News of the Muse

A gala benefit concert opens the 7th "Sounds of Childhood Festival" over Hol Hamoed Succot from September 29-October 2 in Holon.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF, AP
israel gurion 88 224 (photo credit: Courtesy)
israel gurion 88 224
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Holon entertains kids this Succot A gala benefit concert opens the seventh Sounds of Childhood Festival over Hol Hamoed Succot from September 29-October 2 in Holon. Native son Nir Kabaretti will conduct the Ra'anana Symphonette that is hosting three "Spivakov Children," 19 year old violinist Svetlana Konavalova, Sergei Yeltsi, 18, on clarinet and pianist Alexander Sintzok, also 19. These young musicians are beneficiaries of the Vladimir Spivakov International Charitable Foundation, an institution the world famous Russian violinist and conductor established in 1994 to seek out and help talented and needy children in his own and other countries. Proceeds from the concert will go to the children's ward at Wolfson Hospital. The Festival's lifetime achievement award will go to actor/director Israel Gurion. The Georgia Dance Ensemble, made up of 25 virtuoso dancers aged 8-17, will present The Legend of Dance. There'll be a musical theater version of Tchaikovsky's immortal The Nutcracker, and a celebration of Leah Goldberg's poems as another musical called Ephraim's Grandma. There are yet more musicals. One is a dance piece called Adventure in the Lost Forest in which a lost naturalist meets a helpful toad, another is Boombox by the Shaktak dance company that encompasses hip hop, breakdance and lots of energy. A third is Chelm, an original piece by Hamutal Ben Zeev based on the hapless citizens of that beloved town. Uzu and Muzu from Kakaruzu, a play by Ephraim Sidon, is a plea for tolerance, Snow White in the Air is a circus with aerial acrobatics, stilt-walking and more, The Surprise Box is an interactive show with Leora Shlesinger, and there's more, including free stuff, workshops and exhibitions. It all happens in and around the Holon Theater, and tickets range from NIS 25 to NIS 90. Helen Kaye Carter: Beware of AIPAC In a new afterword to his controversial Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, former President Carter criticizes the lack of "balanced debate" in the US about the Middle East and warns officials against being "seen as knee-jerk supporters of every action and policy" of the Israeli government. Carter's book, a best-seller first published last year, accuses Israel of harshly mistreating the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Carter has said that conditions there merit the word "apartheid," associated with the former system of racial segregation and oppression in South Africa. Jewish groups and some fellow Democrats strongly objected to the book and more than a dozen members of the Carter Center's advisory board, based in Atlanta, resigned in protest. "In the course of my life I have done things that have provoked controversy," Carter writes in the paperback edition, which has just been released. "In some cases, I admit the criticisms may have been justified. Nothing in the past, however, equaled the outpouring that followed the publication of [this book]." Carter also mentions the pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC. "Under AIPAC pressure, there are few significant countervailing voices in the public arena," he writes, "and any balanced debate is still practically nonexistent in the US Congress or among presidential hopefuls." Carter goes on: "The American friends of Israel who demand such subservience are in many cases sincere and well-intentioned people, but on this crucial issue, they are tragically mistaken." AIPAC did not immediately respond Thursday. AP Saba Tuvia goes on tour After seven years, over 1000 stage performances and sales exceeding 400,000 videotapes, children's entertainer Tuvia Tsafir is putting on a show incorporating the best of all his "Saba Tuvia" shows and videos. Performances will take place from September 6 -30 across the country including Yad LeMaginim on Kibbutz Yagur on September 8, Heichal HaTarbut in Netanya on September 9, Mediateque Holon on the 10th, Ashkelon's Heichal HaTarbut on the 11th, Heichal HaTarbut in Neve Yerek on the 12th, Tichon Rina Sheni in Hadera on the 19th, and Beit Shmuel in Jerusalem on the 30th. Miriam A. Shaviv