After an article about her appeared in Vanity Fair, she blogged, \”push Aunt Nancy aside and throw open the screen door, because \’Hollywood\’s Next Wave\’ just got a lot Jewisher.\”
Synagogue transformation programs exude good intentions, but do they actually work?
After 75 years, humanitarianism prevailed over rejectionism. Last Thursday, in the early morning hours, delegates to the 29th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, assembled in Geneva from 192 states and 183 relief societies, voted by overwhelming majority to recognize the Magen David emblem and admit Israel\’s relief society.
When Paul Reiser co-created and starred in the 1990s hit sitcom, \”Mad About You,\” — about a secular Jew married to a Christian — he helped spur a new trend in TV comedy: the cute but neurotic Jewish leading man.
Of her conversion to Judaism, Laura Schlessinger said, \”I felt that I was putting out a tremendous amount toward that mission, that end, and not feeling return, not feeling connected, not feeling that inspired. Trust me, I\’ve talked to rabbis, I\’ve read, I\’ve prayed, I\’ve agonized and I came to this place anyway — which is not exactly back to the beginning, but more in that direction than not.\”
\”A Jewish friend of mine loves \’The Sopranos,\’\” Italian American actor Joe Bologna said with a groan. \”I told him, \’How\’d you like to see a show called \”The Goldsteins\” about white-collar criminals and the biggest shyster is Izzy Goldstein?\”\n\nBologna isn\’t about to play Izzy, but he is the co-author and star of a monologue he said breaks ethnic and gangster stereotypes. In \”Meyer,\” he portrays Jewish mobster Meyer Lansky — previously depicted in films such as \”Bugsy\” (1991) — as both a ruthless thug and a pathetic alter-kacker. At the beginning of the play, the character sips Dr. Brown\’s Cel-Ray Soda and kvetches about Israel denying him citizenship under the Law of Return.
\”Survivor\” as inspiration for Jewish programming? It seems strange that the divisive show where deceit, backstabbing and empty promises are de rigueur would serve as the inspiration for a Shabbaton that stresses the importance of religious and cultural continuity. Yet Sephardic Tradition and Recreation (STAR) has seized on this pop culture phenomenon and infused it with a positive spin.
When I was asked to teach at a Bulgarian university, my only clear images of the Balkan nation included its infamous Communist-era spy system, its great Olympic weight lifters,and its national women\’s choir, whose haunting harmonies were popular in the West.
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