Goldstar

Master storyteller Brenda Wong Aoki presents Return of the Sun. This unique and colorful version of the Japanese legend of Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess features Indian, Afro-Peruvian, Mayan and Korean dance companies alongside Aoki, whose style is based on Japan's Noh and Kyogen drama. Learn more...

The Great Broadway Sing-Along mixes performance with audience participation in an evening of classic show tunes. Producer Ellie Mednick and an outstanding cast perform well-known songs by Rodgers & Hammerstein, the Gershwins, Porter, Sondheim and Berlin, from hit shows like West Side Story, Mary Poppins, Hair and Billy Elliot. This popular event is suitable for the whole family. Learn more...

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair's wife Cherie Blair reveals what it was like to combine life as a working mother with life married to the Prime Minister. An accomplished lawyer and human rights activist, she offers inside details of her relationships with Presidents Clinton and Bush, as well as the royals, including Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, and Princess Diana. Learn more...

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco present the Bay Area premiere of David Vyorst's The First Basket. The film tracks the impact of basketball on modern Jewish history, as well as the profound influence of unsung Jewish pioneers on the evolution of the sport. Learn more...

Magician Jay Alexander performs at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco's Kanbar Hall. He's appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America and MTV, and worked with stars ranging from Robin Williams to the Rolling Stones. He presents a show which will appeal to children ages 8 and up, as well as their parents. Learn more...

Join scholar Eddy Portnoy of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America for a fascinating romp through the little-known history of Jewish psychics, pseudo-scientists and seers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Learn more...

The Jewish Community Center of San Francisco screens director Francesco Rosi's The Truce (La Tregua). The film is based upon Italian writer Primo Levi's The Reawakening, an autobiographical account of his liberation from Auschwitz and his nine-month journey home to Turin. John Turturro stars as Levi in this moving portrait of a man's reawakening to love and humanity. Learn more...

An arched eyebrow, a subtle shimmy and a flick of her wrist is all that Bebe Neuwirth ("Lilith" from TV's Cheers and Frasier) needs to keep a crowd in the palm of her hand. With her unforgettable brand of sass and sheer talent, the Emmy and Tony award winner captivates audiences in her dazzling new solo show, singing works by Kurt Weill, Kander & Ebb, and more. Learn more...

Grotto Nights are back at the JCCSF. Join the Grotto-ites for an evening of literary hanky panky at "Intimacy" a multimedia extravaganza. Get the latest word from writers Mary Roach (Bonk; Stiff), David Ewing Duncan (Experimental Man) and Stephen Elliot (Happy Baby); filmmaker Caveh Zahedi, plus art, dance, performance and a surprise musical guest. Learn more...

What would the earth look like if humans suddenly disappeared? Nationally acclaimed journalist Alan Weisman explores the possibility of a future in which New York City subways fill with water within days and weeds retake the buckled streets of our modern world. In his controversial book, Weisman envisions a human-free Earth thousands of years into the future -- a world that looks a lot like Eden. Learn more...

This special presentation features Rosh Hashanah chants from Baghdad and Bombay, along with information about the history of these Mizrahi Jewish communities. Listening to melodic sounds, complemented by tales of customs and celebrations from the mystic East, is a sure way to feel the magic of the holiday season. Learn more...

Jonathan Lethem is the author of best-selling novels Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude. A MacArthur genius grant recipient, Lethem's work influenced by science fiction, detective stories, and comic books. He discusses his works, including his recent revival of classic comic book Omega the Unknown, with influential cultural critic Greil Marcus. Learn more...

This new work was inspired by Mark Foehringer's recent residency in Peru with Ballet Nacional del Peru and the Fulbright Commission-Peru. The notion that we are all bound together by similar choices and challenges in life is at the heart of Entrelazo. On its primal level, Entrelazo is the story of man's relationship with faith and worship. Learn more...

The acclaimed Giants of Jazz on Film series continues with an evening of "soundies" -- the music videos of the 1940s. These rarely screened three-minute films, produced for the Mill Panoram (a jukebox with a screen), feature jazz legends including Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Gene Krupa, Duke Ellington, Dorothy Dandridge, Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five, and literally dozens more. Learn more...

