ARTS

"To Laugh, to Sing, to Dance, these are the highest and purest forms of Prayer." This maxim attributed to Rabbi Baal Shem Tov lends its title to New Jersey author Neil R. Selden's newest play. The rest of Selden's title, "An evening of interfaith stories and songs," alludes to the four stories that explore Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism.

"About thirty years ago I wrote a love story about a Rabbi, and these subsequent stories concern a connectedness to all religions," Selden says.  "I believe that in religions there are principles and practices that are ever the same: giving and loving."

 

Nicole Chis learned how to play tennis when she was two years old during practice sessions with her father Marius. That training started at the borough’s Donaldson Park and eventually made its way to the courts on North Eighth Avenue.

“My dad’s been my coach my whole life,” Chis said of her father, who was born in Romania. “He would help me stand up, hold a racquet and ball and hit it. I ended up practicing every day, and having him there each time made it easy to develop.”

For eight summers, while Cynthia Walling was an Elizabeth High School teacher, the Highland Park artist lived, studied and painted in San Miguel de Allende.

She painted the fountain at the Instituto Allende, where she took classes and captured the great green tree behind it. She sketched women doing laundry in a primitive launderette, a curve of a line indicating who was old and who was young.

The Raritan River is a resource that belongs completely to New Jersey, with a 1200-mile watershed. It covers 100 municipalities and seven counties, serving over one million people.

In spite of this, there was no joint planning by the many governments involved, and there were no common goals for the river until the Sustainable Raritan River Initiative began. Individual groups did take on their own projects, but no one looked at regional planning.