Skip to content

Where different views on Israel and Judaism are welcome.

  • Home
  • Subscribe / donate
  • Events calendar
  • News
    • Local
    • National
    • Israel
    • World
    • עניין בחדשות
      A roundup of news in Canada and further afield, in Hebrew.
  • Opinion
    • From the JI
    • Op-Ed
  • Arts & Culture
    • Performing Arts
    • Music
    • Books
    • Visual Arts
    • TV & Film
  • Life
    • Celebrating the Holidays
    • Travel
    • The Daily Snooze
      Cartoons by Jacob Samuel
    • Mystery Photo
      Help the JI and JMABC fill in the gaps in our archives.
  • Community Links
    • Organizations, Etc.
    • Other News Sources & Blogs
    • Business Directory
  • FAQ
  • JI Chai Celebration
  • [email protected]! video

Search

Archives

"The Basketball Game" is a graphic novel adaptation of the award-winning National Film Board of Canada animated short of the same name – intended for audiences aged 12 years and up. It's a poignant tale of the power of community as a means to rise above hatred and bigotry. In the end, as is recognized by the kids playing the basketball game, we're all in this together.

Recent Posts

  • New housing partnership
  • Complexities of Berlin
  • Obligation to criticize
  • Negev Dinner returns
  • Women deserve to be seen
  • Peace is breaking out
  • Summit covers tough issues
  • Jews in trench coats
  • Lives shaped by war
  • The Moaning Yoni returns
  • Caring in times of need
  • Students are learning to cook
  • Many first-time experiences
  • Community milestones … Gordon, Segal, Roadburg foundations & West
  • מקטאר לוונקובר
  • Reading expands experience
  • Controversy welcome
  • Democracy in danger
  • Resilience amid disruptions
  • Local heads CAPE crusaders
  • Engaging in guided autobiography
  • Recollecting Auschwitz
  • Local Houdini connection
  • National library opens soon
  • Regards from Israel …
  • Reluctant kids loved camp
  • An open letter to Camp BB
  • Strong connection to Israel
  • Why we need summer camp
  • Campers share their thoughts
  • Community tree of life
  • Building bridges to inclusion
  • A first step to solutions?
  • Sacre premières here
  • Opening gates of kabbalah
  • Ukraine’s complex past

Recent Tweets

Tweets by @JewishIndie

Byline: King David High School

Fostering literacy, education

Fostering literacy, education

Aaron Friedland will be the keynote speaker at this year’s King David High School Golden Thread Gala. (photo from goldenthreadgala.com)

King David High School’s Second Annual Golden Thread Gala takes place May 12. For an event that celebrates the story of KDHS, who better to represent King David’s success than one of its alumni. The night’s keynote speaker will be Aaron Friedland, Class of 2010.

Friedland is a National Geographic Explorer, a sustainable development practitioner and a PhD candidate.

In 2010, while Friedland was attending King David High School, he and his family visited Uganda’s Abayudaya Jewish community on a voluntourism project that would change his life and inspire the Walking School Bus. The Walking School Bus’s mission is to enhance access to education in low-income communities globally.

His research in the field of econometrics is focused on the intersection of economics and education, and his research-based interventions have helped more than 35,000 learners in Uganda and India improve their literacy – and literacy is the number one predictor of academic success.

Friedland also founded Simbi Foundation, an organization that creates solar-powered learning labs from shipping containers, in Uganda and India, providing access to quality educational tools in low-resource communities and UNHCR refugee settlements. His foundation was also the winner of the MBR Prosperity Grant to build BrightBox solar-power classrooms. Each BrightBox includes a shipping container with solar panels, laptops, projectors and digital aids, as well as all the installation costs at its destination. In 2016, Friedland received the Next Einstein Award for his work in furthering access to education.

This year’s Golden Thread Gala committee is co-chaired by Heidi Seidman and Sherri Wise; sponsorship chair is Brett Sandler. Committee members are Cyndi Ankenman, Dalia Bressler, Chana Charach, Nicole Ginsberg, Alain Guez and Margaret Hemingson. The development team is comprised of Esther Mogyoros, Justine Folk and Michele Zychlinski.

The event, which will be held at Congregation Beth Israel, will be emceed by KDHS head of school Russ Klein and Howard Blank will be the auctioneer. There will be a live and silent auction, as well as dinner and entertainment, a portraiture studio and more.

For tickets and other information, visit goldenthreadgala.com.

– Courtesy King David High School

Format ImagePosted on April 22, 2022April 21, 2022Author King David High SchoolCategories LocalTags Aaron Friedland, education, fundraising, Golden Thread Gala, Howard Blank, KDHS, King David High School, Russ Klein, tikkun olam
Little Shop fills the Rothstein

Little Shop fills the Rothstein

The full cast of King David Players’ Little Shop of Horrors. (all photos from King David High School)

On March 16 and 17, the Rothstein Theatre was alive with music and a giant flesh-eating plant, as the King David Players presented this year’s theatre production, Little Shop of Horrors. Featuring a cast of students from every grade, the actors and musicians brought to life the dark comedy/musical. They played to full houses both nights.

Teachers Aron Rosenberg, Johnny Seguin and Anna-Mae Wiesenthal created the production, which involved 50 students, as well as other staff, parents and community supporters.

“When deciding what play to explore this year, we were looking for a musical that was light and fun and that was not too heavily based around social commentary (as is my usual inclination),” said Rosenberg in his director’s note. “I looked through a list of musicals and, remembering childhood evenings watching Little Shop of Horrors with Rick Moranis, Steve Martin and Bill Murray, I sent an e-mail to the administration ensuring it would be an appropriate choice.”

On closer look, the musical wasn’t that light.

“Three of the most problematic characters are Mushnik – the caricature of a greedy Jewish merchant – Audrey – the caricature of a helpless victim in an abusive relationship – and Orin – Audrey’s abusive boyfriend, and a caricature of a dentist with a self-acknowledged appetite for causing pain,” noted Rosenberg. “Perhaps this play’s innocuous reputation comes from an outdated attitude that treated ethnic stereotypes as playful, sexual violence as bland and dentists as inevitably painful. However, in 2016, our modern sensibilities force this play to take on a new life. The dark and irreverent humor of the play remains but, along with it, our cast has worked to uncover a respectful and critical look at the struggles of ethnic shop-owners in low-income neighborhoods, the horrors of domestic abuse and the ridiculousness of gender-inequity in relationships (not to mention the reality that dentists are no longer painful … usually).

“With all the creative commitment and hard work from our cast, crew and community, we are left with something not unlike our original goal…. The plot may not be light but the musical numbers are. And, as for social commentary and all this hullabaloo about the self-destructiveness of greed and power, you can take it or leave it. However, if you leave it, don’t be surprised when a giant human-eating plant comes a-knocking….”

photo - Seymour (Daniel Shuchat) and Audrey (Sydney Freedman)
Seymour (Daniel Shuchat) and Audrey (Sydney Freedman).
photo - Audrey II, played by Alisa Bressler and Hannah Marliss
Audrey II, played by Alisa Bressler and Hannah Marliss.
photo - Stage managers Rachel Pekeles and Matty Flader
Stage managers Rachel Pekeles and Matty Flader.

 

 

Format ImagePosted on March 25, 2016March 24, 2016Author King David High SchoolCategories Performing ArtsTags Aron Rosenberg, KDHS, Little Shop
Proudly powered by WordPress