UCLA Faculty Center
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November 9, 2007
MUSIC VIDEO: Gad Elbaz and Alon de Loco in ‘Ha layla ze haz’man’ — ‘Tonight’s the Night’
Two Israeli cliques— cool kids and Yeshiva students—somehow manage to ‘just get along’ in this hiphop music video from rappers Gad Elbaz and Alon de Loco in ‘Ha layla ze haz’man’—‘Tonight’s the Night’
MUSIC VIDEO: Gad Elbaz and Alon de Loco in ‘Ha layla ze haz’man’ — ‘Tonight’s the Night’ Read More »
‘Generation Next’ powow at Professional Leaders Project parley
Generation Next
By the end of the Professional Leaders Project gathering in Santa Monica, I walked away with three things: a stack of business cards, some good stories and a condom from KinkyJews.com in a package that featured an Israeli flag on the front and an off-color, yet highly creative tagline we can’t print here.
These may be the usual accoutrement, left over from a weekend of Jewish networking, yet with respect to this conference being a progressive think tank, the cards are unusually fancy:
There’s Ariel Beery, the 20-something editor and publisher of a cutting-edge mag on Jewish life (the current cover of PresenTense features three unmistakably ethnic Jews under a headline that reads, “Funny, You Don’t Look Jewish”). Then there was Lindsay Litowitz, who is independently seeking funds tofinance a documentary film project, called “Four Corners,” on Jewishcommunities around the world. Others there were producers, entrepreneurs, nonprofit executives, artists and budding religious leaders.
The invitation-only crowd was comprised of significant young Jewish professionals and volunteers — most were hip and well dressed, all shared “smart and successful” and were qualitatively labeled “talent.” And there you have the traits of the nation’s future Jewish leadership.
Well-funded and well-organized PLP flew in these rising stars for three days of Jewish learning, networking and highfalutin keynote speakers. Israeli-born Harvard professor Tal Ben-Shahar, who commands up to $20,000 for a single speaking engagement, delivered a spiel on positive psychology that didn’t quite live up to my expectations, so I hope PLP got his nonprofit rate.
During my in-and-out stint, I caught Dov Rosenblatt performing with his band, Blue Fringe. Afterwards, I mistakenly offered a handshake to Chasidic rapper Y-Love (a.k.a. Yitz Jordan), who abruptly flung his sweaty beret over his palms before he would touch me. The much-anticipated conclusion, “Michael Steinhardt Uncensored” was a bust when he fell ill, but the ever-eloquent and engaging Rabbi Naomi Levy stepped in and delivered an empowering message on good leadership.
Despite the lack of an overriding message articulated over the course of the conference, there was a sense of hopefulness. The Jewish future is in ready hands, able hands — and maybe next time, they’ll have a concrete objective of what to do with those hands.
Jane Usher is no plain Jane. She’s an active environmentalist, attorney and president of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission. Flanked by eco-Hollywood and go-green Angelenos, she was honored by TreePeople at their annual gala fundraiser, “An Evening Under the Harvest Moon,” which raked in half-a-mil for L.A.’s urban forest. Since a group of teenagers started the organization in the 1970s, more than 2 million trees have been planted in our beloved, angelic city.
What a pair! Of sisters, that is. Although the John Wayne Cancer Institute’s breast cancer fundraising luncheon makes clear reference to a woman’s most salient body part, the perky set at this event was actress Joely Fisher and her sister, Trisha Leigh Fisher, who presented Joley, the smokin’ star of FOX’s “Til Death,” with the Angel Award for her brazier-like support of breast cancer research.
Comedic actor and ubiquitous philanthropist Brad Garrett also attended the fete, as he and Joely are slated to emcee the Zimmer Children’s Museum’s seventh annual Discovery Award Dinner on Nov. 8.
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Tom Brokaw, social documentary photos and controlling your closet
Saturday
In the 1950s, Milton Rogovin was a Jewish American optometrist with a passion for social justice, living in Buffalo. He spent his free time promoting workers’ rights and registering black voters. In 1957, The Buffalo News decided to brand him “The Top Red in Buffalo” and turned his life upside down. Rogovin refused to be intimated; he picked up a camera and began documenting the city’s poor, disenfranchised and marginalized residents as a form of protest and activism. Now 97, Rogovin is considered one of America’s premiere social documentary photographers and is the subject of the inspiring documentary “The Rich Have Their Own Photographers” by Ezra Bookstein. The film will be screened as part of the Artivist Film Festival, which promotes the union of filmmaking and global activism (photo above).
