News

Jewish Story Partners, a Los Angeles-based non-profit film funding organization, announced its third round of grantees today, with $468,000 in new grants distributed among 16 projects. The films traverse a rich variety of Jewish experiences, among them powerful stories from award-winning filmmakers like Michel Franco, Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, Julia Mintz, Pierre Sauvage, Jason Osder, William Youmans, and Joshua Zeman.

OMCA is one of six organizations to win the 2022 National Medal for Museum and Library Service. It is the nation’s highest honor given to museums and libraries that make significant and exceptional contributions to their communities. The award will be presented at a ceremony in July in Washington, DC.

Prior to the official opening of The Girl in the Diary Exhibit – Search for Rywka from the Lodz Ghetto at the Karpeles Manuscript Library in Buffalo on Jan. 27, 2022, Jakub Nowakowski, director of the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow, answered a few questions for the Am-Pol Eagle. Read the full interview below:

OMCA is welcoming Spring at its newly-renovated outdoor gardens. Lunchtime Sessions will feature dance, music, and children’s literature events every Saturday in March at noon. Grab a picnic blanket and bring your lunch, or stop by the museum cafe or Off the Grid Food Trucks, and enjoy a live outdoor performance. For more details on upcoming programs, visit museumca.org.

IsraAID’s “safe space” for mothers and families on the Ukrainian-Moldovan border provides essential hygiene supplies to refugee families, and gives children a safe place to play and be kids, which is crucial after a harrowing journey and for processing trauma. More than 97,000 refugees have crossed from Ukraine into Moldova, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

The California Academy of Sciences is one of just three organizations this year to be awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) for its Careers in Science program.

Exactly a year after longtime director Neal Benezra stepped down from his role, SFMOMA has named Christopher Bedford, formerly of the Baltimore Museum of Art, as its new director.

Freestyle Love Supreme, the unscripted musical from Lin-Manuel Miranda, began its national tour at ACT in San Francisco last week. Read more about the show below:

SF Opera will celebrate its centennial with a packed season of eight productions for 2022-23. The first operatic offering will be the world premiere of “Antony and Cleopatra,” an opera by Berkeley composer John Adams based on the play by Shakespeare. The full slate of productions can be found in the press release below.

Tamara Rojo has been announced as the next artistic director of the San Francisco Ballet. Rojo joins the organization from the English National Ballet, and will be the first woman ever to lead SF Ballet.

The Jewish Journal published a spotlight of The Willesden Project, Koret’s global initiative with USC Shoah Foundation and Hold On To Your Music. Read the full article to learn more about Koret’s Holocaust education work.

Delayed by a year due to the pandemic, Mozart’s romantic comedy is set in the opulent 1930’s and is embellished by Henrik Nánási’s conducting, which is “buoyant, robust, elegant, and lithe,” according to the SF Chronicle.