GERTRUDE STEIN

Photo :Gertrude Stein, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1934.

Born in Pittsburgh's old Allegheny, Pennsylvania suburb (annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907), her family moved to Vienna and then Paris when she was three. After returning almost two years later, she was educated in California, graduating from Radcliffe College in 1897 followed by two years at Johns Hopkins Medical School. In 1902 she moved to France during the height of artistic creativity gathering in Montparnasse. From 1903 to 1912 she lived in Paris with her brother Leo, who became an accomplished art critic. Stein, a lesbian, met her life-long companion Alice B. Toklas in 1907; Alice moved in with Leo and Gertrude in 1909. During her whole life, Stein was supported by a stipend from her brother Michael's business.She and her brother compiled one of the first collections of Cubist art. She owned early works of Pablo Picasso (who became a friend and painted her portrait), Henri Matisse, Andre Derain plus other young painters.When England declared war on Germany in World War I, Stein and Toklas were visiting with Alfred North Whitehead in England. They returned to France and volunteered to drive supplies to French hospitals; they were later honored by the French government for this work.By the 1920s her salon at 27 Rue de Fleurus, with walls covered by avant-garde paintings, attracted many of the great artists and writers including Ernest Hemingway, Thornton Wilder, Sherwood Anderson and Georges Braque. She coined the term "Lost Generation" for some of these expatriate American writers. Extremely charming, eloquent, cheerful and overweight, she had a large circle of friends and tirelessly promoted herself. Her judgments in literature and art were highly influential.Ernest Hemingway describes how Alice was Gertrude's 'wife' in that Stein rarely addressed his wife, and he treated Alice the same, leaving the two "wives" to chat. Alice was four foot eleven inches tall, and Gertrude was five foot one inch (Grahn 1989).Politically, Gertrude Stein has been described as a conservative fascist; she regarded the jobless as lazy, opposed Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal and supported Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. She would later start a project of translating speeches by Vichy regime leader Pétain into English. Contrastingly, Judy Grahn (1989) describes her as, "a 19th Century Republican, in her manners and manner of speech she was Victorian, socially was more liberal than not, with developed individualism coupled with democratic values based in pragmatism; thus at the opening of the German occupation of France she favored collaborative Vichy government, but by the end she did not, having witnessed firsthand the hardship it brought to the peasants." (p.140-141). With the outbreak of World War II, Stein and Toklas moved to a rented country home in Bilignin, Ain, in the Rhône-Alpes region. Referred to only as "Americans" by their neighbors, the Jewish Gertrude and Alice escaped persecution probably because of their friendship to Bernard Faÿ, a gay collaborator with the Vichy regime with connections to the Gestapo. When Bernard Faÿ was sentenced to hard labor for life after the war, Gertrude and Alice campaigned for his release. Several years later, Alice would contribute money to Faÿ's escape from prison.After the war, Gertrude's status in Paris grew when she was visited by many young American soldiers. She died of stomach cancer in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris on July 29, 1946 and was interred there in the Père Lachaise cemetery. When she was being wheeled into the operating room for surgery on her stomach, she asked Toklas, "What is the answer?" When Toklas did not answer, Stein said, "In that case, what is the question?" Stein named writer and photographer Carl Van Vechten as her literary executor, and he helped to usher into print works of hers which remained unpublished at the time of her death. Text: Wikipedia.

Catharine R. Stimpson, B.A.; B.A., M.A. [Cantab.], PH.D.; HON: D.H.L., HUM.D., LITT.D., LL.D., Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Science