6:15 p.m. $10 (student), $12 (general). Egyptian Theater, Spielberg Theater, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. (310) 712-1222. ” target=”_top”>http://www.lifetimetv.com/on-tv/movies/it-was-one-us.
Monday
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” target=”_top”>http://www.townhall-la.org/programs.
Tuesday
 525-0270. <a href=)
” target=”_top”>http://www.barnesandnoble.com.
Wednesday
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” target=”_top”>http://www.latw.org.
Thursday
 and the melancholy “Im Telech” (If You Go) are just two examples. Singing in Hebrew, Arabic and various South African dialects, they have succeeded in captivating audiences around the globe, and their story is the subject of a documentary scheduled for release this year. UCLA Live enthusiastically hosts the Idan Raichel Project, sponsored in part by KPCC 89.3 FM. <br />
<i>8 p.m. $ 20-$76. Royce hall, UCLA campus, Westwood. (310) 825-2101. <a href=)
” target=”_top”>http://www.uclalive.org.
Friday
Creatively fusing religion and the arts, Rabbi David Baron and the Temple of the Arts are formally launching the Temple Arts Company, an organization dedicated to Jewish-infused professional productions of music, dance and theatre. Their first production promises to be nothing short of grand: a fully staged reading of “The Last Night of Ballyhoo,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Alfred Uhry with music from the Oscar-winning film “Gone With the Wind” by Max Steiner. The Tony Award-winning play delves into the complex lives of upper crust German Jewish Southerners trying to assimilate in 1939 Atlanta, Ga.
8 p.m. $25-$100. Temple Arts Company at the Wilshire Theatre, 8440 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills. (310) 271-0892.
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Films: Romantic triangle survives in the midst of hell
“I’m a very special Holocaust survivor,” Jack Polak says. “I was in the camps with my wife and my girlfriend, and, believe me, it wasn’t easy.”
This may sound like a line from the new genre of Holocaust films with humor, but Polak (who is Jacob on his birth certificate, Jack in America, Jaap to his Dutch friends and Jab to his wife) is just stating the facts in the documentary feature, “Steal a Pencil for Me.”
Another shorthand way of summarizing the storyline: Jack, an accountant in Amsterdam in the early 1940s, is married to Manja, but falls in love with Ina. All three are deported to Bergen-Belsen, where Jack and Ina carry on an intensive romantic correspondence.
The three survive, Jack divorces Manja, marries Ina and they move to the United States.
The story doesn’t end there. We caught up by phone with Jack, who will be 95 on Dec. 31, and Ina, 80, at their home in Eastchester, a New York suburb, shortly after they celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary.
Not slowed down by some hearing problems, Jack recalled his odd experiences with gusto, though, as with most old married couples, Ina had to correct him occasionally on a few historic points.
Fame has come late to the Polaks, but both obviously enjoy starring in their own life story.
“I’m the oldest-working actor in America,” Jack remarks proudly.
Their story, and the film, begins during the Nazi occupation of Holland in 1940. While many Jews were deported and, like Jack’s parents, subsequently murdered, the young accountant manages to keep going, though locked into an incompatible marriage.
At a birthday party in 1943, he meets Ina, a 20-year-old beauty raised in a wealthy diamond manufacturing family, and it’s love at first sight.
The looming love affair appears aborted when a couple of weeks after Jack meets Ina, he and his wife are deported to the Dutch transit camp of Westerbork.
As fate would have it, two months later Ina is deported to the same place, where the rules allow Jack to spend some time with both wife and girlfriend until the 8 p.m. curfew.
Soon the trains started rolling from Westerbork to the concentration camps, and in February 1944, Jack and Manja are sent to Bergen-Belsen. Jack says goodbye to Ina, with the words, “I hope you will soon follow me.”
Three months later, it’s Ina’s turn and she is put in a boxcar headed for Auschwitz. At the last minute, orders are changed, and the train is routed to Bergen-Belsen in northwest Germany.
