NYC Events of Jewish interest

March 17, 7:55 PMNY Jewish Culture ExaminerDavid Cooper

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Here are several of the many events of Jewish interest in NYC in the coming days and weeks. Most of the text comes from the flyers, press releases, or websites on which these events are announced.

ParnaFest, an evening of networking for unemployed Jewish professionals. This is not a job fair; bring lots of business cards, a willingness to network, shmooze, and meet new people, and have fun. Resumes and suits are not necessary; attire should be business casual.

ParnasaFest was created as a reaction to the news of mass layoffs in the Jewish Non-Profit world in early 2009. So many people have already lost their Parnasa, the Hebrew word for livelihood, in the past few months; who knows what may come. Now is the time to stand up and help each other. Whether it is a kind word, making others laugh, offering your help or just passing on a good lead — the goals of ParnasaFest are universal and benefit all involved.

ParnasaFest also endeavors to explore the power of networking & social media to further ones personal brand, job search, and career. ParnasaFest events are NOT job fairs. Rather, they are networking events. PF organizers bring together people from various fields, as well as recruiters and hiring managers, to shmooze and mingle with the crowd." This evening March 17, 2009 7:30 PM, Ramath Orah. 550 West 110th Street, Manhattan.

Hope, Not Fear: A conversation with Edgar M. Bronfman, Rabbi Andy Bachman, and Beth Zasloff. What is an inclusive Jewish community? In his new book "Hope, Not Fear", internationally renowned philanthropist and community leader Edgar M. Bronfman proposes a new direction in Jewish life for the open societies of North America - a direction in which Judaism will not merely survive but will in fact flourish. Arguing that the Jewish future cannot be grounded in fear of anti-Semitism and intermarriage, Bronfman reexamines important texts and interviews Jewish leaders to identify a new course for revitalizing the faith and community. Tomorrow, March 18, 7:30pm at Congregation Beth Elohim, Garfield Place at Eighth Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn.

The Bukharin Jews of Central Asia: Past and Present: Join Rabbi Shlomo Nisanov, head of the Kehillat Sepharadim Ahavat Achim Synagogue of Kew Garden Hills, and Joseph Berger, reporter, editor and columnist at The New York Times, as they discuss the fascinating story of the Bukharian Jews of Central Asia and their immigration to New York. Learn about this rich Jewish tradition of survival and triumph, sample some Bukharian delicacies, and enjoy the unique sounds of Bukharian music. Wed, Mar 18, 7-9 pm, $20/$25 Manhattan JCC, Amsterdam Ave at 76th St, Manhattan

Three plays at LaMama:"Shekina," "Haggadah," and "Tonight: Lola Blau". $18, $25, $15, Thursday March 19 through Sunday March 22, 74A East 4th St. Manhattan. 212.475.7710 "Haggadah" will also be performed the following weekend Thursday March 26 through Sunday March 29.

Jewish Theological Seminary professor Dr. David Kraemer will deliver the Davar Torah "At The Root of It All: The meanings and Values Implicit in Jewish Eating Practices" at Park Slope Jewish Center, Shabbat morning, March 21. Services start at 10 AM; Dr. Kraemer will speak around 11:15 AM. Park Slope Jewish Center, 14th Street at 8th Ave, Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Children of the Sun (Yaldei Ha'Shemesh), a film by Ran Tal: Children of the first kibbutzim in Israel were born in the early 20th century to youthful parents, full of hope. They have been called "Children of the Sun", because they considered them children of the "Sun of Nations", Revolution in Israel. They were born into a utopia and were destined to become the "New Mana". They were educated in an ideological society that aspired to replace the traditional family with the collective one, to subjugate the will of the individual in favor of the common good and a life of equality.
 
"Children of the Sun" tells the story of the journey in search of a society's memory and the concepts that have passed from the world. The film is a collage comprised of over eighty amateur films. Rare footage that was shot at the kibbutzim between 1930 and 1970, rare recordings and conversations with family and frie nds creating both a very personal and very public story, a form of super story about one of the most fascinating myths of the Zionist movement in the Land of Israel.

