Jewish Museum

Bernard Fishman, director of the Jewish Museum of Maryland for the past 13 years and the person behind its remarkable success story, will leave at the end of August to become director of the Lehigh County Historical Society in Pennsylvania.As the position here did when he took it in 1985, Lehigh County offers the kind of challenge Fishman welcomes. "It's a little bit larger than the Jewish Museum but somewhat similar in its general outlines," he said. "It has two historical sites and an imposing collection of materials related to the region and going back to the 18th century.

Lillian Braiterman Crane took one look yesterday at a photo on display in the newly expanded Jewish Museum of Maryland, and the memories came flooding back.The photo depicted a teen-ager who secretly left his home in Maryland to enlist in the Jewish Legion, an all-Jewish fighting force organized by the British army during World War I to free Palestine from Turkish control. It was her brother, William Braiterman, who enlisted under an alias so he wouldn't be rejected from service."He didn't tell my mother where he was going, and he lied about his age because he was only 17, and he had to eat a lot of bananas so he would weigh enough, but he got in," Crane said.

With a few shards of glass, tile and other discarded bits, Loring Cornish can re-create his world into a shimmering mosaic wonderland.  After growing up in Reservoir Hill and studying at Morgan State University, he has established himself as an artist, though not one who's conventionally trained. His distinct style and passion for mosaics is always visible - his own two rowhouses in Reservoir Hill are covered with multi-colored tiles and glass shards.  Cornish's work has appeared in shows and museums across the country, including the American Visionary Art Museum and the Jewish Museum of Maryland.

Heritage Players. Auditions for The Man Who Came to Dinner from 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Aug. 5 and 6 at the Catonsville United Methodist Church social hall, 6 Melvin Ave., Catonsville. Show features roles for seven women and nine men (ages late-teens to the 60s for both genders). Prepare to read from script. Call 443-612-1497, ext. 1008, or tschneid@revisions.net. Young Audiences of Maryland. Auditions for school touring program at 7 p.m. Aug 5 at the Jewish Museum of Maryland, 15 Lloyd St., Baltimore.

She was born Judith Sylvia Cohen in 1939, but the world knows her as the pioneering feminist artist Judy Chicago, whose installation The Dinner Party (1974-79), which celebrated important women throughout history, became a leader of the women's movement. Now a new exhibition at the Jewish Museum of Maryland explores how Chicago's secular Jewish upbringing shaped her artistic vision and her compassionate identification with the plight of oppressed people the world over. Judy Chicago: Jewish Identity presents artworks from throughout her career that challenge injustice and express the artist's long-standing aspiration for universal tolerance, understanding and peace.

Historical exhibit -- The United Jewish Council of Anne Arundel County presents We Call This Place Home: Jewish Life in Maryland's Small Towns through Nov. 15 in the President's Conference Center West II, Miller Senate Office Building, 11 Bladen St., Annapolis. It is a traveling exhibit produced by the Jewish Museum of Maryland that interprets Jewish life in towns throughout Maryland. Hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 410-732-6400, ext. 14.

NOW OR NEVER Halloween traditions take center stage at the Phoenix Shot Tower on Saturday. This is a less spooky approach to the stories of the holiday, as all readings take place during afternoon hours, when it is still light out. The stories, which are being read in the tower, cover the origins of Halloween and ghosts, as well as works by Poe and other famed scary writers. The Phoenix Shot Tower is at 801 Fayette St., across from the Main Post Office. Readings start at noon, 1 p.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. Admission is $1 per person.

Essex, Hopkins festivalsCelebrate cultural diversity at festivals this weekend at the Essex campus of the Community College of Baltimore County, and today through Nov. 13 at the Johns Hopkins University. At the Ethnic Heritage Festival at Essex, see displays from more than 24 ethnic communities, gifts and handcrafted items and egg-decorating; enjoy cooking demonstrations, dance instruction and live entertainment; try authentic foods and an international beer garden; and more. At CultureFest at Hopkins, catch a film festival, ballroom dancing, art exhibits, a variety of cuisines, dance troupes, poetry readings, music and more.

Life in biblical times has been depicted on film and television, and, of course, chronicled in print. Have you ever watched stories or read about those ancient days and thought it would be cool to experience the life and challenges firsthand? Now you can, sort of - thanks to the interactive exhibit From Tent to Temple: Life in Ancient Near East, at the Jewish Museum of Maryland. The exhibit, which opens Sunday and runs through July 20, is designed to allow children ages 7-12 and their families to experience what daily life was really like in biblical times through hands-on activities.

Contemporary artists of the former Soviet Union have become increasingly well known in the West over the past decade, and a dozen of the most respected are featured in "Here and There: Then and Now" at Washington's B'nai B'rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum.Some of the artists are Jewish and some are non-Jewish but focused on Jewish themes; some live in Russia and some now live in Western Europe or the United States. Their common ground, according to museum director and curator Ori Z. Soltes, is that "each artist necessarily finds the issue of identity at the center of his or her work; the path to that center is as diverse as the vastness of both Soviet and Jewish history would lead us to expect."