MyJewishBooks.com and Jewishfilm.com Blog

2008-05-01T06:40:00.000-07:00

Some interesting Job Openings:
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Editor - Doubleday Religion posted: Apr. 16, 2008
Offered by: Random House
Duration: Full Time
Location: New York, NY
Requirements: About our company
Random House, Inc. is the world's largest general trade book publisher. It is a division of Bertelsmann AG, one of the foremost media companies in the world.

Your tasks
Doubleday Religion seeks an Editor to join its team. Reporting to the Editor-in-Chief and Associate Publisher, the Editor will acquire, evaluate and develop nonfiction manuscripts and proposals in all categories of religion, whether for a general/commercial spirituality readership or for a broad audience from a specific religious tradition (be it Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, etc.). The list spans serious non-fiction to lighter inspirational titles. The Editor will also consult with authors on content, style and format of publication, and prepare/write cover copy for books, catalogs and title information sheets. He or she will also establish and coordinate editorial production and publication schedules and track through all stages until completion.

Our requirements
Candidates must have a minimum of 5 years experience with a trade publisher and a solid track record of spearheading successful acquisitions. Correspondingly, the Editor must also have proven agent relationships. Strong negotiation and conceptual editing skills are necessary.

Thank you for your interest in Random House.
Random House is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Submit application to
Please apply using our online application process.

For more information, please visit our web site at:
http://www.r a n d o m h o u s e.com
Please Click Here to apply for this position.

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Central Conference of American Rabbis - Press Director posted: Apr. 9, 2008
Offered by: Central Conference of American Rabbis
Duration: Full Time
Location: New York, NY
Requirements: Qualified applicants are invited to apply for the position of Director of the Press of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR). The CCAR Press is one of oldest and largest Jewish religious presses in the United States. A division of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the CCAR Press seeks to assist the Reform rabbinate in its work and to offer publications which meet the general religious and liturgical needs of Reform Jews. The Director of the CCAR Press should have advanced knowledge of the Jewish religious tradition, significant experience in the publishing industry including editorial work, business planning and management, production, marketing and distribution. The Director of the Press will be a senior member of the CCAR staff. Competitive salary and benefits. Some travel required. Start up date flexible.

Detailed resumes should be sent to:
Director of Press Search
CCAR Press
355 Lexington Avenue
New York, New York, 10017 (dpanoff@ccarnet.org)
Contact: Director of Press Search
E-mail: dpanoff @ ccarnet. org
Address: 355 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10017

2008-02-15T06:24:00.000-08:00

SEATTLE NEWSPAPER REJECTS A JEWISH VAGINA

The National Council of Jewish Women in Seattle was co-sponsoring 2 performances of The Vagina Monologues, one for Valentines Day, to support its program for women and children in need. The ad for the play howver was rejected by the Seattle Times as being inappropriate for the newspaper’s audience. The poster was designed by a congregant of Temple B'nai Torah in Bellevue, Washington, and according to Rabbi Yohanna Kinberg, it hangs in her Temple and at several other area synagogues.

Mei-Mei Chan, vp of advertising at the Seattle Times though, found the heart design which contained what some might deem to be a Jewish vagina, to be inappropriate to dwindling readership of the Seattle Times.

2008-01-14T16:45:00.000-08:00

JDATE ... up for sale??

The parent company of the Jewish online dating Web site JDate.com is up for sale.
JDate owner Sparks Networks, could sell for as much as $185 million. The company has an estimated market value of $131.4 million. About half of the Sparks Networks revenue for the first 3 quarters of 2007 came from its Jewish Networks division, which rose 5 percent during that period.

Well... we already own Tzedaka.org, Jewflix.org, MyJewishBooks.com and Jewishfilm.com. Our estimated value is about a buck twenty five. Maybe we can acquire sparks and start selling dating films and books on it??

+++++++++++++++++++++++

FORGET THE STORIES ON GAZA and EGYPT and IRAN... THE MOST IMPORTANT STORY OUT OF ISRAEL IS THAT THE ZIONIST ENTITY MIGHT RESTRICT the number of East and Southeast Asian born chefs that are allowed to legally work in the Israel.

Israel's Asian restaurants actually went on a one-day spring roll strike in protest over government plans to rid kitchens of foreign chefs, and said sushi and noodles would be the next items off the menu.

The Israeli Ethnic Restaurant Organization said the country's 300 Asian restaurants refused to serve spring-, or even egg-, rolls, and planned a follow-up strike for sushi and noodles. These restaurants generate an estimated $275 Million in annual sales. Tel Aviv has 100 official sushi restaurants.

Israel is trying to limit the number of guest workers in the country. in 2008, Israel is granting 500 permits to Asian chefs compared with 900 in 2007. In 2009, the government plans to issue no permits, except for "experts."

2007-12-29T09:19:00.000-08:00

JUNO... a Jewish Film?

For those of you spending late December in the movie theaters... if you go to watch JUNO, directed by Jason Reitman (son of Ivan Reitman, bar mitzvah'd at Sinai Temple in LA, active with the LA Jewish Film Festival)... watch closely when JUNO (Ellen Page) visits her teenage friend's bedroom. On the back of his door is an aleph bet poster/hanging. I mean, you had to just know that he would be Jewish... why? cuz he is the smartest student in Chemistry, a guitar playing tic tac eater, and he runs track. Plus his mother is a skeptic.

By the way... I met Jason Reitman at Sundance in mid January 2008. I asked him about the Hebrew poster. He told me to look closer. "We jew'd up the bedroom," he told me. There are probably a dozen Jewish symbols in the room, including a dreidel and his framed Bar Mitzvah Certificate. Hurray for smart noble Jewish characters who get the girl (... pregnant).

2007-12-23T13:05:00.001-08:00

happy erev christmas

2007-10-15T19:13:00.000-07:00

NYC has issued its lists of the most popular baby names of the prior year for lives births in NYC hospitals.

What can we learn from this?

The top 10 for boys are: Michael, Daniel, Matthew, Joshua, Justin, David, Christopher, Joseph, Anthony, and Jayden (Jayden is the name of Britany's child). Actually, the multiple spellings of Jayden/Jaden/Jaydan, when combined, surpassed Michael.

Angel was 24, Gabriel was 26 (352 babies), and Aaron was 33, Luis was 49, and Juan was 67.

In London, England, MOHAMMED is the Number 2 name for boys. In NYC, MOHAMED is 104 with only 85 babies named, MOHAMMED was #120 with 64 babies, MUHAMED was 131 (52 babies) and MOHAMMAD was 133 with 50 babies. (put 'em together and you get 267 babies for #37.) AMIR was 89 with 110 babies. 43 babies can rightfully state, "Call me ISMAEL" and 10 get to say "Call me ISHMAEL." JESUS was 94 and ALEJANDRO was #95

In NYC, MOSHE was 58 (186 babies), CHAIM was 93 (105 babies), MENACHEM was #98, YOSEF was #103, YEHUDA was 111 (75 babies), SHLOMO was 114, YITCHOK was 117, MORDECHAI at #120 was tied with MOHAMMED. There were only 18 AVI's and 16 YAEL's and 16 SHMIEL's.

In Israel in 2005, 143,900 babies were born, 70% of them to Jewish parents, 23.7% to Moslem parents. For Jewish children, the most popular names were:

Boys: Uri (2.1% of Jewish boys born), Noam, Itai, Ido and David. Followed by Ro'i, Amit, Yosef, Moshe and Yehonatan. Daniel was #15 (compared to #2 in NYC)

Girls: Noa (3% of Jewish girls born), Shira, Agam, Maya and Tamar, Followed by Roni, Yael, Adi, Sarah, Yovel, Hila and Michal.

Names popular for both genders are Noam, Lior, Or, Shachar, Tal, Osher.

2007-10-11T18:44:00.000-07:00

Yippee... Ann Coulter calls for Jews to be perfected, tell Donny Deutsch (who owes me 25 cents) that he is not a practicing Jew (but he is), and generally shows herself to be a jerk. Or is it just a ploy to sell her newest book... to her evangelical base of readers.

2007-10-04T17:34:00.000-07:00

I wanna be a professor?

Would you like to be a teacher at Brandeis University for two years, have a 6 figure income, and publish an important work on American Jewish life?? Here is your chance.

Visit www.Brandeis.EDU/jcs/resources/job/Bronfman%20chair.html

Charles Bronfman is having a contest. The person with the best idea for the future of the Jewish people will be awarded the Charles R. Bronfman Visiting Chair in Jewish Communal Innovation.

Do you have the next Birthright Israel program?? Are you the next Mordechai Kaplan?

Get thee to the website

2007-09-18T18:26:00.000-07:00

As you may recall, in 2006, we tried to acquire JewTUBE dot com, org or net. Of course, they were already taken and parked, and now we seet that they have blossomed into great, well designed sites. Did you read that Google/Youtube was suing a company that tried to trademark JewTube.com in the US (but not affiliated with the site, JewTube.com). That type of tsurris we do not need.

BUT in honor of JEWTUBE.... two of our faves that we would have posted to the site had we acquired it... Harel Moyal with Harel Skaat. Since when is Harel a popular Jewish name??

2007-08-21T19:41:00.000-07:00

Want to have some fun?

Listen to Joanna Smith Rakoff's PODCAST (6/25/2007).. page down on the link below... of the last day of shopping at Gertel's kosher Bake Shoppe on Manhattan Lower East Side in June 2007. Any Jewish animators want to animate that soundtrack??? Let me know. Now all we need is a podcast with one of the last bra fitters on the LES (she should be in her 90's, at least), and on the old lox slicers and bialy baker. Who is game?

http://www.nextbook.org/cultural/podcasts.html

2007-08-17T08:56:00.001-07:00

Israel's secret weapon... with fewer American Jews visiting... they are looking East

Japanese annual Haj to Jerusalem

2007-08-14T06:37:00.000-07:00

"The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak is now sold in Hebrew at
http://www.orlysbookstore.com/catalog/quick_research.php?keywords=zusak&search_in_description=1&pfrom=&pto=&categories_id=&inc_subcat=1&manufacturers_id=&x=47&y=12
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Everyone I know wants to write a Jewish children's book. Don't you?
So.. mark your calendar:

Ninth Annual Jewish Children's Book Writers' Conference
Sunday, November 18, 2007, 9 AM to 5 PM
92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY
$85 before November 1, $100 after November 1
Fee includes kosher breakfast and lunch

The 92nd Street Y Buttenwieser Library and the Jewish Book Council
are cosponsoring the Ninth Annual Jewish Children's Book Writers'
Conference at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan on Sunday, November 18,
2007, from 9:00 am to 5:00 p.m.

Featured speakers are senior editor Reka Simonsen of Henry Holt Books
for Young Readers, editor Jennifer Wingertzahn of Clarion Books,
senior editor Lindsey Silken of JVibe/JFL Media, sales manager Sarah
Aronson of Jewish Lights Publishing, literary agent Kirsten Wolf of
Jill Grinberg Literary Management, and associate art director Einav
Aviram of Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

Author and illustrator Neil Waldman, winner of the National Jewish
Book Award, will give opening remarks, and the day will include
sessions on publishing and writing in Israel, the Sydney Taylor Book
Award and Manuscript Competition, and new this year: a panel on "How
I Got My First Book Published."

The registration form is available for download at
www.92y.org/content/pdf/jewishchildrensbookwriters.pdf.
Call 212-415 5544 or e-mail library@92Y.org
for additional information or to request the form by mail. The final
registration deadline is November 12.

If you write or illustrate children's books for the Jewish market,
this conference is for you!

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In film news...
Israel's top general reportedly is boycotting "Beaufort," a critically acclaimed drama about the evacuation of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon in 2000, becuase some of teh actors never served in the IDF. Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the chief of staff, has refused to see the film in protest that several of its soldier characters are played by Israeli actors who evaded mandatory military service.

and also

please note the COLMA THE MUSICAL.. which is playing around the USA at some fests and being packaged or pitched as an Asian film should be of interest to Jewish audiences, since this fun musical film stars a Jewish character as the second lead character.

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2007-07-26T18:19:00.000-07:00

In the words of John Lennon, "and so it is Tisha b'Av..."

Yes, Tisha b'av, when calamity struck the Jewish nation; and the leaders have blamed infighting for bring down the community.

So it is appropriate that infighting struck the online Jewish world this week.

How so?

Matisyahu. In a recent interview in Miami, Matisyahu, who grew up Reconstructionist, joined Chabad, moved to Crown Heights Brooklyn, and sings reggae, mentioned that he is not too Chabad anymore and is open to many forms of Jewish practice and philosophy. Chabadnik bloggers were quick to shun him and his path.
The love you while you are bringing people into Chabad, and one missetp and u r persona non grata, i guess.

Noah Feldman at Harvard. Talking about shepping nachas. He is a yeshiva educated lawyer who teaches as Harvard Law. RHodes scholar and Havrad valedictorian. But he married a Korean American woman and has been shunned. I dont think Feldman needed to air his issues in public (The NYT). Sure... the yeshiva should not have cut his gf's pic out of his picture they published, but he should not have expected them to throw him a parade.

Gawker vs The Chicago Trib vs. Harry Potter vs. The Forward vs Poynter.org... The editors of gawker.com, one of my favorite Jewish blogs, were over the top cheeky when they wrote that Steimatzky's in Tel Aviv would sell Harry Potter in violation of the Sabbath, becuase the are primarily Jews and they would not want to lose $$. Gawker is mostly written by Jews and read by Jews, so I took it as a joke. Not so the Trib, and not so, The Forward. Even posters on Jewlicious.com got into the fray, saying that the editors of gawker.com were merely half Jewish. ouch. another sign of infighting during the week of Tisha b'Av.

Elul approaches.

2007-07-17T09:31:00.000-07:00

Did you read that Borders bookstores will stock the popular but controversial children's book Tintin in the Congo in an adult-oriented section of the store because of material the retailer says "could be considered offensive by some of our customers."

The book by Belgian artist Herge, which was first published in 1931, will be published in the U.S. for the first time this fall by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Part of a series of 24 books centered on the adventurer Tintin, the book depicts black Africans that strongly resemble monkeys and dialogue widely considered racist. It was removed from the children's section of U.K. Borders stores and reshelved with the graphic novels last week following complaints of offensive material.

No mention was made that Herge was sort of tight with the Nazi Party during WWII

Borders said that the material COULD be considered offensive. Way to go Borders. How about saying that the material which depicts Africans like monkeys SHOULD be considered offensive. HEHE

Politics & Prose, the popular Jewish owned retailer in Washington DC, decided not to sell it because of the racist content.

Little, Brown acknowledged the book "may be considered somewhat controversial as it reflects the colonial attitudes of the time it was created." A belly band with a similar statement will be wrapped around U.S. editions of the book

2007-07-11T16:40:00.000-07:00

I am months behind in updating the film site.. Thanks for your patience. I am busy this SUmme rpreparing for Fall book releases. My fave so far... HOW TO RAISE A JEWISH DOG, the the Boca Raton Theological Seminary

My pet peeve... Did you hear that it takes over 12 weeks to process a passport in the USA? They hired more help.. and now it takes only 10 weeks instead of the normal 6 weeks. The State Department says that they failed to plan for the effects of the new security rules and the new rules which require passports for travel to countries where passports were not required in the past.

Come on.. If I know the State Dept, it is like any other organization. I will bet that several analysts easily studied the tourism traffic to countries and told their superiors that more staff would be required, and the superiors said that budgets were tight and consumer (citizens) would simply have to wait.

Don't blame the planners... the analysts knew what would happen. Their superiors merely chose not to listen or chose to tradeoff budget compliance with customer service.

My next peeve of the week.. the Bush administrations political control of the Surgeon General's office. Did you hear that the White House forbade the Surgeon General from speaking at the Special Olympics ??? Why? Becuase the leaders of the Speical Olympics are mostly Democrats and the Kennedy family is a large supporter of the Olympics... Well .. as we say in the biz... NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND.. unless that child is a future Democrat.

2007-06-17T10:02:00.000-07:00

Israelis go wild in NYC.. Shlomi SHabbat for jewTube

2007-06-09T13:13:00.000-07:00

HAPPY YOM YERUSHALAYIM

2007-06-09T12:58:00.000-07:00

JEWTUBE JEWISH TUBE SPECIAL

While I am sifting through all the new Fall Jewish book releases from the recent BEA Book Expo America... please enjoy some television commericals in Hebrew for the international brand of McDonalds

(1) Do Israeli men like to watch women eat fries?

(2) Support the Jewish people

(3) Israeli Salat

2007-06-09T12:13:00.001-07:00

A video from Canada. Activists try to disrupt a book reading event where the Jewish head of the Indigo/Chapters chain appeared w/ Ralph Nader. The activists disapprove of the majority owner's support of Israel, which the activists called the apartheid crimes against humanity State of Israel. bravo to the owner who did not stand for their crap. Boo to Nader who supported them

2007-05-11T06:19:00.000-07:00

NEW FOR JEWTUBE

BUBBIE TV

2007-05-11T06:07:00.000-07:00

Jewish Film Will Open The Prestigious Toronto International Film Festival TIFF

The 32nd Toronto International Film Festival® opens September 6 with the world premiere Gala Presentation of Jeremy Podeswa's FUGITIVE PIECES.

Produced by Robert Lantos, and based on the international bestselling novel by Anne Michaels, FUGITIVE PIECES is a powerful, poetic, and emotionally-charged drama about love, loss and redemption. Jeremy Podeswa (THE FIVE SENSES) brings the beauty and passion of this much beloved novel to screen with a cast that features Stephen Dillane, Rade Sherbedgia, Rosamund Pike, Ayelet Zurer, Robbie Kay, Ed Stoppard, Rachelle Lefevre, and Nina Dobrev.

FUGITIVE PIECES, the film, tells the story of Jakob Beer (Stephen Dillane), a man whose life is haunted by his childhood experiences during the Second World War. As a child in Poland he is orphaned during wartime then saved by a compassionate, Greek archeologist. He then spends the rest of his life trying to come to terms with the losses he has endured. Through his writing, and then through the discovery of true love, Jakob is given the opportunity to free himself from the legacy of his past.

The book is about a 7-year-old orphan Jakob Beer, in 1940, who digs a hole in the earth, where he hides from the Nazis until a geologist happens upon him and takes him home to Greece and later to Toronto. "To survive was to escape fate," Jakob explains. "But if you escape your fate, whose life do you then step into?" In prismatic language that spirals toward what she calls "the gradual instant," Michaels strives to answer that question. A prominent poet in her native Canada, Michaels limns landscapes literal (the geologist is ever probing salt, peat, and limestone) and spiritual, delicately weaving the golem myth into Jakob's tale. The boy eventually becomes a poet and translator, learning to "find a way to make beauty necessary; find a way to make necessity beautiful."

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=sefersafarianonl&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0679776591&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0">

2007-05-09T05:56:00.000-07:00

If you are in Washington Dc over Memorial Day Weekend 2007, the GI Film Festival will premiere the following film of Jewish interest. It is the world premiere... oh... and it is on Shabbat morning hehe
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About Face: The Story of the Jewish Refugee Soldiers of World War II
Directors: Steve Karras; Co-Director Rose Lizarraga

About Face is a feature-length documentary that tells the remarkable, yet previously untold story of thousands of young Jewish immigrants who fled Germany and Austria in the early days of Hitler's regime, only to perform an "about face" returning to confront their oppressors as American GI's and British Tommie's in WWII.