Winner  -Best Documentary  Israeli Academy Awards Ophir Prize 2008

Winner Wolgin Award -Best Documentary, Jerusalem International Film Festival, 2007

Winner Best Documentary, Direction, Production, Editing, Original Score, Research  - The Israeli Documentary Forum Awards, 2008

Saturday,  March 21, 2009,  9:30  PM, Utopia Jewish Center, 64-41 Utopia Parkway,  Flushing, New York  11365   Admission:  $10.00, Information: (718) 461-8347

HaZamir: the International Jewish High School Choir, is celebrating its 16th year this year, and approximately 200 teens from across the U.S. and  from Israel will perform a Gala concert on Sunday, March 22nd at 6pm at Congregation Rodeph Sholom at 7 W. 83rd Street in Manhattan.  Tickets are $36.

An Holistic Spritual Day sponsored by JACS (Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically dependent persons and Significant others). The focus of the day is on exploring Jewish spiritual content in response to addiction (of all kinds) problems. Among other things, there will be AlefReiki sessions. Sunday March 22 10 AM-4:30 PM at The Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services 120 West 57th St., Manhattan.  For more information contact JACS at JBFCS Director: Sharon Darack
Phone: (212) 397-4197
Fax: (212) 399-3525
E-mail: jacs@jacsweb.org

Rabbis For Human Rights discussion: What does Judaism have to say about human rights?
Are the values of human rights Jewish values? How do we balance the
rights of others with the need to protect ourselves? Rabbi Rachel
Kahn-Troster, Director of Education and Outreach for Rabbis for Human
Rights-North America will lead us through a discussion of Judaism and
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the limits of self-
defense, and the Jewish role in the discussion of human rights around
the world. She will teach about RHR-NA's recent work to end U.S.-
sponsored torture and ongoing human rights campaigns, and help us get
involved with these critical issues as individuals and as a community. Sunday March 22, 11 AM, at Congregation Beth Elohim, Garfield Place at Eighth Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Benyamin Brody, Diwon, and Dugans take on Shir Ha Shirim (The Song of Songs) / Kodesh Kodashim (The Holy of Holies). The music mixes the emotive Moroccan singing of Benyamin in a "call out" to the most high, through the writings and poetry of King Solomon, with Diwon's and Dugans' signature walls of sound that bring hip hop, rock, and mizrachi influences to this middle eastern meditative record. The evening will feature a live performance of the music by Israeli, Moroccan and Yemenite musicians followed by a closing set with a few very special guests.Monday night March 23 11:30 PM at Joe's Pub, 425 LAFAYETTE STREET, Manhattan.

Limmud NY’s Spring Sampler – March 25th. Join Limmud NY for the annual Spring Sampler celebrating Limmud NY’s fifth year: Wednesday March 25th, 7:00 pm, at Temple Emanu-El, One East 65th Street, in Manhattan. The evening features a robust sampling of seven different one-hour learning sessions, followed by music and comedy performances, along with dessert. $72 (No tickets will be sold at the door.) Register by Friday, March 20th at http://www.limmudny.org or 212-284-6968.

New York Theater Workshop to present staged readings of Caryl Churchill’s "Seven Jewish Children in NYC."  Seven Jewish Children was written by Churchill as a direct response to the recent events in Gaza. The play features seven scenes of Jewish parents, grandparents, and relatives attempting to explain to children how they should feel and react to the sometimes violent and confusing world around them. The play’s sparse poetics touch on the major political events of the last half-century that have most affected the Jewish people, from the Holocaust, to the founding of Israel, to the Intifada, and the recent violence in Gaza. Each reading will be followed by a moderated discussion, with several notable authorities (from both the Israeli/Jewish and Palestinian communities) attending each performance to illuminate the dialogue. After the discussion, there will be a second reading of the ten-minute play. Sam Gold will direct the reading, with casting to be announced shortly. The moderators will be Laura Flanders (Wednesday, March 25), Tony Kushner and Alisa Solomon (Thursday, March 26), and Mark Crispin Miller (Friday, March 27).  Admission to the readings is free of charge. NYTW Members will get a priority booking period, and if any tickets remain, they will be open for reservation by the general public on Monday, March 23rd by emailing tickets@nytw.org. Tickets will be confirmed by return email, and if a return confirmation is not received, the ticket order has not been processed. Wednesday, March 25 through Friday, March 27 at 7pm, at NYTW, 79 East 4th Street, between Second Avenue and Bowery, Manhattan.

