1. This is your last week to register for the Jewish Discovery Shabbat at OSRUI. If you’ve been thinking about going, now is the time to send Barbara your form and say, “Yes! I’d love to spend shabbat with other 25-40 year olds learning about Judaism.”
2. The American Jewish Communities are still running the Israel at 60 video contest. There was, sadly, some hacking of the site and plenty of negative comments on YouTube, but things seem to be improving. Show them some love. There is a bit more information at the AJC 20:20 blog.
3. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra will be presenting a show about The Thomashefskys. A couple that made Yiddish Theater huge and influenced much of what we consider to be American Musical Theater.
The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater will feature Members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas and will take place on at 3:00 pm on Sunday 1 June and 7:30pm on Tuesday 3 June 2008. In this multi-media presentation, Michael Tilson Thomas recreates the lives and times of his grandparents, Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, giants of the American Yiddish Theater. The program weaves together the story of this fascinating couple through performances of original songs, excerpts from their autobiographies and plays, vintage recordings, projected images from their family photo album, and most importantly Michael Tilson Thomas’s own personal anecdotes. The program has been performed to sell-out crowds in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall, with the San Francisco Symphony, and with the New World Symphony in Miami.