Catharine R. Stimpson was appointed dean of NYU's Graduate School of Arts and Science in 1998 and is a University Professor. Prior to her arrival at NYU, Stimpson was director of the MacArthur Foundation Fellows Program. She has also served as University Professor at Rutgers, where she was also dean of the graduate school and vice provost for graduate education from 1986 to 1992. She also is a former chair of the New York State Humanities Council and the National Council for Research on Women, and president of the Modern Language Association. She was the first director of the Women's Center of Barnard College and of the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers. Stimpson's many publications include the book Where the Meanings Are: Feminism and Cultural Spaces and the Library of America's Gertrude Stein: Writings 1903-1932. The author of a novel, Class Notes, she is the editor of seven books and has published over 150 monographs, essays, stories, and reviews in the Transatlantic Review, The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, Critical Inquiry, boundary 2, and others. She was the founding editor of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society for the University of Chicago Press. Stimpson has received a Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship and has also been a Fulbright Fellow and Woodrow Wilson Fellow. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Institute, the Lilly Foundation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Exxon Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. Stimpson holds a B.A. from Bryn Mawr (1955), a B.A. and M.A. from Cambridge University (1960, 1966), and Ph.D. from Columbia (1967).

WATCH YOUR BUSINESS GROW!

SELL YOUR PRODUCTS AND IDEAS

ADVERTISE WITH US AND LET MILLIONS KNOW ABOUT YOU AND YOUR BUSINESS. WE OFFER YOU:

1-LARGE AUDIENCE 2-UNBEATABLE RATES 3-BLASTING YOUR ADVERTISEMENT TO 770.000 PEOPLE AND CUSTOMERS AROUND THE WORLD 4-FREE NEW DESIGN AND LAYOUT FOR YOUR ADVERTISEMENT 5-FREE EXPERT ADVICE ON HOW TO ADVERTISE AND TARGET YOUR CUSTOMERS

CLICK HERE TO ADVERTISE...SEE RATES AND DETAILS ON HOW TO ADVERTISE ON THE WEB OF WORLD JEWISH NEWS AGENCY.

SPECIAL DISCOUNTS FOR NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

Lecture: Breaking Ground by Daniel Libeskind Presented as Part of “A Season of Contemporary Salons”. Wednesday, November 9, 7-8pm At the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Remis Auditorium.

Photo: Daniel Libeskind.

Presented by The New Center for Arts and Culture presented in partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts on the occasion of the exhibition The Power of Conversation: Jewish Women and their Salons. This is a discussion with architect Daniel Libeskind and architecture critic Robert Campbell. Building on the concept that "A great building, like great literature or poetry or music, can tell the story of the human soul," Mr. Libeskind will reflect on the role of architecture in creating good cities, its relationship to who we are, and his own iconic approach to public space. His first project in Boston will be the future home of The New Center for Arts and Culture, on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Wednesday, November 9, 7-8pm At the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Remis Auditorium. ADMISSION: Tickets: $15 – members, $18 – non-members. Order Tickets: On-line- www.mfa.org, phone- 617-369-3306. FOR MORE INFORMATION: Presented in partnership with Museum of Fine Arts, Boston “A Season of Contemporary Salons” will be listed on the web at www.ncacboston.org For information please call 617-558-6447.

Graduate Centre, London Metropolitan University by Studio Daniel Libeskind

Some of the masterpieces of Libeskind: From T to L: #1. Graduate Centre, London Metropolitan University by Studio Daniel Libeskind. #2. Danish Jewish Museum (2003-2004)

A Conversation Making the Dance Presented as Part of “A Season of Contemporary Salons”. Thursday, November 10, 6:30pm -8:00pm, At The Boston Center for Adult Education. For directions or parking see www.bcae.org

The New Center for Arts and Culture and The Boston Center for Adult Education on the occasion of the exhibition The Power of Conversation: Jewish Women and their Salons. This is a conversation - The artistic director, choreographer, and founder of José Mateo's Ballet Theatre has developed the only dance organization in New England to produce an entire repertory of original works by its own resident choreographer. Join him and members of his company to learn about the process of creating a dance. How does the choreographer create the dance? What determines the form a dance will take? ADMISSION: Tuition: $15. Register online at www.bcae.org or by calling the Boston Center for Adult Education at (617) 267-4430.. FOR MORE INFORMATION: “A Season of Contemporary Salons” is listed on the web at www.ncacboston.org . For information please call 617-558-6447. About the New Center: Sponsored by Combined Jewish Philanthropies and the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston, The New Center for Arts and Culture is a cutting edge intellectual and cultural hub that explores societal change through the arts and culture to create common ground in the diverse world of the 21st century. The New Center recently celebrated its designation to build a facility on the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston. Based on creative partnerships, it has produced breakthrough events including the highly successful WORDS ON FIRE series in 2003 and the first reading of Robert Brustein’s new play SPRING FORWARD FALL BACK in 2004. THE POWER OF CONVERSATION is its third venture in providing outstanding programming for the Greater Boston community.

