Hebrew Word of the Week: tamar
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June 8, 2017
Open Wings
If you draw a bird from her nest,
away from her elaborate labors,
seducing her with seed —
If you draw the curtains apart
so she sees your cupped hand
beckoning at the sill —
If you draw water to fill the stone bath
where she drinks and preens
and washes her wings —
when she comes, open-winged,
her throat filled with music,
will she bring you back to yourself?
“Open Wings” is reprinted from Marcia Falk’s “The Days Between: Blessings, Poems, and Directions of the Heart for the Jewish High Holiday Season” (Brandeis University Press, 2014). The 20th-anniversary edition of Falk’s “The Book of Blessings: New Jewish Prayers for Daily Life, the Sabbath, and the New Moon Festival,” will be out from CCAR Press in September.
Obituaries: Week of June 9, 2017
Albert Alweil died April 27 at 96. Survived by nephew Richard (Dee) Carduner. Hillside
Elliot Axelband died May 14 at 79. Survived by wife Barbara; daughters Debra (Bob) Smotherman, Erica (David) Small; son Allen; 5 grandchildren. Hillside
Donald Berkus died May 5 at 94. Survived by daughter Cindy (Philip); son Dean (Karen); 6 grandchildren. Hillside
Leonard Borden died April 25 at 95. Survived by daughters Jacky Holler, Cory Schwab; sons Ken (Patty), Ed (Debbie); 11 grandchildren; 2 great-grandchildren. Hillside
Lloyd Cotsen died May 8 at 88. Survived by wife Margit; daughters Corinna (Lee), Tobey (Jonathan) Victor; son Eric (April); 8 grandchildren. Hillside
Marie Dubrow died May 11 at 88. Survived by daughter Judy (Brian) Horton; son Michael (Shauna). Hillside
Lynn Fish died May 9 at 75. Survived by husband Mark; daughter Rebecca; brother Ron (Kay) Springwater; sister-in-law Molly Citrin (Marvin Bergman). Hillside
Lawrence Gantman died May 17 at 87. Survived by wife Marilyn; daughters Lisa Dungan, Lauren (Marck) Shipley; son Lance; 5 grandchildren; sister Betty Cooperman; brother Joe. Mount Sinai
Nina Gordon died May 18 at 77. Survived by husband Max; son Ilya “Ian” (Nelli); 1 grandchild; sisters Eugenia Vasilevsky, Dora Dolgitser, Mara Kogan; brother David Byallo. Mount Sinai
Mildred Greenberg died May 10 at 98. Survived by son Jay; 3 grandchildren; 5 great-grandchildren. Hillside
Brad Grey died May 14 at 59. Survived by wife Cassandra; daughter Emily; sons Samuel, Max, Jules; mother Barbara Schumsky; sister Robin; brother Michael. Hillside
Milton Grushkin died May 18 at 91. Survived by brother Lee. Hillside
Sarah Jacobs died May 3 at 92. Survived by daughters Betty (Howard) Mendelson, Helen (Norman) Lepor; son Lou (Karre); 7 grandchildren; 4 great grandchildren. Hillside
Martin King died May 17 at 77. Survived by wife Ellen; daughters Janna King-Kalichman, Stephanie Estes; son Danny; stepdaughters Rachel More, Taylor Waldman; 8 grandchildren. Hillside
Phyllis Klein died May 8 at 87. Survived by daughter Denise Peak; son Martin Mervel; 4 grandchildren; 4 great-grandchildren. Hillside
Elise Kroll died May 9 at 61. Survived by husband Francois Drouault; sons Alexander (Malka Fenyvesi), Ariel Drouault; 1 grandchild; sister Judith; brothers Gerald, Elliot. Hillside
Enid Lelchook died May 14 at 76. Survived by husband Frank; daughter Sandra (Demitri) Dilaubi; sons Mark, Eric; 3 grandchildren. Hillside
Louis Manick died May 4 at 89. Survived by wife Leah; sons Jeffrey (Tracie), Steven; 3 grandchildren. Hillside
Sheldon J. McKnight died May 19 at age 84. Survived by wife Judith “Judy”; daughters Deborah (Andy) Samuels, Dena Gabry; sons Jeff (Nedi), David (Lisa); 6 grandchildren. Mount Sinai
Richard Polep died May 12 at 78. Survived by wife Susan; brother Charles. Hillside