"About Face" does not focus on the camps, the ghetto uprisings or the victimization of the Jewish people. Instead, it depicts the uniquely powerful and unexpected experiences of the Jewish refugees-turned soldiers, who fought with distinction in the US and Allied Armed Forces as combat infantrymen, paratroopers, and interrogators in counter intelligence and military intelligence positions.

The film features interviews with these veterans, who as native German speakers and former German and Austrian nationals, had knowledge of the language and the culture, which proved invaluable in combat, counter-intelligence and the interrogation of prisoners. Each story represents a broad spectrum of experiences and emotions, traversing between fear and revenge, acceptance and betrayal, gratitude and forgiveness, not to mention the moral ambiguity felt by many of these veterans reflecting on returning to fight the countries their families had once called home.

Saturday May 26th
Start Time: 9:00am (Running Time: 97 Minutes)
Interested? go to GIfilmfestival.Com

2007-04-26T08:01:00.001-07:00

KISSUFIM, THE four-day Jerusalem Conference of Jewish Writers and Poets was held two weeks ago in Jerusalem. The conference dealt with Holocaust writings - those gleaned from memory and those fueled by imagination; Jewish identity in literature; the voice of the individual; wandering Jews and their languages of expression; the place of intellectuals in society; the presence of myths in literature; who is a Jewish writer and other related subjects. One of the conference’s goals was to expose Israeli Jewish writers and Diaspora Jewish writers to each other, and to explore whether there is a literary break between Israelis and the Diaspora, and whether Israeli’s are wrong in believing that Israel is the center of the Jewish literary world (far from it)

Participants included: Karen Alkalay-Gut, Melvin Jules Bukiet, Peter Cole, Ruth Fainlight, Elaine Feinstein, Yvonne Green, Allen Hoffman, Eva Hoffman, Gabriel Josipovici, Shirley Kaufman, Michael Kramer, Nessa Rapoport, Jonathan Rosen, David Rosenberg, David Shapiro, Hal Sirowitz (former Poet Laureate of Queens, New York), Linda Stern Zisquit, Myriam Anissimov, Marcel Bénabou, Alain Finkielkraut, Naim Kattan, Claude Lanzmann, Albert Memmi, Valerie Zenatti, Esther Dischereit, Dagmar Herrmann, Itta Shedletzky, Iossif Ventura, Shimon Adaf, Aharon Appelfeld, Hamutal Bar-Yosef, Raquel Chalfi, Dov Elbaum, Rachel Elior,Israel Eliraz, Miriam Gamburd, Avirama Golan, Michal Govrin, Zali Gurevitch, Miron Izakson, Menachem Lorberbaum, Aharon Meged, Rivka Miriam, Haviva Pedaya, Israel Pincas, Hava Pinhas Cohen, Tuvya Ruebner, Haim Sabato, Zeruya Shalev, Bambi Sheleg, Gali-Dana Singer, Abraham B. Yehoshua, Agnes Heller, János Kobányai, Avner Peretz (scholar of Ladino literature), Giorgio Pressburger, Norman Manea, Asar Eppel Maya Kaganskaya, Dina Rubina, Julia Wiener, David Albahari, Filip David, Milan Richter, and others.

Some of the conference’s highlights were a panel titled, “New Jewish Fiction in English” which featured Melvin Jules Bukiet, Elaine Feinstein, Allen Hoffman, Eva Hoffman, Gabriel Josopovici, Nessa Rapoport, and Jonathan Rosen; and “Russian-Israeli Literature and Post-Communist Russian Literature” which featured Assar Eppel, Roee Hen, Maya Kaganskaya, and Michael Weiskopf, and Peter Kriksunov; and “Who is a Jewish Writer?” with panelists Eva Hoffman, Maya Kaganskaya, Aharon Megged, and Dov Elboim.

2007-04-18T10:51:00.000-07:00

Our April profits To Be Donated to the Virginia Tech Hillel

Our proceeds for sales in April will be donated to the Hillel at Virginia Tech, to the good works by their Executive Director Sue Kurtz and Steinhardt JCSC Fellow Talya Mazor, for their outstanding work in meeting the needs of Jewish and non-Jewish students on campus. ---> Hillel at Virginia Tech. P.O. Box 708 Blacksburg VA 24063 // (540) 951-2060

2007-04-17T08:08:00.000-07:00

A Note of Professor Librescu

Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, gave his life yesterday at Virginia Tech, so that others might live.

The Jewish, Romanian born teacher survived the Holocaust . He was sent to a Russian labor camp as a child and saved by the townspeople. He later became an aeronautical engineer in Bucharest, and a secret Zionist, defying the regime and later being punished for his thoughts.

In 1978, he emigrated to Israel, and in 1986, Librescu visited Virgnia Tech during a sabbatical and never left. He was Israel's unoffical "ambassador" in this town of few Jews or Israelis, but many Muslims and international students.

Yesterday, during a masssacre that left 33 or more dead, Librescu threw himself in front of the shooter, when Cho Seung-Hui attempted to enter the teacher's classroom. The students fled through the windows while he held the gunman at bay. Librescu was killed by the gunman "but all the students lived - because of him," Virginia Tech student Asael Arad told Israel Army Radio. Several of Librescu's other students sent e-mails to his wife, Marlena, telling of how he blocked the gunman's way and saved their lives.

He will be buried in Israel outside of Tel Aviv.

2007-04-15T15:27:00.000-07:00

I WANT TO BE A PRODUCER
======================

SO... you want to be a producer of a Jewish film?
Please visit http://www.three-cities.org/
They are currently in the production stage of their film project, LONE SOLDIERS. This film explores the lives and motivations of foreigners who decide to join the Israeli army. They hope that their documentary will help to shed new light on the relationship between Diaspora Jews and the State of Israel. Donations are tax-deductible in the US

2007-04-12T20:14:00.000-07:00

I can't stand the local news.. I could not care less about Anna Nicole or Don Imus. Rev Jesse Jackson skirts his issue with calling NYC Hymietown, and Rev Al Sharpton doesn't discuss how he called Jewish businesses in Harlem "white interlopers" or how he accused an innocent government official of raping tawana brawley and that man later committed suicide... so I will retreat to JEWtube.... yes... three new fun items from youTube which is secretly a JewTube:

Rabbi Eli Goodman of Long Beach, Long Island in NY State now has sermons on youTube (nebishy with poor production values..):

There is a great Jewish show from China on DanWei.tv here is an episode (like a Jewish sex in the city with fantastic production values)

And of course... Japanese Passover

and a nice Israeli video that caused the controversy at Eurovision 2007 ...

2007-03-19T10:30:00.000-07:00

Aren't we Jews supposed to be smart? In yesterday's Sunday New York Times magazine, a man writes to the columnist, Randy Cohen, a.k.a. The Ethicist. He explains this secret issue, and then sisgns his name and location. It is Paul Kramer of Montclair NJ, an employee of Glamour Magazine. He question is "My wife’s sister and her husband keep kosher, so we have a special pot for their visits. Recently my wife caught me using the pot for my traif soup. She insists we must buy another pot, but I say as long as my in-laws believe it’s kosher, they won’t violate their faith by using it. Would I be unethical to keep this secret or simply cheap? — Paul Kramer, Montclair, N.J"

The man has chutzpah, dont you think? While The Ethicist explained kashrut and called the writer a 'weasel' (not to be confised with a "Wiesel")... I would ask the man to se a therapist. It isn't about being cheap, but he purposely used the POT that he knew was his in-laws, and made not tea... but something unkosher in it. Can you say passive agressive? Hey Paul... why don't you just drive to their home and urinate on their bookcase?

2007-03-18T18:13:00.000-07:00

Notes from the Jerusalem Book Fair... Daisy Maryles writing in PW... "The key aim of the fair is to introduce authors, both Israeli and Arab, to editors and publishers; an excellent opportunity was the all-day program at Tantur, an ecumenical center in Bethlehem where a number of authors participated in panel discussions and read from their works. A hit was 76-year-old Arabic poet Taha Muhammad Ali ("What do you hate, and who do you love?/ ....I hate departure. I love the spring and the path to the spring, and I worship the middle hours of the morning"). Ali is published in the U.S. by Copper Canyon Press; when she returned home, foreign rights agent/fellow Chandler Crawford bought copies to give to interested fellows. Crawford, who represents Khaled Hosseini's foreign rights, signed a deal at the fair with Israel's Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem, to represent its books worldwide and to help sell translation rights. One of her first projects is a collection of letters written by prisoners in concentration camps.

At Tantur, Philip Rappaport, a Bantam senior editor returning for his third Jerusalem Fair, was especially interested in speakers at the "Where Literature and Cinema Meet" panel. Novelist Ron Leshem and film director Joseph Cedar showed clips and talked about their movie, Beaufort (the film is based on Leshem's debut, If There Is a Heaven), about the months leading up to Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. Leshem's book won the 2006 Sapir Prize (Israel's Orange Prize) and sold more than 100,000 copies. A few days earlier, at the Berlin International Film Festival, Cedar had won the prize for best director. Agent Deborah Harris conducted an intense auction—many of the participants were editorial fellows—before signing with Rappaport. Since then, she's sold the rights to several European countries.

Nilli Cohen, director of the Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature, got numerous offers at the fair for what she calls "a stunning first novel" by Boris Zaidman, Hemingway and the Dead-Bird Rain.Established authors, like Zeruya Shalev, Eshkol Nevo and Savyon Liebrecht, who all took part in the Tantur conference, continue to generate interest, she added.

2007-03-18T17:15:00.000-07:00

In March 2007, a South Korean publisher agreed to withdraw a best-selling comic book from stores after Korean-American and Jewish groups complained that it spread anti-Jewish messages.

The book is part of a series called "Distant Countries and Neighboring Countries" / Monnara Iunnara that is intended to teach children about foreign lands; the series has sold more than 10 million copies since it began 20 years ago. A two volume book about the United States published in 2004 blames Jews for the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and claims that Jews prevent Korean-Americans from succeeding in the United States. Did I mention that the author is a graduate of Munster University in Germany?

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, met with the author, Lee Won-bok (sounds like Rhie Won-bok), a professor of visual arts at Deoksung Women's University in South Korea, at the Seoul offices of his publisher, Gimm-Young. Rabbi Cooper was accompanied by Richard Choi Bertsch, of the National Korean-American Coalition, who also called the book prejudiced. Mr. Lee said he would revise the book and added, "In the future, I will write books in a more responsible way.

It just so happens that I OWN three books by this author, including TWO copies offending book. There are many other problems with his book. For example, he says FDR went to Gorton instead of Groton, he writes that Truman ordered the dropping of a Nuclear bomb instead of an Atomic Bomb; he draws Lincoln getting shot in the head too graphically.

He also says of his writings....
"I tried to provide a big framework for American foreign policy through such things as analyzing U.S. strategy in the Middle East and the influence of Jews behind those policies."

"The real group that controls America through money and media pressure is the Jews."

"Adam Smith, who was a Jew, wrote 'The Wealth of Nations'"

The cartoon shows a Jew in a yarmulke waving from behind an altar or box labeled "Bank of England" with a menorah standing on it.

"This was the Jews' chance to grab England's financial power, and thus had the world's finances wrapped around their fingers."

Of course he is wrong. The Adam Smith of Scotland was not Jewish (the Adam Smith of PBS tv fame however is)

He also wrote... "Rockefeller was the top American conglomerate. There is [an] ongoing dispute about whether or not he was a Jew but the matter is not clear. But the reason he is mistaken for a Jew is that his enterprise technique was exactly the same as the Jews. His number one business rule was to destroy the competition. He used intrigue, tricks, threat, menace, and naturally he mobilized industrial spies to steal information from his competition. He used bribery, violence, and to top it all he didn't hesitate to sabotage companies. This was cold hearted industrialist who cruelly knocked down the competitors who faced him. "

"The core group of people that moves Washington power is the WASPs, but in reality the invisible power that moves them is the Jews. "

Well.. let's hope the books get changed, and Koreans remain philo Semitic.

2007-02-08T08:48:00.000-08:00

FOR JEWISH COMIC BOOKS FANS... REASONS To ATTEND COMIC CON IN NYC
===============
I wanted to let you know abuot this upcoming event in nyc... and then I got an email from them about 26 Jewish reasons to attend.. Thanks. Here they are
===============

26 "Jewish" Reasons to attend New York Comic Con '07

(1) Sunday afternoon panel on "The Jewish Side of Comics" with:

(2) Neil Kleid (Xeric award-winning author, discussing his his Judaic-subject comics work, including Brownwville (his graphic novel about the Jewish mafia) and Migdal David (his upcoming cartoon memoir for Seraphic Press that explores the difficulties of growing up with developmental disabilities in an Orthodox Jewish community).

(3) Rabbi Simcha Weinstein (author of Up Up and Oy Vey : How Jewish History, Culture and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero)

(4) Danny Fingeroth (author of the forthcoming Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics and the Creation of the Superhero)

(5) Josef Rubinstein (contributor to Journeys : The Collected Edition and Balm in Gilead, both from Mahrwood Press)

(6) Stan Mack (currently at work on a series of Jewish historical fiction graphic novels)

(7) Steven M. Bergson (Jewish Comics Blog), moderator

The Jewish Side of Comics - New York Comic Con
Sun., Feb. 25, 2007 4:00-5:00 PM
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center
655 West 34th Street NY, NY Room 1E04
**********************************************
**********************************************

In the "Artists' Alley", one can meet and talk to :

(8) Peter David (who infamously used the names of seder plate items for aliens in a Star Trek novel and who wrote the stories for The Incredible Hulk #386-387; see
http://www.leaderslair.com/noexcuses/hulk2-386.html
and
http://www.leaderslair.com/noexcuses/hulk2-387.html

(9) Neal Adams (illustrator of "The Ventures of Zimmerman" (parody of Bob Dylan) and "Son O' God", which appeared in the pages of National Lampoon)

(10) Aline Kominsky-Crumb (author of autobiographical comics, wife of underground comix legend Robert Crumb, author of the forthcoming Need More Love: A Graphic
Memoir)

(11) Brian K. Vaughn (author of the comic series The Escapists, inspired by the Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by
Michael Chabon)

(12) A. David Lewis (author of The Lone and Level Sands, a graphic novel adaptation of the story of Exodus)

(13) Kyle Baker (author of the Vertigo graphic novel King David)

(14) Keith Giffen (author of the Ragman miniseries that reintroduced the title character as a Jewish superhero)

(15) Jimmy Palmiotti (co-creator of the short-lived Golem series The Monolith from DC Comics)

(16) Roy Thomas (writer of several Jewish comic stories, portraying golems, the Holocaust and a Jewish superhero named Nuklon who refuses to inter-date)

(17) Miriam Katin (author-illustrator of the Nazi-era biography We Are On Our Own)

(18) J. Michael Straczynski (author of the story "Selah" in Rising Stars #16, in which peace is brought to Israel and the Middle East and "You Want Pants with
That?" in Amazing Spider-Man #502, which featured a Jewish tailor who helps prevent a crime)

(19) Ellen Kushner (creator and performer of The Golden Dreydl: a Klezmer ‘Nutcracker’ for Chanukah - a children's story which was recorded with Shirim
Klezmer Orchestra for Rykodisc, and will be published as a chapter book in 2007 by Charlesbridge Press)

(20) Clifford Meth (author of controversial illustrated short stories, such as "I, Gezheh", "The Man Who Hated Lubavitchers", and "Wagging the Rebbe",
editor of short story collections such as Strange Kaddish: Tales You Won't Hear from Bubbie and Balm in Gilead)

(21) Jon Bogdanove (writer of issues of a Superman storyline in which Superman went to the Warsaw Ghetto)

(22) Jerry Ordway (illustrator of an issue of Superman in which he went to the Warsaw Ghetto, as well as an All-Star Squadron story in which Steel ended up in a
Nazi death camp)

(23) Rick Veitch (author of the miniseries The Maximortal, a fictional story about the early comic book business and some of the Jewish characters who were part of its history)

(24) Douglas Rushkoff (writer of the Testament series from Vertigo)

(25) Peter Gross (iliustrator of the Testament series from Vertigo)

(26) Arie Kaplan, author of a series of articles about the Jewish creators of comics ("The Kings of Comics") will be attending the convention and will probably be
attending the Sunday panel.

THANKS! for the heads up.

2007-02-07T12:25:00.000-08:00

FOODIES ALERT

Good News and Bad News...
In today's NYT, the cheap dining critic did a story on Taam-Tov. I am so evil. I didn't want it to be discovered and overrun... but seriously, I haven't been there in several years, so who am I to not wish them well and good fortune. Taam-Tov is the kosher-bukharian diner on the 3rd floor of an office building in the 47th Stret diamond district. good for them.

Bad News... Gertel's, the most famous of the last full range kosher bakeries on the Lower East Side, will reportedly close at the end of Passover. It does a good business in supplying packaged rugelach to upscale groceries, so that can continue from an industrial or contract-baking location. But .. sigh.. Gertel's will go the way of Ratners. It will be a memory as more higher rent businesses move into the resurging LES... But then again... I havent bought a thing at that bakery in 2 years, and when I did buy... I spent less than $40... so ... like others... I was more in support of the place existing, but didnt regularly support it financially (except for its branded products at other groceries)

BOOKIES ALERT

last night saw over five Jewish book readings in NYC, plus an after party. In addition to a Paul Auster reading, a reading by his daughter, a reading at KGB, and a reading of Chairty Girl at B&N, there was a reading by Ron Jeremy, the jewish porn star of the 1970s/80s on his life in the porn biz. I was invited to the afterparty, but since it did not start til 12 midnight, and I am not a porn affocionado, I decided to sleep instead.

yes.. i realize you thought i would add a link to the Ron Jeremy sex toy ... but even though our commission on a sale of that would be about $1 each, .. money isnt everything... so we won't show you the link to that

2007-02-06T08:07:00.000-08:00

Mega-Shuls?

Did you read about the McLean Bible Church in Tysons Corner (Wash Post, 2/4)... It has 13,000 Sunday worshippers and a $93 million property. Can the megachurch grow? Yes... it plans to build satellite properties in a ring around DC, and have nine locations in a spiritual beltway. Video screens will broadcast the main live "mass" to all the locations, and the sermon and some prayers would be the same at the same time.... which made me think.... are we ready for a mega shul... in which the Sabbtah service is different around the country, but there is one shared dvar or set of prayers for all UAHC or JTSA congregations. Just think... not every synagogue would need a Torah erader.. they can just flip on the main Torah reading from a broadcast site. hmmmm... nope.. it would never work. Hmm.. about branding the synagogues... like McShul's... so that all the Temple Israel can be franchised and all the Temple Beth Am's would be the same across the nation. Let's get started on the biz plan, and start selling the "Temple Israel franchise" to all those growing western suburban towns. What would the motto be? "You had me at Shma." or "Come for the bagels, stay for the sermon"

2007-01-29T07:02:00.000-08:00

SMART JEWS IN HONG KONG
=======================

How do you open the film BORAT in Hong King and not get people upset, after proobs occurred in South Korea and other cities, and you know it won't run in KL or Indonesia? You give the opening night proceeds to the Jewish Film Fest, of course. Mazel Tov to the Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival which will benefit from the opening on Jan 29 of BORAT in Hong Kong. The ticket price for the benefit is $64, which I guess is Chai converted to HK dollars divided by the Year of the Dog and the days til Lunar New Year.