Film: Thunder in Guyana Presented as Part of “A Season of Contemporary Salons”. Thursday, November 17, 7pm,
At Boston College, Devlin 026, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA.

Boston College Film Studies Program and the New Center for Arts and Culture on the occasion of the exhibition The Power of Conversation: Jewish Women and their Salons. “Thunder in Guyana” a film and a discussion following screening with director, Suzanne Wasserman. Janet Rosenberg Jagan became the first American-born woman to head another nation when she was elected President of Guyana in 1997. With a unique perspective as an historian and as a relative, her cousin Suzanne Wasserman interweaves threads of her family’s history to tell Jagan’s incredible life story and explores the complex history of the little understood country that became her adopted homeland. ADMISSION: The film is free, open to the public and is handicapped accessible. FOR MORE INFORMATION: “A Season of Contemporary Salons” is listed on the web at www.ncacboston.org For information please call 617-558-6447

Thunder in Guyana. A film by Suzanne Wasserman, 2003, 50 minutes. Color/BW, US. THUNDER IN GUYANA is the remarkable tale of Janet Rosenberg, a young woman from Chicago who married Guyanese activist Cheddi Jagan, and set off for the British colony to start a socialist revolution. For more than fifty years, the couple fought tirelessly to liberate the country from colonial rule and exploitation—despite battering by the international press, imprisonment and the intervention of world figures including Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy. Free and fair elections were instituted in the early 90's, and Janet Rosenberg-Jagan was elected president of Guyana in 1997, the first foreign-born and first woman to serve in the role.

Historian Suzanne Wasserman (Rosenberg’s cousin) creates a rich historical portrait combining interviews with friends and family, excerpts from Janet’s letters, archival photographs and footage, and video captured during Janet’s dramatic presidential campaign. The film illuminates the life of an extraordinary woman and the complex history of the little understood country of Guyana.

Chicago Latino Film Festival
Gene Siskel Film Center of Chicago
Myhelan Indie Film Festival - Best Documentary
IFP/Film Society of Lincoln Center "Independents Night"
Margaret Mead Film Festival
San Francisco, Washington, and Montreal Jewish Film Festivals
Boston Jewish Film Festival - Best Documentary Audience Award
CINE Golden Eagle Award

Photo: Janet with PPP supporters in Georgetown, 1953.

Janet Rosenberg was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. In 1942, 23-year-old Janet met and fell in love with a handsome man from a South American country no one in my mother’s family even knew existed. Born in the tiny colony of British Guiana (Guyana after 1966),on South America’s northern coast, Cheddi Jagan was the son of East Indian immigrant indentured sugar plantation workers. She was a nursing student at Cook County, he was a dental student at Northwestern University and they were both involved in radical politics. They married in 1943 despite the strenuous objections of her Jewish and his Hindu parents. Together, they planned to go to British Guiana as socialist revolutionaries to fight for independence. Janet’s father, my great-uncle Charlie, threatened to shoot Cheddi on sight; my great-grandmother had a stroke. Considered the founders of Guyana, Janet and Cheddi Jagan spent the next half century as political leaders of the country. In 1950, they founded the multi-racial People’s Progressive Party, the first modern political party in the colony. In the historic election of 1953, the first election that provided for universal adult suffrage, Cheddi was elected Chief Minister and Janet was elected the country’s first female minister and deputy speaker of parliament. Janet made international headlines that claimed "Guiana Red Line Laid to Chicago Born Blonde." Called the "Second Eva Peron" and the "Woman in White," another article claimed "Parents Describe Girl as 'Storm Center of Guiana."