Though the regime there is much stricter and more brutal than in Westerbork, Jack and Ina manage to see each other occasionally, and, under the circumstances, they are fortunate in other ways.
Jack is assigned to work in the camp kitchen, and Ina, who knows German shorthand, to office work at a diamond plant set up by the Nazis.
At every opportunity, the two write long impassioned letters to each other, to the point that Jack’s one pencil stub is soon worn down to the nub. Since Ina works in an office, Jack begs her in one letter, “steal a pencil for me.”
Manja becomes increasingly suspicious and annoyed with Jack’s liaison, but is generous enough to share some of her scarce bread with Ina when her rival falls ill.
Most concentration camp recollections speak of unbearable filth, degradation and, foremost, the constant hunger that obliterated all other thoughts.
But for Jack and Ina, their love was even stronger.
“It was this love that kept us alive,” they say.
As the British army neared the camp in early April 1945, the lovers’ luck seemed to run out. The Nazis put Jack on a train going east, and Ina on a train going in the opposite direction.
Ina’s train was liberated within a week by American troops, and she remembers marveling at the great teeth of the GIs, wondering “whether they all went to the same dentist.”
Russian soldiers freed Jack’s train a week later, and by summer, husband, wife and girlfriend were back in Amsterdam.
In August 1945, Jack divorced Manja, he and Ina became engaged two months later, and married in January 1946.
“Like any good Dutch Jewish girl, Ina came to her wedding night as a virgin,” Jack said .
They moved to the United States in 1951, and have three children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
The family maintained friendly relations with Manja, who never remarried and died two years ago in Holland.
A fellow prisoner in Bergen-Belsen was Anne Frank, and although the Polaks never met her, Jack headed the American support group for the Anne Frank Center for many decades. He was knighted for his services by the Dutch government.
Eventually, the Polaks decided to write down their experiences, and their book, “Steal a Pencil for Me,” was published in the United States in 2000. Manja had asked that the original Dutch version of the book not be published in Holland in her lifetime, and Jack and Ina honored her request.
“I never thought our story would be made into a movie,” said Ina, but life had yet another surprise in store for the Polaks.
Their daughter, Margrit Polak, had become an artists’ manager in Los Angeles, and an active member of Temple Israel of Hollywood. Her daughter attended the synagogue’s day school and was in the same class as the daughter of filmmaker Michele Ohayon.
Born in Casablanca and raised in Israel, Ohayon is a noted director of offbeat documentaries, whose 1997 film, “Colors Straight Up,” received an Oscar nomination.
Margrit, who had helped translate her parents’ book into English, mentioned their story to Ohayon. Although she was working on another project, Ohayon put everything aside for the next five years to research and film “Steal a Pencil for Me.”
In directing the film, Ohayon lets her two lively and expressive narrators, Jack and Ina, carry the action, while never stooping to sly winks or cheap humor. Historical footage of the concentration camps and 1940s Holland complement the narration.
The Polaks are among the film’s most ardent fans.
“We have seen the picture six times, and we always have our handkerchiefs ready when we go,” said Ina. Added Jack, “I like it better each time I see it.”
The film opens Nov. 9 at Laemmle’s Music Hall in Beverly Hills and the Town Center in Encino. For additional background information, visit http://www.stealapencil.com.
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Congregations, rabbis try to stop the ‘Big Day’ from becoming the last day
The bar and bat mitzvah is traditionally viewed as an entry point into the adult Jewish community, but for many, it’s also seen as the door out of both Jewish education and the synagogue.
Among those who believe, however tenuously, that a b’nai mitzvah ceremony is de rigeur, some join traditional synagogues and others take a different path.
For those who become congregants, Los Angeles synagogues are trying to help b’nai mitzvah students and families understand that the ceremony and its preparation symbolize one point on a continuum of Jewish life and learning. Their goal is to strengthen the communal ties of their marginally committed congregants.
For the substantial group of Jews who remain outside the synagogue world, b’nai mitzvah sometimes opens a small window into the organized Jewish community — one that can quickly slam shut when people encounter a three-year, pre-b’nai mitzvah “residency requirement” or a huge building fund. But sometimes a sensitive and flexible response by the synagogue can keep that window open just long enough to let a family in.
