City’s Cultural Gala Features Singing, Dancing, Acting This Weekend

Jewish singing, dancing and acting will be featured Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening during the city’s eight-day cultural gala. “The People, Yesl,” which began this past Sunday. This Saturday afternoon, at the Central Park Mall, the New York Jewish Mittle-Shule Dancers and Chorus will entertain. On Sunday evening, Sam Levenson will host a program spotlighting the Zim-rah Chorale; the Voices Four, a “Hebrew liturgical rock group.”; Adat Beyt Mosheh, a troupe of black Jewish performers; Mira Gilbert’s and Juan Vasquez’s “Afro-Hebraic Experience in Song”; Shlome Carlebach, the “singing rabbi.” and excerpts from “Light, Lively and Yiddish,” a Broadway-bound show starring Ben Bonus. All the Sunday presentations except the Zimrah Chorale, which is sponsored by the Educational Alliance, and the Yiddish show are sponsored by the National Jewish Welfare Board Lecture Bureau. Last night’s offerings included a demonstration–with free samples–of Middle Eastern cooking and songs by the Jewish Philharmonic Chorus. On opening day, Ruth Rubin sang Yiddish and other folk songs, and Tuesday night, Menachem Dworman’s Levantine Group presented Israeli, Arab and other dances. Coordinating the festival is Dore Schary, the playwright, who is the city’s Cultural Affairs director and chairman of B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League. Among the members of the honorary committee for the festival are Rabbi Harold I. Saperstein, president of the New York Board of Rabbis, and Mervin H. Riseman, president of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.