To her own parents, Janet sent a Western Union telegram that read "Cheddi, myself and Party won overwhelming victory." They governed for 133 days, until British Prime Minister Winston Churchill deposed them. They both served time in jail and under house arrest. Remaining the most popular leader in the colony, Cheddi Jagan was re-elected and became Prime Minister in 1961. This time, the Kennedy administration intervened. The CIA instigated labor unrest, disinformation and race riots that left hundreds dead or injured. With pressure from the United States, Britain, in 1964, pushed through constitutional changes that made it impossible for Jagan to retain power despite his continued popularity. In the first free and fair elections in almost three decades, Cheddi Jagan was sworn in as President of Guyana in 1992. In the winter of 1997, he passed away. Despite reluctance, Janet agreed to accept the Presidential nomination of her Party. On December 15, 1997, she was elected President of Guyana. The first foreign born and first woman to serve this role, many consider her the mother of the nation. Far from being a simple biography of an unconventional woman, this film seeks to interweave the threads of my family’s history, Janet’s incredible life story and the complex history of the little understood country of Guyana. This will be accomplished through my unique perspective as an historian and as a relative.

What the critics said and wrote: “An amazing story, compellingly told.” Mike Wallace, Distinguished Prof of History, John Jay College & Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. "Suzanne Wasserman's film, THUNDER IN GUYANA, offers a useful and intriguing perspective on aspects of Janet Jagan's life and contributions in terms of Guyanese society… the film raises valuable questions about the complications of identity. " Veronica Gregg Africana and Puerto Rican-Latino Studies, Hunter College. "THUNDER IN GUYANA is a stirring and poignant study of sustained political commitment and its consequences. How an American Jewish woman improbably became the head of state of a decolonizing Latin American nation is the stuff of legend, and director Suzanne Wasserman has made a truly engrossing film that weaves this saga into contemporary history.” Stephen J. Whitfield, Professor of American Studies, Brandeis University. “THUNDER IN GUYANA is a moving video tribute that should be seen by anyone interested in learning about anti-colonial struggles, radical ideas and the strength and power of one extraordinary woman to transform the world.” Steve Brier, Filmmaker and Historian

Suzanne Wasserman.

Suzanne Wasserman has a Ph.D. in American History from New York University. She is the Associate Director of the Gotham Center for New York City at the City University of New York, Graduate Center. She is also an historical consultant on Ron Howard’s forthcoming film, Cinderella Man, starring Russell Crowe. Wasserman lectures, writes and consults about New York City history, especially the history of the Lower East Side. She has published widely on topics such as the Depression, Jewish nostalgia, housing, restaurant culture, tourism, pushcart peddling, the Jewish silent screen actress Theda Bara and 19th century saloons. She has taught courses in Museum Studies, Women Studies, Urban Studies, American History and World History. She has worked as a public historian on projects for the Jewish Museum, City Lore, the Tenement Museum, Henry Street Settlement, Clio, Inc. and Steeplechase Films. Thunder in Guyana is her first film. She wrote, directed and produced it. She received grants for the film from the director John Sayles, New York State Council on the Arts, NY Women in Film and Television, the Samuel Rubin Foundation and others. The film is distributed by Women Make Movies

A sure sign the art world is going to the dogs

From CNN Correspondent Jeanne Moos

NEW YORK (CNN) -- When Russian artist Oleg Kulik hears that his performance was for the dogs, he's flattered. That's because his two-week performance that ended recently in New York was AS a dog. And though some critics may have had a bone to pick with the show, Kulik through it reinforced his reputation as one of the most prominent figures in the Russian art world. So what if he doesn't speak English. In his role as dog man, he doesn't speak at all. For two weeks, Kulik's performance art exhibit, "I bite America and America bites me," was seen at New York's Deitch Gallery.

