Simone Bitton, a French filmmaker who has made seven other documentaries about the histories and cultures of the Middle East and North Africa, considers herself an \”Arab Jew.\”
The Middle Eastern fusion music on \”Hamsa\” is so insidiously infectious and rhythmic that you will not only be humming along but tapping your feet, as well.
Nineteen-year-old Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Cpl. Nachshon Waxman was off duty when Hamas operatives kidnapped him in October 1994.
Robert Berger is a third-generation Angeleno who dares to do the unthinkable in Los Angeles. He actually gets out of his car and studies old buildings.
The very word Siberia evokes a cold, distant place — it\’s so, well, Soviet. But Siberia just got a little warmer and a little more Jewish because of San Fernando Valley resident Elaine Berke, who arranged for the b\’nai mitzvah of 61 Siberian Jews ranging in age from 12 to 26.
Elaine Romero experienced \”a cool fusion of art and life\” when she wrote the play \”Secret Things.\”
The play tells the story of Delia, a Latino journalist, who goes to New Mexico to investigate the origins of an anonymous package she received postmarked from there containing articles about Crypto-Jews (that is, descendants of the \”Marrano\” Jews of the Spanish Inquisition, who openly practiced Catholicism but conducted Jewish rituals in secret to escape persecution). In New Mexico, Delia finds herself mysteriously drawn to the world of Crypto-Jews, and reluctantly comes to terms with her own Crypto-Jewish roots.
When Romero, also a Latino, was writing the play, the same thing happened.
After taking his children to see a pleasant Disney cartoon, Dr. Rob Goldblatt thought there would some animated chatter about the film during the drive home.
\”There was level of musical sophistication that goes with the kind of music you can play on the mandolin, and my intention was to start a new acoustic-fusion thing, with an emphasis on string and wind instruments,\” said Eric Stein, who went on to form Beyond the Pale, a klezmer-fusion band.
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