San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Looking at the Madoff scam through a Jewish lens
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In 2008, the poet, musician, composer and performing artist Alicia Jo Rabins happened to have a frontrow seat to the global financial crisis, thanks to an artist’s residency in an abandoned building on Wall Street.
She became especially fascinated by the story of Bernie Madoff — what it is about his marks, and the rest of us, that makes us want to believe in something we ought to know is impossible. As Rabins does with much of her work, she looked at the narrative through a Jewish lens, asking what ancient religious texts might have to say to her and her contemporaries, Jewish and nonJewish alike, about Madoff ’s great swindle.
That impulse led to “A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff,” which she has called “a onewoman chamber rock opera.” After premiering at Joe’s Pub in New York in 2012, it’s since been adapted into a film, directed by Alicia J. Rose, that’s part of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, now presented both in person and online. “A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff”: Screens 5 p.m. Saturday, July 24 at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro St., S.F. Available to stream July 22Aug. 1. $15. https://jfi.org/ sfjff-2021