Tara Spil, a local Jewish artist featured in the September 2021, Charlotte Jewish News, brought her talents to the Greater Charlotte area in a big way (literally — the piece is four feet tall) in April with her “Passover Egg” at the SHOUT Festival. When she saw the call to artists from SHOUT organizers for Easter eggs to adorn Romare Bearden Park during the festival, she knew Jewish culture and Passover needed to be represented.

Clergy and community leaders from across North Carolina will join together on Tuesday, April 12 at 2 pm online to launch the North Carolina Jewish Clergy Association (NCJCA).  This new organization of rabbis and cantors of various streams serving congregations, organizations, and the broader Jewish community of North Carolina will promote the interests of Judaism and the Jewish people in North Carolina and throughout the world, serve as a collective voice of the North Carolina Jewish clergy community with due regard for the autonomy of the individual clergy person, and support members in professional and personal growth. Congresswoman Kathy Manning and other North Carolina leaders will share words of congratulations.

The month of April is set aside each year to spread awareness about Parkinson’s, the neurodegenerative disease that affects seven to 10 million people globally. According to the Parkinson’s Foundation, about one million people in the United States are living with Parkinson’s disease, which is more than the number of people diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy and Lou Gehrig’s disease combined. This number is expected to rise to 1.2 million people by 2030.

Charlotte Jewish artist and Queens University professor, Mike Wirth, has been selected to present his artwork and ideas on Jewish Futurism at the 8th biennial annual Conney Conference on Jewish Arts, part of the Conney Project on Jewish Arts now in its 17th year. The national conference will take place in Madison, Wisconsin, from March 27 to 30. Mike will be presenting alongside nationally recognized Jewish creatives, curators, and academics.

(JTA) — The Oscars went on as usual Sunday night — although you wouldn’t know it from the morning-after conversation. A violent altercation between celebrities became the most-discussed moment of the evening (more on that below), and general reviews for the show itself were dismal, full of criticism for its slapdash presentation and pre-taping of several awards categories. But there were a few Jewish moments to be had in the three-and-a-half-hour evening.