Broadway legend Ben Vereen makes a rare appearance bringing his "Old Razzle-Dazzle" to the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco's Kanbar Hall. He'll chart the course of his illustrious career, and pay tribute to his idol Sammy Davis Jr. Learn more...

John Updike compared Andrew Sean Greer's second novel, The Confessions of Max Tivoli, to Proust and Nabokov in The New Yorker, and he received the New York Public Library Young Lions Award for writers under 35. Michael Chabon calls Greer's new novel, about love and war and set in San Francisco's Sunset district in the 1950s, a narrative tour de force that confirms him as one of the most talented writers around. He talks with JCCSF's Barbara Lane. Learn more...

Witness the life and times of the Rosenbach brothers, preeminent rare-book and decorative art dealers in the first half of the last century, through the eyes of award-winning graphic novelist Ben Katchor and composer and singer Mark Mulcahy. Mixing projected animated images with live singers and musicians, the show explores the obsessive nature of collecting, the relation between cultural and commercial pursuits and the men's significance as owners of some of the world's greatest literary treasures. Learn more...

The first cartoonist to win a MacArthur "genius grant," Ben Katchor is the author of The Jew of New York, Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer and The Cardboard Valise. The gently surreal culture in many of Katchor's strips includes hucksters, butter-and-egg men, and latter-day Kabbalists living in a wonderland of tin ceilings, illuminated storefronts, and unusual enterprises such as the Senseless Elaboration Parlor and the Mortal Coil Mattress Store. See him in conversation with monologist Josh Kornbluth. Learn more...

Mary Pipher became a cultural force in 1994 with the publication of Reviving Ophelia, the book that opened America's eyes to the psychological toll that adolescent girls face growing up in a country rife with sexual abuse, school violence and an overwhelming pressure to be thin. Her next book, The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding Our Families, explores the loss of community in America. Learn more...

Ghosts and Girls is a haunting love tale about a powerful samurai's daughter who falls in love with a boy from a poor family. This unstaged piece is brought to life with the haunting eloquence of master teller Brenda Wong Aoki, dynamic women drummers, dancers, and mystic melodies of Tokyo's premier shakuhachi artist. Learn more...

Duke Ellington's music has been described as being "beyond category," and there is a great deal of truth in the statement. This special production will revisit his amazing career. Most of the clips included in Giants of Jazz on Film are true audio-visual rarities, and most have never before been screened for the JCCSF audience. Learn more...

Enter an enchanting world of inflatable objects that entrance the audience with foolishness and fun. Shapes dance, shimmer and bounce in kaleidoscopic wonder. Watch a ballerina dance the can-can as her skirt grows longer and longer until it finally carries her away! It's outrageous fun! Learn more...

Celebrated concert pianist and conductor Jeffrey Siegel returns with the latest installment in his popular "Keyboard Conversations" series, concerts with commentary designed to entertain and inform. This program, The Passion and Poetry of Chopin, presents the great piano composer's enchanting Waltzes, spellbinding Nocturnes, heroic Polonaises, and the virtuoso Variations on "La ci darem la mano" from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, written when Chopin was 17. Learn more...

The esteemed Abe Foxman shows how old stereotypes associated with the most virulent forms of bigotry are resurfacing and becoming dangerously mainstream. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League since 1987, is a staunch defender of human rights, and advocates forthright and decisive strategies for combating anti-Semitic myths. Learn more...

Create a unique and dramatic accent for your Shabbat or holiday table. Combine American tradition with Shabbat significance as you spend a day quilting with friends. This workshop is for beginning and experienced quilters alike--all are welcome! Learn more...

New Yorker and New York Times contributor Jonathan Rosen, author of The Talmud and the Internet, brings an engaging perspective to the popular pastime of birdwatching, born out of the tangled history of industrialization and nature longing. For many species of birds, this may be our last chance to look towards the sky to watch them. Learn more...

