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Los Angeles Times

Barbra Streisand called Israel “a shining beacon of hope in the world,” ahead of her arrival in three weeks for two performances and an appearance honoring President Shimon Peres on his 90th birthday.In a promotional interview released on the eve of the debut concert of her new tour that took place Saturday night in London, Streisand praised the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she will be granted an honorary doctor of philosophy degree on June 17.“Of course I thought of my father [when I was told of the award],” she said. “It was my great honor to dedicate the Emanuel Streisand Building at Hebrew University many years ago. The thing that I love most about the university is that people of all faiths and philosophies are welcome to study there.”The 70-year-old singing and film star said that the audiences who attend her two shows at Bloomfield Stadium in Jaffa on June 20 and 22 will be in for a treat.“I’ve given this a lot of thought and I do have something special planned,” she said.At Saturday night’s London show, Streisand and her 60-piece orchestra performed 23 songs, including standards “On A Clear Day” and “People.”Streisand is one of the most commercially and critically successful entertainers of the past 50 years, with more than 140 million records sold, two Academy awards, eight Grammy awards and five Emmy awards.Joining her onstage will be special guest trumpeter Chris Botti, along with duets with her son Jason Gould and her sister Roslyn Kind.“I just try to put together a wonderful show for the audience and in this particular instance it’s a delight for me to have my family along, my very gifted son Jason and my sister Rozzie,” said Streisand. “I also love having a 60-piece orchestra and a big choir and working again with the amazing Chris Botti.”Thewrote that the show “put the audience immediately under the spell of her folksy grandiosity.”Streisand “isn’t just a star, she’s a world view, a style of being, an entire cosmology, with the highest possible thread count sheets. You don’t just come for the music; you come for the whole church service. The sermon, broken up into bits, is inseparable from the songs,” the paper wrote.