It may not look like art, but Kulik's tail-wagging performance was reviewed by the New York Times, which is a lot more than other more conventional artists can claim. "To watch a human impersonate a dog as thoroughly as Mr. Kulik is extremely disconcerting," the Times' reviewer said. Inside his cage, dog man exhibits a range of behavior, from playful to soulful. His careful study of a dog's natural movement is said to prompt viewers to suspend belief that what's before them is actually a man and not a beast. Dog man for the most part was more bark than bite, although he was not restrained by a leash and he was known to leave bite marks. Spectators were encouraged to enter his cage, but they had to don a protective suit. Gallery owner Jeffrey Deitch calls dog man a landmark in the history of radical performance art. He said it's a powerful image meant to provoke thoughts about what separates man from dog. For two weeks, Kulik never left his cage or his canine character. He was taken nude in a minivan to the airport, and finally donned clothes before boarding a flight to Moscow. The idea is to someday profit from the sale of documentary footage -- and even the cage bars and door -- as relics.

DID YOU READ LATELY? STARS ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE. A DE LAFAYETTE WORLDMEDIA PUBLICATION. Editor-in-Chief: Maximillien de Lafayette. CLICK ON THE COVER OR ENTER

SPECIAL ISSUE OF THE YEAR: WORLD ART CELEBRITIES JOURNAL ENTERTAINMENT, MUSIC AND ARTS YEARBOOK 2005.

STARS ILLUSTRATED

HOTTEST STARS OF THE YEAR.WHO'S WHO OF THE GREATEST AMERICAN FEMALE SINGERS AND STAGE DIVAS! DAME PAULETTE ATTIE: SHOWBIZ STAR OF THE YEAR

BEST & WORST SHOWS OF THE YEAR WORLD'S BEST ENTERTAINERS!

DANCE
Israeli Folk Dance
Wednesdays, 7-8 pm (instructional session) | 8:15 pm-12:15 am (open session) Join us every Wednesday evening for folk dancing and fun with Ruth Goodman and Danny Uziel. No advance registration is necessary. Join us for an instructional session to learn and review today’s folk dance repertoire. This session is geared to those with some knowledge of Israeli folk dance.
92nd Street Y, 92nd Street & Lexington Avenue. For information: 212.415.5737 | www.92y.org

For the past thirty years, Ruth Gould Goodman has explored the realm of the body and spirituality. Through her own unwinding from early pain, she learned that deep inner listening and attunement to the life force in her own body, not only guided her back to her spiritual center, but opened within her a capacity for healing of herself and others. She teaches her students to do just that: align with universal consciousness at the spiritual center of their being to heal their own body/being. Activating the innate power of attention and intention, Ruth accompanies her students on a journey using precise movements of mind and body to rewire themselves back to their birthright as free joyful, creative beings. Once knowledge is firmly grounded in one’s body, ancient esoteric spiritual teachings begin to bloom as present-moment insight. If we have ears to listen and the faith and courage to say ‘YES!” to what is moving through us, we find our life aligning with universal consciousness. From our spiritual center our capacity to choose right action becomes clear.

Ruth Gould Goodman With an M.A. in Dance Therapy from New York University, Ruth’s experience, spirals through dance, improvisational performance, yoga, acupuncture (licensed in California) and has evolved to include hands-on energy healing work, yoga instruction based on creative movement and vocal expression and what she refers to as functional philosophy. As a functional philosopher, Ruth translates ancient spiritual teachings that are somehow removed from our moment-to-moment experience into simple aphorisms, using language we can grasp in this current era. Her homespun thinking is stunning in its simplicity and functional because it can be correlated with a perceivable body experience.

DANCE
Israeli Folk Dancing with Tamar and Shmulik
Thursdays at 7 pm
Join us Thursday nights for Israeli folk dancing in the North Gym, led by the well-known and loved Israeli dance teachers Tamar and Shmulik. Beginners can get started with an introductory hour-long session from 7-8pm. Dancers of all levels are invited to join in for the rest of this fun-filled dance xtravaganza!
This Fall, every Thursday night beginning October 21st until December 30! No registration required. Pay at the front desk in the lobby.
$10 members/$12 nonmembers | Beginners from 7-8 pm, All Levels from 8-Midnight
The JCC in Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Ave. at 76th St. Call 646.505.5708 for information

Events

REDISCOVERING THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF SALONIKA: PERSPECTIVES AND INSIGHTS GLEANED FROM THE YIVO ARCHIVES