Journalist David Sheff's story is every parent's nightmare: His son Nic's descent from exceptionally bright varsity athlete and honor student into methamphetamine addiction. While in the depths of this fastest growing, most addictive, and most dangerous drug in America today, Nic becomes a homeless thief. David and (now sober) Nic tell the story from both sides. Learn more...

Ready for "Red Hot Jewish Dance Music?" JSOF's got the whole megillah covered for a great Purim dance party. The Red Hot Chachkas, voted best Bay Area Jewish Dance Band in the J's 2007 Readers Choice Award, will be on stage in the JCCSF's Kanbar Hall belting out a mix of traditional klezmer favorites along with danceable swing, reggae and jazz. Learn more...

The president of American Jewish World Service since 1998, Ruth W. Messinger has worked tirelessly to support grassroots social change projects throughout the world, particularly in Darfur, Sudan. Prior to assuming her role with AJWS, she was in public service in New York City for two decades. Learn more...

Rabbi Irwin Kula presents Judaism Beyond the Tribe: Jewish Wisdom in a Post-Modern World. It's a stimulating lecture on the state of Jewsih identity in the 21st century. Rabbi Kula asks, "What if we began to treat Judaism as having less to do with being Jewish and more with being one of a number of profound ways available to all people for becoming more deeply human?" Learn more...

The JCCSF presents Gary David Goldberg, creator of the hit TV sitcoms "Family Ties" and "Spin City," in conversation with Barbara Lane, JCCSF Director of Lectures & Literature. Goldberg is the author of the new book Sit, Ubu, Sit, in which he shares a rare behind-the scenes look at the entertainment industry. Learn more...

Audience favorite Robert Moses' Kin returns to Kanbar Hall to present its 13th annual home season. The company delivers a diverse evening of extreme athleticism, eclectic choreography, socially relevant themes, and engaging performances. Highlights include both world premieres and old favorites. Don't miss out on what the San Francisco Chronicle calls an "edgy but eloquent style." Learn more...

Rabbi Brad Hirschfield discusses his new book You Don't Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism. Hirschfield, one of Newsweek's Top 50 Rabbis in America, is co-president of CLAL - The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. The book is a story of his journey from his life as a militant in the West bank to his current position, a pragmatic exploration of religious tension today, and a plea for tolerance between faiths. Learn more...

Willie Brown rose from the rural, segregated Texas of the Depression to become the two-term mayor of San Francisco, the longest-serving ever Speaker of the California Assembly, and one of the most influential black politicians in American history. Hear Willie on manipulating big money and big media in today's politics plus his take on today's top political figures, ranging from Barack Obama to George W. Bush. Learn more...

Philip Zimbardo is internationally recognized as the "voice and face of contemporary psychology" through his PBS-TV series, Discovering Psychology, his best-selling trade books on shyness, and his classic research, The Stanford Prison Experiment. His new book is The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. Learn more...

Giants of Jazz on Film: Treasures from the Archive features dozens of historical classic jazz performances captured on film, presented by master archivist Mark Cantor. Among the performers to be shared are Benny Goodman, Ben Webster, Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Nat "King" Cole, Sidney Bechet, Billie Holiday, Gerry Mulligan, Kid Ory and many others. Learn more...

Israeli American actress, stand-up artist and neuroscientist Iris Bahr presents a startling, provocative and entertaining solo show about the splintered Israeli psyche. She portrays inhabitants of all strata of Israeli society, as well as its observers and critics--eccentric, lost, hilarious souls whose lives, quirks and neuroses are channeled through Bahr's remarkable characterizations. Learn more...

In Slavic folklore, Rusalki are powerful, enticing female entities who inhabit waters, forest and fields. These mysterious and unpredictable nature-spirits inspire this vocal-theater project co-created by Kitka, Ukranian composer and music director Mariana Sadovska and stage director Ellen Sebastian Chang. Come prepared to be enthralled, haunted and ultimately drawn into this beautiful realm between the worlds. Learn more...

