Karl Rove spoke recently at The Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal Studios for the second in this year\’s Public Lecture Series from American Jewish University (AJU).
How do we build a House of God? How do we achieve the spiritual mandate that God placed upon the community when asking of them to build the Mishkan, the dwelling place of God? Anybody who serves a community as its spiritual leader understands that the nature of my question has little to do with the architectural plans of the building, rather it addresses the religious and spiritual atmosphere we are challenged to create within the four walls that we call our \”House of God.\”
\”I have a strong kinship with Abbie Hoffman,\” admitted Brett Morgen, writer and director of the semidocumentary film, \”Chicago 10.\” \”I haven\’t seen anyone in my lifetime that spoke to me the way he did.\” It was during the 1969 Chicago conspiracy trial that Hoffman and his co-defendants were dubbed \”The Chicago 8.\” The radical group also included Yippie co-founder Jerry Rubin and Tom Hayden, a future California assemblyman and state senator. While researching his film, Morgen found an interview with Rubin that said they should be called the Chicago 10 because their lawyers, William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass, were charged and sentenced for contempt. Taking his cue from Rubin, Morgen named his film \”Chicago 10.\”
But as other venues closed in Beverly Hills (the Canon Theatre was demolished in 2005), Rabbi David Baron, Los Angeles\’ rabbi-impresario, saw an opportunity: \”a home for my temple and also something much bigger,\” he says. \”People hate shlepping to the Pantages in Hollywood or downtown to see Broadway-caliber shows…. I had a dream of being able to preserve, restore, maintain and revitalize this complex and this theater (Wilshire Theatre Beverly Hills), and to make it a real community hub, a cultural, performing arts center for the entire area.\”\n
\”The Boychick Affair: The Bar Mitzvah of Harry Boychick,\” is the latest addition to the ever-amusing genre of interactive theater, known in the business as \”environmental theater.\” In such plays, the conventional fourth wall is broken as actors directly interact with members of the audience. Each character has a detailed background, either created on the spot or written prior to the performance. While the show is staged and scripted, about 30 percent to 40 percent is improvised, said playwright and director Amy Lord.
It is no easy feat to yell melodiously, but the Jewish rock quartet, The Shondes, has achieved just that. The screams on their new album, \”The Red Sea,\” sound ancient and somewhat cantorial, piping in from the Old Testament to talk to us about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, misogyny, Bible tales and intimacy.
Book review of \”The End of The Jews\”, a literary family saga built around three narratives in different time frames, opening with Tristan Brodsky, \”15 years old, the sum total of five thousand years of Jewry, one week into City College, a mind on him like a diamond cutter.\”
Report from Oscar night including a discussion of \”Beaufort,\” the first Israeli film to be among the five finalists for Best Foreign Film in 23 years.
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