2007-01-27T08:16:00.000-08:00

Did anyone see Rabbi Michael Lerner at the anti-War rally in Washington DC this morning? Hey, Michael... You lost me at the planet Earth.

Does anyone know what the heck he was talking about? ...Mass, the galaxy, the Sun, the stars? Clovers, hearts, moons? Hey.. but that was a colorful tallis.

Speaking of which... someone should have a talk with him.. I think he has become so so so PC.. that he is unable to discern fact and fiction. He recently wrote...“I would not be surprised to learn that some branch of our government conspired either actively to promote or passively to allow the attack on 9/11.”

I rabbi should be more careful with words.. doncha think

2007-01-25T11:24:00.000-08:00

THURSDAY - SUNDANCE DAY 8

Sorry, I caught the dreaded Sundance cough and cold. Watch for posts later today on the party for Israeli films at Sundance, the opening of UNSETTLED, and a piece on Amir Bar Lev's MY KID COULD PAINT THAT.

+++++++++++++++++

NICE JEWISH BOYS GO
TO BRAZIL AND BINGHAMTON. MAKE FILMS.

Park City, Utah is a town of 7,300 residents, five percent of whom, anecdotally, are licensed real estate agents. Each January, the town’s population grows six-fold, as 45,000 cinema-philes visit for the Sundance Film Festival.

Two of those visitors this year were nice Jewish men who traveled near and far to make their documentaries.

Berkeley-raised Amir Bar-Lev directed “FIGHTER,” an award winning documentary about two Holocaust survivors, and was looking around for a new project in 2004. A Brown magna cum laude graduate who majored in film and comparative mysticism, he happened upon a story about a four year old artist who caused a sensation by selling her paintings for tens of thousands of dollars. It was then that he found his next subject: the idea of truth in contemporary abstract art. But MY KID COULD PAINT THAT evolved into a much broader documentary.

Elizabeth Cohen, the soul of the film, is a reporter for the Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin, and first happened on the story of Marla Olmstead, an upstate New York four year old with two working parents, whose abstract paintings were becoming a sensation in Binghamton.

Amir Bar-Lev’s documentary deftly shows how the news cycle pounced on this one newspaper account. After the story’s appearance in The New York Times, international radio, newspaper, and television producers picked up the story on this potential child prodigy. As the film progresses, Marla and her family get flown to Manhattan and appear on various daytime talk shows.

Initially, Bar-Lev traveled to Binghamton NY, and did not plan to profile the Olmstead family at all in his digital meditation on modern art and subjectivity, and the obsession people have with child prodigies. But after months of filming, a “60 Minutes” episode accused the Olmstead family of perpetrating a hoax. This forced a change in focus.

Bar-Lev’s documentary then becomes a story of how the media creates heroes only to later destroy them to continue its news cycle and hunger for viewers, and a mystery story in search of a factual resolution to the accusations against the Olmstead parents. Bar-Lev said, "I'm hoping that a quarter of the people think that Marla did the paintings, and a quarter of the people think that Marla didn't do the paintings, and that half of the people think that this is about larger issues like art and meaning and storytelling."

Ironically, while Bar-Lev’s film shines a light on those who profited from the story - the predatory media producers, the gallery owner, and Marla’s parents – his documentary was acquired at Sundance by Sony Pictures Classics for $2 million. Not bad. He can now pay back his Israel-born parents, friends, and his relatives, and be able to hold his head high at future holidays and family events.

Jason Kohn is another nice Jewish guy who had his film accepted by Sundance this year. But instead of Binghamton, he traveled to Brazil. After an apprenticeship with documentary master Errol Morris, Kohn traveled to Brazil, one of the world’s most politically corrupt nations, to visit his father. The result was the creation of his documentary, MANDA BALA (Portuguese for "Send a Bullet").

In MANDA BALA, Kohn (pricture right) beautifully profiles a variety of subject and ties them all together. The film is rich with Brazilian music and lush landscapes, but it is essentially a general equilibrium cyclical story about how the rich steal from the poor, and how the poor steal back from the rich. His subjects include: the owners of a frog farm who are caught up in a $2 billion money laundering operation; a kidnapping victim who recounts her torture; a leading businessman from Sao Paulo who spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on bullet proofing and his personal safety; the police detectives and officers who save kidnap victims; a wealthy cosmetic surgeon who specializes in reconstructing the effects of torture and lacerated ears on kidnapping victims; and a vicious Brazilian criminal who acts as a modern day Robin Hood.

For Kohn, filmmaking was little riskier than when he filmed Bar Mitzvah’s and weddings on Long Island. For example, when interviewing a kidnapper, Kohn was told that he would be killed along with the family of his contact if the kidnapper's true identity was revealed in the film. The kidnapper also kept firearms close at hand. Once, his close-circuit security system showed the police at his door. He quickly pulled out an arsenal of weaponry and stood ready and waiting to shoot the cops should they attempt to enter. Jason quietly sat next to him, waiting.

2007-01-22T18:06:00.000-08:00

SUNDANCE DAY 5 MONDAY JAN 22

A Minister, a Rabbi and an Imam Walk into a Film….

Amid the “normal” Sundance offerings, that include a documentary on horses having intimate sexual relations with men (ZOO), and a biting teen horror comedy on a woman (played by Jess Weixler) who discovers that her vagina has defensive teeth, or the fabled vagina dentata (Mitchell Lichtenstein’s TEETH), and plotting revenge against your wife’s lover (DRIVING WITH MY WIFE’S LOVER), there was a film that was oriented towards the bible.

Daniel Karslake’s FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO does for Christians what Sandi Dubowski’s TREMBLING BEFORE G-D did for observant Jews. FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO is a documentary about various conservative Christians in the United States who must try to reconcile their beliefs on what their Bibles say and homosexuality.

Karslake’s documentary follows five families, each from different Christian denominations, and recounts their journeys and their challenges to stay in the church and remain devout believers. One of the families is that of Richard Gephardt, a U.S. Congressman and former U.S. Presidential candidate.

In addition to exploring the way religious conservatives have misled their congregations into believing that the Bible forbids homosexuality and how this misinterpretation stigmatizes gays and lesbians, Karslake includes interviews with various members of the clergy, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Dr. Paula Caplan, Reverend Mel White, Rabbi Steven Greenberg, and Rabbi Brian Zachary Mayer.

Karslake, Dubowski, Rabbi Greenberg, and Reverend White, were four members of a larger panel that addressed the issue of “Gays, Faith and Film” at Sundance’s Queer Lounge. Robert Cary, director of “SAVE ME,” which also premiered at Sundance, also joined the panel, with his co-producer and star, Judith Light. The panel opened with clips from and a discussion on Karslake’s film, as well as a brief clip from a rough cut of Dubowski and Parvez Sharma’s forthcoming film about Muslim gays, temporarily titled, “A JIHAD FOR LOVE.” All these films focus on transformation, reconciliation, liberation, and trying to influence the “movable middle” of American public opinion.

Dubowski spoke about how his film, TREMBLING BEFORE G-D, which has been seen by 8 million people to date, was banned by South Africa’s rabbinical court, but how his film was used to train hundreds of teachers in Israel, and was just featured on Ukrainian national television. It is slowly influencing its audiences.

Greenberg added that it is a misnomer to say that the “the Bible says,” and that one should instead say, “the Bible reads” since it is a function of interpretation. He added, “Words when spoken fracture into multiple meaning.” The notion that it says it in the bible is improper since it is about interpretation.

Reverend White, who was the ghost writer for Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, the Bakers and other evangelical leaders before he came out as gay, reinforced that religion is a redemptive tool for gays. He stressed that the Bible is used and misused to condemn gay people. These films can be distributed and used to reach people, offer them other interpretations, and avoid the attempted and realized suicides that are not uncommon among religious gays.

Greenberg, a Senior Teaching Fellow at CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, stressed that homophobia around the world is just one room in a grand hotel called misogyny. As one looks at societies, the more women are treated as second class citizens, the greater the society will mistreat of gays.
Gays are killed in those societies where women are not given equal rights.

Karslake came to filmmaking on a circuitous route. A Christian who worked as a fundraiser for Manhattan’s Riverside Chruch and The City of Hope medical centers, he interned as a producer of the PBS newsmagazine, “In The Life.” After he produced and aired a segment on the Reverend Irene Monroe, a lesbian and Harvard University theologian, he received a letter from a boy in Iowa that read, "Last week I bought the gun. Yesterday I wrote the note. But last night I happened to turn on your show and just knowing that someday I might be able to go back into my church, I threw the gun in the river. My mom never has to know."

The segment, which had been tabled by the producers since the nexus between religion and homosexuality might be too controversial for PBS station, had not only saved at least one life, it was honored with the first Emmy award nomination the show every received. Karslake became the “go to” producer at the show for stories on spiritual issues and the gay community.

“That email from the young man in Iowa was the first of hundreds of emails I got from gay and lesbian people from across the country who felt so rejected and condemned by their own churches that they had considered or were still considering taking their own lives,” Karslake recalled.

“Ironically gay kids, especially guys -- I think because of how we’re made and who we are -- many gay kids grow up really involved in their church and tend to be very much a part of that church family. So when the condemnation happens and the rejection, it’s like another family rejection. It’s very strong. So when that first piece aired, it sort of became what I was all about.”

But Karslake felt he was preaching to the choir, and was not reaching the people who desperately needed to see a film about faith and sexuality. Then he saw Michael Moore’s, BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE. And he realized he could make a documentary that reconciled homosexuality and scripture, by bringing the argument to a level that normal lay people could understand.

Karslake embarked on a fundraising campaign and received large donations from Robin Voss, Bruce Voss, Michael Huffington (HuffingtonPost.com), and Robert Greenbaum.

In addition to interviewing members of the clergy, and the Gephardt’s (pictured right), the film includes interviews with Jake Reitan and his family; Bishop Gene Robinson and his parents; and the Poteat family. The film follows Bishop Robinson of New Hampshire and his election to this high post even though he is gay; Jake Reitan, the descendant of many ministers and church activists who came out as gay in high school, and David Poteat, who states in the film, ‘I had good kids. We had one of each sex – when my kids were growing up, I said “God, please don’t let me son grow up to be a faggot and my daughter a slut.’ And He did not. He did not do that. Her reversed it.”

Critical to the film’s interviews are those with Rabbis Mayer and Greenberg. Mayer stresses that the oft quoted sentence in Leviticus is followed and preceded by sentences on eating shrimp, and planting co-mingled seeds; and few ministers harangue their congregations on those passages. Greenberg focuses on the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. While some interpret it to be a story of homosexuality, Greenberg interprets the story as a lesson on hospitality.

Greenberg (pictured left) closed the panel by reinforcing the point that faith is a resource for gays and lesbians. While there are religions that will not allow conversations or questioning, there are faiths that can engage in deep and respectful dialogues, so that its adherents can find purpose, meaning, and grounding in their lives.

2007-01-21T14:06:00.000-08:00

SUNDANCE - DAY 4 - JANUARY 21, 2007
For earlier days, please scroll down, and then read upwards

Good morning from Park City Utah, where the air is crisp and the mercury is 15 degrees Fahrenheit.

I started my day off with a swlection of short films, one of which is of Jewish interest. In MAKE A WISH (ATMENAH), director and writer Cherien Dabis tells the tale of a young, 11 year old Palestinian girl who will do whatever is nessary to buy a birthday cake. The film opens as Mariam is counting her change in the West Bank city of Ramallah. About 45 shekels. After coaxing her mother to give her some shekels, Mariam arrives at the bakery with 55 shekels, ten less than the required 65 shekels needed for the best birthday cake. As she passes graffitti and posters for dead martyrs, as war scenes play on some televisions, Mariam is determined to get the shekels she needs, even if it means shoplifting and lying. What seems to be a simple story of a girl and a cake becomes a story of bravery and occupation.

Dabis, 31, who has made shorts and written for "The L Word," graduated from Columbia University. The daughter of a Palestinian and a Jordanian, she grew up in Omaha and Jordan. Her film portrays grief through the eyes of a pre-teen.

When Dabis traveled from Amman to Ramallah to shoot her film in 2005, the 55 mile trip took 12 hours, since she was detained and interrogated at the Allenby Bridge crossing by the Israeli authorities. She had to hire and train a Palestinian cameraman, since Israelis were banned from traveling to Ramallah at the time. Shot during Ramadan, her crew was NOT able to eat in public during the filming. One day she was banned from filing by the Palestinian police, since they warned her that they were planning to fight the Palestinian security forces and gunfire might break out.

More soon.

2007-01-20T15:54:00.000-08:00

Sundance day 3: Saturday, January 20, 2007

The third day at Sundance was a day for learning opportunities. I focused on two documentaries, as well as a gaming panel.

Sundance sponsored a panel on Independent Video Gaming: A New Medium for Filmmaking, which discussed the use of independent film in games and alternative games.

Among the panelists were Suzanne Seggerman, Co-Director for Games for Change, a group that seeks to integrate gaming into teaching and promoting social change. Six hundred members of her group are beginning to prototype and build games and incorporate games into their non-profits and missions. Her games are not about violence and conflict, but allowing people to work on complex issues such as interdependent government policies or global warming. Some games were MTV’s "Darfur is Dying" game, which had a $25,000 prize had 1 million downloads; The Center on Non Violent Conflict, which spent $3 million on a game to promote civic activism around the world; and the United Nation's World Food Program game that had 2 million downloads for a game that trains young people to be humanitarians.

Eddo Stern, a game maker and artist discussed the role of the web in independent game distribution, as well as the role of foundation grants to fund game development. Eric Zimmerman, CEO of Games Labs gave a demonstration of some of his non violent, educational games, including one that allows players run a restaurant. He also discussed how the same people who enjoy investing in independent films can be tapped to invest in games.

While these were interesting, I was mostly attracted to Asi Burak’s game, Peacemaker, which incorporates news stories and documentary videos. Peacemaker allows the player to select the role of Israeli or Palestinian leader, select a level of difficulty, and attempt to make peace in the region. The player must react to news stories and events and use maps of the region to make policy decisions. Burak also spoke directly to the issue of return on monetary investments as well as the return on social and cultural investments.

**

Keeping with the theme of personal growth and overcoming challenges, I watched two documentaries which were not necessarily Jewish.

HEAR AND NOW, a documentary by Irene Taylor Brodsky, was a deeply personal documentary about her deaf parents, and their choice to undergo cochlear implant surgeries in an attempt to hear sound for the first time in their lives. Taylor Brodsky, whose husband is Jewish (thus the Brodsky part of the surname), is one of three children who were raised Sally and Paul Taylor in Saint Louis. Her father, a successful Gerogia Tech engineer, was the inventor of the TTY telephone for the deaf and hearing impaired.

As the filmmaker’s parents prepared to retire, they informed their children and family that they would both undergo the risky surgery. Taylor Brodsky had conflicting feelings, but the Emmy Award winning filmmaker inside of her realized that this was a great opportunity to document their surgeries in a documentary film. She asked at the premiere, if they were known as or defined as deaf all their lives, “after this surgery, who will they be? Will they still be deaf people of hearing people, or will they be something in between?” And she wondered what is the implant doesn’t work, or only works for one of them?

Making a film about one’s parents can be problematic. As she began filming, she found that her parents weren’t the problem, she was. Her heart was at war with her filmmaking instincts. As her mother became emotional before and after the surgery, as frustrations grew, as crying ensued, she had to keep her camera honest and rolling. It was a battle between the heart and the head, between feelings and facts. And since the filmmaker was part of the story, Taylor Brodsky had to insert herself into many of the scenes.

Halfway into the film, viewers will realize that this is not only a documentary about two retired deaf people, who lived in auditory silence their entire lives, and are now hearing for the first time, but this is also a deeply moving love story. Her parents found each other in elementary school, experienced the stigma of deafness in mainstream high schools, reconnected after college, and bonded in their struggles to succeed in a hearing world and raise a family. But after their surgeries, as one of them seems to be hearing and “progressing” better than the other, as they struggle to adapt to noise and hearing, from the flushing of toilets to the honking of Canadian geese, one wonders if that bond is quickly disintegrating.

In one riveting scene, when Paul and Sally visit the audiologist to turn on their implants and hear tones for the first time, Sally is so overcome with emotion that she is unable to speak. In a less emotional scene, Paul drives through a car wash twice as if it is an amusement park ride, in order to experience the strange noises of wind and water.

HEAR AND NOW will be broadcast by HBO in the United States in 2007.

*

Drying my eyes from that documentary, I took a 30 minute break before preparing to see NANKING, a documentary by Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman about the Japanese atrocities in Nanking, China prior to World War II.

I came away from this film wanting it to be shown in every American and Japanese school and home. While most Jews are familiar with the Nazi Holocaust and atrocities, and some have an inkling of the German Jews who found refuge from Hitler in Shanghai, few know about the Japanese destruction of Nanking in 1937 and 1938, and the role of half a dozen Americans and a German in the saving of 200,000 Chinese lives.

NANKING: EVEN IN THE DARKEST OF TIMES, THERE IS LIGHT shows the power of documentary filmmaking. The film details how the Japanese subjected the temporary capital of China, Nanking (now called Nanjing), to months of aerial bombings, followed by a ground assult that left the city in ruins. A small group of Westerners banded together to create a Safety Zone, where 200,000 Chinese found refuge from the Japanese.

The story is told with recollections by actual Chinese survivors, by Japanese soldiers who are still living, and by readings from letters and diaries, featuring Woody Harrelson and Mariel Hemingway as some of the readers.

Over the course of less than 2 months, Japanese soldiers raped approximately 20,000 women, and then usually stabbed the to death; and murdered 200,000 of Nanking's Chinese residents. A group of 22 Americans and Europeans however, were able to save 200,000. One of the saviors, a devoted Nazi, later returned to Germany, where he was ostracized and forced into poverty.

Just as Bitberg, a cemetery that includes Nazi SS troops, exists in Germany, NANKING shows that in Japan, a memorial to the leaders of the atrocities was built and remains to focal point and celebratory site for Japanese nationalists. The Yakasuna shrine in Tokyo includes tributes to fourteen Japanese war criminals. The rejection of Japanese guilt is so great in Japan, that Japanese crew members and three associate producers hired for the Japanese segments of the film quit the project and refused to work on it.

The genesis of this film occurred when Ted Leonsis, Vice-Chairman of AOL, read a copy Iris Chang's obituary and became interested in her book, THE RAPE OF NANKING, that contributed to her depression and suicide at the age of 36 in 2005. Discarding the paper, it didn't fall into the waste paper basket, and for several days (housekeeping never emptied the trash), the picture of Chang kept staring at Leonsis. Was it a message from beyond the grave?

Leonsis decided to keep the obituary and read her book. Afterwards, he realized, with the anniversary of the December 1937 attrocities approaching, he had a great story that needed to be told. And fortunately the film will be distributed before the 70th anniversary.

Guttentag and Sturman were hired to direct this story of the "Forgotten Holocaust." Guttentag stated, "I felt that the words "holocaust" and "forgotten" should never be in the same sentence - and my hope is in the future they will not be."

Hopefully, every school child in America will know the name of Minnie Vautrin, who saved countless lives, but later committed suicide from the stress and trauma of the events.