A PRESENTATION BY DEVIN NAAR, HISTORIAN AND LEADING AUTHORITY ON LADINO AND TWENTIETH CENTURY JEWISH HISTORY IN SALONIKA, GREECE

New York- The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the American Sephardi Federation with Sephardic House are co-sponsors of, Rediscovering the Jewish Community of Salonika: Perspectives and Insights Gleaned from the YIVO Archives, a lecture which will be presented by Devin Naar, Project Historian of the Salonika Jewish Community Archives Project at YIVO. The lecture will take place on Tuesday, August 23, 2005 at 7:00 pm, in the Kovno Room at the Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011. Free Admission; reservations required. Mr. Naar is a Doctoral Candidate at Stanford University Graduate Program in Jewish History. He is the recipient of a 2005 Fulbright Fellowship for the study of Greek Jewry. One of the few scholars who have mastered solitreo, the handwritten version of Ladino, Mr. Naar, , has specialized in the Jewish history of Salonika in the 20th century with emphasis on the effects of the Great Fire of 1917, which left about 50,000 Salonika Jews homeless. Naar’s great grandfather was a rabbi in Salonika. The ancestral Jewish community of Salonika, which had a population of close to 60,000 on the eve of World War II, was destroyed during the Nazi occupation and 95% of the Jews of Salonika were killed in Auschwitz in 1943. The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is the recipient of grants from the Maurice Amado Foundation and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for cataloging, microfilming, and the digitization of the Salonika Jewish Communal Archive housed at YIVO. The American Sephardi Federation with Sephardic House, which specializes in the history of Sephardic Jewry, has provided its intellectual support and bibliographic resources for the project. An Academic Advisory Committee, consisting of leading scholars of Sephardic and Greek Jewry, has been formed to provide guidance to project staff.

About the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research: Founded in 1925 in Vilna, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania), and headquartered in New York since 1940, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is dedicated to the history and culture of Ashkenazi Jewry and its continuing influence in the Americas. As the only pre-Holocaust scholarly institution to successfully transfer its mission to the United States, today YIVO is the preeminent resource center for East European Jewish Studies; Yiddish language, literature and folklore; and the American Jewish immigrant experience. The YIVO Library holds over 360,000 volumes in 12 major languages; the Archives holds more than 23,000,000 archival pieces on East European and American Jewish subjects. YIVO offers a series of public programs, exhibitions, research opportunities, graduate fellowships, publications, conferences, and Yiddish language classes.

About American Sephardi Federation With Sephardic House: The American Sephardi Federation with Sephardic House is a national organization dedicated to strengthening and unifying the American Sephardic community and promoting its history, cultural and social traditions. Since its arrival at the Center, ASF’s archival holdings and library have been enriched with valuable records of personal and community history. Sephardic House celebrates the uniqueness of the Sephardic culture through its annual International Film Festival, publications and exhibition.

About the Center for Jewish History: In 2000, the Center for Jewish History, located in the heart of the historic Chelsea district, became the home of five distinguished partner institutions—the American Jewish Historical Society, the American Sephardi Federation, the Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Sharing a common vision of preserving and presenting Jewish culture and history, the five partner institutions in coming together, have created a meeting place where intellectual inquiries are exchanged and freely explored, and where the general public can find cultural programs devoted to a wide variety of themes and concerns. The combined holdings of the Center’s partners include over 100 million documents, books, art, artifacts, photos, and other materials, making the Center the largest repository of Jewish history and culture outside the State of Israel.

