Category Arts & Culture

Through blues to happiness with Jill Newman

photo - Jill Newman at Cottage Bistro May 9 singing songs from her new CD, Lovestruck Blues

Jill Newman at Cottage Bistro May 9 singing from her new CD, Lovestruck Blues. (photo by John Endo Greenaway) Happiness. Perhaps ironically, Jill Newman’s performance at the release party for her latest CD, Lovestruck Blues, exuded happiness. The May 9…

Stotland plays Carlebach – in Yiddish!

“Montreal Jewgrass” musician Adam Stotland channeled one of his musical gods since childhood – Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach – in his acting debut last month. Stotland, who has Vancouver family connections, landed the title role in the musical Soul Doctor: The…

Leiren-Young first literary laureate

In 2013, the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival in partnership with the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library announced a new initiative: the Jewish literary laureate project. “It is a vision of Yosef Wosk,” said book festival director Nicole Nozick…

Fading Gigolo’s Jewish notes

photo - Woody Allen, left, and John Turturro in Fading Gigolo.

Woody Allen, left, and John Turturro in Fading Gigolo. (photo from Millennium Entertainment) “My big thing was to not have him wear khaki pants and an army coat,” said John Turturro with a broad smile. “And I got him out…