Healing The World: A Day of Dialogue & Discoveries from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem In Partnership with American Friends of The Hebrew University
A continental breakfast will be followed by keynote speaker David Horovitz, editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post and a graduate of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Hebrew University faculty will present classes during the morning and afternoon. Sunday, Mar 29, 9 AM-3:30 PM For more information see Healing The World, or call Allison Schapira at 212.607.8507. Lunch included. Manhattan JCC, Amsterdam Avenue at 76th St, Manhattan.

The Way to Summer: Staged Reading of a New Play by Nadine Bernard
Issues of racism, sexism and anti-Semitism play out through the story of Helen Suzman, a courageous Jewish woman who was the only anti-Apartheid member of the South African Parliament for thirteen years, and the lives of two women who face problems of unemployment, violence and prejudice in modern day South Africa. Monday, Mar 30, 7 pm, $10 Manhattan JCC, Amsterdam Avenue at 76th St, Manhattan.

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About the Four Questions, But Were Afraid to Ask, a conversation led by Rabbi Michael Paley, scholar-in-residence at UJA-Federation of New York. Modeled after the traditional beit midrash, a rabbinical house of study the program will feature interactive group discussions. Thursday, April 2, 2009 5:30 – 7:00 PM, UJA-Federation of New York, Seventh-Floor Conference Center, 130 East 59th Street (between Park and Lexington avenues) Manhattan. For further information or to request an assisted listening device, please contact Na’amit Sturm at 1.212.836.1292 or sturmn@ujafedny.org.

Columbia University Arab studies professor Rashid Khalidi  will discuss his book, Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East. Mr. Khalidi, one of the world's leading scholars of the contemporary Middle East, has written over a hundred articles on aspects of Middle East history and politics, as well as pieces in The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Nation.  He has also been a guest on numerous radio and TV shows including All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, Morning Edition, News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The Charlie Rose Show, and Nightline, and on the BBC, Radio France Inter, the CBC and the Voice of America. April 5,  Congregation Beth Elohim, Garfield Place at Eighth Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn.

YOU WILL EXPERIENCE SILENCE, a play written by Dan Fishback, directed by Stephen Brackett, performed by Dan Fishback, Joseph Keckler,
Max Steele, and Cole Escola. In ancient Israel, at the dawn of the Chanukah war, the "chosen people" are bored and horny.  Judah Maccabee (Dan Fishback), a surly queer teenager, travels to Jerusalem one day with his best friend Ezra (Max Steele).   When they encounter a sexy Greek soldier (Joseph Keckler), they must reckon with their responsibilities -- to their people, to their libidos and to each other.  Their story is interspersed with tale of Ian Fleishman (Dan Fishback), a crazed activist who spends his morning in bed, calling the White House to complain about the state of the world, the state of the war, and the state of his love life.  Erotic, neurotic and dorky, performance artist Dan Fishback is fiercer than ever in this absurdist meditation on citizenship, imperialism and sexual ethics.

Also a folksinger and rock performer, Fishback's previous theater pieces have been performed at venues like Performance Space 122, Galapagos Art Space, Dixon Place and Brooklyn Arts Exchange.  As a musician, he has toured Europe and North America in support of his albums.  As a speaker, he regularly visits colleges across the country to talk about queer and Jewish identity formation.

Previously titled "The Last Chanukah," Fishback has been developing this play for the past two years under the auspices of the Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists, a partnership of Avoda Arts, JDub Records, and the Foundation for Jewish Culture.  April 10, 11, 17 & 18 - 10:00pm
April 21 & 22 - 8:00pm, Dixon Place - 161 Chrystie Street, Manhattan.
 

                       Hebrew School

The rock band Hebrew School will perform on April 14, 9 PM at Public Aseembly, 70 North 6th Street, Williamsburgh/Greenpoint, Brooklyn. H.S.'s David Griffin writes, "Hebrew School is excited to be sharing a bill with singer-songwriter and H.S. collaborator Julia Barry, ukelele-driven psychsters Mappa Mundi, and a rising star from my childhood street, Will Dailey."  The concert will celebrate the release of Hebrew School's long awaited first CD. The musicians will perform in the following order: Julia Barry, 9 PM; Will Dailey, 10 PM; Mappa Mundi, 11 PM; Hebrew School, 12 midnight.