On the first Saturday of each month, while weekly, traditional Shabbat morning services are taking place at Adat Shalom synagogue, another service transpires behind the main sanctuary that is anything but traditional.
Netivot, the women\’s Torah study institute, will begin a program next month on a subject not often associated with Orthodoxy: bat mitzvah.
If it seems unlikely that a nice Jewish girl would become a flamenco dancer, consider her early role models. Or Nili Azulay\’s Syrian-born grandmother, Nona, defied her parents to wed the man she loved, then refused to remarry after he died several years later. Azulay\’s mother, Chaya, became one of Israel\’s first female barristers; her father died when she was a small child. \”The sadness of not having a father was tempered by growing up with these strong, independent women,\” she said.
Al Carmines\’ lush score provides the backdrop for \”The Song of Songs,\” now at the Fountain, in which five dancers pair off while singers chant biblical text. Its creators hope to convey the essence of the ancient poetry, which describes God\’s love for the Israelites as the passion between a man and a woman.
Linda Richman types be warned. The American Cinematheque\’s \”Can\’t Stop the Musicals!! A Celebration of Hollywood Musicals of the 1970s and 1980s\” presents the plotz-inducing Barbra Streisand Double Feature tonight.
Irene Gutovicz remembers the days when members of the local group of philanthropic Holocaust survivors, known as The Lodzer Organization of California, would donate a bowl of borscht or a plate of kugel.
When Boris Eifman\’s ballet, \”Tchaikovsky: The Mystery of Life and Death,\” premiered in Moscow in 1993, angry picketers surrounded the concert hall.
\”The Last Dance\” began when Bank, an acclaimed PBS filmmaker whose work often involves Jewish themes, attended a Pilobolus performance in summer 1998.
On the left side of the mechitza at the Happy Minyan on Pico Boulevard, the men put their hands on each other\’s shoulders, Chasidic conga-line style, and start tramping around in a circle; on the other side, the women hold hands, but remain stationary, bobbing their knees to the tune and
occasionally clapping.
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