For families who have joined the ranks of the unaffiliated, the traditional b’nai mitzvah ceremony may not be a draw at all. But as individuals and families become more connected to their Judaism, adult b’nai mitzvah often play a more important role. The adult b’nai mitzvah ceremony is a way for adults to affirm their sense of belonging to the Jewish community.
Most congregations are looking for ways to retain members who initially joined with the idea of remaining only long enough to see their children on the bimah reading their Torah and haftarah portions.
To inhibit the post-b’nai mitzvah attrition of barely committed members and entice otherwise uninvolved families into greater participation, synagogues around Southern California are trying a variety of approaches, including the institution of mandatory residency requirements, creating whole-family learning programs and reaching out to interfaith families.
The residency requirement is one way that synagogues are trying to ensure that the bar mitzvah is not a swinging door. They are working hard to redefine the ceremony’s meaning for their congregants.
Cantor Evan Kent at Temple Isaiah wants to convey to all families that the bar mitzvah is just one point in their Jewish education.
“It’s not a product,” he said. “It’s a process that begins the day that the child is born.”
But this view, and the residency requirement that supports it, can also set up what may seem like an insurmountable barrier for an unaffiliated family that doesn’t even think about b’nai mitzvah until their children are 12.
Kent is quick to say that his synagogue will find a way if these children are willing to study with a private tutor for a ceremony that may not take place until they are 14 or 15.
However, he maintains that any significant weakening of the residency requirement can create a conflict for a synagogue whose goal is to create habits of lifelong learning.
Providing a child only with the minimal skills needed to fulfill the requirements of the ceremony is anathema to Kent.
“Then you’re just producing b’nai mitzvah,” he said. “What about learning history and culture, and developing skills, and learning ethics and the importance of prayer in your life?”
For those people who, though uncommitted, are willing to join a synagogue for the required two or three years, the bar/bat mitzvah process can be a way to help parents identify with the synagogue community.
To draw in parents, many synagogues have special programs either for them alone, or with their children. At Temple Isaiah, a bar mitzvah family education program helps the family figure out what the ceremony means to them and where the b’nai mitzvah fits in the chain of generations. The families meet three times. First, they take an inventory of their own Jewish roots. The next time, they study Torah together. At a third meeting, a family therapist meets separately with parents and children. “You start to have families realize they are not alone,” Kent said.
At Cantor Aviva Rosenbloom’s synagogue, Temple Israel of Hollywood, families attend Torah study sessions with the rabbi for five or six Saturday mornings in a row. “They get introduced to the process and excitement of Torah study,” she said. “Kids study with adults, so they learn from each other, and they meet other families going through the process at the same time.”
Another way to pull in the parents is to offer classes that run concurrent with the children’s religious school.
In addition to its ongoing adult and youth programming, Temple Ahavat Shalom in Northridge offers the Parent and Child Education program, which features a morning of workshops and speakers for parents and children.
“It is something that keeps people aware and alive, emotionally, spiritually, culturally and intellectually,” said Cantor Patti Linsky at Temple Ahavat Shalom.
Such congregational efforts are an attempt to emphasize to families that b’nai mitzvah is a communal, not an individual experience. And it’s a lesson they start to teach early on.
Linsky explained that at consecration, they refer to the group of young children as the confirmation class of 12 years hence; for example, this year’s group would be the class of 2019. Then at age 9, when they start Hebrew school and are finally allowed to attend adult High Holy Day services, students are told it is a privilege they have earned.
The bar mitzvah, then, is merely a single point in a lifetime of Jewish learning.
“We are very honest with our kids,” Linsky said. “We give them boundaries and let them know this is a serious thing. The process they follow along the way is as important, if not more important, than the outcome. It’s about how they choose to live their life.”
Congregations are also starting to give special attention to intermarried families as they negotiate the process of b’nai mitzvah. Particularly delicate for them is how the non-Jewish spouses are treated during the ceremony. If they are made to feel unwanted in this period, they may be out the door for good when the ceremony is over.
