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...

The Jewish Community Center of San Francisco welcomes This Is So Not About the Simpsons, in which Harry Shearer (known for his roles in This Is Spinal Tap and, well, The Simpsons) and Judith Owen skewer American culture and politics with a mixture of comedy, music, and video. It was one of the biggest hits of the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Learn more...

For 22 years, this group of lovable musicians and educators from the coastal redwoods of Northern California have been singing songs ranging from rockin' boogies to sensitive ballads, reggae and rap. Using music, theater, puppetry and audience participation, they create a fun-filled learning experience, exuding a joyful sense of wonder for the world around them. Learn more...

Out of Egypt is Andre Aciman's acclaimed memoir of life in Alexandria through the year 1965, when the last members of Aciman's family fled the country. A story of loss and longing, it established Aciman as a sharp, humorous and heartbreaking chronicler of a bygone era. Learn more...

Named by Dance Magazine one of "The Top 25 to Watch," LEVYdance will present an invigorating evening of original works. The program will include the world premiere of Bone Lines, an exploration of director Benjamin Levy's Persian-Jewish heritage. The piece features an original score composed by Keeril Makan and recorded by the Kronos Quartet, costumes by French couture designer Colleen Quen and a set by industrial designer Rick Lee. Learn more...

Israeli author Michal Govrin (The Name) discusses her new novel, Snapshots, a heartbreaking book that examines through one woman's life the Jewish story and the state of Israel in the most intimate way possible. Winner of The Akum Prize for Book of the Year, it has been called a masterwork of Israeli contemporary literature in the original and is now available for the first time in English translation. Learn more...

Feinsmith Quartet is a new music ensemble, led by composer Daniel David Feinsmith, that commissions and performs spiritually powerful works. Feinsmith is committed to exploring Jewish music that lies outside the standard folk and improvisational models. Featuring virtuoso performers Jennifer Culp, cello, Michael Manring, bass, Christopher Taylor, piano and Gyan Riley on guitar, this concert presents new works by Feinsmith and Riley as well as a reprise of the critically acclaimed Elohim. Learn more...

Appel & Frank presents Babes & Babies, a fabulous shopping event for moms and babies, with 50 talented designers featuring adorable baby clothes, accessories and more, all at discounted prices! Admission includes a goodie bag. Children under 10 are free. Learn more...

What do Delancey Street founder Mimi Silbert, veteran broadcaster Belva Davis, and Alumnae Resources founder Glady Thacher have in common? They're all productive, vibrant women over 60, and their stories reveal the exciting possibility of continual growth for all of us. Join image consultant Gwen Mazer, another amazing over-60, as she gathers this group of women to celebrate a stage of life rich with grace and continuing potential. An inspiration for women (and men!) of all ages. Learn more...

This exciting Israeli-Moroccan singer's renditions of traditional Pan-Mediterranean music are presented in Arabic, Hebrew and Spanish. Her seductively beautiful voice and her stirring message of peace transcend language and time. Learn more...

Music historian Jody Rosen explores Jewish dialect songs and novelty hits performed by vaudeville's Hebrew comedians. Why did Jewish audiences thrill to songs that seemed to slander them? What hidden history links "Over the Rainbow" and "God Bless America" to "Yonkle, the Cowboy Jew"? Come and find out. Learn more...

In this world premiere, a specially commissioned composition featuring several master musicians from Azerbaijan, India, China, Israel, Iran, Afghanistan, Kurdistan and the U.S. debuts at Kanbar Hall. This international collaboration is led by composer and kamanche master Imamyar Hasanov in a groundbreaking and memorable concert. Learn more...

Mitch Albom, author of the best-selling books Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven, presents For One More Day, an inspiring lecture about the families we love and the chances we miss. Learn more...

The JCCSF presents a special reading and book launch with Robert Alter. Alter's masterful translations of the Hebrew Bible have shown that by learning to enjoy the biblical stories more fully as stories, one sees more clearly what they mean to tell us about God, human beings, and history. In Alter's latest undertaking, The Book of Psalms, David's songs never sounded more dignified. Learn more...