Sydelle Poryes died April 25 at 90. Survived by son Michael (Diane); 4 grandchildren. Hillside
Alan Ravins died May 17 at 85. Survived by daughter Julie Byers; son David; 1 grandchild. Hillside
Louise Robbins died April 25 at 67. Survived by sons Scott (Shannon), Andrew (Kate); 4 grandchildren; sister Judy Wollman. Hillside
Derek Rosenberg died May 17 at 49. Survived by mother Cheryl; father Roger; brother Aaron (Lisa). Hillside
Eugene Ross died May 3 at 87. Survived by wife Shirley; daughters Beverly (Jaques) Moutet, Linda (Jerry) Patton; 2 grandchildren. Hillside
Irving Schwartz died May 19 at 94. Survived by wife Thelma; daughters Nancy Ginter, Marjorie Baron; son Howard; 6 grandchildren; 10 great-grandchildren. Mount Sinai
Stanley Schwartz died April 25 at 87. Survived by Pamela Schwartz Lewis (Scot), Jeffery (Alice Ann). Eden Memorial
Samuel Silber died May 16 at 85. Survived by daughters Lisa (Victor) Kohn, Julia Mendelow; 4 grandchildren. Mount Sinai
Boris Stern died May 2 at 72. Survived by wife Atale; son Paul; sister Sylvia; brother Michael; 2 grandchildren. Chevra Kadisha
Helma Translateur died May 11 at 93. Survived by son Max (Vivian); 2 grandchildren; sister Lotte (Steve). Hillside
Philip Wexler died April 30 at 78. Survived by wife Ona. Hillside
Sylvia Winderbaum died April 25 at 100. Survived by sons Howard, Baruch; 2 grandchildren. Hillside
Claudio Wolff died May 14 at 58. Survived by wife Sarah; daughters Michelle, Allison, Camilla; father Gerardo; brothers Alex, Rick (Susan). Hillside
Celia Zuckerman died May 11 at 96. Survived by daughters Bobbie (Ira) Lesser, Deborah; 3 grandchildren. Hillside
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‘P.S. Jerusalem’ a tale of love and hate for Israel
Amos Elon, the renowned Israeli journalist and author, was an outspoken critic of Israel’s policies regarding the Palestinians, and he left the country and moved into a farmhouse in Italy in 2005. Before he died four years later, he made his filmmaker daughter, Danae, who was born in Jerusalem but was living in Brooklyn, promise never to return to her homeland.
It was a promise she couldn’t keep.
Elon’s decision to move back to Israel, her experiences there and her conflicting emotions about it are the subject of her 2015 documentary, “P.S. Jerusalem.” Shot between November 2009 and August 2013, and narrated by Elon, it is a deeply personal love-hate letter to the land of her birth.
“I knew why my father thought I shouldn’t go back, and I knew he was right, yet something very visceral in me wanted to go back. Knowing something intellectually but having feelings that are stronger, that’s where the clash occurs,” Elon said from Montreal, where she moved in 2013 and now lives with her partner, Philip Touitou, a Jewish photographer from Algeria, and their three sons.
“The situation in Israel pains me to such a degree. I feel so invested and care about what’s happening there,” Elon said. “It’s really sad. On one hand, I love the people I’m connected to there and everything this place can be, but I’m disgusted with what’s going on there on the political level. It’s gotten much worse. But there are things that always draw me back.”
At first, she second-guessed her choice to make the film from such a personal perspective. But Elon decided that the best way to depict Jerusalem was to show it through her and her family’s eyes. Her camera captures her sons’ experiences at the Jewish-Palestinian school they attended and Touitou’s difficulty finding a job.
“A lot of North American Jews come to Jerusalem and say it’s such an amazing place, but it’s a different scenario when you don’t have money or privilege and you’re thrown into life there,” Elon said.
