collaborator, composer David Shire. “Musical theater is so profoundly Jewish—it’s like living in a Kibbutz—you can’t help becoming Jewish. Also, my wife is Jewish, my children are Jewish and we belong to a temple.”
Leonard Cohen blended the sacred and the profane in his own search for a deeper meaning—finding truth in the Torah, yes, but also in sex, travel and the simple thrill of artistic creation.
Why make a documentary that is nearly as much fiction as fantasy, and why deliberately attempt to blur the two?
Louie Kemp, Bob Dylan’s lifelong friend and manager of Dylan’s 1975 Rolling Thunder tour, tells about meeting Dylan at camp, their adventures over the years and Dylan’s relationship with Judaism.
