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October 31, 2002

Are Jews Becoming Republican?

Matthew E. Berger October 31, 2002

The debate over whether American Jews are turning to the Republican Party is not likely to be settled when the votes are counted on Nov. 5.

With midterm congressional elections just days away, Republicans cite a variety of reasons why this year\’s polls may not show the political shift they have been predicting for the past year. But Democrats say the election will be the best sign yet of where Jews stand on the political spectrum.

Land of a Thousand Titles

Andrea Adelson October 31, 2002

Jonathan Foer\’s award-winning book, \”Everything Is Illuminated,\” is a fictionalized road trip to a Ukrainian shtetl, mirroring the young author\’s own family history quest. Crime fiction writer Rochelle Krich, the Orthodox daughter of Holocaust survivors, is starting a new series with the release of \”Blues in the Night.\” Howard Blum, a former New York Times reporter, chronicles the clandestine World War II exploits of the British army\’s Jewish Brigade Group in \”The Brigade.\”

This trio, along with five other visiting authors and several nationally known speakers, will share their stories and sign books in a series of O.C. events Nov. 7-24. Hundreds of autograph-hungry readers are expected at the fourth annual Jewish book festival, organized by Orange County\’s Jewish Community Center.

Storybook Chance

Andrea Adelson October 31, 2002

The trophy-hunting editor\’s instructions were explicit: before leaving, take your handbag into the restroom and snag a napkin with a vice presidential seal.

Robin Preiss Glasser, a former ballet dancer forced by injuries into a second career as an illustrator, was first intent on pocketing a job during an August 2001 trip to Washington, D.C. Simon & Schuster\’s children\’s unit was hiring an illustrator for \”America, a Patriotic Primer,\” but not without the assent of its author, Lynne Cheney, wife of the vice president, Dick Cheney. Nervously quaking alongside the publishers\’ emissaries at a lunch \”audience\” in the vice presidential residence, Glasser managed to establish a rapport with Mrs. Cheney, who consented to the pairing.

Shedding Some Light

Amy Klein October 31, 2002

\”Everything Is Illuminated\” by Jonathan Safran Foer (Houghton Mifflin, $24).

Jonathan Safran Foer\’s new book, \”Everything Is Illuminated\” has garnered rave reviews everywhere, from The New York Times to Esquire, with front jacket quotes by Russell Banks, Nathan Englander and mentor Joyce Carol Oates; it has even been optioned for a movie by actor Liev Schrieber\’s prodction company.

Networking for Jobs

Karen Alexander October 31, 2002

It\’s been nearly two years since David Lorch had a job. Currently, the former pricing analyst for an Orange County high-tech firm attends networking events near his home in Laguna Hills, does volunteer work for his shul, Congregation Eilat in Mission Viejo, and tries to maintain his hope.

With the job market showing little or no signs of improvement, Lorch is hoping to start a new networking group through his synagogue that is focused specifically on helping unemployed Jews find work. Such organizations have taken off at a handful of congregations in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the dismal job market is already considered a crisis in the Jewish community. Lorch is hoping to draw from the experiences of his peers in Silicon Valley in crafting a network of his own.

Subversive Sarah

Michael Aushenker October 31, 2002

It seems only fitting that comic Sarah Silverman has had guest roles on both the vampy \”V.I.P.\” and the geeky \”Star Trek: Voyager.\” She can trade on her good looks, which she milked in her Hollywood exec role on the Fox sitcom \”Greg the Bunny.\” But left to her own devices, Silverman, tomboyishly comfortable in jeans and sneakers, comes across like your dorky, smart-mouthed sister. Silverman will wield her scalpel-sharp wit in her show, \”Jesus Is Magic,\” Nov. 6-16 at the Canon Theater.\n\n\”It\’s very racial and it\’s sexual,\” Silverman, 31, told The Journal about \”Magic.\” \”I talk a lot about race, about Sept. 11, the Holocaust. I say a lot of stuff I don\’t mean.\”\n\n

Sephardic ‘Luck’

Naomi Pfefferman October 31, 2002

Neil Sheff was shocked to find himself something of a celebrity at a conference of North American Jewish film festival directors a couple years ago. Of the 75 festivals in the United States and Canada, his Los Angeles Sephardic Film Festival is the only one dedicated to showcasing the Sephardic experience. \”I was literally surrounded by people who wanted to pick my brain,\” he said, incredulous.\n\n

Complicated Branches

Robert Brustein October 31, 2002

\”The Syringa Tree,\” which won the 2001 Obie Award for best play and premieres in Los Angeles this week, might be the first theatrical work to deal with the complicated and ambiguous relations between Jews and blacks in South Africa. A solo performance written and acted by Pamela Gien, it is a partly fictionalized — though mostly factual — account of a half-Jewish, half-English child in Johannesburg during apartheid. Created by Gien in a Santa Monica acting class in 1996, the play was inspired by the brutal murder of Gien\’s grandfather when she was a child.

Eye-Popping Tale

Jewish Journal Staff October 31, 2002

\”The Golden Land: The Story of Jewish Immigration to America\” by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin (Harmony Books, $29.95).

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin begins this clever, coffee-table tome by noting that only three days after Spain\’s pious rulers, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, expelled their 200,000 Jewish subjects in 1492 for no reason other than their stubborn insistence on worshipping God, Columbus set sail for India. However, Columbus and his three ships and crew (90 members, five of whom were Marannos, or secret Jews) arrived in the New World, part of which, the United States, \”would come to house the largest, most prosperous and most successful Jewish community in Diaspora history.\”

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