The sweet sound
Richard Aptekar of Burlingame believes that shofars shouldn’t only be heard on the High Holy Days. Historically, he says, shofars were used in communities to call people together. So he and his Los Angeles brother Stuart Aptekar, who call themselves the Shofarot Siblings, perform their “dueling shofar” gigs at a variety of celebrations — both Jewish and not. Their next engagement will be in Wareham, Mass., at their nephew’s heavy-metal wedding where, Richard quips, “they’ll have a blast.” The brothers “have been playing off each other for decades, beginning as pre–bar mitzvah horn players in Detroit,” he says. As brass instrumentalists, he claims, the two are able to get more intonation and better sound from the traditional ram’s horns. The shofars come to the brothers from Africa, via Israel. San Francisco shofar-maker Maurice Kamins applies the finishing touches.
Swimming to fight cancer
The Sunday after Yom Kippur, a team of Or Shalom Jewish Community members will swim for dollars. The San Francisco group will take part in “Swim a Mile for Women with Cancer,” a fundraiser for Oakland’s Women’s Cancer Resource Center, which provides free services and support for low-income women with cancer. Sue Schechter, a cancer survivor who has participated in the swim in the past, and Susan Levine, whose mother had cancer (now in remission), initiated the plan. Other swimmers are Rabbi Me’irah Iliinksy, Elliot Helman, Nadine Kessler and Deborah Schneider. The team will swim on Oct. 5 in memory of Ann Zorn, the congregation’s administrator who died of heart failure earlier this year. The two-day event takes place at Trefethen Aquatic Center at Mills College in Oakland. To support the team and the cancer center, visit www.wcrc.org/swim/profiles/search and search for “Team Or Shalom.”
Clowning for Queenie Moon
Luminaries of the performing arts world are coming together in a benefit show for actor and clown Joan Mankin, aka Queenie Moon, who recently was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) and frontal temporal dementia (an early onset form of Alzheimer’s). Bill Irwin, David Shiner, Geoff Hoyle, Marga Gomez, Lorenzo Pisoni and Diane “Pino” Wasnak will appear at the American Conservatory Theater on Oct. 5 in the “Queenie Moon Conspiracy Show” to raise funds for Mankin’s ongoing medical needs. A longtime Bay Area performer, Mankin was lead clown and juggler with the Pickle Family Circus and has worked with theaters throughout the Bay Area. Visit www.act-sf.org/joan for information.
Short shorts
Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater sold out the entire stage run of “Fiddler on the Roof” and added two more shows. (The finale is on Sunday, Sept. 28.) “It’s one of the classics that people can’t get enough of,” says artistic director Elly Lichenstein. “There’s nothing dated about it — it’s fresh and beautiful and touching and tragic as ever.” Next up is “Driving Miss Daisy.” Visit www.cinnabartheater.org … Congregation Beth Am’s Rabbi Janet Marder and the Jewish Home’s Rabbi Shelly Marder welcomed and named Maisie Friedman — their granddaughter — at Shabbat services earlier this month. Irwin and Ellen Friedman are the other grandparents and Mike Friedman and Betsy Marder Friedman are Maisie’s parents … In his San Francisco Chronicle column on Aug. 31, Willie Brown noted that Tipping Point Foundation founder Daniel Lurie is “a favorite of the party crowd to be mayor someday.”
by Suzan Berns
This columnist can be reached at [email protected].