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November 16, 2006
B’nai Mitzvah: Celebrate sunrise prayer with breakfast outdoors
If you were in Jerusalem at the crack of dawn on a Monday or Thursday, you would see dozens of bar mitzvah boys davening by the Western Wall, being taught to lay tefillin for the first time. In Persian families this practice includes a morning prayer service and a breakfast for close family and friends.Since the b\’nai mitzvah ceremony is rife with spiritual meaning, a lovely way to start the sacred day is an early morning gathering to greet the sunrise.
Books: Interest grows in neglected 19th-Century female author Amy Levy
Oscar Wilde adored her, calling the young writer \”a girl of genius,\” while modern critics, in their flippancy and an attempt to articulate who this virtually unknown Victorian author was, have coined Amy Levy the \”Jewish Sylvia Plath,\” referring to both her precocious talent and her early, tragic demise.In the past few years, there has been an uptick in interest in Levy\’s work, including the publication of a biography in 2000, a conference held in 2002 in London specifically on her work and scholarship tied to it and, most recently, the annotated editions of Levy\’s two novels, \”The Romance of a Shop\” and \”Reuben Sachs.\”
Woman’s cathartic memoir focuses on Hobson’s Choice — mom or dad
Devyani Saltzman sat frozen over her math homework as her parents screamed at each other one evening at the Cannes Film Festival in 1992. Her mother, the Indian-born filmmaker Deepa Mehta, had come to Cannes to premiere her first feature, \”Sam & Me,\” about the unlikely relationship between an elderly Jew and his Indian caregiver. Devyani\’s father, Canadian-Jewish producer Paul Saltzman, had joined her to celebrate.Instead, their own relationship unraveled that evening in what was to be the last fight (and, essentially, the last day) of their marriage.
Want to spoof Purim and the Oscars? Be our Guest!
In their previous screenplay collaborations, Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy have satirized such offbeat subjects as small-town theatrical productions (\”Waiting for Guffman\”), championship dog shows (\”Best in Show\”), and old folk music groups (\”A Mighty Wind\”).But for their latest, \”For Your Consideration,\” they\’ve really gone out on a limb with an obscure target — Purim movies.\”For Your Consideration\” chronicles the making of a tear-jerking melodrama, \”Home for Purim,\” in which the dying matriarch of a Southern Jewish family, Esther Pischer (Catherine O\’Hara), waits for the holiday-season return of her wayward daughter, Rachel (Parker Posey). Both the Yiddish and the southern accents are thick.
Writer spins thrillers from his own undercover adventures
Jet lag launched Haggai Carmon into his career as an author. The international lawyer found himself in a small, unheated hotel room in a remote country he won\’t identify. He was on U.S. government assignment, collecting intelligence on a violent criminal organization, but his security cover had been blown, and he was advised by Interpol not to leave his hotel room.Tired, but too scared to sleep, Carmon sat at a child-sized desk with his laptop computer and spun 100 pages of a thriller based on, but disguising, his experiences. Those first 100 pages became the basis for \”Triple Identity,\” the first in a series of three thrillers featuring Dan Gordon, a lawyer and former Mossad agent working for the U.S. Department of Justice.
British Jews’ ambivalence up to bat in ‘Wondrous’
David Wiseman is a 12-year-old Jewish boy growing up in London in the early 1960s, and his passion is cricket. He spends most of his free time rearranging and talking to his card collection of British and West Indian cricket greats, who in turn talk back to him.The movie about David, his immigrant parents and the changing neighborhood and country in which he grows up was originally called, \”Outfielder,\” a title that might have attracted legions of unwitting baseball fans in the United States. Now, the more awkward title is \”Wondrous Oblivion,\” and if that turns off potential viewers, it will be their loss.
Television: Will Shabbat dinner drama hold ‘Nine’ viewers captive?
A new series, \”The Nine,\” created by siblings Hank (\”Without a Trace\”) and K.J. Steinberg (\”Judging Amy\”), tells the story of nine strangers at a L.A. bank and a robbery that will \”only take five minutes\” — until, in TV fashion, something goes horribly wrong. The flashbacks — very small ones that lead every episode — only hint to the whole story of what happened during the 52-hour standoff.
Film: Too soon to forgive Dr. Mengele?
Just when the film world seems to have examined the Holocaust from every possible angle, a new film comes along that shakes up our complacency.\”Forgiving Dr. Mengele\” focuses on the story of Eva Kor, one of the so-called \”Mengele twins,\” who along with her sister was subjected to the Nazi doctor\’s experiments. Most notably, it deals with the forgiveness of Nazis, a concept antithetical to many Holocaust survivors.
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