When Alfred Ezra Sassoon, father of World War I poet Siegfried Sassoon, became the first member of his family to marry outside his faith, relatives were appalled. Alfred’s mother was disconsolate, his grandmother visited a…
Although George Gershwin composed hit songs for Broadway, he also blended jazz and classical elements in varying degrees in his longer compositions. He had a unique melodic gift and his many songs, and other compositions, brought special joy and optimism to his audiences…
For those who have lived in a bedsit, Michael Hastings’ semi-autobiographical drama will bring back memories. The late Jewish playwright was only 18 when the play premiered in 1956, so it is perhaps his identification with his troubled 15-year-old hero Sammy that makes the boy's tense…
“I am an ordinary person,” declares Nicholas Winton, the man who saved 669 Czech children from the Nazis. The young Winton (Johnny Flynn) defines himself as a European and a socialist, but hesitates to declare his Jewish background. Similarly coy, in advertising this film…
If ever there was a drama that delivered what it says on the tin, this is it. Rock ’n’ Roll suffuses the action and not just as background musical motif. The Tom Stoppard show premiered in 2006 at London’s Royal Court Theatre, predating his award-winning 2020 Leopoldstadt, which…
When Japan famously featured in Puccini’s opera Madam Butterfly in 1904, the Treaty of Kanagawa – which opened up Japan to the West – was 50 years in the past. Fast forward to 1976 and the events took centre stage once again in Stephen Sondheim’s musical Pacific Overtures. The…
Panto has long been a staple of the Christmas season, but what of Hanukkah? JW3 has just the ticket! The north London Jewish cultural centre has not only put on a cracker of a show (running until early January, including…
Much of the film Maestro is shot in black and white, but it opens in full colour. “I miss her terribly,” the older Leonard Bernstein says, of his late wife Felicia. At the piano he plays 'Postlude' (adeptly performed by Bradley Cooper), from his opera A Quiet Place, where the son mourns the loss…
“Are you ready for Christmas?” This is the standard question you get at this time of year in Ireland. My answer, over the 35 years I’ve lived here, has varied from “Oh yes, nearly” to “I don’t do Christmas, I’m Jewish” to “Ah sure, you know yourself…” whilst trailing off in the hope they don't…
"There are, of course, other stereotypes in all ethnic groups that warrant consideration," said Will Eisner in a 2003 interview on his graphic novel, Fagin the Jew. "The Jewish ones have been used to hurt, so there is an emergency to…
Anna Scher, namesake of the famous Islington theatre school, has passed away aged 78. Since founding the school in 1968, she taught many children who went on to become household names, including Kathy Burke, with her flair for comedy, Spandau Ballet’s Kemp brothers, Gary and…
The most familiar sound during wartime in Israel is the blaring of sirens warning of incoming rockets. When I moved to New York City, I heard ambulance sirens and they made me think of Israel. Strange how such a frightening sound can feel nostalgic. Sirens remind me of home…
In Berlin in 1933, seven-year-old Mara stands outside a shop once owned by a Jew. Now it sells instruments to gauge the shape of a skull, issuing certificates of 'Aryanism' if deemed appropriate. The photographer recording this moment was also a Jew; if apprehended by Nazi forces…
The trials of Pierre Goldman are little known in the UK, but infamous in France and inevitably draw comparisons with the Dreyfus Affair. Goldman was imprisoned for life in 1974 for the murder of two women in a Paris pharmacy…
Daniel AM Rosenberg’s musical comedy Less Than Kosher follows self-proclaimed “bad Jew” Viv, a washed-up singer at 30. She finds herself deliriously hungover after Yom Kippur, but after a trip to her family’s synagogue manages to fall “ass-first” into a job as a substitute cantor. What…