Discover the Jewish arts in sunny Florida

Welcome to Florida
Welcome to Florida

With a calendar full of festivals, theatre, music and exhibits, one can attend a different arts event each day, in South Florida, from Miami to Palm Beach.

Theatre:  The Broward Center brings Beautiful, the Carole King Musical, May 10-22. Also at the same venue, Kinky Boots runs March 1-13, and Don Rickles will perform  on March 26.

The play Bridge and Tunnel, at B’nai Torah Congregation, Boca Raton, will be performed on March 16. The Punch Line Theatre Company’s Fifty Shades of Hillary will be at the Coral Springs Center March 11-April 3.

Palm Beach DreamWorks has scheduled Satchmo at the Waldorf beginning May 13.

The Aventura Arts & Cultural Center brings Avi Hoffman’s Still Jewish After All These Years,  April 8-10.

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Becoming Dr. Ruth, An Unexpected Journey will be at the Kravis Center March 9-13.

An Evening With Sophia Loren is scheduled for March 28, at the same venue.

The Levis JCC, Boca Raton, presents Love, Loss and What I Wore, by Nora and Delia Ephron, March 9-13. The Odd Couple (female version) will be at the Soref Jewish Community Center (Plantation), March 12-27.

The comedy My Son the Waiter: A Jewish Tragedy is at The Palm Beaches Theatre, Manalapan, until March 27.

Music: As part of their Jewish Music Festival the Posnack Center presents the Six13 in Concert on March 17, and the Florida Youth Orchestra on April 3.

Other musical events include Tony Bennett In Concert, with very special guest, Antonia Bennett, March 15; and Emanuel Ax, March 22, at the Broward Center.

The Master Chorale of South Florida presents Broadway Legends: Sondheim, Gershwin and Friends, Feb. 19-21.

The 28th Concert Season of the Symphony of the Americas features Broadway March Madness, March 6.

The New World Symphony, Miami Beach, presents Steve Reich’s The Desert Music on April 16, as part of the Seraphic Fire season. The work had its premiere in l984, with Michael Tilson Thomas, and is set to passages from poet William Carlos Williams.

The Kravis Center Pops Orchestra, with conductor Michael Feinstein, brings Sinatra’s 100th Celebration, on Feb. 22, and Hooray for Hollywood, March 30.

The Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra will play music by Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff on Feb. 28, at the Kravis Center.

Also at the above venue,  the Russian National Orchestra will play Borodin, Prokofiev and Stravinsky on March 7.

Itzhak Perlman and the Klezmer Conservatory Band appear March 10, at the Kravis Center, on the 20th anniversary of In the Fiddler’s House.  They are followed in March by a concert with Dudu Fisher.

The New World Center, Miami Beach, brings the following musical programs this winter: Iberian Impressions, Feb. 28; Beethoven and Bartok, with Emanuel Ax, March 4; Russian Gems, March 20; The Mahler Legacy: The Song of the Earth, April 23,24; and Berlioz and Sibelius, May 7 and 8, to name but a very few of the programs.

Feb. 24 brings, young Israeli sensation, Gon Halevi, with special guests, to B’nai Torah Congregation, Boca Raton. A singer, pianist, actor and composer, his concerts have given a new, modern spin to the Israeli and American songbook.  March 2, at the same venue, Baladino, Ladino and Spanish Jewish Revolution, will be performed by an Israeli/international group, using stunning vocals.

B’nai Torah’s March 30 concert features Joshua Nelson, with the Kosher Gospel Band, Soul and Neshama: Gospel at its Best.  Raised in an observant Jewish family (who trace their lineage back to Senegal), in a Black Hebrew synagogue, Joshua Nelson is regarded as “The prince of kosher gospel.”

Jewish gospel singer Joshua Nelson performs March 30 FILE PHOTO
Jewish gospel singer Joshua Nelson performs March 30 FILE PHOTO

The  opera, The Passenger, hailed as a masterpiece of the 20th century, is brought by the Florida Grand Opera, to the Arsht Center, April 2 to 9.  Written by Mieczyslaw Weinberg in 1968, 30 years after his parents were killed by the Nazis, it was not performed until 2010, in Austria, where it created a sensation.

Dance: The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens present The Elegance of Japanese Dance, March 11.

The Arts Ballet Theatre of Florida brings Coppelia, March 12 and 13, to the Broward Center. Sleeping Beauty, with the Moscow Festival Ballet, will be at the Parker Playhouse, Fort Lauderdale, Feb. 28.

The Miami City Ballet’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream will be at the Arsht Center, Miami, March 16-20.

Art: Among this season’s exhibits, the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, celebrates its 75th anniversary  with two exhibits, Special Guest: Vincent Van Gogh (to April 17), and Special Guest: Edgar Degas (to May 15). Women Modernists in New York opens Feb. 18, and runs to May 15.

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The Jewish Museum of Florida, housed in two restored historic Art Deco former synagogues in Miami Beach, covers over 250 years of Florida Jewish history. This history is covered in the ongoing exhibit, MOSAIC: Jewish Life in Florida. Its current exhibit is Discovery & Recovery: Preserving Iraqi Jewish Heritage, through March 6.

Mark Podwal: All This Has Come Upon Us is on view through March 13.

The Blue Gallery, in Fort Lauderdale and Delray Beach, advertises the “largest selection of Israeli contemporary art.”

Predators and Prey: A Roman Mosaic from Lod, Israel, is on view until May at the Frost Art Museum at Florida International University, Miami.