6:00 p.m. Shabbat Dinner, catered by Blueberry Hill, with our special guests the Merage Israeli Executive Fellows and our guest speaker, Prof Lawrence Baron. Menu: Honey Garlic Wild Caught Salmon with Lemongrass Gremolata, Basmati Brown Rice, Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Moroccan Salad with Champagne Vinaigrette and Fruit. Kid Selections: Fettuccine Alfredo, Caesar Salad, Garlic Knots. Cost: $25 for adults, $15 for children. Registration has closed. 

7:00 p.m. Synaplex Shabbat Alive Services, our jazz and pop service with a band, led by Rabbi Rachlis and Cantor Braier. A new group of Merage Israeli Executive Fellows, whose specialty is Food Tech, will briefly introduce themselves, and San Diego State University Prof. Lawrence Baron will speak on “Projecting Israel In Hollywood Films.” All those celebrating birthdays and anniversaries this month will be honored. Our Shabbat Alive musicians are sponsored by Gilbert Gluck and Catherine Bradley.

In 1949, Hollywood produced Sword in the Desert, a sympathetic film about Israel’s recent struggle for independence. For the next two decades, American movies portrayed Israel as the natural homeland for Holocaust survivors, the David that slew Goliath, and the modern embodiment of the spirit that had motivated Americans to revolt against England and settle the West. Although this consensus started to fray in the 1980s, most American motion pictures depicted Israel’s methods of combating domestic and foreign terrorism positively. This talk traces the evolution of Hollywood’s images of Israel and the broader political factors that influenced them.

Professor Lawrence Baron held the Nasatir Chair of Modern Jewish History at San Diego State University and directed its Jewish Studies Program. He received his Ph.D. in Modern European Cultural and Intellectual History from the University of Wisconsin and he has authored and edited four books including The Modern Jewish Experience in World Cinema and Projecting the Holocaust into the Present: The Changing Focus of Contemporary Holocaust Cinema. He served as the historian and as an interviewer for Sam and Pearl Oliner’s The Altruistic Personality: Rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe and he delivered the keynote address for Yad Vashem’s first conference devoted to Hollywood and the Holocaust.  His contribution to Holocaust Studies was profiled in Fifty Key Thinkers on the Holocaust and Genocide.  Sponsored by Drs. Michael Schaffer and Rina Palumbo.