In \”Pound of Flesh,\” at the Odyssey Theater, Ezra Pound spars with Pvt. Cooper, a young soldier who keeps him company while he awaits trial in Italy for his crimes of treachery against the United States in World War II. If this private is not Pound\’s intellectual match, he more than matches the poet on moral grounds.
Michael Halperin, who wrote \”All Steps Necessary,\” a new Holocaust-themed play being staged by the Inkwell Theater, concurs with Milgram. Taking place just after Kristallnacht, his play dramatizes a meeting of Nazi leaders and their formal response to the fallout from the pogrom.
Local leaders of the Green Party are working to overturn an anti-Israel resolution that has become official party policy.
Roger Mayer lounges in the living room of his house on Benedict Canyon Road, a comfortable two-story clapboard structure in Beverly Hills. The newly minted octogenarian, who looks at least 10 years younger, effortlessly recalls dates, numbers and deals from decades ago.
Writers as varied as Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott have written of the exotic beauty of Jewish women. But what about Jewish men?
Amos Oz has explored the subject in novels. Amos Elon has penned essays about it. Politicians as varied as Abba Eban, Mahmoud Abbas, Bill Clinton and even Ariel Sharon have tried to solve it. So, what can a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate add to the long and storied history of the region with the world\’s most intractable political problem? Plenty of inspiration, if we are to judge by Jennifer Miller\’s new book, \”Inheriting the Holy Land.\”
It has long been a cliché that Los Angeles does not respect the culture of the book. It is true that this town famously eviscerated Faulkner and Fitzgerald, that Hollywood suits to this day treat screenwriters the way Henry VIII treated his wives. Yet, it is also true that Los Angeles has spawned unique brands of literature, such as the hard-boiled detective story.
Ameenah Kaplan, who calls herself a \”hybrid\” — the product of an African American mother who converted to Judaism and a Jewish father — is directing, choreographing and co-producing \”Everyman for Himself.\” Appearing weekends at the Unknown Theatre in Hollywood, the show is a hybrid itself, in that it blends music, dance, theater and capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian dance form that incorporates self-defense maneuvers.
You didn\’t see many Jews amid the sea of Mexican and American flags during the recent pro-immigrant rallies that filled city streets, but Jews and Jewish groups, in largely liberal Los Angeles, have been advocating on behalf of immigrants, mostly outside the view of television cameras.
It is not only illegal immigrants for whom the Passover tale holds appeal. The story of the Exodus can be easily updated for any of the numerous people in the Third World seeking freedom from oppression.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.