Israeli writer and theatre artist Stav Meishar presents her rich narrative of a Jewish circus family’s ordeal in Hitler’s Germany as a new direction in her ongoing Jewish education work. An adept performer, Meishar…
In the early 20th century, Canada took in thousands of Jews fleeing pogroms in Europe, just as in this century its government continues to welcome refugees from brutal persecutions worldwide. This powerful, beautiful show, the story of the founders of one little Jewish dynasty in…
This is a real conundrum. At first sight, Maya Arad Yasur’s Amsterdam is a theatre piece with a disturbing story to reveal, confronting the dark and complicated history of The Netherlands during the Nazi occupation, told through the prism of the present. A heavily pregnant Israeli violinist…
With opening number ‘Four Jews in a Room Bitching’ and two of 35 songs mentioning bar mitzvah in the title, it's fair to say that Falsettos has a firm footing in Jewish culture. Sondheim collaborator James Lapine is responsible for the book and his own collaborator of choice, William Finn…
One of the cruellest diseases that can afflict an individual is Alzheimer’s, gradually erasing memory, sense of self and awareness of the bonds of love and friendship. My own mother, almost 94 now, has had dementia for some years, so I speak from personal experience. One of the closest…
Harvey Fierstein’s hugely influential Torch Song Trilogy began life back in 1978, the year in which the opening scene is set. In Fierstein’s streamlined shorter revival (down to two and a half hours from over four) his autobiographical account of the complicated love life of Jewish drag…
The director of the prestigious, privately funded Elizabeth Institute refuses a Catholic priest access to a patient to whom he wants to give the last rites. The patient in question, a delirious 14-year-old dying from sepsis following a botched abortion, thinks she is recovering. As there's no…
“Secrets are lies by another name” is the arresting statement at the heart of The Mozart Question, which explores the corrosive legacy of survivor guilt and the redemptive power of music. The novel, by former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo, provides a way into talking about the…
"I don't wanna leave: it's so nice having people here. Cooo-al!" It's approaching midnight in a miserable, drizzly Edinburgh and Liza Treyger has come to the end of her show. "So enjoy the rest of your lives. Go to therapy and then you could be here too, in a trailer." Treyger, 31…
Max, the Jewish half of this energetic black comedy, bounds on stage, somewhat startling a middle-aged woman in the front row. He immediately launches into a delightfully sardonic and uplifting funk-inspired opening number about being Jewish, complete with rhyming couplets and…
As a rule, I don't repeatedly tell 50-odd people in a moderately sized room that "I deserve salmon" on a weekday evening, but such is the force of the Fringe and Emmy Blotnick's bubbly nature that it would have been churlish not to have joined in. The 31-year-old New…
Joel Sanders, who has lived on a canal boat moored mainly in the south of England for the past decade, has two shows at the Fringe. One, called Angry Boater, is about living on a boat with hypertension, few practical skills and against the advice of his late father who told him: "Jews don't live…
It's good to see three Israeli comedians pitching up at the Edinburgh Fringe, with a show free of government sponsorship and therefore – contrary to allusions in the title – not in danger of being boycotted by the local pro-Palestinian brigade. It's the first day of the trio's…
Diana Dinerman, who was raised in Washington DC, was a researcher and teacher at the University of Minnesota, but she felt something was missing from her life. In 2013, she took a 'Feminine Power' online course, which awakened…
It was a Friday night and as I wasn't going to a Friday night dinner, so what better way to spend it than by going to Candy Gigi's mock-horror musical Friday Night Sinner!? The eerily lit action loosely follows the plot of Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, with Gigi – aka 30-year-old Brit…