About 30% of people diagnosed with breast cancer at any stage will develop distal metastasis. I am one.
Today’s video features Shirana, the women’s choir of the Arab-Jewish Community Center in Jaffa, Israel sing Had Gadya. Had Gadya (חד גדייא) is a folk song traditionally sung in Aramaic at the end of the Passover Seder (the liturgical meal that opens the week-long holiday). The lyrics are in Aramaic and are...
Today’s video is a presentation of one of my favorite coexistance and dialogue projects in Jerusalem: the Magnificat Institute of Jerusalem, a music conservatory where young Christians, Muslims and Jews study, play and perform together under the guidance of Christian, Muslim and Jewish teachers. The pupils have the possibility of earning a...
Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and the glass harp – if ever a piece of music and an instrument were made for each other… I gained a new appreciation and a different perspective on this familiar work. The glass harp, invented in 1741 by the Irishman Richard Pockrich,...
This is wonderful. Two days ago, students from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance created a “flashwaltz” in the lobby of the new inpatient tower on Hadassah Hospital’s Ein Karem campus. This is the campus where the Sharett Institute of Oncology is located, where I receive treatment. I haven’t...
In keeping with a longstanding tradition that I established last year(*), I’m going to offer about a week of videos I like so that everyone can celebrate my birthday with me. For the record, on Thursday the 14th of March I will be 58 years old – and counting! Today...
On a visit to Moscow in the 1980s, Dave Brubeck was asked to improvise “on a Russian theme”. The audience laughed when he started to play “The Song of the Volga Boatmen”, but the laughter soon turned to appreciation when he started to blues and jazz it up. When a...
It is Christmas Eve in the Holy Land. I don’t often speak explicitly about my faith, but it’s no secret that I am a devoutly believing Christian. While the exact date is open to debate, Jesus was born – amazing event! – just about an hour’s walk from where I’m...
I did my best, it wasn’t much I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you And even though it all went wrong I’ll stand before the Lord of Song With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
I doubt that anyone who reads Telling Knots needs an introduction to the Dave Brubeck Quartet (but if you do, start here). “Take Five” from their 1959 album Time Out was the first jazz piece that I remember listening to and enjoying. I must have been in the first grade...