Bible & Calendar

by Leng Tan, Stamford, Connecticut, USA

Some of us have stories to share about why we started this group. This is my story. I’m originally a Brooklynite and will forever be a New Yawker.

I am Chinese, but specifically Hainanese (as compared to Cantonese). We are descendants from a small island in the South China seas, called Hainan Island. My father, along with 100 other Hainanese Chinese men (most of whom were Merchant Marines and veterans from WWII), purchased a building on Schermerhorn Street and made this the Hainan Association. This building is where I as a young child, attended Sunday school, to learn Mandarin Chinese. The mission of the Hainanese Association was to also provide a safe haven for those who need help, elderly who have no family, newcomers who need a temporary place to rest their heads.

To the point, I recently became involved with the Hainan Association because we heard the building was being sold to a developer who wanted to knock down this building and the buildings adjacent to it in order to build a high riser complex of condominiums

I am trying to continue my father’s legacy. So this is my reason for being involved.

If you would like to share your thoughts, perception – we would love to hear it. Also any support you can provide, would be greatly appreciated. We need more Brooklynites to stand behind us, as one voice. My voice is small and is only one. Thank you for joining this group and helping me.

To contact Leng, please email leng@ctisraelidance.com

A true story, this play is presented in Australia for the first time and describes Catholic activist Jan Karski’s efforts in trying to stop the Holocaust, with dramatic effect. As a courier with the Polish underground, Karski’s story and mission are made all the more powerful by the lengths he goes to in witnessing the atrocities – disguised as a Jew and sneaking into the Warsaw ghetto, and into a concentration camp as a guard.

Enduring Gestapo torture and escaping the Nazis, his story is made the more compelling as he was in a position to make a real difference and made valiant and heroic efforts to do so. What he confronts add impetus to his goal to inform the allied leaders – including ultimately meeting with President Roosevelt. The moral compass of this quiet hero is sorely tested. As director Moira Blumenthal told JewishWorldLife, “The moral issues are relevant today.”

Old Karski is played by veteran theatre and TV actor Alan Lovell (Rake, All Saints and Water Rats) while Young Karski is portrayed by screen and stage actor Graeme McRae, both of whom give the lead a strong and dignified portrayal across the age range.

Deserving special mention are Tim McGarry and Beth Aubrey who play numerous roles as ‘Other Men/Women’, employing many different accents.

As producer Michael Misrachi observed to JewishWorldLife, “It’s not just a Jewish story – it’s a Polish story, it’s a Catholic story, as well as a moral story… a Polish Catholic who stood up in the face of evil to try to save his fellow countrymen and do what was right from a Catholic moral perspective.”

Written by American playwright Arthur Feinsod, a Professor of Theater at Indiana State University, this play premiered in Germany in 2014, commemorating the 100th year of Karski’s birth. The tour that followed saw a performance in Warsaw on the grounds of the former Jewish Ghetto. Presented by Encounters @ Shalom, this powerful theatrical presentation is well worth attending.

 

Fig Tree Theatre, University of NSW, Gate 4,
4 High St, Kensington 2033
30 July-23 August

 

Review by Paula Towers

In partnership with Stand Up, a number of Year 9 students at Melbourne’s Mount Scopus Memorial College with an interest in learning about Indigenous culture participated in the Yorta Yorta Beyachad program.
In the lead up to the 3 day trip they participated in five workshops exploring the dreamtime, the Northern Territory Intervention, and the history and culture of the Yorta Yorta nation. They also heard from guest speakers including aboriginal nurse Vera Webber, Stolen Generations survivor Kutcha Edwards and had a tour of the Yarra with Dean Stewart.
On the trip, the students have visited a number of sacred places to the Yorta Yorta people in the Barmah forest, learnt about the turtle dreaming at Gallery Kaiela in Shepparton, and paid their respects at the graves of rights leaders William Barak in Coranderrk and Sir Doug Nichols in Cummeragunja. They met a number of descendants of William Cooper, an elder of the Yorta Yorta nation who has been honoured by Yad Vashem for his courageous protest in 1938 after Kristallnacht.

A special highlight was a unique cultural exchange with the girls from Worowa Aboriginal College at the Sandra Bardas Gallery in Healesville. The Mt Scopus students looking forward to welcoming the Aboriginal girls they met for a return visit in August. The students have returned from the program with a renewed interest in the history of the many countries and languages of this land.

Program Co-ordinator and teacher, Mr Ittay Flescher said, “By providing tangible experiences of learning and cooperation with the Yorta Yorta nation, students will hopefully be inspired to investigate what it means to be Australian Jews, and use their knowledge of history to create a better future”.

