Paula Shoyer is a serious baker. So many cookbooks—lovely, inspiring, must-own collections—are authored by self-taught home chefs who have turned cooking into a passion. But

Exhibits/ Music Festivals/ Film Festivals/Theater ARIZONA The Sylvia Plotkin Judaica Museum, Phoenix (480-951-0323; www.cbiaz.org/about/museum) The museum features a composite synagogue sanctuary from Djerba, Tunisia, with ornate floral-motif tiles and wooden

Livorno sits on the westernmost edge of Tuscany, its grand harbor opening onto the Ligurian Sea. It is a city of broad boulevards lined with

President Harry Truman saw to it that the United States was the first nation to recognize Israel’s independence. If Truman’s message of support, sent just

Jaffa Road, the dowdy, congested and polluted main street of Jerusalem, will be transformed into a “string of pearls studded with gems”—a series of piazzas

In the 1980s, in my late twenties, I was studying in a yeshiva for young women who had no religious education. Newly arrived in Israel,

FILMS Free Men This superbly acted World War II feature is based on a slice of history that should be better known to Jews and

Ages 0 to 3 Dayenu! A Favorite Passover Song Illustrated by Miriam Latimer. (Scholastic/Cartwheel Books, 12 pp. $7.99) This board book is a cheery one—you can