AT SATALLA

Alicia Svigals & Mikveh with special guest Marilyn Lerner. Monday, September 19 at 7:30 PM. Admission is $15

Photo: Alicia Svigals

Alicia Svigals & Mikveh began when Obie-winning playwright Eve Ensler called Alicia Svigals to put together an all-star group of female klezmer musicians to join a host of celebrity performers at her gala event V-Day in New York. As a founding member of the Klezmatics, Svigals was well- positioned to do just that, and she called singer Adrienne Cooper, accordionist Lauren Brody and bass player Nicki Parrott. The group rocked the house at their very first performance at the Hammerstein Ballroom Theater and then at Madison Square Garden for the second V-Day, sharing the stage with Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, Lily Tomlin, Glenn Close, Phoebe Snow, and Brooke Shields among others. Soon afterwards trumpeter/vocalist Susan Hoffman Watts joined the group and kicked up the excitement one more notch. Since then, Mikveh has brought their unique woman-inflected spin on Jewish roots music, both traditional and brand-new, to audiences around the U.S. and Europe. Exhilarating jazz pianist/improviser Marilyn Lerner performs to acclaim internationally, from her native Montreal to Havana, from Jerusalem to Amsterdam and the Ukraine. Her groundbreaking recordings have garnered recognition, including “Best Jazz Recording 2004” for her “Special Angel” duo with legendary guitarist Sonny Greenwich. This show is presented in association with the New York Jewish Music and Heritage Festival.

Jaroslav and Sheesha. Tuesday, September 20 at 10:00 PM. Admission is $15

In association with the New York Jewish Music and Heritage Festival Satalla presents Jaroslav and Sheesha. Jaroslav is a saxophonist/composer/arranger born in Czechoslovakia. In Israel, Jaroslav is a well known musician, having worked with Shalom Chanoch, Chava Alberstein, Margalit Zanani, and more. A former Columbia Records recording artist, Jaroslav has worked with Bette Midler, Paul Simon, Carly Simon and other U.S. musicians.

Victoria and Richard MacKenzie-Childs present "Lilia", written and performed by the fabulous Libby Skala aboard THE YANKEE FERRY in TriBeCa.

Photos: "Libby Skala, one of the best in the business, will dazzle you in her tribute to her grandmother "Lilia". A superb theatrical one-woman show performed by a world-class artist. Ms. Skla is a national treasure. A most outstanding artist at many levels. Go see her show. It could be one of the most enjoyable and fascinating entertainment experiences of your life.", wrote Maximillien de Lafayette, WJNA editor-in-chief and arts critic of the International Herald Daily News, London.

"One actor, cloaked in magic…Ms. Skala does a marvelous rendition, in an evocative Middle European patois, of her grandmother’s velveteen, old world charm. An adoring portrait…deliciously poignant…Libby Skala is magnetic in a part that clearly means the world to her.” THE NEW YORK TIMES. Photo #2. Libby Skala in LILIA! by Doug Miner.

NEW YORK, NY– Victoria and Richard MacKenzie-Childs present one performance only of Libby Skala’s one-woman show LiLiA! on Tuesday, August 23, 2005 aboard the oldest running ferry boat in the world The Yankee Ferry, which served Ellis Island during the height of immigration to America, located at Pier 25 @ North Moore Street in TriBeCa. Doors open at 7:00pm, live piano music at 7:30pm, and LiLiA! begins at 8:00 pm. In this autobiographical solo show, Libby Skala portrays her indomitable immigrant grandmother actress Lilia Skala to tell the true story of a woman who overcame extraordinary odds. Viennese-born, Lilia Skala became Austria’s first female architect, a stage star in Max Reinhardt’s theatre, and finally a penniless Hitler refugee who worked her way out of a New York zipper factory to a career starring on Broadway, television and film.

She collected award nominations for her performances in “Roseland” (Golden Globe), “Eleanor and Franklin” (Emmy) and, most notably, 1963 Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for her role as Mother Superior in “Lilies of the Field” opposite Sidney Poitier. Out of this remarkable journey emerges the humorous and poignant relationship between Lilia and her granddaughter Libby, in which the Grande Dame serves as mentor, role model and at times unwitting adversary. “In the last conversation I had with my grandmother, she asked me to write a part for her,” said Libby Skala (Playwright/ Actress). “She was an extraordinary woman who had an extraordinary life. I began developing the show immediately! I am thrilled to perform this immigrant’s story aboard a boat that ferried passengers to NYC for the first time all those years ago.” LiLiA! has been performed across North America and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Libby appears in the film Birth with Nicole Kidman. Tickets are $20 at the door. For reservations call 212-253-4236. Photos and more information are available at