JFest brings Leonard Cohen’s music, stories, and spirit to The Conrad

Batalla noted that in 2026, Yom Kippur falls on Cohen’s birthday. The following song, “Who by Fire,” was based on the prayer Unetanneh Tokef. He wrote it after the improvised concerts he gave IDF soldiers during the Yom Kippur War. For “Who By Fire,” Batalla introduced the udu, an African water drum, and the guitar-like Middle Eastern oud played by Dimitris Jimmy Mahlis, who toured with her and Cohen. Batalla said Cohen’s touring band always had an oud player and said in the hands of a master it has been called a direct line to God. {Shor M. Masori]

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Jewish Celebrities, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Shor M. Masori, Staff and Bylined Contributors

Adat Yeshurun hosts JFEST’s South African Jewish night

Marcus also shared that when they first came to South Africa from Lithuania in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jews became peddlers, traders and small business owners, similar to the American Jewish immigrant stories. (Sandi Masori)

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International, Jewish History, Lifestyles, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Sandi Masori, Staff and Bylined Contributors, Travel and Food

Eighth-grade students commemorate the Holocaust by painting ceramic butterflies

La Mesa Arts Academy’s eighth-grade Social Studies classes, taught by Mrs. Debra Lunamand and Mrs. Heather Filippelli, participated in The Butterfly Project just before the end of the school year as students completed testing and finalized semester grades. More than 300 plaster butterflies were painted. [Cailin Acosta]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Cailin Acosta, Holocaust, International, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Staff and Bylined Contributors

Jewish composer Justin Hurwitz featured at final concert of the semester at La Mesa Arts Academy

Composer and songwriter Justin Hurwitz, who wrote the music for La La Land, is Jewish and of Russian, Polish, Syrian, and Lebanese descent. Hurwitz attended Harvard University, where he was roommates with director Damien Chazelle. The two later collaborated on La La Land and several other films. [Cailin Acosta}

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Cailin Acosta, Jewish History, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Staff and Bylined Contributors

Parsha Shelach: ‘The link is what you think’

The Torah records one of the most revealing statements in all Tanach: “We were like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so we were in theirs.”
The first half of the verse is understandable. The spies felt intimidated. They felt small in comparison to the challenges before them. But the second half raises an obvious question. How could they possibly know how the inhabitants of the land viewed them? [Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D]

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Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell, Staff and Bylined Contributors

Silent Movie Mondays ends with Harold Lloyd comedy: ‘Safety Last’

The hanging from a clock scene is one of the most famous sequences in film history: Harold Lloyd dangling from the hands of a giant clock high above the city streets of Los Angeles. The scene remains thrilling today … [Sherrie Rose]

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California, Jewish History, San Diego County, Staff and Bylined Contributors, Theatre, Film & Broadcast