Dayenu makes it a decade

February 28, 2010 by  

Dayenu had no problem selecting a theme for this year’s Mardi Gras…it was their 10th anniversary. Read more

Mar-02 Melbourne: Costco open Kosher LePesach section

February 28, 2010 by  

Melbourne’s Costco store’s Kosher LePesach section to be opened by Israel’s Ambassador Yuval Rotem. Read more

Pesach prices plummet!

February 28, 2010 by  

Melbourne’s Costco store will sell Kosher LePesach merchandise for rock-bottom prices. Read more

Jewish Care launches appeal

February 28, 2010 by  

Melbourne’s Jewish Care has launched its 2010 appeal. Read more

Mar-25 Sydney: Klezmer Connection

February 28, 2010 by  

Yiddish and Gypsy music performed by Fay Sussman and her band… Read more

Mar-01 Ness Ziona, Israel: Commemoration of a memorial to fallen NZ soldiers

February 28, 2010 by  

The New Zealand ambassador to Israel and the New Zealand Minister for Foreign Affairs, Murray McCully, will attend the commemoration. Read more

New Zealand Foreign Minister en route to Israel

February 27, 2010 by  

New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully heads to the Middle East on Friday for a five-day visit to Egypt, Israel, Ramallah (in the occupied Palestinian territories), and Turkey. Read more

Australian passports used in Dubai killing

February 25, 2010 by  

Israel’s ambassador Yuval Rotem was summoned to FOreign Minister Stephen Smith’s office following the announcement in Dubai that three Australian passports had been used by the team which assassinated Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai last month. Read more

First grand final of 2010 to Maccabi

In the first Grand Final of 2010, the Maccabi Rockets have defeated the Cheetahs Free Ballers in the NSW Men’s Basketball Division 5 competition. Read more

A simcha in Israel

February 25, 2010 by  

Not sure how to organise a simcha in Israel? Nanci and Stephen Schwartz can help. Read more

Zentai appeals to the HRC

February 23, 2010 by  

Lawyers acting for Charles Zentai, the Perth man facing extradition to Hungary to face questioning about the 1944 death of a Jewish youth in Budapest, have appealed to the Human Rights Commission to “safeguard their client’s rights”. Read more

Government White Paper on counter-terrorism gets ECAJ tick

February 23, 2010 by  

The President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Robert Goot, has welcomed the Australian government’s  latest white paper on counter-terrorism. Read more

Israeli-born artist and Maitland Cemetery

February 22, 2010 by  

Hanna Kay’s paintings of the Jewish cemetery in Maitland are currently being exhibited in Moree before being shown in Melbourne next month. Read more

Around the Kosher world

February 22, 2010 by  

Last week Egypt and Venezuela, this week Hungary and India…Sydney’s Great Synagogue explores the world of Jewish food. Read more

Baby Minyan at the Great

February 22, 2010 by  

Ten babies had their first taste of shule community at Sydney’s Great Synagogue’s Mazal Tot Shabbat. Read more

Feldstein New York bound

February 21, 2010 by  

Jack Feldstein is a Sydney-based film-maker specialising in animated movies using a neon process. He is heading to New York. Read more

Holly Torah

February 21, 2010 by  

Reader Marc Schneider points to a somewhat tenuous result in the snow-boarding event at the Winter Olympics. Read more

Short+Sweet to present controversial play

February 21, 2010 by  

7 Jewish Children, the British play produced in Melbourne last year under a cloud of controversy, will be performed at Sydney’s NIDA’s theatre this week. Read more

Shutter Island ***

February 19, 2010 by  

Spoiler Alert: Although every effort has been made to limit the revelations in this review, it’s difficult to provide a coherent discussion of Shutter Island without giving away something, so readers are hereby placed on alert. If you’re familiar with the book, however, there’s no reason to stop here…

What’s wrong with Shutter Island? This has been the question ever since Paramount Pictures elected to move the Martin Scorsese-directed thriller from its comfortable pre-Oscar position to the wastelands of February. It turns out that there’s nothing wrong with Shutter Island – except perhaps that it’s not Oscar worthy material. An atmospheric mind-twister of a thriller, this movie delights in playing games with the audience’s perceptions and has been crafted with such competence that it rises above the somewhat generic storyline that forms the basis of Dennis Lehane’s novel. The strength of the film, like the book, is that it never allows the viewer to feel comfortable with what he is watching. That’s because Shutter Island is presented from the perspective of an unreliable narrator and, as such, the lines between fantasy and reality sometimes blur so strongly that it’s easy to become unanchored in trying to distinguish between what’s real and what isn’t. A case can be made that the movie is so enamored with this aspect of its approach that it fails to connect on an emotional level. Shutter Island addresses some powerful, disturbing concepts but, despite effective performances by the leads, the movie’s psychological impact is minimal. It doesn’t pack the powerhouse punch one has come to expect from Scorsese. Still, the director’s consummate skill has lifted what might otherwise be a middling endeavor into something compellingly watchable. It’s another Cape Fear.