2007-01-20T13:45:00.000-08:00

SUNDANCE REPORT DAY TWO (See DAY ONE BELOW)

Friday morning started early. I was running on New York Times, and was up at 5 A.M. for a 7:30 meeting. Bored in the chill air of the condo’s bedroom, I dressed and headed out to Park City’s TV station, where I was booked to appear to promote SchmoozeDance 2007 during their 7:30 A.M. segment of their version of “Good Morning Park City.”

After defrosting the windshields for 15 minutes, I headed out to the studios. Arriving early has its benefits, and I was informed that it is rare that a guest makes it there more than 5 minutes before an appearance. Hanging out with the other guests and hosts, I became something akin to a Jewish confessional.

“I’m Jewish and so is my boyfriend,” the morning show co-host informed me. She is an aspiring actress, and her boyfriend is a Russian Jewish immigrant who was sponsored by the Jewish community when he arrived from the Ukraine> He is now an extremely successful engineer. (I hope he gives to the UJA)

“My grandmother was Jewish,” one of the tv techs informed me. “I am a light haired Greek, but my mother’s mother was Jewish.” She is in development on a fascinating cooking show for kids and teens. I became slightly envious of her zeal and ideas. “You know the station director is Israeli and Jewish,” I was told.

I went on after the weather and ski reports, and spent 8 minutes discussing SchmoozeDance and our films. It was quite fun, plus I got a free bagel (I am sure it was low carb, right?)

Later that day, when I told a young parking lot attendant that people might be arriving for Schmoozedance, he told me, “Oh yes, it’s a Jewish festival. Right? You know, my grandfather was Jewish, his name was Morgenthaler.” Talk about hidden Jews in Utah! Hehehe

After dropping by Temple Har Shalom, and reading The Times, I fit in a few films with Jewish content.

I began with HOT HOUSE, an Israeli documentary at Sundance by director Shimon Dotan. Nearly two decades ago, Dotan made The Smile of The Lamb, a fictional film that he was sure would solve the Israel/Palestine conflict. It didn’t.

Dotan, who was born in Romania and immigrated to Israel with his family, has taught filmmaking around the world, including at TAU in Tel Aviv, Concordia in Montreal and NYU in New York City. He has over 10 films under his belt, and received awards from the Berlin Festival as well as Israel highest film honors. Seeking a way to stay longer in Israel in 2005, since a family member was ill, he happened upon an Israeli tv report about Palestinian security prisoners in an Ashkelon prison. Intrigued, he turned this into an idea for a documentary: the story of some of the 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, and their role in the Palestinian Authority leadership. Over 60% of the Palestinian leadership have served time in Israeli prisons. While they are seen as terrorists and security prisoners by Israeli Jews, they are considered to be freedom fighters and prisoners of war by Palestinians and many Israeli Arabs.

At first the prisons authority declined his request for access to the prisoners. His second request was also softly rejected. His third request, using a little protectzia perhaps, was granted.

The documentary opens with great suspense, helped along by a pulsating score by Ron Klein, which sounds a little like the beats of Subliminal. It is February 2006, a month after the Palestinian elections in which many of the winners were already inmates who were incarcerated in Israeli prisons. An effective montage of male prisoners from Block 7, Cell 7 and other cells in the Be’er Sheva Prison begins; each recites his name, village, crime, and sentence.

Many are serving multiple life sentences for attacks, bombings, dispatching and recruiting suicide bombers, and abetting terrorism. The cells are divided by political affiliations: Fatah, Hamas, PFLP, Islamic Jihad, and other groups; and each have its own leadership structure, maintain strict discipline, and have representatives that meet with the wardens, including Colonel Meir Simchon.

As we meet the prisoners and their leaders and hear their stories, a picture emerges that Israeli prisons are incubators for the future P.A. leadership and plotters. No longer needing to hide and run, many have time to watch the news, read the papers, take correspondence courses at Israeli Hebrew-speaking universities, and even watch Oprah.

As the story continues, the documentary flashes back a year to when Palestinian elections were called for; and the documentary captures the campaign, its results, and the effects they have behind prison walls.

Dotan was granted unheard of access to the prisoners and prisons, including Hasharon Prison for women, the Negev Detention Center, and a prison in Ashkelon. Most prisoners speak from the heart, and others do not stray from their ideological scripts. The profess victimhood to the same degree as do the Israeli Jews.

Dotan includes interviews with a failed suicide bomber who looks forward to killing Jews in the future, as well as the female mastermind of the King George Street supermarket and the Sbarro pizza restaurant bombings. She is serving 16 life terms and is the most media savvy and chilling of the interviewees. A former Palestinian television newscaster, she knows very well how to play to the camera.

My next film to watch was another Israeli one: Sweet Mud, directed by Dror Shaul, whose earlier film, “Operation Grandma,” was a hit on the Jewish film festival circuit.

Sweet Mud, or Adama Meshugaat in Hebrew, is Israel’s entry to the U.S. Academy Awards, and has been a top grossing film in Israel this winter, selling nearly 200,000 tickets. After viewing it, I found “Sweet Mud” to be a poor translation for this powerful film that is called “Crazy Earth” in Israel.

Dror Shaul (pictured right) wrote and directed this film about the life of twelve year old, Dvir Avni (Tomer Steinhof), in an Israeli Kibbutz during 1974. Trying to
be an individual in a lush, verdant place that demands ideological conformity, at least on its surface, is frustrating on a pre-adolescent.

In this dark coming of age tale, Dvir lives in the kibbutz’s children’s house, which was common on Kibbutzim until the 1980’s, and he visits his mother, Miri (Ronit Yudkevitch), each day. She lives alone, having lost her husband to an unexplained death; she is termed emotionally unstable by the kibbutz. Dvir’s older brother is preparing for Army service, and spends most of his time seducing the Scandanavian and other blonde female kibbutz volunteers. In reality, the director also tried to get kibbitz assignments as a teenager that would let him work closer to Swedish and other more Nordic volunteers.

It quickly becomes clear the Dvir must not only care for himself, but also give his mother the strength to overcome her depression, and make it at least another day.

While approaching their ideological ‘bar mitzvah,’ at the kibbutz, he and his twelve year cohorts, the “peaches,” must learn about equality in theory and practice. But Dvir is too astute, and observes the grotesque and deviant sides of life on the land.

Dror Shaul captures life in an ideological utopian collective, obsessed with petty issues, filled with secrets and bouts of self righteousness, in post-Yom Kippur War Israel and the ramifications of non-conformity. The fact that the name of the Kibbutz, Kibbutz Beit G’vurot, is the same name given to an Israeli cemetery, and that Miri’s boyfriend is Swiss, another utopian nation, is rather telling.

Shaul, 35, was raised on a kibbutz in southern Israel, Kibbutz Kissufim. He also grew up with a widowed mother, and a father who did not die gloriously in a war. She fought depression, and died when he was 12 from cancer. Six year ago, he found a box of his mother’s letters and realized how much pain she was in and how she was disgusted and confused with kibbutz life. The film stems from these revelations and refreshed memories.

**

As the afternoon turned to evening, I head to Temple Har Shalom for Schmoozedance 2007, our eighth year. On the way, I ran into the filmmakers Sandi Simcha Dubowsky and Judith Helfand. Unfortunately, they could not make it to Schmoozedance.

At 6:30 PM, Temple Har Shalom was nearing a standing room only crowd for our Oneg Shabbat. I was too focused on waiting for one of the filmmakers to arrive to actively participate in all the prayers, but as the time for Aleinu arrived, all the expected filmmakers and their entourages had arrived. After a break for food (catered by Park City’s Israeli restaurant, REEFS) and beverages (including He’Brew), and even snack (including Latke Crisps “Thou Shalt Snack”), we re-congregated and welcomed Sundance filmmaker Shimon Dotan.

After showing a brief CLIP from his film, we invited him to the front to answer questions. 15 minutes of Q&A became 25, and then 30 minutes. And there were still enough question for another 30 minutes, but we had more films to show.

Adam Hootnick was then introduced with his Slamdance film, Unsettled. Unsettled is Adam’s documentary that focuses on 6 young Israeli over 6 days of the Gaza withdrawal in 2005. Cut with excellent music and emotional images, Hootnick’s film follows two surfing Gaza settlers, two soldiers, settler activists and disengagement activists. Adam showed special out-takes from his film, and also flew in two of the film’s stars to answer questions. Another 20 minute Q&A sessions began.

At 9 P.M., thirty members of the audience wanted to stay for more films, and so we showed the other shorts that I had brought with me. Iris Bahr’s one woman comedy that was shot in Israel had people laughing in the aisles, or if not aisles, then at least “pews.”

Schmoozedance was a brilliant success. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to eat the fabulous food provided by REEFS, Park City's premiere Israeli resturant, and only 4 dozen plain pitas were left, so I headed to my condo and contemplated a film screening before bed.

**

It was cold, the type of cold that can freeze my now slimmed down moustache. I made it to the screening of “Crazy Love,” directed by Dan Klores.

Dan Klores made “The Boys of Second Street Park,” an earlier documentary about the young men he grew up with in New York City and their lives after high school. It was a very Brooklyn, very Jewish feeling film. So I looked forward to Crazy Love, a documentary about an obsessive, pathological love story set in NYC. Definitely not a Jewish film, and a respite from today’s darker, Israeli films.

Not a Jewish film? I spoke to soon. In the film’s opening paragraph, the narrator states that he was feeling happy and good, since it was a Jewish holiday, and he was driving around New York City. He had just come back from making a film in England, when he spotted the most beautiful woman he had ever seen; and he had to have her.

That man is Burt Pugach, who in 1957 was a very successful, Jewish trial lawyer (or ambulance chaser); and that beauty is Linda Riss, a young Jewish woman with a difficult childhood and aspirations for love and comfort.

The documentary recounts how Pugach wooed Riss, and he showered her with gifts and adventures, and how her cousins and grandmother responded. As she slowly accepts him, Klores reveals how Linda discovered that Burt was married, how Burt promises that a divorce is in progress, and how Burt’s lies grow from there.

When Linda dumps the lying Pugach, Burt responds by hiring thugs to blind Linda by thowing acid in her face. The ensuing events sold many New York City tabloids in 1959. Klores wrote, “It is a story of obsession, love, behavior, mental illness, desperation, violence and forgiveness.”

It was quite a bedtime story filled with insanity, lust, and unexpected surprises.

2007-01-19T09:10:00.000-08:00

REPORT FROM SUNDANCE - DAY ONE

How should one begin a trip to Sundance? How should a New York based Jewish guy begin a trip to Sundance? With a schmear of neurosis perhaps? The night before ended with a trip to the Filmmakers Reception at Manhattan’s Makor, for the New York Jewish Film Festival. Rushing home, I had time to pack, make some calls, and get four hours of sleep. I woke up at 3:45 A.M. anticipating my 4 A.M. alarm; watered the plants; dressed; made sure the gas and lights were off; and headed to the street to wait for a ride to Newark for an early flight to Salt Lake City. Tick, tick. Five minutes late, Ten. Fifteen. Had my friend forgot? Was he still asleep? Why wasn’t he picking up his cell? Would I have to cab it to Newark? Did I have enough cash for a cab?

Fortunately, he arrived 20 minutes late, my stress abated, my neuroses dissipated, and we were off on our Sundance adventure.

In past years, I flew out of JFK on the 7 A.M. flight to Utah. The flight was also overbooked, and it had the feeling of a high school fashion show, filled with the pecking order and cliques of competitive publicists, film buyers, writers, officers from media firms, and those aspiring to film industry success. It was a orgy of air kisses, leather pants, winter boots, and loud “please notice me” voices. The flight from Newark, on the other hand, was very calm… overbooked, but calm. It was uneventful, except for the fact that the flight ran out of bottled water, even though they had stocked extra bottles. They failed to anticipate the levels of thirst and the critical need that p.r. flaks and filmmakers have to remain hydrated hourly.

Landing in Utah and arriving in Park City, I realized that I would be suffering from flat hat-hair in this village of well-coifed manes. Other than me and perhaps Nick Nolte, most people seemed to have brought their own makeup and hair stylists with them.

Speaking of manes and hair, the opening film for Sundance 2007, is a documentary about some very long haired students, hippies, and yippies, “Chicago 10.” Written and directed by Brett Morgan, “Chicago 10” looks back at the events of 1968: the three candidates at the Democratic Party convention in Chicago, and the arrests and trial of members of three political protest organizations, who later became known as the “Chicago 8” and later the “Chicago 7.” (The politically correct term is now Chicago 10)

Morgan (pictured left) developed this project as a reaction to the U.S. entry into Afghanistan and then Iraq, as a way to mobilize those who were born after 1968, just as he was.
As the documentary premiered at Sundance on Thursday evening, he said, “The time was right to look back at the Chicago 8 and the anti-war movements of the Sixties to have an understanding of what it means to take a stand, to try and encourage people to take a more active role in protest… I just thought there should be some more participation.” His film attempts to succeed as both a vivid recreation of the period and an invitation to the importance of political activism, participation, and commitment.

The 1968 assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., ghetto riots, student demonstrations in Paris and the U.S., and Tet offensive in Vietnam all reached an apex when the Democrats met in Chicago. So there is an overwhelming amount of archival footage from the events in Chicago, and over 14,000 photos from the 1968 convention and riots. But there were no photos of the 1969 court trial. Morgan’s innovation was to animate the courtroom scenes, creating an unusual documentary that mixes archival footage and photos with recreated animation. The result is entertaining, but also inspiring.

What’s so Jewish about this film? Most of the participants in the trial were of Jewish heritage. They included both Judge Julius Hoffman and Yippie Abbie Hoffman (picture wearing a flag), defense attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass, poet Allen Ginsburg (who is animated as floating and meditating), and some of the other defendants and alleged co-conspirators, including Lee Weiner (who later became a leader in the ADL of B’nai B’rith) and Jerry Rubin, who had spent time living in Israel before heading to graduate school and becoming active in the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley. Narrators in the film include Hank Azaria, Roy Scheider, and Liev Schreiber..

To me, the film can be seen as a tale of Jewish generations of Hoffmans, that of 74 year old Judge Hoffman facing off against the generation of Abbie Hoffman. Abbie comes across as a radical with the pacing of a Catskills’ Jewish comedian and thearical impresario. The film is filled with his quips, speeches, testimonies, and radio interviews. (Group photo of the Chicago 7 at left)

In one famous antic, Rubin and Hoffman came to court dressed in judicial robes, robes that Judge Hoffman called "collegiate robes." In "CHICAGO 10," this scene is animated for political and comedic effect.

While Morgan’s intention is to mobilize the youth of the country to take risks and speak out, the film mostly succeeds at presenting a freshly styled look at the energy and activism of 1968, and the failures of the antiwar movements to work together and organize to end the Vietnam war and force progress in civil rights.

More than 120 films are being screened by Sundance in the next 10 days, and many seem to be about surviving adversity. By midnight I was ready to survive my own adversities by heading to bed. Friday will be a busy day. I will appear on Park City TV at 7 A.M. to promote Schmoozedance, and there are nearly a dozen films of Jewish interest to see, including Hot House by Shimon Dotan, about Israeli prisons as greenhouses for future Palestinian terrorists and leaders; and Sweet Mud (Adama Meshugaat) by Dror Shaul, a dark tale about a 12 year old on an Israeli Kibbutz after the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Off to bed.

2007-01-15T18:29:00.000-08:00

Busy .. Busy... busy... Schmoozedance approaches... Friday night Jan 29 in Park City UT. I just heard that we were slammed by a writer on JewSchool.com, an observant blog, since we show films on Shabbat. I will have to check that out later, but, that is their issue, not ours.

So far we have a line up of three shorts. Also the director of UNSETTLED will drop by with at least 3 of the people from his film about the Gaza withdrawal, including the surfers from this documentary that will premiere at SLAMDANCE on Jan 22. Also, a rep for Shimon DOtan called. He will drop by with a 10 minute clip of his Israeli documentary HOT HOUSE, which will premiere at Sundance.

I gave a call to Attorney Leonard Weinglass. He is a narrator for the SUndance Opening film, CHICAGO 10. Unfortunately, work got busy, and this famous civil rights attorney will not be heading to Utah, and will therefore not come to Schmoozedance. A Disappointment. Also he sid, he had just talked to Tom Hayden, and he will not be heading to Utah either. Weinglass added that Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin would have definitely come to Schmoozedance.. but they are dead. Yes, I replied, death has a nasty way of ruining one's social plans.

Back in November, I contacted the publicists for CHICAGO 10. Wuold they like to create a panel with Temple Har Shalom on the Jewish aspects of the Chicago 7 trials. Ohh.. hmmm hmmm... we'll get back to you on that. I am still waiting for the callback. hehehehe Speaking of which... Schmoozedance will have three Israeli made films, and host a few other Israeli filmmakers. I let the Israeli embassy, cultural attache, and consuls know... Still awaiting an emial reply to that one, too.

Good news. I will appear on Good Morning Park City on Friday.

Ring, ring... Ring.. ring... I got a call last week from the NY SUN. They needed a quote for a story on the NY Jewish FIlm Fest. I gave them some quotes. The director of the festival liked what I said so much, that she just emailed me an invite to their closing reception for donors and filmmakers. SWEET. Best anecdote from the NY Jewish Film Fest. The showed a short, and before showing My Mexican Shiva, the short's director took the stage for Q&A. The sold out audience was hushed. It was packed.. SRO.. silent... a woman raised her hand... "Could you lower the volume? The film is too loud."..... Ahhhhh NYC NEUROTIC AUDIENCES. Yes, the filmmaker replied. SHe will have them take care of the audio.

2006-12-28T06:10:00.000-08:00

There is new publicity being generated for the former Senate aide turned prostitute and Playboy model, J. Cutler. Called the "New-insky," she supplemented her $25K annual salary as a Senate aide by reportedly juggling six men, including one sugar daddy, and another aide (from Joe Lieberman's office, where she had previously interned). She blogged about this for only 2 weeks; the blog got picked up by Wonkette.com, and Cutler was fired. The former Syracuse student and bartender was not very discreet. Now one of her former kinky lovers is sunig her and the case will go to trial. Why should this concern us? Well.. she turned her exploits into a novel. But our readers should know, although one of her lovers, RS, is of jewish heritage, and Cutler blogged that she would like to be a Jewish wife with a big rock (on her finger), she is not Jewish.

2006-12-21T12:15:00.000-08:00

Is it suprising that this whole issue with DOnald trump and all its free publicity, occurs the same week that NBC, which co owns the beauty pageant, started to promote a new season of The Apprentice

2006-12-21T12:10:00.000-08:00

According to Joan Nathan, the three restaurants in Williamsburg that offer down-home Satmar / Hungarian Jewish cooking are: GOTTLIEB'S RESTAURANT -- 352 Roebling Street (Division Avenue), (718) 384-6612. Hasn't changed much since opening in the '60s. Stuffed cabbage, cabbage and noodles, brisket, chicken paprikash and kugels. Try the pastrami egg rolls. Sunday to Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Friday 9 A.M. to 1 hour before Sabbath...... GREEN & ACKERMAN RESTAURANT -- 216 Ross Street (Division Avenue), (718) 384-2540. Looks like an abandoned house outside. Inside, there are dairy dishes like shlishkes (gnocchi with breadcrumbs), mock liver blintzes, vegetable kugels, pizza, delkelekh (cheese Danish), creamy soups including cholent (a meatless bean stew) and Green's famous babka with cocoa, also sold at Zabar's and Dean & DeLuca. There's a dividing wall between the men's and women's tables. 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday to Thursday, Friday 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. ..... TIFERES BAKERY -- 419 Marcy Avenue (Lorimer Street), (718) 384-0854. A takeout place with a salad bar and a breakfast bar where customers can cook their own eggs. Old-time jelly doughnuts for Hanukkah, warm challah and yeast-risen rugelach rolled in front of you. 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday; Monday through Thursday, 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Friday, 6 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturday, 7 p.m. to 12 midnight.

