Fouad Ajami\’s \”Dream Palace of the Arabs\” lacks Benda\’s harshness and polemics, but illustrates how fragile and tenuous are the intellectuals\’ claims on political life.
\”One man telling me I\’m attractive for the rest of my life — that\’s never gonna be enough,\” betrothed comic Dani Klein laments in her autobiographical monologue, \”The Move,\” at Stages Theatre Center.
Actor-writer Doug Kaback never belonged to a synagogue while growing up in a non-Jewish area of Palos Verdes. He didn\’t receive any religious education or become a bar mitzvah.
Shmuel Gelbfisz was born in a Polish shtetl, the son of an unsuccessful second-hand furniture dealer. He studied in a cheder and at age 12, the penniless boy walked across Europe, took steerage to America, and \”Anglicized\” his name to Sam Goldfish. In 1918, he had graduated from glove salesman to budding Hollywood producer. He renamed and reinvented himself once more and became Sam Goldwyn.
Larry David is notoriously prickly. Still, at a recent HBO press conference for \”Curb Your Enthusiasm,\” the television series starring the comedy writer as himself (the second season premiered Sept. 23), he made a game effort to be brightly quotable. \”I might be the first bald man to actually be starring in a television comedy since Phil Silvers,\” David began.
British film director Stephen Frears was drawn to \”Liam,\” about the making of an anti-Semite, partly because of a startling family secret he discovered in his late 20s.
In a compelling collection of 19th and 20th century images and objects, the Skirball Cultural Center\’s new exhibit of photographs, lithographs and archaeological artifacts tells the story of Israel as, literally, a \”holy land\” — a place that has long held fascination for the three monotheistic faiths, academics and Western tourists hoping to discover the exotic world of the East.
After videotaping the testimonies of more than 50,000 Holocaust survivors during the past seven years, a foundation created by filmmaker Steven Spielberg will now shift its focus to an even more daunting task, a worldwide educational campaign against prejudice, intolerance and bigotry.\n\n
Craig Taubman remembers a time not too long ago when he and other popular Jewish musicians were branded as destroyers of Jewish culture.
When Binyamin Glickman looks around Los Angeles today, he sees his students. And, he is glad to say, they are doing well.
From 1962 to 1982 Glickman was cantor at Beth Jacob Congregation, a large Orthodox synagogue in Beverly Hills, and the music instructor at Hillel Hebrew Academy down the block.
As cantor, he trained countless students in his choir to lead services, and many of his students continue to do so today.