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Briefs: Cash in on your embarrassing b’nai mitzvah moment
Cash in on Your Embarrassing B’nai Mitzvah Moment
JewishTVNetwork.com, which has launched its own user-generated channel, wants to celebrate by holding a contest to find the funniest, most embarrassing bar/bat mitzvah moments. Think “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” but with kippot.
Online users as well as comedians will judge the video clips submitted to jewishtvnetwork.com, and the winners will be announced on April 1.
Judges will select a grand-prize winner, who will receive $10,000, while two more (most viewed and most votes, selected by users) will each nab a $1,000 prize.
In order to submit videos, users need only fill out a form and upload the content, which can be in almost any format. JewishTVNetwork.com will then review and post the video on the site. Once posted, all visitors can view, vote and comment on the video.
— Staff Report
’30 Rock’ Fans Howling at ‘Werewolf Bar Mitzvah’
The Oct. 11 episode of the NBC sitcom “30 Rock” featured Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) doing a six-second Jewish-themed bit spoofing of the 1983 Michael Jackson horror-themed video for “Thriller.” Titled “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah,” Morgan, backed by several dancers dressed up as werewolves, sings lines like, “Boys becoming men. Men becoming wolves.”
Sounding more like a tongue-in-cheek ode to Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s 1962 novelty song “Monster Mash,” the sketch became a viral Internet darling in the run-up to Halloween.
However, NBC ordered the video removed from YouTube since the network is starting its own video-sharing service, Hulu.com.
In an effort to make nice with online fans, NBC has posted a full-length version of the song and is asking people to create their own “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” video. The main catch: You must sign up for myNBC to upload the video to the “My Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” group. The video will be removed if posted to any other video-sharing site.
To learn more and to download the song for your video, along with the required ’30 Rock’ bumper for the end, visit
http://www.nbc.com/30_Rock/video/werewolf_bar_mitzvah.shtml.
— Staff Report
Bat Mitzvah Collects iPods for Troops
Oak Park student Kelsey Paule is collecting new and used Apple iPods in working condition and iTunes cards to send to American soldiers serving overseas. The 13-year-old started “Operation: Bring Music to a Soldier’s Ears” as a mitzvah project in advance of her bat mitzvah this month, according to The Acorn.
The portable media players will be sent soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as wounded soldiers recovering in stateside hospitals, through Pasadena-based nonprofit Soldiers’ Angels. Paule, who will record a message to each recipient, is hoping to collect 100 iPods by the end of the year.
To donate, call (818) 355-2570 or e-mail {encode=”ctlca24@gmail.com” title=”ctlca24@gmail.com”}. For more information about Soldiers’ Angels, visit http://soldiersangels.org.
— Staff Report
Big Bat Mitzvah Spender Arrested
A business owner who famously spent more than $8 million on his daughter’s bat mitzvah was arrested. David Brooks, 53, of Old Westbury, N.Y., the former chief executive of DHB Industries, was arrested Oct. 25 on charges that he bilked his company of millions. His publicly traded firm sold body armor to the U.S. military. Brooks has not been with the firm, which changed its name to Point Blank Solutions, for more than a year.
Brooks allegedly made $185 million in illicit profits after selling company shares using fraudulent claims. He also had reportedly funneled money meant for charity to maintain his lavish lifestyle. He faces up to 25 years in prison on each of eight counts. Rock stars ranging from Tom Petty to the Eagles, Aerosmith, 50 Cent and Kenny G performed at the lavish 2005 bat mitzvah of Brooks’ daughter, Elizabeth.
Brooks’ defense lawyer, Paul Shechtman, told the Newsday newspaper that he believes his client may be allowed out on bail if he agrees to be monitored by guards in detention at his mansion in Old Westbury.
— Jewish Telegraphic Agency
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‘Mazel Tov’: Lifecycles of the rich and famous
Whether it’s a powerfully uplifting ceremony, a wicked disco-themed party or a bagels-and-lox Sunday brunch, the b’nai mitzvah experience is a multifaceted event that has the potential to greatly affect a person’s life.
For one weekend, an acne-plagued kid is transformed into an acne-plagued celebrity. There’s an agent (tutor), fans and paparazzi (guests and photographer) and the public apology for wild, offensive behavior (thank-you notes).