I will head over today and by some donuts and a challah for erev xmas?

2006-12-18T13:17:00.000-08:00

So. let me get this straight. In the book world, Rupert Murdoch did not fire Judith Regan and her imprint from his book publishing company becuase she entered into a contract with OJ Simpson and embarrassed the company woth the production of a show featuring Simpson and "how he WOULD have killed his ex-wife and Ron Goldman." No. no. She was fired for saying anti Jewish things to her boss. Plus, the word is.. Regan would say things like 'Jew agents' in the office. And once, it is claimed, she joked that she went through her old Upper West Side manhattan apt. and replaced the scrolls in each mezuzah with torn-up dollar bills.

Well... now I see why the UJA gave Rupert its Humantarian of the Year award about half a decade ago.

Speaking of Jews... a segment from Mel Gibson's new film:

2006-12-09T11:57:00.000-08:00

Latest News:

I would like to tell you that I was walking home from shul... but actually I dropped by the gym after Shabbat morning services, and I was on my way home when I saw a curious incident in front of me. Was it real, or a scene from a film? It was real.

Crossing West 96th and Broadway, I came upon a man yelling at a car and its driver that he accused of having just gone through a red light and the crosswalk. I assumed the pedestrian had slapped the car as it crossed through the crosswalk in a sign of anger at the traffic scofflaw. But the car stopped. And the driver got out. The driver yelled at the pedestrian for touching his car. The pedestrian yelled at the driver about going through the red light. The driver began to choke the pedestrian with large strong hands.

I had never seen an actual choking and it was quite interesting to observe.

After 5 seconds or so, other pedestrians broke up the choking, words were exchanged, and the driver returned to his car, albeit for one more shouting match and attempt to accost the pedestrian again.

The dazed pedestrian tried to write down the license plate number. But why? Everyone knew the driver. It was a very strong ALEC BALDWIN. It is a wonder he didnt get a hernia choking the man with such force.

============

Speaking of scofflaws... Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy... are you preparing for your eternal rest? Jimmy Carter has been on all the shows promoting his latest book, linking Israel with apartheid... or as he says, Israeli policy in the occupied territories. Now number five on the Best Sellers lists.. his book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" has led to the reported resignation of his longterm advisor Kenneth Stein. Stein reportedly resigned his position as a fellow with the Carter Center over concerns about the book. The best interview I saw last week, was when Carter was asked, I think by Wolf Blitzer, about the unilateral withdrawal from gaza by Israel and the Hamas missiles. Carter discounted those missiles and acted as if they were not important to his overall thesis. Carter also said Clinton lied in his memoirs, as did Barak, and that Israel never offered a good deal to Arafat.

Even Jay Leno was incredulous when Carter was his guest. Leno said, 'it seems that Israel gets nothing in return when they gave up Gaza.' Carter disagreed. Carter replied that the Palestinians "captured" an Israeli soldier only to trade him for children and women in Israeli custody.... Jimmy.. stick to trying to get Delta airlines to serve peanuts.

============

And speaking of former advisors to peanut sucking, former President Jimmy Carter.. I went to the book launch part of KADDISH by Leon Charney (not to be confused with KADDISH by Leon Wieseltier). Charney, a bond trader, commercial real estate investor/manager, public affairs tv host, Hazzan, philanthropist, YU Grad, entertainment manager, attorney, and Carter advisor before, during, and after Camp David, has organized and wo-authored a book on the Kaddish. It was a three year effort prompted by the death of his mother. The food was good. I saw Joe Franklin eating cashews (I wanted to ask him about raping Sarah Silverman, but then decided to act more mature and remain silent). I caught a glimpse of Ace Greenberg of Bear Stearns, saw a few rabbis, and chatted with the author Dan Kurzman for 20 minutes. Before I left, I asked Charney if he will invite Carter to be on his public affairs tv show. Charney shrugged, glared, and mumbled something, and I high tailed it out to the elevator (but of course I grabbed a fig before I left).

As for the book... I am in the middle of reading it. More on this later, but Charney's thesis is that the Kaddish was reserved for the death of scholars, but was changed for all Jews after the mass murders and deaths of the Crusades and plagues, and borrowed some practices from Catholicism.

2006-11-22T18:01:00.000-08:00

Some additions for JEWtube / Jew Tube to celebrate the new month of Kislev....

Mizrahi style

2006-11-21T06:08:00.000-08:00

Candy Cane Bagels?

What next? Christmas Tree Dreidels. This is what happens when a conglomerate takes over a nice bagel store chain. Yes.. einstein brothers and noah's have introduced a red and white striped bagel, coated in sugar, in time for xmas. yippee?

2006-11-20T09:22:00.000-08:00

Are we ready for a Hitler comedy
================================
Not since Jack Benny in To Be or No To Be, or Mel Brook's The Producer's have we seen a Hitler comedy. Have we? Perapre yourself. In January, a Hitler comedy, written and directed by a Swiss Jewish filmmaker (who gave us "Go For Zucker"), will open in Germany. The film is MEIN FUHRER or "My Fuhrer - The Absolutelty Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler.

Dani Levy directs this film. It is the tale of a Jewish death camp inmate, Adolf Gruenbaum, who is given the job of coaching Hitler for an important upcoming speech. Gruenbaum is an acting teacher.

2006-11-17T06:53:00.000-08:00

SUNDANCE TO OPEN WITH A (JEWISH) FILM!

Well.. sort of... The Sundance FIlm Festival has announced that its opening film will be CHICAGO 10, a documentary by BRETT MORGEN. CHICAGO 10 is the story of the Chicago 7 (or 8) trial in Chicago, which occurred after the 1968 Democratic convention, the riots, and the Yippies political theater. Among the major participants in these events were Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, Stew Albert who was an unindicted co-conspirator (who got a pig to run on the Yippie ticket), Judge Julius Hoffman, who was a law partner of Mayor Daley, as well as Attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass.

Set to the music of a late-Sixties revolution, it is the story of young people standing up to the government and police. Written and directed by Brett Morgen, it was produced by Graydon Carter and Brett Morgen. There are animation sequences, a creative addition for this cutting edge, stylized documentary, with voice overs by Lev Schreiber, Hank Azaria, Mark Ruffalo, Dylan Baker, Nick Nolte, Roy Scheider and Leonard Weinglass.

I hope these celebs will drop by SchmoozeDance and Temple Har Shalom as long as they are in Park City

2006-11-16T15:22:00.000-08:00

Mazel Tov and Kol haKavod to the recipients of the annual KORET INTERNATIONAL JEWISH BOOKS AWARDS. They were announced on Nov 15 in SF and will have a party in NYC on Nov 21.

Theodore Bikel hosted The Koret International Jewish Book Awards at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. Awards went to Israeli novelist David Grossman (Her Body Knows), writer Rebecca Goldstein (Betraying Spinoza), Jewish life expert Rochel Berman (Dignity Beyond Death), and renowned storyteller Howard Schwartz (Before You Were Born). The JBooks.com People’s Choice Award for the decade’s best work of Jewish fiction as determined by online voters will be presented to Jonathan Safran Foer for his popular novel, Everything is Illuminated.

The National Foundation for Jewish Culture presented its Goldberg Prize to Kevin Haworth, who wrote The Discontinuity of Small Things; the Anne and Robert Cowan Award of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund was presented to Julie Orringer, who wrote the short story collection How to Breathe Underwater; and the Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction recognized Tamar Yellin for her short story collection, Kafka in Bronteland.

While the Jewish Book Council manages the National Jewish Book Awards.... The Koret International Jewish Book Awards are managed (for the first time this year) by Jewish Family & Life (JFL) in cooperation with the National Foundation for Jewish Culture (NFJC).

Geeeez.... what are we? chopped liver? We are gonna have to get some foundation to fund our book awards in 2007. oFrah has some ideas. Chaim Hilton has got an idea for the best Jewish biz books award. WATCH OUT!

Among the recipients are (The first two are just Theodore Bikel items... not an award winner):

2006-11-16T13:26:00.000-08:00

Milton, Oh Milton... every Monetarist's favorite Jewish professor. While most people will mention his Monetary History of the United States in their obituaries, we at MyJewishBooks.com, want to highlight the book below.

2006-11-15T12:54:00.000-08:00

For our Jewish Filmmakers who read this blog. Please note two items
(1) Call for entries for SchmoozeDance 2007, Park City, Utah, January 19, 2007. For more information, email JewFilm at Aol.com

(2) A contest. TOKION Magazine and Dewar’s White Label present the
KING OF DOC! Contest. Send them a 3-5 minute documentary inspired by the following themes:
MISTAKES: “Some people are always looking for new kinds of mistakes to make.”
CHEAP LOVE: “Talk is cheap until it gets into love letters.”
INTEGRITY: “A man's reputation is that which is not found out about him.”

All submissions will be judged by TOKION editors as well as by a panel of our celebrity judges including: Jonathan Caouette, Jewish filmmaker of “Tarnation”;
Ondi Timoner, Filmmaker of "DiG!"; and Bruce Sinofsky, Jewish Filmmaker of “Metallica: Some Kind of Monster”, and "Paradise Lost."

The Winners will be flying the three winners to NYC to screen the winning films. They will screen your film, have a party in your honor, as well as give you the opportunity to be questioned by an audience of your peers regarding the creative process that was involved in creating your film. The grand prize winner will be offered a $5000 contract with Dewar’s White Label to produce Dewar’s White Label’s next brand-education film. We’re also throwing in a new Apple MacBook Pro laptop and a copy of Apple’s Final Cut Pro 5.1 production suite. The second and third prize winners will receive a complete software prize package from SONY worth over $1800 - including SONY Vegas Pro and Cinescore.

Submissions must be postmarked no later than Dec 11th 2006.
Submissions should be sent to TOKION KING OF DOC contest C/O TOKION Magazine 341 Lafayette Street, Suite 587, New York, NY 10012. For all contest info log onto www.tokion.com/kingofdoccontest. Void where prohibited by law

2006-11-15T07:27:00.000-08:00

by the way with all the interest in the BORAT film and the BORAT character's focus on Jews and Kazakhstan, astute readers of this blog should know that there are actually about 35,000 Jews in that Texas sized republic, and you can read all abuot them at

http://www.mitsva.kz/aboutus_e.shtml

2006-11-15T06:20:00.000-08:00

Two stories: I have been searching for some films to show at Schmoozedance 2007. I was hoping for FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION, but it is opening this week, so we can't snag the premiere of that one. I tried for SIXTY-SIX.. but no word. Hopefully TATTO0JEW might be completed by then.

On another topic, I have been attending a morning minyan on the UWS of Manhattan, and when everyone faces East, based on my seat, I face a large bookcase. So as my mind wanders, as if often does, I find myself staring at this eclectic row of books that are even with my sightline: ... (I might have to move my seat)

2006-11-14T09:59:00.000-08:00

SO... American Jews are 2% of the U.S. population, but now 13% of the new U.S. Senate will identify as Jewish, Nancy Pelosi has Hebrew speaking grandkids, and the House will be about 7% Jewish. So, we at MyJewishBooks.com are thinking of sending a house (and Senate) warming welcome gift to the new Jewish Congressional minyan members.

What do u suggest?
Any other ideas?
Please let us know.

2006-11-12T13:43:00.000-08:00

(1) DId anyone notice the story about how American Jewish leaders met in NYC and had Henry Kissinger address them and advise them on strategies for the Jewish future. AND GUESS WHAT??! They actually had one female Jewish leader at the meeting. IDEA: Attention Jewish leaders... Before you invite Dr. Kissinger, maybe you should invite some female Jewish leaders if you want an inkling of what the short term Jewish future in America will look like.

(2) More for JewTube... Who Knew there was so much Klezmer music online?

2006-11-12T10:32:00.000-08:00

JewTube on why you should not jump at a Jewish wedding:

2006-11-12T10:25:00.000-08:00

Jewtube: Borat and the Jew Claw:

Borat and throw the Jews down the well

2006-11-12T10:21:00.000-08:00

Borat segment on hunting Jews. (The actor who plays Borat is actually the son of an Israeli woman, played Tevye in a play at Cambridge, speaks Hebrew, and spent a year on Kibbutz Rosh haNikra)

2006-11-12T10:17:00.000-08:00

I haven't seen BORAT yet. But for your JewTube pleasure, here is his excerpt on antisemitism

2006-11-12T10:11:00.000-08:00

JewTube entry: Did anyone catch the latest Simpson's Holloween special. It was about a Golem, with a priceless dig at Alan Dershowitz. Do you ever get the idea that the writers of the Simpsons and other shows are communicating jokes directed solely at other Jews?

2006-11-12T09:12:00.000-08:00

Today at the morning minyan, I started to read the parshat for next Shabbat, Chaya Sarah. I guess I was struck that the parshat known as the Life of Sarah, is actually about the Death of Sarah, Abraham's act-of-love purchase, at full price, (or standard merchant's price if we use the Akkadian translation) of a burial cave for her, and then Eliezer's (his love for his master Abraham, even though if Isaac did not find a wife, perhaps Eliezer would be an heir) finding a bride for Isaac and their (meaning Isaac and Rivka's) new type of love for each other. What of this? Hmm.. mostly that I was struck by the chapter to a degree that I decided to set up a new page on MyJewishBooks.com, a page of books for the mourning process. Check for MyJewishbooks.com/shiva.html

2006-07-31T06:31:00.000-07:00

Mel mel mel..... oh, how the mighty have fallen under the disease of alchohol addiction.

Mel Gibson reached out to the Jewish community for help. Rabbi Marvin Heir, the Dean of Wiesenthal told Mel to hit the road. He isn't a psychotherapist.. he's a Dean. So... Ofrah and I, and Chaim (c)Hilton got together and decided to help Mel, since he reached out to Jewish leaders, and why should only Wiesenthal and Chabad be considered 'leaders.' Jewish web people and librarians are leaders, too. And since Winston Churchill wrote that all leaders are readers, We decided to send Mel a couple of books to read during his healing

1. Jews Who Rock by Guy Oseary, Perry Farrell (Afterword), Ben Stiller (Introduction). CUz he kept asking the police, Are You A Jew? now he will have a list of Jews

2. The Spiritual Self: Reflections on Recovery and God (Paperback) by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski

3. Addictive Thinking, Second Edition: Understanding Self-Deception (Paperback) by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski

and

4. Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism (Paperback) by Dennis Prager, and Rabbi Joseph Telushkin

also

since Mel has an issue with something called "sugar tits", since that is what he kept calling a female enforcement officer, we will send him a Jewish cookbook which probbaly has a recipe for it somewhere in its binding.

2006-07-26T19:42:00.000-07:00

quick notes on jewish films: If you are in SF.. be sure to catch the second part of the sfjff.org san francisco jewish film festival. the fest is growing grayer, so in an effort to bring down the median age of film goers, the directors of the fest are sponsoring a filmmaking sports competition, a race to make a quick film ... sort of like the shootout done at the hamptons and the asian american film fests.. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . film affocionados will be sad to learn the GERARD OURY, aged 87, passed away on July 20, in France. Oury, an actor and filmmaker, was Jewish. He fled the Nazis during WWII, and suvived the war in Monaco and Switzerland. Of the 17 films he directed, the one we most often quote from is LES AVENTURES DE RABBI JACOB

2006-06-24T08:07:00.000-07:00

The topic of bullies came up. And I told Ofrah that everyone has fantasies that one day as an adult they will meet the bully from grade school, and exact revenge by rejecting them for a job, and smiling to see that they ended up in prison. That is when Ofrah told me that she heard that Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist now serving time to government corruption, was a bully in high school, and despised by all the kids he took delight in injuring. Karma... it might take decades.

Actually.. can this be true? So I checked SLATE.COM. And yes, Timothy Noah, whom we respect, wrote of Jack Abramoff, the bully of Beverly Hill High School in the 1970's. After being bullied..... Noah writes, ".... But I observed, from a distance, that he was kind of a glad-hander.... I began referring to him as "Abraham Jackoff." Was it cruel? I won't deny it. Was it adolescent? Of course. Please remember, though, that I was … an adolescent. I was 17 years old. And I never dreamed it would get back to him. But it did. One day my best friend John Schwimmer told me he'd run into Abramoff and, for a reason he was never able to articulate satisfactorily, said, "My friend Tim Noah thinks your name should really be Abraham Jackoff." I was mortified, but Abramoff didn't say anything about it, to John or to me. (I probably wasn't the first person to confront Abramoff with this witticism.) Over the next 30 years, as Abramoff became ever more powerful in Republican circles, I waited for the ax to fall. By the turn of the century, the mere sight of Abramoff's skybox at Oriole Park at Camden Yards filled me with dread and remorse. This guy can crush me like a bug, I thought. It's coming. But it never did. Now that Abramoff has been called out, I suppose it never will. And so I've shifted to marveling that I stumbled into the correct assessment of Abramoff fully three decades before his disgrace. Perhaps Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink, is right: Maybe our shallow first impressions and petty prejudices really do get the job done."

2006-06-18T19:13:00.000-07:00

Oh it has been weeks since adding to the blog. Mea culpa. Let me quickly update you on some items that I can still remember,…

June 16: Shabbat dinner with Hillary Rodham Clinton .. well sort of. We bought a table at the aabdc.com annual dinner. There were about 60 tables of ten at the Hilton. We had some extra seats, so I took one, and sat next to two Chinese American businessmen. They plan to set up dental clinics in Shanghai and Beijing and offer discount dental work to Americans who have extensive dental needs and want to combine extremely discounted dental work with a trip to China. The dinner was on a Friday night, and was a hard sell to fill seats. So many people have weekend plans that start early on Friday. Clinton spoke to ten minutes. Short, sweet, of no importance. In and out, and off to her next event. I did get to meet the Consul General of the Kingdom of Thailand though.

June 11: The opening book party for Scribblers on the Roof. What a treat. I think I met about seven of the 12+ authors who contributed to the book.

June 10: Speaking of meeting people… I met Craig from Craigslist today. He seemed quite shy and unassuming. Extremely shy, and extremely unassuming. I saw him on west 4th Street near Washington Square Park… walking alone.. wasting time for a few hours before meeting his family for dinner. How did I recognize him and why was he near NYU? Well, actually, I was attending the Criagslist Foundation sponsored Non profit Boot Camp, a 12 hour seminar for severl hundred people who want to run or start a non profit. The speakers and seminars were generally okay. The keynotes were above average, and very practical. No one truly energized me, not even the Argentinian-born Israeli founder of Idealist.org and Action Without Borders, but I am too pragmatic, I suppose. But back to meeting Craig. We exchnaged cards, discussed balding, greying, charging for real estate ads in C-List, and a variety of other topics. He looks a decade younger than his actual age. He is a man I agree with. Rather than unding nonprofits, he funds seminars to help people run nonprofits better. I hope he checks out Tzedaka.org and MyJewishBooks.com.