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Melanie and Vladamir appeal to UIA women

February 19, 2010 by  

The New South Wales Women’s Division has reported highly successful functions featuring UK journalist Melanie Philips and  Russian émigré  Vladamir Milner. Read more

3 Legends rock for Yeshiva

February 19, 2010 by  

Sydney’s community was treated to a night of Chassidic entertainment with a dose of Aussie country and western thrown in for good measure. Read more

Court told Gray supplied with heroin

February 18, 2010 by  

22-yr-old Sherryn Davis did not appear in court today to answer charges that she supplied heroin to former Socceroo Maccabi footbal coach Ian Gray causing his death. Read more

Melbourne’s Glen Eira Villas officially opened

February 18, 2010 by  

Victorian Premier John Brumby has officially opened Glen Eira Villas, Jewish Care’s newest housing development for people with a disability. Read more

Valentine’s Day **

February 18, 2010 by  

It is possible to gather a star-studded ensemble cast and make a frothy, delightful movie about love in its many guises. Richard Curtis did it with Love, Actually and a parcel of international directors accomplished something similar with the duet of Paris, Je t’aime and New York, I Love You. The strengths of those films, however – the ability to tell interesting stories and generate substantive characters despite limited screen time – are absent here. Valentine’s Day’s greatest strength – its cast – becomes its most obvious weakness. With so many actors fighting for a few extra minutes in front of the camera, this feels like a parade of famous faces, not a motion picture. And, while a few of the skits show glimmers of promise, many are time wasters.

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Crazy Heart ***

February 18, 2010 by  

Crazy Heart is the country music version of The Wrestler: a grizzled veteran whose days in the spotlight are behind him struggles to keep going while seeing the world through a haze of regret and booze. The story is unremarkable; the alcoholic coming to terms with an addiction and striving to overcome it has provided the framework for everything from compelling cinema to maudlin made-for-TV movies. What elevates Crazy Heartis the remarkable performance of Jeff Bridges. The Oscar buzz about Bridges, which began to build slowly before reaching a critical mass when Fox Searchlight decided to go to bat for him, is driving this production. Not to take anything away from Bridges’ co-star, Maggie Gyllenhaal, or supporting performers Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell, but everything that is compelling about Crazy Heart is filtered through Bridges. He, more than the story or the direction of first-time filmmaker Scott Cooper or T-Bone Burnett’s country/western songs, is the reason to set aside two hours to watch this.

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The Hurt Locker ***+

February 18, 2010 by  

War is hell. It’s a cliché, but not one that Hollywood often embraces. There are exceptions, of course, like Oliver Stone’s Platoon, which takes no prisoners in depicting war as the gruesome, dehumanizing business it is. But Platoon and other films cut from the same cloth are more dramas than thrillers. The question is whether it’s possible to generate white-knuckle, grip-the-edge-of-the-seat tension in a war movie without turning it into a glorification of violence and bloodshed. Director Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron’s ex and the filmmaker behind Point Break and Strange Days, answers this question with a definitive, uncompromising “yes!” On a weekend when the effects-choked Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen staggers into theaters like a stoned 800-pound gorilla and threatens to put audiences to sleep with its brand of deadly dull “action,” The Hurt Locker is the film to see for those seeking an elevated pulse. It’s 20 minutes shorter and about three times more exciting.

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Woman charged following the death of Ian Gray

February 17, 2010 by  

A 22-yr-old woman has been charged with manslaughter, supplying a prohibited drug and stealing. Read more

Westfield meets forecast

February 17, 2010 by  

Westfield chiefs, Steven and Peter and Lowy havee announced the company has achieved its forecast in results released today. Read more

Maccabi football coach Ian Gray dead at 46

February 17, 2010 by  

Police are treating the death of popular Maccabi NSW Maccabi soccer coach Ian Gray as suspicious. Read more

Learning to grow old

February 17, 2010 by  

The Burger Centre held a seminar on ‘Ageing and how to delay it’  in their Randwick centre in Sydney. Read more

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