Todd Salovey is a theatre director, writer, and producer. He is the Associate Artistic Director of San Diego Repertory Theatre and the Founding Artistic Director of the Lipinsky Family San Diego Jewish Arts Festival. Todd is also on the faculty of UCSD in both the Departments of Theatre and Dance and the Rady School of Management. He is also very active in the San Diego Jewish Community and has served as Board Chair of Congregation Adat Yeshurun, Torah High School,…

Movie Choice is: The Life Ahead (2020): In seaside Italy, a Holocaust survivor with a daycare business takes in a 12-year-old street kid who recently robbed her.     There is no fee, but please RSVP for planning purposes. This event is held virtually on Zoom. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the event. 

For some, genealogy is taking bits and pieces from parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Trying to create a path that leads you back to an earlier place in your family history. Most adoptees have no idea where or how to begin looking for their birth family. It is very important for an adoptee to learn where they came from and their medical history. Learn about methods to uncover adoptions in your family from a real-life case study. I am…

Movie Choice is: Mank (2020): Mank is a 2020 American biographical drama film about screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz and his development of the screenplay for Citizen Kane (1941). Directed by David Fincher, based on a screenplay by his late father Jack Fincher, the film was produced by Ceán Chaffin, Douglas Urbanski, and Eric Roth. It stars Gary Oldman in the title role, Amanda Seyfried, Lily Collins, Arliss Howard, Tom Pelphrey, Sam Troughton, Ferdinand Kingsley, Tuppence Middleton, Tom Burke, Joseph Cross, Jamie McShane, Toby Leonard Moore, Monika Gossmann, and Charles Dance. There is no fee, but please RSVP for planning purposes. This event is held virtually on Zoom. After…

Join us as Beth Israel's Senior Rabbi, Rabbi Jason Nevarez, takes on a virtual journey of his favorite places in Israel - from historical to the cultural adventure and beyond. Originally from New York City, Rabbi Nevarez graduated from the Bronx High School of Science, and went to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he received his BA in 1998. He was ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York in 2006, where he earned…

Martha (Vanessa Kirby) and Sean (Shia LaBeouf) are a Boston couple on the verge of parenthood whose lives change irrevocably when a home birth ends in unimaginable tragedy. Thus begins a yearlong odyssey for Martha, who must navigate her grief while working through fractious relationships with Sean and her domineering mother (Ellen Burstyn), along with the publicly vilified midwife (Molly Parker), whom she must face in court. The movie can be found on Netflix. This spirited cinema discussion group is…

The doctor approaches you and says, “Your mother is seriously ill and we have to put her on a ventilator to keep her alive. Do you want us to do everything?” Your answer is, of course, “Yes, I want you to do everything.” Then you think, “Why is he asking me this question?” You assume that by doing everything, your mother will be saved. What you may not realize, however, is that this decision may subject your loved one to…

"I Care a Lot" is a film about a crooked legal guardian who drains the savings of her elderly wards meets her match when a woman she tries to swindle turns out to be more than she first appears. (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9893250/) Poised with sharklike self-assurance, Marla Grayson is a professional, court-appointed guardian for dozens of elderly wards whose assets she seizes and cunningly bilks through dubious but legal means. It's a well-oiled racket that Marla and her business partner and lover,…

In this program featuring a range of jazz standards to Ladino classics, Carla Berg will be sharing and exploring moments of her life through songs and examining how her ethnic background influences who she is and how she expresses herself through songwriting. In particular, she will examine growing up as a Jew in Brazil (however being a child of immigrants ), and her adjustment to becoming American. This program will feature accompanist Richard E Miller. When performing, she loves when…

Following the economic collapse of a company town in rural Nevada, Fern (Frances McDormand) packs her van and sets off on the road exploring a life outside of conventional society as a modern-day nomad. The third feature film from director Chloé Zhao, NOMADLAND features real nomads Linda May, Swankie and Bob Wells as Fern's mentors and comrades in her exploration through the vast landscape of the American West. (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9770150/) The movie can be found on Hulu. This spirited cinema discussion…

Finding your place in a family tree that has only one branch, the other shorn by the Holocaust, is a tricky business. Gail Weiss Gaspar grew up believing that her worth was tied to busyness and productivity, with achievement and education prized above all other accomplishments. Keenly aware that her beloved father survived Auschwitz and the brutal environment of the Mauthausen labor camp, she silenced her suffering because nothing could match what he endured. Gail’s family had secrets, as all…

Pushing thirty, and defined by a hideous crime involving her bosom friend, Nina, emotionally scarred medical school dropout, Cassie, knows firsthand that some wounds never heal. Leading an uneventful existence, still living with her parents, waiting tables at a cheap coffee shop to earn a living, Cassie has found the perfect way to deal with the painful past. Dressed to kill, at night, Cassie frequents the local bars and nightclubs, pretending to be dead-drunk, utterly helpless and vulnerable. And, every…

Fred Shatsky has been a docent with the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum since it opened to the public in 2004. As a speaker with the Midway's Speakers Bureau, he's given many lectures throughout San Diego about the Midway.  Fred has adapted a PowerPoint slideshow lecture specifically for Beth Israel to be presented in a Zoom session 1:30 - 2:30 PM on Thursday, May 20.  He will discuss the history of the Midway being the longest-serving aircraft carrier in the…

Scott Pirrello is the Head of Elder Abuse Prosecutions for the San Diego District Attorney’s Office and has been a prosecutor for 15 years. Since 2009, Scott has been assigned to the Family Protection Division prosecuting a variety of Family Violence cases including Elder Abuse, Domestic Violence, and Child Abuse cases.  Scott now focuses exclusively on prosecuting all varieties of Elder Abuse including physical, financial, sexual, and neglect cases and the vulnerable victims that come with them.   Scott has more…

Leona (2018): A young Jewish woman from Mexico City finds herself torn between her family and her forbidden love with a non-Jewish man. He allows her to discover the world outside the bubble of her community, leading to an important transition in her adult life. (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8446886/) For a list of places to rent the film, visit: https://www.menemshafilms.com/leona The film is available to rent on Amazon for $4.99: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B099D5BJ5Q/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r This spirited cinema discussion group is led by film guru Linda Levine.…

Join Dr. Stan Schatt on a journey through time and space as he looks at how humanity is evolving and where it likely is headed. What exactly makes us human? From the Neanderthals, our ancient relatives huddled around a fire, through our people living in ancient Egypt and the Middle Ages, and ultimately to our distant relatives in the far future who might not even be unrecognizable by our current standards, Schatt offers evidence from archaeology, anthropology, genetics, history, philosophy,…

WORTH (2020): Following the horrific 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Congress appoints attorney and renowned mediator Kenneth Feinberg (Michael Keaton) to lead the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. Assigned with allocating financial resources to the victims of the tragedy, Feinberg and his firm's head of operations, Camille Biros (Amy Ryan), face the impossible task of determining the worth of a life to help the families who had suffered incalculable losses. When Feinberg locks horns with Charles…

“He was a one-off, the greatest one-off in twentieth-century art.” His artworks are some of the most familiar images in modern art. His images were reproduced countless times on posters, mugs, T-shirts, stationary… Yet, most of us really know very little about MC Escher. A genius artist, a one-man art movement. A man with keen observation skills who created visual riddles and optical curiosities. A man who thorough his art represented the infinite, the optical illusions, the metamorphosis and the…