June 06: Rami Kleinstein gave a concert at Symphony Space in NYC. Since I already have 4 or 5 of his CD’s, I decided to plunk down $50 to see him perform live, which led to me plunking down a c-note on 7 more CD’s, including 2 from Israel’s version of American Idol. I wish Ofrah were there; she would have kept me from blowing the dollar-eem. He put on a good show, and even made a circuit through the entire audience -- although I was in the balcony, behind a crazy woman who decided to sing all the songs. Hey maam, I paid to hear Rami, not you. Which was not as bad as a Rami 4 song concert the week before at the JCC. Behind me was a man who decided to whistle all four songs. Thanks

June 01: Tikkun L’eil Shavuot. Started out at the JCC of the UWS. A quick rami and debbie friedman concert. Next were two more lectures, but they were so crowded, that I headed out to the 92nd Street y. The JCC was packed with what seemed to be over 1000 people… wall to wall people. The 92nd St Y was empty. Devoid of people. A lecture on atrology and kabbalah had 15 people in it. The concert by Frank London and Lorin Sklamberg was attended by 12 people. I felt like I was having a private concert. Afterwards, I was hoping to attend the Book of Ruth pajama party, but sleep overcame me, and I headed back to the UWS by 2AM

May 21:
Notes from the Book Expo America, Washington DC, May 18-21, 2006
Aside from getting into a minor car accident and eating some too-hot Ethiopian food, the BEA, my fifth, was an enjoyable experience. Two highlights were a seminar on Jewish book publishing, that included Rabbi Telushkin as a panelist, and snagging a galley copy of BUT IS IT GOOD FOR THE JEWS. But more about this later.

DC had fantastic weather. In the aisles of the BEA, one could not shake a stick or a tote bag without hitting a representative from a JCC Book Fair, Jewish Book Council, or Yiddish Book Center. (or MyJewishbooks.com for that matter. Hehehe)

Some of the highlights of forthcoming books I saw of Jewish interest are:

A conference panel, titled "The Marketing and Selling of Judaica" was on the state of Jewish books. It is said that over 20% of new trade hardcovers are bought by Jews (2% of the US Pop) The panel featured Daisy Maryles - Executive Editor, Publishers Weekly [Moderator]; Rabbi Joseph Telushkin - Author, Jewish Literacy and A Code of Jewish Ethics; Altie Karper - Editorial Director, Schocken Books; and Carla Cohen – the Co-owner of one of America’s greatest indie bookstores, Politics & Prose. The panel was filled with Jewish authors and publishers, including members of the Jewish Books Council, URJ Press, and JPS. The idea of diversity in Jewish book topics became a deeply discussed issue near the end of the forum.

Some books that will be of interest this Summer and Fall are:

Yiddish with George and Laura by Ellis Weiner, Barbara Davilman. October 2006. Little Brown

Golden Country. A novel by Jennifer Gilmore, Scribner. September 2006.

THE DISSIDENT, a debut novel by Nell Freudenberger, Ecco, about a dissident who comes to live with a Beverly Hills family.

Goodnight Nobody. A novel by Jennifer Weiner. Washington Square Press.

Born to Kvetch by Michael Wex (paperback in August 2006). HarperCollins.

Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen. Harper Collins

The Holy Vote: Politics of Faith in America. By Ray Suarez. HarperCollins.

The Lost: A Search for Six of the Six Million. By Daniel Mendelsohn. HarperCollins. Sep 2006.

Shooting Water. By Dayvani Saltzman. Newmarket Press. May 2006

The Ziz and the Hanukkah Miracle. By J Jules and K J Kahn. Lerner. Aug 06

The Eight Wonder of the World by Leslie Epstein. Other Press. Oct 2006

Brothers of Iron. Building the Weider Empire. By Ben Weider. Spe 06

Up Up and Oy Vey by Rabbi Simcha Weinstein. Biblio. Jul 06

The Notebooks Girls (Warner)

Kabbalah . A Love Story by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner October 2006. Morgan Road Books

The Littlest Hitler. Stories by Ryan Boudinot. Counterpoint/Perseus. Sep 2006

Joel Rosenberg. With a new fictional thriller (Copper Scroll, August 2006) set in Israel, as well as a tome on his ideas for Middle East peace. Of course, he may have a Jewish name, and a huge Evangelical following, but he is actually a convert to Christianity.

Some celebs and celeb authors there were… Stephen Baldwin, Senator Edward Kennedy, Duke (the spokesdog from Bush’s Baked Beans), former Sec. Of Defense William S. Cohen, Jennifer Weiner, Michael Wex, Cynthia Ozick, Lauren Weinstein, harry Shearer,

2006-05-10T17:39:00.000-07:00

Let the jokes begin: There are those who say that the Chinese calendar is 1000 years younger than the Hebrew calendar. What does this mean? That the Jews lived 1000 years without Chinese food. Well, the SF Jewish community has faced facts on Jewish cuisine and opended a new restaurant (or leased space to an eatery) in the SF JCC at Presidio and California. The restaurant in the JCC is not a deli or falafel stand, but it is an asian fusion restaurant by John Hurley and Justin Hafen. The name is "415." (but yes, the JCC still maintains a deli, too, and no, '415' does not serve pork.. they focus on poultry beef and lamb.)

2006-05-01T12:21:00.000-07:00

The author JT LeRoy (not Jewish) turned out to be a fake. The author James Frey (not Jewish) turned out to be a fake. Oprah is mad. The author Kaavya ViswaNathan, accoring to the Harvard Crimosn, turned out to have borrowed some pasages from Megan McCafferty (neither Jewish). Now, OFrah and MyJewishBooks.com have learned that there are similarities between the Noah flod story, and other Ugaritic and Sumerian flood stories. God (not Jewish) plans to appear on the Today Show to explain whether it was plagiarized. Oy. DreamWorks may have to trash their investment in the film rights to Kaavya's book. But what about their Prince of Egypt. I hope there won;t be copyright issues.

Speaking of issues, we caught the Israeli film CLOSE TO HOME over the weekend at the TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL. Our blurb... the film should have stayed "close to home." While it does have some nice stock characters, and scenes of Jerusalem, the story has no peak, no resolution, and is mostly just a 90 minute vignette. But then again, who are we to complain

2006-04-29T13:19:00.000-07:00

I only saw two films so far at the Tribeca Film Fest. Last night was A VERY SERIOUS PERSON by Charles Busch. It was quite indie, since Mr. Busch lost his accent a couple of times in the film, and some scenes got edited out so that some characters appeared without introductions near the end of the film, but guess what? It was Jewish. Yes, the film, which stars Mr. Busch and Polly Bergen, is about a sickly Jewish grandmother, Mrs. Aaronson, who is spending her last Summer with her orphaned, 12 year old grandson, Gil, in Far Rockaway, Queens NY. She also wants to prepare him, upon her death, to go to live with his aunt in Florida. It is funny, touching, sweet-natured, and loosely based on director Charles Busch's life, who plays Jan, an effete Danish male nurse, who is charged to look after a terminally-ill woman (Polly Bergen).

This afternoon, I saw the Israeli documentary, DEAR FATHER, QUIET WE'RE SHOOTING by Daniel Benchitrit. Benchitrit, who has made about 22 films, was a Conscientous Objector in Israel and served time in prison for refusing to serve in the IDF. "DEAR FATHER" refers to the nation's founders, including Arik Sharon, whicle "QUIET WE'RE SHOOTING" refers to the idea that Israelis should not criticize the government or Army while shooting or wars are ongoing. In my opinion, it is a good 20 minmute film, but at 73 minutes, I lost interest at the same talking heads saying the same thing over and over again about the immorality of occupation and the Lebanon War and the beauty of the Far-Left. zzzzz. The doc. will shown in Israel in June and on Channel 8/2 in Israel this Summer. In Dear Father, Quiet, We're Shooting… Benchetrit is out to prove that conscientious objection-whether to specific military orders or to military service itself-is the only way to uphold humanity in the face of baseless wars and military occupations.

2006-04-29T07:14:00.000-07:00

A friend is visiting for the extended weekend in order to take a class in Manhattan. Because he brought his car, he has to feed the meters and follow the alternate side of the street parking rules. The problem is that class is at 9AM on Saturday, and the meter has to be fed every hour. So, reminiscent of Calvin Trillin's novel, "Tepper Isnt Going Out", he left me with the keys and I was going to move the car to a free space at 9 AM. After 30 minutes of looking for a space... I saw a car door open a block ahead... I proceeded to a corner, and waited at the red light, hoping that no one beat me to the car before I could make it to the spot. Green light. I crossed West End Ave and pulled up behind the car that was going to exit the space. Samn. The family exited the car. What's up? Aren't they leaving? The driver approached me. "Excuse me," he said. "Can you give us a jump?" His battery is dead. Hurray, I can do a Shabbat mitzvah and also snag their space. If only I could figure out how to open the hood on my friend's VW convertible.

So what does this happen to do with Jewish Books? Well... one of the car's passenger's is a Jewish writer, who works at the same company as I do (she thought I looked familiar), and she is a member of a writing family. Two members of her family have books that can be found on MyJewishBooks.com. Ahhh... Nyc is a city filled with Jewish authors. Author who need jumps.

*

Speaking of Jewish Books.... this week was the National Jewish Book Awards ceremony in NYC. I attended them on Wednesday night. I therefore had to get rid of my two tickets to Golden Venture, a Tribeca Film FEstival documentary premiere about a ship that ran aground off Brooklyn that was filled with Chinese undocumented workers a few years ago. No one wnated my tix, so, on the way to the Book Awards, I went to the theater where I quickly met a man who had just driven in from CT to see the film. But, alas, it was sold out. Bashert. He needed tix, I had tix, and a quick transaction happened.

Back to the Book Awards... it was a great ceremony. It was marred only by two minor incidents. One was a person in the audience who kept blowing their nose every two minutes. loudly, with so much mucous that I am still unsure how one body could have produced so much fluid. But the ego busting moment was when I met the President of the Jewish Book Council and he had never even heard of MyJewishBooks.com. OH THE HORROR. Well, at least I had a better suit on.

Back to the awards: Rabbi Joseph Telushkin have the d'var Torah to open the ceremony, reminding the audience that through books and studying, the generations speak to each other; as it is written, When you pray, you speak to god, and when you study, god speak to you.

Speaking of generation.. Samuel Freedman (who wrote a book about the search for his mother) and Ari Goldman (who wrote a book about his year of kaddish for his father) served as MC's for the awards. Although Amos Oz and Michael Chabon were unable to attend, both sent representatives with speeches. Oz's book was about his tragic boyhood, his life, his mother's suicide, the stress filled childhood perpetrated against him, families and generations. Chabon, who won for his Holmes-like detective novel, wrote that people ask him why there are so many Jews and Jewish themes in his books. Cuz IT HAS BEEN A DESPARATE PLAY TO WIN A NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD, he wrote. And now, he has.

Speaking of generations, David Ellenson won an award for his book, as did his daughter, Ruth Andrew Ellenson, who won for hers (The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt). Ilan Staveans, who won in Sephardic Culture, greeted the audience in Espanol, or was it Ladino? Pnina MOed Kass won for a young adult's novel that offers no solutions or apolohies, but just tells a realistic story based on her 38 years of residing in Israel. As a tip to writers, she told those assembled that she writes with a sign over her desk that reminds her to: Ask, Hear, Listen, See, Feel, Remember, Invent, Reinvent, Imagine, and Create.

Elliott Wolfson, on receiving his award for Scholarship, thanked his publisher for taking a chance on an 800 page book with a 115 page bilbliography and 2000 footnotes. Now that is scholarship! Wolfson, who received his PhD from Brandeis, and studeied with Sarna, received the award that is named for Nahum Sarna.

The poet, Gerald Stern, won for poetry. He slowly ascended the stage for his award, suffering from a very painful charley horse. He read two poems, one based on the old Yiddish radio ad and song and jingle "a suit, a coat, a gabardine" that he justaposed into a 'is it good for the Jews"-like poem about JFK, Oswald, and Jack Ruby.

Howard Schwartz won for his book on Jewish mythology, He worked on the book for 12 years. He had an understanding publisher, since he was supposed to finish the book in under 18 months. In only took a decade longer.

The highlight was the last award. Deborah Lipstadt won for her book "HISTORY ON TRIAL." The email from the Jewish Book Council said that she could speak for 1 minute. She thought it said 10 minutes. And the audience was happy that she misread the email. Those 10 minutes were powerful and moving. Lipstadt told how she needed to be a witness for the witnesses, and these witnesses were fortunate, for she is well spoken, aggressive, and strong. She is definitely not one to stay silent. Let's take a lesson from Emory University, her employer. When she told her employers at this Methodist university that she would need time off to pursue the libel case in London, Emory gave her the time off and found a top professor to fill in for her. Emory knew inherently that it needed to support her scholarship and her moral authority. It was the right thing to do as a leading educational institution.

BUT DAMN... how could he never have heard of MyJewishBooks.com? Oh well.

2006-04-15T06:39:00.000-07:00

Matzoh Balls and Tickets:
Moses and the Hebrews had no time to tarry and ran from Goshen with unleavened bread on their shoulders. They did not have to contend with the NYC Parking Violations Bureau, only the Egyptian Pharoah's army. (see the "Law and Order - PVB" episode). Yes, while preparing for Passover, and picking up food for the seders, I waited outside our building for 15 minutes for a spot, and circled the blocks 3 times for metered or free parking. We could not tarry, and someone had to use the facilities and could wait no longer. So I safely double parked in the loading zone, blinkers were on, and we ran out to get the bags of food. Peeking out the apartment window, I saw the PVB officer writing me a ticket. I opened the window and said "Hey Hey, We're coming down." Selective hearing was in force. Even though I do know some American sign Language for the Deaf (ASDL), the officer could not see me from a few floors up. Alas, Pesach began with a $125 fine. I imagine Moses had no problems with the first-born officers of the Mitzrayim Parking Violations Bureau. If only Edward G. Robinson were here, he could have taken care of that officer.

(2) Speaking of officers, as you will recall from below, the Dreamworks SKG chef was planning to make blintzes for Passover in the Dreamworks' Glendale studio commissary. BLINTZES (the way they would make them) are neither kosher for Passover or traditionally Passover foods. We at MyJewishBooks.com and Jewishfilm.com sent him a free copy of The NYT Passover Cookbook, edited by Linda Amster. We already got two thank you notes from him. He has to prepare over 2,000 matzoh balls for April 17's lunch. That's a lot of matza meal, and a lot of seltzer, bubbi. He already tested a dozen types of balls. Some with seltzer, some without. He wrote for more advice. I recommended he give a call to Wolfgang Puck -- Puck makes hundreds for his LA area seder. Then on Friday, the Dreamworks chef invented the baked matza ball. You boil it, then you bake it. (remember... NO FLOUR) I'll let you know how it works out. oFrah and I are kvelling. Perhaps something we did (sending the book) will affect the upper GI tracts of Mssrs Katzenberg and Spielberg, and this will result in their decision to produce an animated version of "EXODUS." oFrah can play the role of Paul Newman's lover, and I can maybe play the voice of Sal Mineo?

2006-04-11T22:26:00.000-07:00

A few hours in the life of the MyJewishBooks.com editor... (1) the morning started with me daydreaming on the subway about YouTube.com, the popular video sharing website.. how about JEWTube.com i thought..

yes, yes.. a new site for jewish video sharing.. we can share jewish shorts and films, lectures, book readings, drashes and more....

(2) alas... someone has owned jewtube.com for a year (a parked site).. and jewtube.Org for half a year (parked site).. oh well... back to the drawing board

(3) preparing for the big book show in DC in May... but all the hotels are booked... i guess we'll all stay in Virginia as an alternative..

(4) interviewed with Google.com, got rejected after 30 minutes when i answered a question wrong (well.. wrong to them)..

(5) sent a copy of the NYT Passover Cookbook by Linda Amster and sent it to the chef at Dreamworks SKG (soon to be Paramount).. Dreamworks provides its employees with a free breakfast and lunch each day (the Dreamworks 20, u gain 20 pounds working there), the chef wants to do something special for Passover.. how about blintzes. BLINTZES??.. yo yo yo ... that is not Kosher for Passover (at least they way he plans to make them). I sent him the cookbook. HEY JEFFREY KATZENBERG... u better thank me if you avail yourself to a nice nosh...

(6) speaking of which, ML tells me that he has a new game for his seder... AFIKOMEN: DEAL OR NO DEAL... i can;t wait to hear how it turns out....

(7) headed to the far west village tonight to a club called WEST for Rich Cohen's book party for SWEET AND LOW. It was on the West Side highway, like a billion blocks South of 14th Street. Wouldn't you think that a bar on 12th would be two blocks south of 14th? Nope, not in the Village. We hung out next to Calvin Trillin at the bar. I wanted to tell Mr. Trillin about how i loved his Tepper book about the man who loved to park his car and just sit there, especially since i used to work with lists and direct mail, or how i enjoyed his forthcoming book of anti-Bush poems (comes out May 31), but he was deep in conversation at the bar.. so i didnt introduce myself.... on Bush's lower approval ratings... "Most pols would find another path to take / Or look for policies they might forsake, / For those are numbers they could not abide. / But those pols don't have Jesus on their side.

(8) Rich Cohen, thanks for the free copy of SWEET AND LOW....

(9) home by 10pm to get ready for Passover. Where will i get blood to smear on the doorposts. Is roach blood okay to use?

2006-04-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

OY! In literary news... Sunday night was a first for NYC, with a reading by Rodge Glass, Scotland top Jewish young author. All hail Tartan Week and the Bard of Glasgow.

In other Jewish book news... Michael Chabon was supposed to do a reading on Monday April 3rd, at the University of Florida Hillel. Chabon, the Pulitzer Prize winning author and screenwriter, who wrote The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Wonder Boys, and the screenplay for Spiderman 2, as well as A Model World (hurray Nathan) and Mysteries of 412, and his new novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union has cancelled his reading cuz of the NCAA Final Four. *gosh.. why not just cancel the Sabbath while you are at it.

Well at least Peter Hayes, "German Corporate Complicity in the Holocaust: From Aryanization to Auschwitz" at the Univ of Florida has not also been cancelled this week. There is no business like Shoah Business

2006-03-29T11:59:00.000-08:00

Sunday I stood in line for 30 minutes to shop at Trader Joe's. I spent the time in line making some phone calls and people-watching or was it people-glaring. Geez.. NYU students entering and exiting their Palladium high rise dorm seemed so wealthy that it makes complete sense for Trader Joe's and Whole Foods to locate on 14th Street.

J'Accuse! When i finally entered Trader Joes, it was so empty.. Was the line a false PR ploy to create EXCITEMENT and BUZZ? Probably not. They probably just like an uncrowded store so that New Yorkers have time to shop and ask questions. But trust me... the aisles at Fairway or Zabars are at least.. at least.. 4 times as crowded as the aisles at Trader Joes. Well, I blew $40 on non essentials like dark chocolate covered expresso coffee beans (for everyone at work) and trail mix. The workers at Trader Joe's were frightening... They are too helpful. Were they imported from California.. or were they hopped up on rice milk and expresso beans.