Click here for photos             Click here for highlights clip 3:28

The power of the written word is paramount for MJWF Director Esther Kister

Read why

From the works of 10 Jewish authors:
Announcing Theatrics: The Wit and Wisdom of Jewish Writing
Alex Theatre: Saturday 22-Sunday 23 August, 2015

 The Melbourne Jewish Writers Festival (MJWF) has joined forces with the Melbourne Writers Festival to present three performances of  Theatrics: The Wit and Wisdom of Jewish Writing, at St Kilda’s Alex Theatre, Saturday 22-Sunday 23 August.

 The MJWF has commissioned award-winning theatre director and dramaturge, Gary Abrahams, to create a dramatic presentation of extracts from the works of 10 Jewish authors.

 An ensemble of four actors – Deidre Rubenstein, Michael Veitch, Luisa Hastings Edge and Christopher Brown – will present a fluid arrangement of scenes, monologues, and direct readings in various styles.

 Live music by Adam Starr will be interspersed throughout Theatrics to underscore some eternal themes including culture, motherhood, loss, relationships, wanderings and the outsider through the particular lens of Jewish writings.

 Theatrics is the first show to be held in the 294-seat theatre, one of three new performance spaces created in the transformation of the George Cinema into The Alex Theatre.

 MJWF Director Esther Kister said that the MJWF was building on the huge success of the inaugural festival held last year and now scheduled biennially.

 “In our non-festival year, we’ve been determined to raise the bar, as well as reach a broader audience, by partnering with other festivals. We worked with the Auckland and Sydney Writers Festivals to bring out New York author and critic, Daniel Mendelsohn in May. In June we presented an event at the Glen Eira Literary Festival,” Kister said.

 “However, Theatrics is a much more ambitious endeavour as we’re adapting selections from literary works including short stories, novels, poetry and essays to create a unique theatrical performance, backed by an original score. We’ve also commissioned a short-story from Russian-Jewish author, Maria Tumarkin. It’s extremely topical as it’s about a female university professor who wants to out a colleague with Nazi tendencies.”

 Kister said that all of the writers were Jewish but the content did not simply reflect the Jewish experience.

 “The excerpt from Arnold Zable’s story, for instance, is about a contemporary asylum seeker from Bagdad. Alex Skovron’s poem is about a moment between a teacher and his foreign-born student,” Kister said.

 “All round, the stories speak to larger, universal themes about motherhood, love, friendship and loss, sometimes from a Jewish perspective, sometimes not. What they do have in common is the high quality of the writing. The actors will not be wearing costumes as we wanted the power of the words to shine through.”

 Four of the featured authors are Australian – Arnold Zable, Alex Skovron, Maria Tumarkin and Serge Liberman who was awarded an OAM in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours for his literary achievements.

 Other featured authors include: Nathan Englander, Howard Jacobson, Etgar Keret, Grace Paley, Ayelet Waldman (who is coming to Australia later this year) and Isaac Bashevis Singer. Singer’s novel The Slave is the oldest work to be performed. It was originally written in Yiddish and the extract to be used in Theatrics has been translated by Renata Singer, a MJWF committee member (but no relation), together with a local Yiddish scholar.

Of the actors only Deidre Rubenstein is Jewish.

 A Q&A session with Theatrics director, the actors and some of the authors will follow the 2pm performance on Sunday 23 August.

 Theatrics: The Wit and Wisdom of Jewish Writing

Alex Theatre, 135 Fitzroy St, St Kilda. (Wheelchair accessible.)

7.30pm Saturday 22; 2pm & 7.30pmSunday 23 August

Tickets: $36; $30 (concession/groups of 10); $20 (students). Available from 8 July mjwf@ljla.org.au

 Media comment: Esther Kister: 0414 617 628; mjwf@ljla.org.au

 

 

 

‘After years of siege, a growing movement of musicians is turning to Judaism for inspiration.’
by Yossi Klein Halevi
Read this fascinating article

If anything, a weakening of the far-right in Israel
by Ahron Shapiro
Click to read

Short analysis piece about the Israeli election, regarding the tactics that helped move voters back to the Likud from parties further to the right.
by Ahron Shapiro
Click to read

On the Front Page of Jewish Australia:
We’ve added headlines from the 3 main English-language Israeli news sources so you can quickly and simultaneously see news updates.
http://www.jewishaustralia.com/

Some of the Jewish Holidays artwork on our sites was created by Jennifer Gottschalk (Dzeni).
Jennifer also creates digital art. If you are interested in using or buying her work,
please feel free to contact her directly at nzdzeni@gmail.com