Light The Passion, Share The Dream: 2008 Olympic Torch Relay Display

On April 9, the Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch Relay will pass through San Francisco, the only North American city on the international torch route. The torch has passed through San Francisco on only five other occasions-1960, 1984, 1996 and 2002.

In honor of this year's event, a torch that was run in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Torch Relay will be on display from March 15--April 30 in the Art, Music & Recreation Center on the 4th floor of the Main Library. Covers of books on the Olympics from the Library's collections and a map showing the international route of the Torch Relay will also be on display.

Those interested in the modern Olympic moment can read:

The Olympic Spirit: 100 Years of the Games by Susan Wels. Collins, 1995.

The Olympics, A History of the Modern Games by Allen Guttmann. University of Illinois Press, 2002.

23rd Jewish Music Festival

Soprano Heather Klein will perform a program in English and Yiddish as part of the 23rd Jewish Music Festival on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 6:00 in the Main Library's Koret Auditorium. This performance will feature music from the operetta, cabaret and theater repertoire of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in New York's Lower East Side.

As always, all Library programs are free and open to the public. The Koret Auditorium is located in the Lower Level of the Main Library, at 100 Larkin Street (at Grove). Call (415) 557-4277 for more information.

Anyone interested in learning more about Yiddish folk music and its influence upon American popular culture should check out Funny, It Doesn't Sound Jewish: How Yiddish Songs and Synagogue Melodies Influenced Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Hollywood by Jack Gottlieb (State University of New York, c2004)