Which gave me a new idea... TRADER JEWS... a kosher for passover store ?? We can sell halvah and joya jelly rings and fox's u-bet syrup and designer matzot and dips. Instead of Hawaiian shirts, the associates or CREW MEMBERS at TRADER JEWS... would simply wear white dress shirts, dark slacks, and be called TRADER JOOZ instead of CREW MEMBERS.

More on this later
-- Larry (MyJewishBooks.com)

**

PS... our short film just got rejected by the Tribeca FF.. Sigh. But heck.. we even filmed it in Tribeca,, that should count for an extra point or two. Let's pray that it gets into Palm Springs.

2006-03-28T18:22:00.000-08:00

fun story from the weekend... a friend flew in from Greece. He arrived at the Athens airport at 11am for a 1pm flight to JFK. The airport official greeted him with disdain and teh following comment, "Why are u arriving at 11 for a Noon flight?"

Hmm.. he wondered... no wonder the flight board says that his flight is "boarding." He thought the flight was at 1, not Noon.

Think fast .. Think fast... Greeks are still very class conscious.. so his traveling partner replied , "Our helicopter was delayed picking us up this morning."

That line, which projected wealth and attitude silenced the official, and they were waved through and processed quickly, making the flight with some slight stress but ease.

2006-03-19T14:50:00.000-08:00

let's nominate N. Popper of the Forward for a Jewish journalism award. His investigation of the ZOA showed that they only have about 5 paid staff offices in the USA (not the 36 regional offices that they state), and they only have 10,000 paid members (not the 50,000, they state). And most of those are lifetime members from the glory days of the ZOA. The ZOA states that they count ALL household members of their 10,000 members, but something tells me that most of those 10,000 are empty nesters and are more likely to have grandkids visiting, and not Zionist kids living at home.

Also.. while the ZOA states they have 3 programs in Israel, they actually sold ZOA House in 2002; and they no longer pay to support Kfar Silver or Massada. Sad for ZOA, but bravo for Mr. Popper. **

2006-02-26T09:13:00.000-08:00

UJA to take over U.S. Ports?? Sorry. I just woke up and was flipping channels and I think I heard Senator Chuck Schumer talking against the UJA takeover of U.S. ports. This is definitely not a good development. The UJA will be hiring people to unload container ships in Baltimore, Newark, Elizabeth and other places. What if they hire hasidim? What is they require the ports to be closed on Shabbat? Then the Asian container ships will go to Mexico or Canada instead. Thanks Senator Schumer for investigating this crucial issue.

2006-02-18T12:34:00.000-08:00

Update on PARADISE NOW -- Paradise Now is a drama nominated for a foreign film. It is directed by Hani Abu-Assad, a Nazareth Israeli born Palestinian filmmaker. It is an entry from Palestine, although I guess it should be the Palestinian Authority. In 2004, there was an entry from "Palestine" also -- Divine Intervention by Nazareth-born Elia Suleiman. PARADISE NOW is about two potential suicide bombers: Said and Khaled, who are recruited in Nablus to kill Israelis in Tel Aviv. Readers shouldknow this tidbit. Although the script is based in Nablus, the filmmaker could not film it there. Palestinians kidnapped the film's location manager at gunpoint. A call had to be made to the office of Arafat to the the film crew member released. Six crewmembers quit after a bomb exploded near the shooting location. Therefore, the film had to be shot in Nazareth in the Israeli Galilee. SO the film was filmed in Israel, the director is born in Israel, and the film is set in Nablus. I am confused. SO where is the film from? :-)

2006-02-18T10:15:00.000-08:00

I have been lax in updating the blog.. work has been so busy. Hopefully I will update it more frequently. There are so many Cheney jokes to tell, like didn't he know that lawyers aren't in season, etc... but more importantly, we at JewishFim.com want to make note of the passing of Alan M. Levin at the age of 79. I met Mr. Levin in January 2005 at Sundance on Main Street after the premiere of his son Marc's film. Mr. Levin, who chatted about his reconstructionist synagogue in NJ, was supportive of SchmoozeDance. Mr. Levin was a mentor to documentary filmmakers. Our condoleneces go out to Marc and his sisters.

2006-01-20T07:47:00.000-08:00

Hi from Sundance, Slamdance, and SchmoozeDance in Park City Utah...

THURSDAY

I wasn't
sure how the trip would be this year -- my fifth trip. I arrived at JFK/Delta early, the cab ride was uneventful, except for a discussion on rioting in the Ivory Coast with the cab driver. The waiting area was packed, the $2 bagels sucked, the flight was overbooked. Delta was offering a $400 credit to anyone who would give up their seats. I did not take that offer. The waiting area was a little like high school. Some divas made grand entrances, throwing air kisses: Publicists.. Thank god for them. A few people wore cowboy hates. Is this brokeback chic?I embarked on the jet, and my seatmate insisted that he had the aisle seat. Fine, I thought. I would rather have the window seat anyway. Sitting in my seat, I meditated on what an ass he was. (Doesn't this sound like the beginning of a Sedaris story) BUT DAMN IT. He ruined my meditation when he tapped me on the shoulder and profusely apologized that he was wrong, and I was right. I DID have the aisle seat. "No Problem," I responded, "I like the window seat much better." I promplty fell asleep, and probably snored loudly.. Sorry to my jet-mates

++++
UPDATE... the next day, I ran into my seatmate again (and then again the next day also)... I apologized if case I snored... I didn’t, he said. Where did he work, I asked. "Oh.. The NYT." He responded. Really? me too, I said. oh.. he just happens to be Tony (A.O.) Scott... the film critic. ooops.
++++

Arriving in Salt Lake City... my baggage popped out in less than 5 minutes. My friend Gene's luggage popped out in an hour. My luck was going well.Thursday night, I saw two shorts and two features. The shorts.. nothing to comment on. Except let me comment on DEALBREAKER by Gwyneth Paltrow. A great actress, probably a good director, but the script.. well.. ummm... it would get a B or B-minus in a film school. The Danish film ADAM's APPLES by ANDERS THOMAS JENSEN (34) was unique and so peculiar it was refreshing, since no viewer would have anyway to predict the outcome of the story, a story about a neo Nazi who is released from prison and must spend a few months working at a rural church with a very peculiar minister, Ivan. Adam’s job is to protect an apple tree, harvest the apples, and bake a pie frlom them. Simple? Not so simple when the devil is plotting against you and the tree. Or is it god?

The Canadian film, EVE AND THE FIREHORSE turned out to be quite a find. Set in a Chinese-Canadian family in the early 1970's, it is the story of Eve, her older sister, parents, grandmother, and their trials of fitting in, incorporating Christianity, or a very intolerant unicultural form of Catholicism into their Buddhism, and, I guess, finding grace. I look forward to meeting the writer/director

++++
UPDATE; Saturday nt at Midnight.. I ran into the director and the star. We were sharing the same outdoor heater, waiting for the bus. The budget for the film was only $2 million. they got a lot of props and services for a tenth of the market cost in Vancouver, since people like to help home grown talent. Actually, I keep bumping into the producers or staff members of EVE AND THE FIRE HORSE each day, about two times a day.

Actually, on Monday, during one bus ride, I was speaking with a senior crew member from EVE… when we started to discuss KZ, the concentration camp documentary. A person piped up, "How did u like it?" I told him that I expected a much more experimental or different type of film. Ooops.. he was one of the film’s directors.

++++
FRIDAY

This morning (Friday), after several anxiety-filled nightmares, I was dressed and outside in the dark, silent Utah mountain cold by 6AM, 90 minutes before sunrise. The streets were empty, cold, crisp, with a dusting of snow on the ground. I arrived at the studios of Park City TV before the morning show hosts came in. I guess I was a tad early. My appearance went very well. I plugged a film or two and really felt comfortable with the PCTV staff and personalities. Afterwards, 2 people on the street said they saw my appearance and enjoyed it. Hurray.. hehe.After the appearance on tv, I came back to the condo to change. I watched THE TRIBE (theTribe.com) a short about Jews in the world and assimiliation by Tiffany Shlain (founder of the Webby Awards). The film is narrated by Peter Coyote (who, few know, speaks quite fluent basic Yiddish). Very creative. I recommend it for teenage discussion groups on Jewish identity. It is a "kosher certified" that looks at the history of the Barbie doll (Barbara Millicent Roberts), which was designed by a Jewish woman (Ruth Handler) and named for her Jewish daughter, and it extends the story as a metaphor for American Jewish identity, members of the tribe, Jewish heroes, JAPpy stereotypes, bagels as "outsider" bread, and assimiliation, persistence, superficiality, and survival. The highlight: a rendition of Venassa Hidary’s "Hebrew Mamasita." As an aside.. Tiffany’s grandfather was the sole survivor of his Odessa family after the Holocaust. Ken Goldberg, the film’s co-producer also descends from Odessa born Jews. Both are blond, blue-eyed Jews, who met in the Bay Area, married, honeymooned in Israel, and made this Jewish film. Their daughter’s name? Odessa. As an aside, on a freezing night, I walked about 2 miles to find Tiffany’s Tribe Kegger. But after two miles in the cold, I turned around and went home to bed.

Later, I headed over to the Eccles to watch the premiere of WRESTLING WITH ANGELS, a documentary on the playwright, Tony Kushner. It drips with yiddishkeit. In ACT II, Tony returns to Lake Charles, LA with his brother to visit their father and the family business (now co-owned by African Americans). They visit their shul, the memorial plaques, Tony's early teenage Jewish art pieces, etc. (who knew he could paint so well?) Later there is a wedding scene, in which Tony gets married to or "committed to" his partner. There is also a long piece on Angels in America, Roy Cohn, the production of Brundibar, the basement laundry from CAROLINE OR CHANGE, and the development of the music for CAROLINE OR CHANGE. It was an entertaining documentary. Perhaps it did not dig deep enough, but that is for his psychotherapist to do, but I came away with the a better understanding for his genius with words, and how Jewishness is infused in so many, or actually all of, his works.

As Friday night approached.. I prepared for SchmoozeDance. It was a success. There were only about 5 seats left empty. Perhaps not everyone enjoyed my selection of Amos Gitai's FREE ZONE, but c'est la guerre. Maybe in 2007, I will focus on a comedy. The biggest laughs were from the appearance on Professor Sarna in the film HINEINI. Who knew such a Judaic genius has such a unique inflection, or speaking style?Everyone wants to see Kinky Boots (Miramax), a British film by Julian Jarrold (Calendar Girls) about a Northampton man who inherits his father’s shoe factory and finds success in making kinky shoes. It is impossible to get a ticket

+++++
SATURDAY

Saturday came and went quickly.
I fit in a BEASTIE BOYS documentary,
and FRIENDS WITH MONEY (Nicole Holocener).
The Beastie Boys' film is primarily a concert film that uses footage from over 4 dozen Hi-8 and DV cameras that were distributed to fans in attendance at the October 9, 2004 concert, from their POV. It took a year to intensively edit the film. AWESOME: I FUCKIN SHOT THAT is by Nathaniel Hornblower, which is merely a pseudonym for Adam Yauch, a member of Beastie Boys. Yauch has been making films since he was 16. It will be released by ThinkFilm on March 31. The film features Mike D (Michael Diamond)., Adrock (Adam Horovitz, the son of Israel Horovitz), and MCA (Adam Yauch), the three Jewish men who make u Beastie Boys. The film was inspired by a 30 second low res film shot by a fan with his camera phone. My favorite part? Actually when one camera operator leaves the loud concert and walks to the Men’s Room in MSG to quietly pee and visit the concession stand.

FRIENDS WITH MONEY, I must admit, was wry, well written, warm, and entertaining. Jennifer Aniston was very believable in her role as a school teacher -now - maid. And Joan Cusack, Frances McDormand, and Catherine Keener proved that films that star women over 40 can be great, and they are wearing very little makeup in their roles. Each of the women is dealing with issues of friendship and intimacy, and their value to each other now that they are middle aged. What I especially liked was that in Ms. Holocener’s script, one couple seems to have it all, and you just keep waiting for that one chink in their armor. Yet in never comes. Sometimes, some people are just happy and have it all. hehe. Frances McDormand is the highlight of the film. Her character, married to a loving, ethereally metro-sexual man, is a successful fashion designer in LA, who, when she is facing her own mortality tries to control the smallest things in her life, from battling for parking spaces, or battling for her place in line at her local Old Navy. Catherine Keener is managing the potential collapse her marriage. Although she and her husband work together as a screenwriting team, communicating lines all day, they fail to communicate on a personal level. Maybe if they build a new family room, they will actually have a family? Though it sounds cliché, it actually was quite realistic It will be released in March by Sony Pictures Classics.

I also saw CLEAR CUT. THE STORY OF PHILOMATH OREGON, a very interesting documentary about a high school in Oregon. I came to the film thinking that it was a doc about
Oregon environmentalism, but what the film is truly about is national culture war that is played out in a local high school in Oregon’s timber region.

Celeb sightings.. few.. just Armistead Maupin, Will Shortz, and G Van Sant.And wait, I almost forgot, I also caught GIANT BUDDHAS, a documentary about The Taliban's assumed destruction of the GIANT BUDDHAS in AFfghanistan (this film was very, and I mean very, slow moving).

I also saw KZ, a unique documentary about the death camp, Matthausen, in Austria. It is filled with interviews of young residents of the town who suppress any knowledge of the town's infamy, and older residents who bluntly acknowledge their knowledge of what occurred at the death camp. The interviews in the former gas chamber are chilling, more so than in other films of the same genre.

+++
SUNDAY

Sunday morning… I saw the director John Waters walking down a path. Cool moustache...
I then caught 5 DAYS, an Israeli documentary by Yoav Shamir. I was hoping to catch up with the director and his entourage at the local falafel store in Park City (yes, an Israeli restaurant opened up down the highway), but I didn’t make it there in time. Yoav Shamir, who directed the documentary Checkpoint, had many contact in the Israeli Army in Gaza and the Southern Command, so when Israel decided to pull out of Gaza, his team had amazing access to the decision makers and hot spots. While some may say he went for some cheap laughs at the expense of some of the more fringe Gaza residents, this documentary shines in its access to General Dan Harel and his team of officers. And when one senior officer comments that perhaps they should use the Palestinians to create a disturbance to "evacuate" more Israelis out of Gaza, you get some great insights into the working of the army and the government.

Next I watched THE PETER PAN FORMULA ("Peter Pan-ui Gongshik"), written and directed by CHO Chang-Ho (33), a disciple of the director KIM Ki-Duk. Growing up in a small Korean mountain village, CHO never saw a film in a theater until he was a teen. The experience of seeing Out Of Africa made him want to be a filmmaker. This Korean film was confusing to me. Although it had one of the best, or should I say weirdest, exchanges of dialogue of any film I heard. This is a coming of age drama about Han-Soo (ON Ju-Wan), a promising high school swimmer, who aimlessly quits the swim team. Simultaneously, his mother attempts suicide and falls into a coma. Without the focus of swimming, a father (he never met his father), or his hospitalized mother, he quits school, and befriends a woman whose mother also lies in a comatose state. They meet each evening to care for their mothers in a Korean hospital, and the adolescent Han-Soo fantasizes about this older girl. Han-soo also befriends the mother of the family that moves in next door to his house. Without a mother engaged in his rearing (she was probably always comatose), Han-Soo seeks mothering from a neighbor, her daughter, his mother, and the daughter of his mother’s hospital roommate. As for the dialogue exchange, Han-Soo finds a pair of his neighbor’s panties in his yard. They have fallen from her clothes line. Rather than return them, he masturbates in his room with them, and then returns them to the clothing line. In terms of directing the actor to perform this scene, it was quite difficult. There aren’t many young teen stars who are willing to act this way in their feature debut. The dialogue was :

In-Hee: Did you return my panties
Han-soo: Yes
In-Hee: Did you masturbate with them
Han-soo: Yes
In-Hee: How is your mother
Han-soo: She is in a coma
In-Hee: Is there anything I can do
Han-soo: Yes, sleep with me
In-Hee: No.
Han-soo: Well, can you just give me a hand job instead

I finished the film confused. What was I missing? Fate smiled on me. The next day I was walking down a side street, and saw a Korean man walking towards me. His nametag said CHO. How many filmmakers can there be named CHO, it must be the director of this film. So I followed him for a few steps and told him that I had seen his film, found it interesting, and had a question for him. He smiled. He smiled. He smiled and then said he did not understand English. Hehe. "Please, please," he told me, "Come with me and meet my translator." So we met his translator and I asked my questions. The translator thanked me, and then never translated what I said. I asked her, "Aren’t you going to tell Mr. Cho what I just said?" "I will tell him later," she responded. Ummm..okay

I asked if he based the script on his own adolesence. Was he a swimmer I asked. Yes, it was based on his own angst, but he played soccer. His painful, restless adolescence was like a tumor, he said. Growing uncontrollably, his body matured, but his soul was that of a child.

I later met his translator again and we chatted about the film and she filled me in on the Freudian imagery in the film. Ahhh… now I understand it. The swimming and pool represented the womb, and Han-Soo’s bathing of his comatose nude mother was his effort to return to her but also escape from her control.. umm okay. Although he touches his nude mother, the film is not trying to be Oedipal. I then understood that his seduction of the mother next door was his attempt to counteract his desire for his own mother to die. Or was his desire to be inside his neighbor one of seeking sex or maternal love. The lack of love and intimacy then leads him to antisocial behavior. As for the use of the lighthouse image in the film, I guess it is up to the viewer as to whether the director meant for it to be phallic, to be the advent of male sexual maturity, to be a source of adult light on the teenage Han-Soo, or to be a cold, mindlessly comatose mother who, like a lighthouse, keeps everything at a distance.

Sadly, if you have to explain each image in the film, it isn’t going to be an audience pleaser. I think most audiences will see Han-Soo washing his mother’s body, and think of it in sexual terms, and not in terms of his seeing his own place in the world as a reflection in his mother’s nude body.

+++++

WHEW

+++++
Having not had enough Korean for the day, I watched Dear Pyongyang, a documentary by ___ about growing up Korean in Japan. An interesting sociological study, the filmmakers father was born in South Korea but identified in the 1950’s in Japan with North Korea. He went on to represent North Korea with the Japanese Korean community, and found a series of culturally Korean schools throughout Japan. He was so great a patriot for the cause, that he sent his three teenage sons to Pyongyang to live. The filmmaker, younger than her brothers, bid her brothers farewell and was raised in Japan. Little did they realize that her brothers would never be allowed to leave North Korea. Throughout the film, the filmmaker tries to confront her father and get him to admit that he was wrong to send his sons to North Korea. The film is both a story of a father and his mostly dutiful daughter, a conflict of wills and paths, and an indictment of a loyal cadre father who cannot face that his North Korea is not the worker’s paradise he envisioned.
Fathers: Pray that your children do not become documentary filmmakers.

+++++
I also had tme to see ALL ABOARD! ROSIE’S FAMILY CRUISE, a documentary by Shari Cookson which follows Rosie and Kelli O’Donnell and their cruise to Key West and the Bahamas for gay and lesbian families. It will be shown on HBO in April 2006. Rosie and Kelli, parents of four, are shown cajoling and organizing their kids, and also running an entire cruise aboard the Norwegian Dawn. Also aboard and featured are Sal Iacullo and Wayne Steinman, gay parenting pioneers who adopted a girl 17 years ago and are about to face an empty nest, as well as other new and old couples and their kids. The cruise had 1500 passnegers.. last yr they had 2200.. In 2006, they expect 2600.