Celebrate the Festival of Lights with a festival of dance. Do some big time Hanukkah partying to Rolando's blend of Latin jazz, flamenco, samba and Afro-Cuban music. Be sure to come in your dancing shoes for this no-holds-barred, fun celebration. This event is designed for Jewish singles over 40. Learn more...

Filmmakers Patricia Keith and Sean Cassidy have taken their cameras by landcruiser and horse cart to the "top of the world," where singing and laughter ring through the mountains and valleys of Tibet. They visit Buddhist monasteries, join pilgrims on a sacred Kora, sing with blind children and view Everest up close. The film will be followed by a discussion with the filmmakers. Learn more...

Whenever political satirist Mark Russell is down in the dumps, he opens the newspaper and immediately cheers up. Practically everything he sees strikes him as funny. "Some days," he says, "the jokes jump off the pages and write themselves." Now in his 25th season on PBS, his work remains live, fresh and topical, performing stand-up comedy while accompanying himself on the piano. Learn more...

The Friend Center presents a fun-filled evening of music from the pantheon of Broadway greats. Whether it's Rogers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Lowe, Kander & Ebb or the Gershwins, we'll lift our voices together in song. It's a "grand night for singing" -- so bring the whole family! Learn more...

Canadian trumpeter and founder of Toronto's famed Ashkenaz Festival David Buchbinder teams up with Cuban-born Juno Award-winning pianist and composer Hilario Durán, and a crew of brilliant musicians to create a spectacular musical fusion. This one-of-a-kind concert will feature a mix of sounds from contrasting traditions: Bulgar and Bembé, Sher and Son Montuno, Hora and Habanera. Learn more...

Trek across West Africa with filmmakers Mary Lee and Sid Nolan as they journey through exotic and colorful regions of Senegal, Mali and all the way to the gateway to Timbuktu! Tag along as they consult gris gris diviners, visit urban markets and learn about the salt trade across the Sahara. The film will be followed by a talk back session where the audience interacts with the filmmakers. Learn more...

While it's hard to imagine the Bible as a hot intellectual commodity among Harvard students, enrollment in James Kugel's introductory course topped all other undergraduate courses for years -- even economics! The now-retired professor makes his home in Jerusalem, and brings public access to the very popular course for the first time through this book. Learn more...

The legendary Olympia Dukakis stars in a concert reading of Rose, the epic story of a Jewish octogenarian looking back on her life, from her birth in the Ukraine to her escape from the Nazis, her emigration to America and her travels to Israel. This poignant story of a survivor explores the meaning of Jewish identity in the modern world. Learn more...

Comprised of dancers with and without disabilities, Oakland's contemporary dance company explores physically integrated dance, locally, nationally and internationally. In their Friend Center debut, AXIS Dance Company will perform Margaret Jenkins' "Waypoint" (2006) and a preview of a new work by Joe Goode, followed by a panel discussion about their work. Learn more...

India defies every attempt at definition. There are more than one billion people, thousands of languages and almost every religion known to man. And somehow, all of it has mixed into one vast, raucous and unruly democracy. Join director and cinematographer Rick Ray as he shares his journey to explore one of the most fascinating countries on earth. Learn more...

Bruce Dern, a Hollywood veteran whose movies range from Silent Running to Hang 'Em High to The Great Gatsby, talks candidly about his career -- which has seen him work with actors and directors ranging from Alfred Hitchcock, John Wayne, and Clint Eastwood to Matt Damon, Bob Dylan, and Paul Newman. Learn more...

The Klezmatics, world-renowned superstars of the klezmer world, make their Friend Center debut. Their music is steeped in Jewish spiritualism and Eastern European tradition while incorporating more provocative themes such as social rights and anti-fundamentalism with eclectic musical influences such as gospel, punk and Arab, African and Balkan rhythms. Learn more...

Peter Cole's magnificent translations convey the beauty and mystique of Hebrew culture in medieval Spain and give English readers unprecedented access to the most powerful body of Jewish poetry written since the Bible. Cole's groundbreaking work has radically altered the landscape of Jewish literature in the English-speaking world. Come hear why. Learn more...