Mayer Kirshenblatt grew up in Poland and immigrated to Toronto in 1934. Through conversations and interviews with his daughter, Barbara, a Yiddish anthropologist, and his own paintings, Mayer re-created Jewish life in a pre-Holocaust Polish town. The result was They Called Me Mayer July, a book and art exhibition. JCCSF presents the book launch and West coast premiere. Learn more...

The three original comedy stars of Catskills on Broadway--creator Freddie Roman, the extraordinary Mal Z. Lawrence and honorary Bar-Mitzvah boy and funnyman Dick Capri--come to Kanbar Hall with their hit Broadway show. Catskills features the clean, funny and realistic type of family humor that will be familiar to all. Learn more...

Celebrate Gay Pride Month with some of America's top Jewish musicians in a new show celebrating queer weddings and commitment ceremonies. Combining stories from actual queer weddings, klezmer and Yiddish songs, juggling, poetry and more, this moving and hysterical new work brings to the stage original insight on love and commitment in the 21st century. Learn more...

Icons of the feminist movement and some of the greatest minds of the 20th century, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas were prolific writers. This staged reading incorporates text from Stein's last book, Brewsie and Willie (1946) and Toklas' first book, The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook (1954), blending them with the writings of GIs at the end of World War II, creating a fascinating picture of daily life together in occupied France during the war. Learn more...

For more than 12 years, during both the Bush (Sr.) and Clinton administrations, Ambassador Dennis B. Ross played the leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process. Ross believes the current administration's problems stem from its inability to use the tools of statecraft--diplomatic, economic and military--to advance U.S. interests. Hear his inside account of how diplomacy works. Learn more...

Composer, author, world music preservationist and Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart comes to the JCCSF! Today Hart spearheads the Endangered Music Fund, which returns recording royalties to indigenous songwriters, and serves as a Trustee of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. Hart's most recent book, Songcatchers: In Search of the World's Music, documents his lifelong fascination with the history and mythology of music. Learn more...

Back by popular demand, ODC/Dance's high-energy troupe delights the imagination and thrills the senses with their magical moves. In an interactive modern dance performance especially created for families with young children, audiences will be entertained by a mix of new works and old favorites. Learn more...

The piano is the ultimate instrument: melody, harmony, and rhythm all produced at the same time, by one performer, on one instrument. Mark Cantor's program "Giants of Jazz on Film: Piano Jazz" considers the role of the piano in jazz, with film clips of some of the greats--Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum, Duke Ellington, Willie "The Lion" Smith, Nat "King" Cole, Bill Evans, and more. Learn more...

A pioneer in extended vocal technique and interdisciplinary performance MacArthur "Genius" Meredith Monk has alternately been proclaimed a "magician of the voice" and "one of America's coolest composers." Her wordless music combines the technical virtuosity of classical music, the poignancy and directness of folk, the freedom and flexibility of jazz, and the excitement of rock and roll. Learn more...

The Jewish Community Center of San Francisco presents author Nathan Englander (For the Relief of Unbearable Urges) in conversation with Dan Schifrin. Englander has been compared to such literary masters as Isaac Bashevis Singer, Philip Roth and Bernard Malamud. His long-awaited new novel, The Ministry of Special Cases, is about the Jewish community in Buenos Aires on the eve of Argentina's 1976 military coup. Learn more...

Alan Dershowitz has been called "the best-known criminal lawyer in the world." While he is known for defending clients such as Claus von Bülow, O.J. Simpson, Michael Milken and Mike Tyson, he continues to represent numerous indigent defendants and takes half of his cases pro bono. He's the author of 20 works of fiction and nonfiction, including six bestsellers. Learn more...

In his new book, 1967 -- a number-one bestseller in Hebrew -- renowned historian and Ha'aretz columnist Tom Segev brings his masterful skills to the watershed year when six days of war reshaped Israel and the Middle East. This is a not-to-be-missed event marking the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War and the release of Segev's 1967. Learn more...

