Reviewed by Jordan Elgrably

Natacha Atlas: live at the Skirball July 29, 2010In a mellifluous voice that was at once deep, soft, beautiful and strong, former Transglobal Underground vocalist Natacha Atlas brought her east-west repertoire back to Los Angeles on July 29. The cross-over artist performed in a free open-air concert at the Skirball Center that was supported by the L.A. County Arts Commission and the city's Department of Cultural Affairs. A star in parts of Europe and the Middle East, Natacha Atlas has a smaller following Stateside but certainly merits a broader audience, both among those who love world music and fusion, and others with a passion for female vocalists.

Ariel Sabar, My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2008)

Reviewed by David Shasha

My Father's Paradise: your purchase in part benefits Levantine Cultural CenterTowards the end of Ariel Sabar's extraordinarily compelling retelling of his family's history in Iraqi Kurdistan, he makes a brilliant observation that encapsulates his tale and is emblematic of the broken stories of so many Middle Eastern Jews. Recalling his father's feverish memories of his fractured past-a past of rich traditions that were destroyed over the course of successive exiles-he states:

Dreams, I recalled now, had long been a refuge from his life's incongruities. During his first year in the United States, he once told me, he dreamed he was in New York, all alone in Grand Central Station. All at once, the train doors swept open and all of Zakho's Kurds poured out onto the platform. Dreams were a place where fragments could be made whole. (pp. 278-279)

By Joyce Zonana

Event Details

Date/Time: 

Jun 20 2010 1:00pm - 5:00pm

Price: 

$40 in advance, $45 at the door ($36 members with advance RSVP)
Click here to buy tickets

Where: 

Levantine Cultural Center
5998 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90035
Street parking
Located equidistant between Fairfax and La Cienega

a creative writing workshop

Levantine Cultural Center & The Writing Studio present Writing for Peace: War, Peace & the Path to Freedom. This workshop in creative writing with Elana Golden is for new and experienced writers—limited to 10 participants.

Turning wounds into literature is an act of self-preservation, self-discovery—a journey toward personal and global healing and peace. Elana Golden is a Los Angeles writer and teacher who works and corresponds with Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel. She has taught creative writing at Levantine Cultural Center for  the past two years. She has worked with new and established writers from many countries, including Iran, Iraq, Israel, Pakistan, Egypt and the United States.

Whether among nations, classes or families, the workshop provides a peaceful, respectful and inspiring space in which to write stories born of war, conflict or occupation. The skills of creative writing will be taught and explored, as well as effective methods to put aside the critical mind.

Event Details

Date/Time: 

Apr 14 2010 3:00pm - 4:30pm

Price: 

Free to the public

Where: 

UCLA Bunche Hall 10383
Parking Lot 3 (Wyton and Hilgard)
Los Angeles CA 90095
Info, Johanna Romero
Center for Near Eastern Studies
Tel: 310-825-1455
cnes@international.ucla.edu http://www.international.ucla.edu/cnes

Ammiel AlcalayAmmiel Alcalay is poet, translator, critic, scholar and activist; he teaches in the Department of Classical, Middle Eastern & Asian Languages & Cultures at Queens College and is a member of the faculties of American Studies, Comparative Literature, English, and Medieval Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center where is also Deputy Chair of the Ph.D. Program in English. He was the first holder of the Lannan Visiting Chair in Poetics at Georgetown University and has been a visiting professor at Stanford University.

On television news, Arabs and Jews look as though they've been at each other's throats forever. Fortunately, there are people around us with longer memories—people who, by the arc of their own lives, prove that this wasn't always the case.

People such as my parents: Iraqi Jews who migrated to Israel in the early 1950s and to England during the 1970s. My family, just like thousands of other Jewish families, had been at home in Middle Eastern countries for centuries; Jews neighbouring Arabs, co-nationalists living for the most part cordially and in peace. It seemed easy, instinctive and eternal—until it all fell apart.

Event Details

Date/Time: 

Mar 24 2010 7:15pm - 9:00pm

Price: 

Free to the public, donations welcome, books available for purchase

Where: 

Marymount Institute for Faith, Culture and the Arts
Loyola Marymount University
University Hall, 3rd Floor
Los AngelesCA 90045

The Third Area presents "Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, a Memorial Reading" as part of LA of the Land 2010: Transnational City:

Event Details

Date/Time: 

Mar 10 2010 7:30pm - 9:00pm

Price: 

Free to the public, donations or book purchase suggested. Doors open at 7 pm.

Where: 

Levantine Cultural Center
5998 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90035
street parking and in the underground lot
at the CVS across the street (until 10 pm only)

Arabs Jews, a Critical PresentationVisiting Author Rachel Shabi Presents Her Book We Look Like the Enemy: the Hidden Story of Israel's Jews of Arab Lands

Jordan Elgrably introduces the evening with personal stories and a visual presentation.

Omid ArabianReviewed by Omid Arabian

By Mischa Geracoulis