++++

KZ by Rex Bloomstein. Mr. Blomstein focuses, once again, on the persistence of anti Semitism. He travels to Austria, a country that still believe it was a victim and not a perpetrator of Nazism, to tell the story of Matthausen and its KonZentrationslager death camp. It started as a labor camp for political prisoners and homosexuals, but later in the war it became a death camp for Jews. The film’s segment in the gas chamber is chilling and unforgetable. A girl faints near the start of the film. The film also interviews the camp’s guides and how the role as guide have affacted their psyches. Interestingly enough, several of the guides are doing their national service as guides; most had grandfathers who were SS officers.

++++
I caught NO UMBRELLA. ELECTION DAY IN THE CITY. A documentary by Laura Paglin about a day in the voting poll in the 2004 Presidential election in the poorest ward in Cleveland Ohio.. Surprise Surprise.. the machines don’t work, and all those votes for Kerry will not be counted. Enter Ms. Fannie Lewis, a councilwoman in her eighties, with more energy and connections than perhaps the mayor, who ends up showing up at the polls. Talk about luck when making a documentary film

UPDATE: I ran into the director and producer later. Laura made a film that was considered for SchmoozeDance last year, so she remembered me. Why wasn’t her film, NIGHT OWLS OF COVENTRY, ever picked up by Jewish film fests? I had no good answer for her.

++++

MONDAY:
I started out the day with the Australian crowd-pleaser, JEWBOY by Tony Krawitz. I thought it would be a comedy. It definitely was not a comedy. He is definitely not a lovable character. His grandmother, on the other hand, is priceless. I later met Tony and asked him about the inspiration for his script. And yes, he used to drive a cab.

In God Grew Tired of Us by Christopher Quinn, I, like most of the audience, lost about a quarter cup in tears. This documentary, which later won an award, focused on three of the 27,000 Sudanese Lost Boys. The film meets them in Africa and follows them over several years as they come to the United States and try to make it in America. One filmgoer was so moved by the screening that they gave the director $25,000 in support of the medical charity run by one of the "boys." Quinn made masterful documentary, one that can change U.S. policy, and he had high powered Hollywood backers. One issue nagged at me. One of producers used to work in the Bush White House. One would think that one phone call from that person could influence more policy than can the film over numerous screenings.. but time will tell.

2006-01-10T15:44:00.000-08:00

from elation to non elation.
elated that we scored another hot film for SchmoozeDance, and I will be interviewed by a Utah tv station on Jan 19.
non elated that the publicists for one of the film's actresses never email or call me back.. we are just small potatoes. understandable, but hopefully one day we will be large enough to crush these people. what goes around comes around, as the Talmud says.
speaking of the Talmud... last Tuesday nt, I walked by the 2nd Avenue Deli.. should I splurge over $8 for a sandwich? but the place was locked up.. closed for renovation. The next day, The Times reported that the deli was locked up in a renovation landlord tenant dispute over future rents (already in the lease i heard), and the necessry renovations that would be needed to bring the basement kitchens up to "code." Patience. Although now, a week later, I see that the signage is being removed from the facade. Don't tell me we'll have to go to Brooklyn for kosher chopped liver sandwiches? Vulture alert.. if they auction off the contents, I want the Molly Picon poster.

2006-01-02T19:39:00.000-08:00

This afternoon I saw USHPIZIN, the award winning Israeli film which has earned $1.2 million in the USA to date on its 47 screens. But instead of seeing it at the Quad cinema or elsewhere, I decided to see it in the heart of Modern Orthodox Brooklyn, in the auditorium of the Yeshiva of Flatbush on Avenue J. The film was sparsely attended, and the yeshiva provided mixed, women's-only and men's only seating. (No one sat in the men's only section, by the way). My showing was sparsely attended, but actually, a screening one weekend in October packed 800 viewers into the room and turned half as many away. I found the Sukkot story more poignant in this venue.

2006-01-01T16:03:00.000-08:00

Congrats to the following recipinets at the 2005 Jewish Image Awards from the National Foundation for Jewish Culturea nd the MorningStar Commission.

Couple in a Film: Meet the Fockers: Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand
Female Characters in a Film: Marla Sokoloff in The Tollbooth
Male Character in a Film: Martin Landau in The Aryan Couple
Television Series: The West Wing
Television Special: I'm Still Here: Real Diaries of Young People Who Lived During the Holocaust
Male Character on TV: Peter Gallagher in THE O.C.
Documentary Film: Sister Rose's Passion
Cross Cultural Production: Everyday People

Industry Leadership Award to Lucy Fischer, former vice chair of Columbia TriStar MPG, producer of Jarhead and Memoirs of a Geisha, co-head of Red Wagon Entertainment

**

2005 Grant Recipients from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture for their film projects:
(1) Encounter Point. Ronit Avni, Julia Bacha, Nahanni Rous, and Joline Makhlouf
(2) In Search of Bene Israel. Sadia Shepard
(3) Praying with Lior. Ilana Trachtman
(4) The Rape of Europa. Bonni Cohen

2006-01-01T15:19:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year and the last nt of Hanukkah. I have been trying to get through the loads of backlogged books and films here... but headway is not being made.

Speaking of Hanukkah... here are some "commericalized" items from the American market... ChocolateGelt.com sold nearly 1 million chocolate coins in the 4th Quarter; Dr. Praeger's Senible Foods sold 3600 boxes of frozen latkes 10 years ago, in 2004 they sold 275,000 boxes; polls shows that 72% of America's 5.2 million Jews kindle Hanukkah candles (then why do Chabad kids stop Jews in the subways to ask if they are Jewish and if they want a menorah?); and Hallmark now has 112 Hanukkah card designs (compared to 2200 xmas designs) in their catalog.

2005-12-23T19:07:00.000-08:00

oh those wascally Jewish people... a round-up of some fun stuff

For xmas Eve in NYc.. we dont have Kung Pao Kosher Comedy, as they do in SF, but we do have a Matza Ball (where the attendees are more likely to make out with the wait staff and busboys than the other Jewish attendees); Nice Jewish Girls Behaving Badly (i will try to go to this one, as i did last year); JewL-tide in Brooklyn; the Kosher Gospel Choir show with Joshua Nelson, Soul farm at BBKing, Chinese and a Film at MAKOR;Isle of Klezbos; and What I Like About Jew at the Knitting Factory

Ushpizin.. i still haven't seen it yet. Maybe i will go to it for Erev Xmas. The stars were at a screening in NYC this week, but with the subway strike, I missed it. But did you see... Ushpizin is losing ticket sales to bootleg DVD sales among haredim and others.. tsl tsk.. bootlegs are a shanda.

A sad story in the Washington Post last SUnday. The front page of the Metro section told the story of a man who passed away in West Virginia. He came to The USA after WW2, a survivor, a man who never overcame his fear of people and being followed, and being potentially rounded up and sent away. He opened a men's clothing store in a small town, was seen as eccentric, lived like a frugal pauper, built a house that he never resided in, never married (but had a gf for many decades. When he died this year, his estate, yes.. u guessed it, was worth many millions of dollars. He left a few thousand to his gf; $100K in past funds to the local college, and the rest was to be split between HADASA IN TEL AVIV and ISRAEL TECH. So, of course, a distant relative in Israel sued for all the money. He disliked this relative intensely. She said for $25K whe would drop her suit. how nice. what chutzpah. Now came the lawyers for HADASSAH HOSPITAL IN JERUSALEM and SAROKIN HOSP in TEL AVIV (which was once called Hadassah in the 1940s. Rather than split the $$, the racked up atty fees. The T.A. hospital said that they must be the hospital he meant (yeah right).. Sigh.. should have gone to law school (?) hehe. Oh.. the court decided that ISRAEL TECH must be TECHNION.

And finally... Twinkies are no longer Kosher. After 12/27/2005, Twinkies will no longer be certified kosher, according to "hostess' and their parent, Interstate Bakeries Corporation

2005-12-11T06:54:00.000-08:00

two quick rants...

yesterday, two clebrities died: Eugene McCarthy and Richard Pryor, So who did the evening news lead with.... well.. the top news was Pryor.....and mid telecast... McCarthy. He was only a two term senator and mutliple time candidate for U.S. President. Well.. as they say in tv news.. "if it bleeds, it leads"

SPeaking of bleeding.. I got a letter from THE FORWARD today. A subscription offer. This is the second one I received. Both are sooooo poorly done in my opinion. They need a new direct mail agency. The first one was verbose without an imperitive reason to subscribe or samples of stories, This new execution has a good opening line...but the picture is of a man (and out of focus woman) (i wonder if they send women a creative in which the woman is in focus and the man is out of focus),.... a man who looks like he is the last person who will ever read the Forward. He looks more Aryan than Jewish. I would have led with the discounted price and used a pic of a guy who was more a HEEB reader than a Barrons reader

2005-12-05T13:33:00.000-08:00

So you want to be a Jewish book writer??
The Jewish Publication Society is seeking qualified authors for new titles in its highly acclaimed JPS Guides series, a collection of concise reference books, each on a specific topic of key interest within Jewish studies.
New titles under consideration are:
The JPS Guide to Rabbinics
The JPS Guide to American Jewish Literature
The JPS Guide to Jewish Customs
The JPS Guide to Jewish History
The JPS Guide to Israel
The JPS Guide to Jewish Mysticism

I think Madonna can do the Mysticism series....

For further information, please email: jpsguides@hotmail.com
or contact: Norman H. Finkelstein Series Editor JPS Guides
P.O. Box 3064 Framingham, MA 01705

2005-12-02T14:13:00.000-08:00

Waaaa... we got a letter from Slamdance... our short film was rejected. And now i just got the email from Sundance... REJECTed. Sigh. Well at least it was good experience learning how to produce a Short Film. The letter from Sundance was very polite. The rejection letter from Slamdance... well.. the writer was so indie, she was probably smoking crack when she wrote it. Or at least it sounded that way.

Speaking of smoking crack... Ushpizin, the haredi Israeli film now playing in NYC and other major cities is doing well at the box office. Will it take in $1 million. Who knows. One of the marketing directors for the film asked me if i saw it yet. I said, "no, but i did see the DVD in the East Village for sale at a grocery." "WHAT?" he replied. (well it's true.. u can buy the dvd for $14, in PAL format)... And now 2 weeks later, i get a nationwide email blast that states "Please see Ushpizin, and do not use the bootleg DVD... [it is a violation of halacha to watch a bootleg DVD of a haredi film]" Hmm... i guess the film is making the rounds of Monsey and Crown Heights in clandestine bootleg DVD screenings

Speaking of Ushpizin... as of last week....
Bee Season has taken in $400,000 (a shocker) in 2 weeks of release
Sarah Silverman... has taken in $300,000 in 2 weeks of release
Paradise Now has taken in $530,000 in 4 weeks of release (or think $265k over 2 weeks avg)
Ushpizin has taken in $610,000 in 5 weeks on only 32 screens (or think $240K over 2 weeks avg)
Squid and Whale... $2,790,000 over 7 weeks (on 90 screens)
Prime ... $21,000,000 over 4 weeks
oh.. and
Harry Potter... $102,000,000 in its first week :-)

2005-12-01T15:51:00.000-08:00

Rants for a Thursday afternoon.

Last night I ran to the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center to see the first screening of Amos Gitai's FREE ZONE film. Gitai was there, as was the head of the Film Society. The screenmig was sold out, but luckily there were some seats left anyway, and I scored a ticket. Film was fine and depressing, as one should expect. And there is a 98% chance that I will obtain the right to show the film at SchmoozeDance 2006. More on this later. i wonder if Natalie Portman will come to our festival. I contacted her publicists. Let's see if they answer me.

**

Did you hear that the memorial had to be redesigned for the passengers on the jet (UA flt 93) that crashed on 9/11 near Pittsburgh PA (Shanksville). It seems that in the design competition, the chosen design had a grove of trees in a crescent shape. Well, the crescent shape is sort of like the Isalmic crescent shape. A U.S. Rep. Thomas G. Tancredo (R., Colo.) criticized the earlier design in a September letter to National Park Service director Fran Mainella. Tancredo said many questioned the shape "because of the crescent's prominent use as a symbol in Islam - and the fact that the hijackers were radical Islamists complained. So the grove will be not be built. God forbid that there should be a crescent shape. I hear that croissants will now be banned. And what about Lucky Charms cereal? Should those crescent moons be removed? P&G watch out. Someone should send dozens of croissants to Congressman Tancredo.

**

Waaaa... I heard from Slamdance. The film I helped to produce was rejected. Oh well.. It was good experience nevertheless.

2005-11-19T11:48:00.000-08:00

Did you hear about the hot new JCC ?? I don't mean a Jewish community center. No... Al Jazeera is launching a children's channel... JCC. An Arabic language edutainment channel for kids... Mahmoud Bouneb is the gen mgr of jcc. I can;t wait to see what they will show the kids. :-)

2005-11-19T11:46:00.000-08:00

Ahhh.... I was hoping to go to the Mimicry conference at NYU today, but I am struck down with a chest cold :-( So instead, i am working on finding new films for SchmoozeDance 2006. There are some very good prospects. Have you heard of KING OF THE BEGGARS. It is like a Jewish Braveheart set in Poland, in which Fishke the Lame, the Yiddish anti-hero is set as a Mel Gibson fighter against progrom organizers ....

2005-11-08T18:20:00.000-08:00

On this election day... congrats to Jenna Blum, the recipient of the 23rd Annual Ribalow Prize from Hadassah Magazine. Ms. Blum is the author of THOSE WHO SAVE US. Dr. Yaffa Eliach gave the keynote address at the ceremony today on Gramercy Park. The weather was great, the speakers interesting, the Hadassah women were glamorous (most were over 75), and more importantly the desserts were tasty (My Favorite Dessert was the caterer).

Speaking of awards.. I would like to nominate the FORWARD for a Jewish journalism prize, for its Philogos column on St Mary Hasidim. The column and criticism were well honed and informative. A reader asked if "Satmar" Hasidim were actually "St Mary" Hasidim. (no). The columnist went on to criticize those who call themselves SaKmar instead of Satmar, and those who would become upset by naming a synagogue using the names of San Diego (Saint James, and all those Saint names), Corpus Christi (Body of Christ), etc. (you know.. sort of like naming your kid, Jesus Cohen, pronounced with the H as in Hay soos)

Satmar has zero to do with Saint Mary. It is from the Latin most likely for city, or perhaps Zotmar.

The column went on to criticize with laser beam precision those who spell God Hashem and other words as G-d, H-shem, etc. He asks.. should Notre Dame be Notre Lame? What about Saint Louis?

Bravo.

Which leads me to another issue. I heard that in the holy land of Scranton PA, this past election day, several Orthodox Jews took issue with casting their votes in a local neighborhood church. The voting booth was not atop a corss or baptismal pool. It was in a community room. The location was moved to a frigid garage. Ahhh.... isnt there something in the Talmud about avoiding strident actions that will only cause needless hatred from the larger community?
What next? Should we avoid hospital emergency rooms in Catolic sponsored medical centers if there is a cross in the lobby?

Finally... the mail brought with it a copy of THE UNCHOSEN.. a book I have been waiting for about those rebel kids who leave the hasidic households in which they were raised.. and on a lighter note... I looked forward to reading this past Sunday's BOSTON GLOBE Magazine (11/6/05). The Cover story was on A JeWISH REVIVAL by Doug Most. A little over 350 after Boston's first Jew was kicked out of the colony (Solomon Franco in 1649), a revival is occurring on Friday nts in Boston at the Vilna Shul's Havurah on the Hill (beacon Hill) and at Temple Israel. It was interesting, but needed better editing.. but it sounds gerat to be a 20something in boston this year.

2005-11-05T06:49:00.000-08:00

ahh NYC... i was at the cupcake cafe bakery the other day, returning to work from the Vertans Job Fair at the Javits Center. What a great fair.. with over 80 booths and probably 10,000 new york city area vets of iraq, afghanistan and elsewhere.. desperate for significant jobs and training.... so after seeing lots of men and women who gave service to the country.. i am in line at the bakery.. when a 20-something man walks in, well dressed, well poised, the color of cafe au lait with short hair.. and out of his mouth, in front of a 10-person line, he says, "i am here for ralph lauren"
get in line
"i am here from ralph lauren... i need the cake for the surprise party"
yes, well get in line.. there is a line
he walks out to make a call phone call
he returns... "get in line" the manager call sout
oh he is so mad.. dont they know he is entitled to go to the front of the line
dude! it is not like you are a cheerleader! u work for a man from the bronx who deals in waspy shmattes
i wonder if he was a veteran
anyway... he got in line and shut up

2005-10-30T15:17:00.000-08:00

NYC.... a small world... today i was picking up an Avis car rental. I was trading quips with the man ahead of me in line. As he got the keys to hios car, the clerk said, have a nice day Mr Mark. Mr. Mark?
I am a Mr Mark as well, I told the man
No Way
Way
We showed our drivers licenses to each other
His family came from the Lvov area; mine from 100 miles to the West near Sanok
chat chat
Landsmen.... u never know where u will find them.

**

2005-10-27T06:42:00.001-07:00

Going to shul is getting dangerous. In Brooklyn this week, in a Satmar shul, a brawl broke out. I hope nobody got hit in an eye with a lulav. Cops were called and arrests were made. And then, down in Boca Raton, Florida, a shooting "broke out" at a Chabad Rosh Hashana service. At least it was only between two congregants.

2005-10-27T06:42:00.000-07:00

2005-10-26T08:57:00.000-07:00

How was your Simchat Torah? I spent it at a Jewish activity.... well sort of... book reading at B&N by Aaron Hamburger. He read from Faith for Beginners. The book opens with a family visiting Israel. Mrs. Michaelson, her terminally ill husband, and their druggy son (who gets snagged by a rabbi at the Kotel). I liked the reading so much; I bought the book. Most of the questions for the author were about why he writes about expats, and what it is like living in Rome, while writing a new novel about Berlin. He is tired of pasta.

2005-10-26T07:31:00.000-07:00

I got home last night and there was message waiting for me on the answering machine. It was from Harvey Weinstein, formerly of Miramax, now of the Weinstein Company (Wake, Passion of the Clerks, Feast, Pulse, Grind House, School of Scoundrels, and a big fan of EXODUS). Oh Oh... was he calling about JewishFilm.com or SchmoozeDance? Maybe he wants us to premiere something or show Paperclips? Maybe he has a job for me? Maybe he wants to stop us from showing something (like he did with a friend on Kandahar). NOPE.. it was a recorded message in support of Mike Bloomberg for Mayor. Oh well. Maybe next time.

**

"Hey," the overweight African American man said to me last night. I stopped. "Don't you know me?"
Ummmm no.
"I gained a lot of weight, I have been ill, I am a guard from the lobby"
Yes, he does look like a lobby guard, but fatter.
"I have been ill.. i am on disability..... i have been sleeping on the subways"
Hmmm.. is this some sort of scam? I know lots of scams... does he play on guilt that perhaps white people think all African American people look the same and will be embarrassed to admit they don't recognize him? OK.. it is Simchat Torah.. So i gave him some cash.. not as much as he desired, but enough....

I mentioned this to a friend.... "Oh .. that guy? He gave me the same story 9 months ago 5 blocks south of where u saw him"

Oh well.. I was scammed.. but it was a holiday