Obituaries
Obituaries March 2008
When the Dodgers celebrated their 50th anniversary in Los Angeles on March 29 with an exhibition game at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, it seemed almost fitting that a Jewish ballplayer, Red Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis, would hit a pivotal home run that helped Boston win the game. During the Dodgers\’ final home game against the Chicago Cubs at the Coliseum in 1961, a young left-handed pitcher named Sandy Koufax won the ballgame for Los Angeles.
Ed Pearl, 70, silver-haired and feisty, will forever be associated with the Ash Grove, the folk club he opened 50 years ago with a $5,000 investment, despite the fact that the venue\’s been closed for a quarter century.
\”My life,\” Pearl said, \”has been a series of fortuitous accidents. And,\” he ruefully adds, \”not-so fortuitous.\”
When writer/director Morgan Spurlock (\”Super Size Me\”) discovered he was going to become a father two years ago, he was concerned about the tumultuous state of the world into which his child was being born. Spurlock\’s wish was to give his child a safer and more harmonious place to live. So, after a crash course in combat survival, the filmmaker set off on a journey through the Middle East to find the one man who has shaped the world\’s perception of that region in recent years: Osama bin Laden. The results of that quest are documented in his new film, \”Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?\”
Nicholas Stoller remembers the day he joined the \”Jew-Tang Clan,\” the creative posse led by comedy wunderkind Judd Apatow (\”The 40-year-old Virgin,\” \”Knocked Up\”).\n\nApatow was interviewing the then-24-year-old writer for a job on his 2000 college sitcom, \”Undeclared.\”
In 1909, an impoverished Jewish immigrant arrived in Hamilton, Texas, hawking 1-cent bananas from his pushcart.\n\nHaskell Harelik had fled Russia to escape pogroms, docking not in Ellis Island but in Galveston, Texas, via a plan to route Eastern European Jews to the West. He spoke no English and was the first Jew the Hamilton residents had ever seen. But he found some friendly faces, and he stayed in that Baptist town, founding a dry goods store and raising three sons there.