For many, the 15-minutes of fame is enough. For some — including many celebrities — the glimpse of momentary stardom becomes a pivotal moment in their lives.
That’s the idea behind Jill Rappaport’s book, “Mazel Tov: Celebrities’ Bar and Bat Mitzvah Memories” (Simon and Schuster, $25). Rappaport interviews 21 celebrities as they describe how the b’nai mitzvah experience brought them to where they are today. With the photographic help of her sister, Linda Solomon, Rappaport provides a joyfully contrasting image of the celebrities and their familiar adolescent counterparts.
The idea for “Mazel Tov” came about five years ago, while Rappaport was watching “The View.”
“I thought it’d be funny if there was a show called ‘The Jew,’ that talked about hip bar and bat mitzvah parties,” said Rappaport in a phone interview from New York.
While a b’nai mitzvah has the potential to bring out your inner celebrity for a weekend, it is also a “humorous, sentimental and emotional experience that involves indelible work,” she said.
It’s a turning point in one’s life, but most of all, because each story is primarily about self-discovery, she said, “you don’t have to be Jewish to appreciate this book.”
Rappaport, who has yet to celebrate a bat mitzvah, explains that she got her taste of the experience through her friends’ ceremonies and parties, much like some of the celebs she interviews.
Featuring more than a few embarrassing photos, this book illustrates that while many celebrities have cultural roots in Judaism (Jewish neurosis, Jewish humor, Jewish appearances), they also have specific religious roots as well. In fact, their early memories of being in the public eye are often related to a b’nai mitzvah experience.
“Entourage” star Jeremy Piven remembers his bar mitzvah as “a rite of passage.” Growing up in Evanston, Ill., Piven recalls how his service was actually in a church, because they belonged to an extremely liberal Reconstructionist congregation. But unlike his character on the hit HBO show, Piven wasn’t that interested in a big, fancy party.
“It wasn’t a big community of people battling each other for the biggest bar mitzvah, like in my movie ‘Keeping Up With the Steins,'” he says.
But the b’nai mitzvah experience isn’t just about the ceremony. The party is still important.
Noah Wyle of “ER,” who never actually had a bar mitzvah, says b’nai mitzvah parties brought out his inner celebrity.
The b’nai mitzvah celebrations were “a significant part of my life because all my friends did, and boy, did they have a huge impact on me.”
Even without all the studying and preparation, Wyle explains that it was actually at a bar mitzvah party where he gave one of his first public performances — lip-synching Bob Seger’s song, “Old Time Rock and Roll.”
“And that was a real confidence boost. It was actually a seminal moment,” Wyle says.
Many of the celebrities featured in the book cherished their b’nai mitzvah experience, and “each one of them showed signs of genius even at that young age,” Rappaport said in a phone interview.
However, just as the b’nai mitzvah experience can lead to self-discovery, it can also provide a road to self-fulfillment involving challenges that must be overcome.
Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin shares the difficulties she encountered as a deaf child learning Hebrew.
“I didn’t have the benefit of hearing myself say the words,” Matlin says, adding that the b’nai mitzvah experience is “a great way to teach your children about community and social responsibility.”
Even famed actor Henry Winkler dealt with his fair share of b’nai mitzvah struggles.
“I’m dyslexic, which is a real problem when you’re trying to read and a huge problem when you’re studying Hebrew,” Winkler says. “The words would just swim around on the page.”
Although he panicked in his early years, Winkler is now quite comfortable in front of a crowd and is grateful for the effort he put into his b’nai mitzvah studies.
Many of the actors in this book describe the satisfaction that came from their hard work and effort. But then there’s Howie Mandel. “The Deal or No Deal” host admits that he definitely had some difficulty accepting the idea that manhood is the ultimate product of a bar mitzvah.
“You’re 4-foot-10 and you weigh 70-something and you explain to all your non-Jewish friends that you can’t go out this Saturday because you’re having a party celebrating the fact that you’re a man,” he says. “And this is a guy who had a woman’s voice.”
Mandel gets serious as he explains what a great responsibility the bar mitzvah is, but adds, “the only light at the end of the tunnel was that I didn’t have to go to the Hebrew school anymore.”
A portion of the book’s proceeds are going to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Shoah Foundation.
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