Yuri Lane stars in his new beatbox play, The Making of a Human Beatbox. The show chronicles his Jewish past through a unique combination of beatboxing, mime and dance. This autobiographical piece journeys back to his birthplace, Holland, and into his childhood in the Haight-Ashbury. Learn more...

Pacific Chamber Symphony's "Landscapes" concert features Kodaly's gypsy melodies and dances, as well as Mendelssohn's sunny "Italian" Symphony, which includes the Pilgrims' March and the Saltarello. The symphony also presents the world premiere of "Anointed" by Daniel David Feinsmith, a composition of melodies and chanted Old Testament names. Learn more...

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former U.S. Poet Laureate Louise Glück reads from Averno, her most recent book of poetry, as well as from her award-winning collections Vita Nova and The Wild Iris. Don't miss this special celebration in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Awards for Poems on the Jewish Experience. Learn more...

Robert Klein has been making audiences laugh on stage as well on film and TV screens since his days in Chicago's comedy troupe Second City. His Broadway credits include They're Playing our Song and Wendy Wasserstein's The Sisters Rosenzweig. He was the first comedian to appear in a live concert for HBO in 1975, and has since done seven more. Learn more...

Biographer Walter Isaacson (Benjamin Franklin) reveals the person behind the Einstein myth. How did an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk--a struggling father in a difficult marriage who couldn't get an academic job or a doctorate--become the locksmith of the mysteries of the atom and the universe? Learn more...

Melding Southern fiddle with gypsy melodies and percussion hailing from Eastern Europe, blues with Appalachia, and all-American hoedown honky-tonk with wild and passionate Jewish and pre-war Russian klezmer, the Klezmer Mountain Boys create a hybrid style of music that's at once raw, funny, melancholic, melodic and foot-stomping fun! Learn more...

As Israel's most acclaimed young writer, Etgar Keret has conspicuously diverged from the pioneers-and-politics narrative that is central to Israel's literary style, choosing instead to tell stories of love, loss and everyday neuroses. Mr. Keret will read from The Nimrod Flipout, his latest collection to be translated into English. A bestseller in Israel, it blends magical realism with the mundane...to surprising effect. Learn more...

The Keyboard Conversation series presents "An American Salute" -- lyrical, jazzy, tuneful favorites by America's most beloved composers. The program includes the San Francisco premiere of Leonard Bernstein's unpublished "Meditation on a Wedding," Gottschalk's popular showpiece "The Union," Copland's humorous "Cat and the Mouse" and Gershwin's own solo piano arrangement of "Rhapsody in Blue." Jeffrey Siegel is the evening's pianist and host. Learn more...

This film presentation of historical jazz performances celebrates the importance of women in the development of jazz. Clips include notable performers and bands like the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, Ina Ray Hutton and her Melodears, the big bands of Rita Rio and Ada Leonard, soloists Melba Liston, Corky Hale and Hazel Scott. The evening includes a live performance by jazz pianist Corky Hale. Learn more...

Created by choreographer, dancer and impresario Richard Move, Martha@ pays tribute to the legendary Grande Dame of the Dance, Martha Graham. Richard Move has won accolades in Europe and America with his loving and sincere portrayal of the woman who is considered by many to be the mother of contemporary dance. Learn more...

In the tradition of Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor, Julie Silver's music is warm, witty and wonderful, at turns introspective and engaging, charming and fun. A Bay Area favorite, Julie's music touches people with its beauty and simplicity. Learn more...

Known in Israel by her given name Achinoam Nini, Noa is Israel's leading international concert and recording artist. She's performed with artists like Sting and Stevie Wonder, and sold over 1.5 million albums. See her at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco's Kanbar Hall. Learn more...

This prolific author, whose "A Thousand Acres" was based on Shakespeare's King Lear and was made into a film in 1997, is also a popular commentator and blogger at The Huffington Post. In addition to her insights on American politics, Smiley is also well versed on horse training, marriage, child-rearing, Barbie, impulse buying, and getting dressed. Learn more...

