SAN DIEGO (Press Release) – The Lipinsky Family San Diego Jewish Arts Festival (JFEST) returns even stronger with new partnerships and venues that go from Balboa Park to Downtown, to La Jolla, Encinitas, and Carlsbad, reaching different corners of the county through great artistic programing. The 2023 edition will run from Thursday, June 1 until Sunday, July 16, celebrating three consecutive decades of performances that explore Jewish history, people, and ideas across San Diego with a wonderful schedule that will include virtuoso music, theatre, dance, and fine arts featuring the return of favorites like Grammy-nominated singer and touring band member with the legendary songwriter Leonard Cohen, Perla Batalla inHouse of Cohen: The Songs of Leonard Cohen and the return of the original theatrical piece Women of Valor, honoring six incredible women and how they have inspired the community.
“I’ve been so moved by the outpouring of support we’ve received for JFEST. I am very excited about our 30th anniversary line-up and proud of our new partnerships with the JCC, Old Globe, The Conrad, Unitarian Church, Park & Market, and Coastal Roots Farm. I love creating joy and community through diverse Jewish arts,” shared Todd Salovey (JFEST Founding Artistic Director). Todd is also the director and co-writer of Chagall, a collaboration with writer/composer Yale Strom that traces the Russian French painter and his wife Bella when they became refugees and how that affected their art.
Tickets are available for purchase at sdjfest.org; prices range from $18 to $50.
JFEST will also feature a special one show-only reunion concert of the musical Witnesses, a moving production inspired by the diaries of 5 teenagers who died in the Holocaust. Recognized this year by the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle as “Outstanding New Production” happening at the Lawrence Family JCC in La Jolla.
The festival features the debut of Eco-Jewish Play Fest taking place in Coastal Roots Farm located in Encinitas for a full session of short new play creation, as well as The Whole Megillah New Jewish Play Festival celebrating new plays that are “unapologetically” Jewish that will be performed at The Old Globe and Carlsbad’s New Village Arts. Curated and produced by JFEST Associate Producer, Rebecca Myers who had her first JFEST experience at 12 years old in 2008 acting in the production Blessing of a Broken Heart. “That project lit a spark that ignited a love of theatre that will last my entire life, and particularly a love of new Jewish work. I’ve been so lucky to get to spend the last three years scouring the country for new Jewish work. The national landscape of Jewish theatre is growing and evolving, and we are so lucky to be right at the forefront of watching and making it happen.”
Continuing with the theatrical line-up, Hereville playing at The Old Globe and New Village Arts involves a time-traveling, monster fighting orthodox Jewish girl. Theatre Dybbuk: The Merchant of Venice (Annotated), or In Sooth I Know Not Why I Am So Sadis a play from 16th century England that touches on how antisemitism and other prejudicial beliefs operate in our world today, to be performed at the Lawrence Family JCC in La Jolla.
Congregation Adat Yeshurun, La Jolla will host the Festival Keynote: Judaism and Art with one of the world’s preeminent Jewish thinker and educator Rabbi Meir Soloveitchik. In the musical section of JFEST, Jewish music takes on the flavor of cultures from Spain, Persia, Portugal, Romania, and many more in the 22nd Klezmer Summit: The World of Jewish Music happening at The First Universalist Unitarian Church of San Diego. Neshama – Music of the Soul, the community-wide musical concert that celebrates the deep connection of us all and Yale Strom’s RECORDIALLY YOURS, LOU CURTISS, with a pre-show presentation on Jews and Folk Music at Digital Gym CINEMA, Park & Market, San Diego.
JFEST Managing Director Matthew E. Graber noted: “I’m so proud to be able to help JFEST launch into this new chapter in its history. Also, I am proud to see the massive amount of support, both spiritual and financial, that we have received. Those that know me know I’m a Jew by choice, having helped promote Jfest for the last 7 years, watching it grow from a Heimishe festival with local musicians and artists to one that brings in international stars like Hershey Felder, Elon Gold, and Perla Batalla. I’m so happy that in this first year of executing the festival outside San Diego REP, and thanks to the Lawrence Family JCC, we are going to put on a festival of the size and scale of any other.”
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Preceding provided by JFEST