Move over Sundance, Slamdance, Digidance and Nodance. The two-week showbiz schmoozefest in Park City, Utah, traditionally a launching pad for Jewish indie cinema, is now home to SchmoozeDance, a forum for Jewish filmmakers, journalists, observers and studio execs to celebrate Jewish film.\n
In Sandi Simcha DuBowski\’s searing new documentary, \”Trembling Before G-d,\” about Orthodox gays and lesbians, David, a handsome L.A. doctor, describes struggling to change his sexuality.
Glamour, betrayal, influence and heartache, all in a day\’s work. In her first book, \”Is That a Gun in Your Pocket? Women\’s Experience of Power in Hollywood,\” Rachel Abramowitz, a former writer for Premiere magazine, lays out in impressive detail what the first significant wave of women in the film trade, a wave that hit the studios in the 1970s, had to go through to get women to be taken seriously by the industry.
When Harry Blitzstein decided to open up his Blitzstein Museum of Art (facetiously subtitled \”Formerly Moe\’s Meat Market\”), the neighboring merchants on Fairfax Avenue had a unanimous reaction. \”They thought I was just kidding,\” the painter said.
He\’s interviewed Tom Hanks, Robert Zemeckis, Annette Bening, Snoop Dogg, Ron Howard, even President Clinton. Cameron Diaz flirted with him outrageously at the Directors Guild Awards.
Why do most people want to believe that a successful career in show business happens by luck? Maybe it\’s because for people who haven\’t made it, that\’s a good explanation or excuse.
One of the reasons, perhaps the reason, Bette Midler has been a very big star for a very long time is her enormous gift to let us in on who she is, and that includes being Jewish, with no apologies.
If God uttered words to create the universe, it\’s not surprising that two L.A. artists are using the Hebrew alphabet as inspiration for their own work.
On Nov. 15, the Los Angeles Zimriyah Chorale, along with other Los Angeles choral groups, left for a European trip that included performances in Prague and, most notably, Nuremberg, where the chorale participated, on Nov. 25 and 26, in performances of Leonard Bernstein\’s \”Symphony No. 3, Kaddish,\” in a concert hall built on the site of the famous Nazi Nuremberg rallies of the 1930s.
When her first liturgical tune popped into Debbie Friedman\’s head almost 30 years ago, she had no clue that she would become the queen of contemporary American Jewish music.