This epic love story features original music by award-winning Asian jazz pioneer Mark Izu, archival Victorian Japanese newspaper articles, and family photographs. Shortly after the Great Earthquake, performance artist Brenda Wong Aoki's great uncle Gunjiro, son of a legendary samurai, fell in love with Helen Emery, daughter of the Archdeacon of San Francisco's Grace Cathedral. Their engagement triggered public outrage and the loss of Ms. Emery's citizenship. Learn more...

Always exciting, edgy and thought-provoking, choreographer Robert Moses and his dance troupe come to Kanbar Hall to present the American premiere of Woman Spelled This Way, a powerful dance set to a collection of spoken word text by significant women from around the world. Additionally, the program will include a dazzling world premiere by Robert Moses created in collaboration with his virtuoso dancers, and a new work by nationally acclaimed choreographer Amy Seiwert, blending classic ballet movement and 21st Century attitude. Learn more...

This exciting evening of classic jazz performances on film is presented by master archivist Mark Cantor. Most of these clips will be new to the audience--even to collectors! From swing and pre-swing (Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington) to the modern giants (Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Rahsaan Roland Kirk), these jazz greats make the silver screen sizzle. Learn more...

Martin Amis--one of the most insightful and incising authors in today's British fiction, comes to the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco to sit down with Barbara Lane, the JCCSF's Director of Lectures & Literature, for an evening of witty and thoughtful discussion. This controversial author's never without a clever, thoughtful comment. Learn more...

In his discussion, author and cultural analyst Geoffrey Nunberg talks about how the way we use the English language has effected our political beliefs. Nunberg has a feature for the NPR program Fresh Air and writes for the Sunday New York Times Magazine. His recent book, Talking Right, is an account of how conservatives have managed to "move the center of gravity of the English language to the right." Learn more...

"We don't hire girls," is what Lynn Sherr was told at the start of her career. But she broke through the glass ceiling anyway, arriving at ABC's 20/20 and covering everything from presidential elections to anorexia and scientific discoveries. Appearing at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, Sherr lectures on her challenging career path and her life. Learn more...

The West Coast's premier new music festival, Other Minds 12, returns to San Francisco. This year the festival includes works by Bay Area-based composer Daniel David Feinsmith (USA), legendary string bass improviser Joelle Leandre (France), vocalist and sound poet Maja Ratkje and the famous improvising trio POING (Norway), and many more diverse and exciting artists. Check the description for complete details and each day's line-up. Learn more...

Join prominent, multicultural Bay Area scholars, clergy and master teachers for workshops and presentations addressing everything from biblical theology to biblical beverages and how the prophets of ancient Israel can inspire contemporary spiritual practice. Keynote speaker Bruce Feiler is the bestselling author of Walking the Bible, Abraham and Where God Was Born. Learn more...

A formidable and consummate artist, Andy Statman is known for his musical wizardry on the mandolin, as well as his innovative interpretations of Jewish music on the clarinet. This program covers the genius of Statman from his distinctive improvisational renditions of klezmer, music of the Chassidic masters and American roots (bluegrass and blues), to original works drawing upon jazz and other traditions. Learn more...

Come and experience perfection: Maestro Kohl reveals Mozart's full brilliance in works that include delightful dances, a beloved serenade, a playful concertante and his magnificent final word on the symphony. Three of the Symphony's principal musicians display their virtuosic talents in ensemble solo with the orchestra. You will be amazed by the Jupiter Symphony, a work of towering magnitude and delight; Mozart even out-Bachs Bach, with a final elegant, powerful fugue. Learn more...

Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, best known for When Bad Things Happen to Good People, turns to the tale of Moses in Overcoming Life's Disappointments, his latest book of practical spirituality. Through the example of the man on the mountaintop to whom God speaks with unparalleled intimacy, Rabbi Kushner demonstrates how to meet life's disappointments with faith in ourselves and the future, and how to respond to heartbreak with understanding rather than bitterness and despair. Learn more...