She also filmed protests and conflicts between Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem and elsewhere. “I wanted to make a statement about what it’s like to be an Israeli and live with a sense of conscience in a place that’s completely losing its morality, and has been for many years,” she said.
“American Jews have a very idealistic view of Israel that suits their perspectives and needs, but that is not the real Israel,” she added. “I feel that as long as Israel serves like a sort of savings account for North American Jews, it will be hard for the country to ever become a normal place to live in because you can’t sustain a country as a ‘savings account’ for Jews around the world. It has to come into its own as a multicultural, multiethnic country that would first and foremost serve the rights of all its citizens, the citizens living in Israel, regardless of whether they are Jewish or Arab.”
Elon had filmed conversations with her father over the years and weaves him into the narrative, as she did in her previous documentaries, one about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “Another Road Home,” and the other about circumcision, “Partly Private.” She admits that growing up in Amos Elon’s shadow was difficult, but making him part of her work “was a good way to pave my own separate way.”
In the end, she left Israel, just as her father had. “I was heartbroken. I was surprised how difficult it would be to leave,” she said. It also was hard for her children. A tearful scene depicting her oldest of three sons, Tristan, then 7, separating from his Palestinian best friend is particularly heart-wrenching to watch.
“I still have mixed feelings about not being in Jerusalem and not being part of a struggle, but when I think about my boys and a future there, I’m more into being a responsible parent right now,” Elon said.
Touitou, her partner of 13 years, has a much better working situation in Montreal, she said, adding that her sons, now 11, 10 and 7, are doing well and “want to be hockey players.”
Although she has settled in Canada, Elon goes back to Israel often. She also has been traveling elsewhere to promote “P.S. Jerusalem” and her latest completed project, “The Patriarch’s Room,” a documentary about the Greek Orthodox Church’s role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and she plans to be in Los Angeles for the June 9 premieres of both films. Currently, she’s working on a new film about two Jewish sisters, one of whom becomes a nun.
Elon is aware the political stance of “P.S. Jerusalem” may anger some American Jews, but she hopes they see it with an open mind.
“I think regardless of how they feel politically about Israel,” she said, “they will be moved because it’s sincere.”
“P.S. Jerusalem” opens June 9 at Laemmle’s Music Hall in Beverly Hills.
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Israelis kvell over Gal Gadot’s public response to a 7-year-old fan
Is it possible that Israelis could fall even more in love with Gal Gadot, its homegrown Wonder Woman?
The answer this week is a resounding yes.
On Thursday, the star of the new blockbuster responded, on Facebook, to a young Israeli girl’s endearing handwritten fan letter.
Gadot called the 7-year-old, Zoey Vardi-Bar, “clever and creative” and sent her a “big hug.” The exchange between the leading lady and her fan quickly went viral in Israel, adding to what is already a national infatuation.
The girl’s mom, Liat Vardi-Bar, posted a photo of the note Monday on Facebook. She described Zoey as a feminist and a big fan of heroines, including Wonder Woman — and the 7-year-old, disappointed by the lack of Gadot-themed merchandise at Israeli stores, had left a note on the subject on the kitchen table that morning.
“Dear Gal,” Zoey wrote in blue and red marker, with some spelling and grammar errors. “I love Wonder Woman very much, meaning you. So if you don’t mind? Could you please produce games, pajamas and surfboards of Wonder Woman. With love Zoey Vardi Bar. I am 7 1/2 years old.”
In the middle of the note, she wrote Gal Gadot’s name surrounded by hearts.
After the post received several dozen comments, Gadot — who has two young daughters of her own with her husband Yaron Varsano, an Israeli real-estate developer — weighed in with a personal message to Zoey. She explained that she was not in charge of Wonder Woman merchandise, but praised the proposal.
“Sweet Zoey. I loved reading your letter. You have really beautiful handwriting. Good job!” she said. “I’m not responsible for the issues of pajamas and surfboards, but I think it’s a really great idea and we certainly need to find whoever is responsible for this and tell him to produce games, pajamas and surfboards of Wonder Woman.
You are very clever and creative. Interesting to know what you would like to be when you grow up.. In the meantime I am sending you a big hug. Gal.”
The message ends with a smiley face icon.
Vardi-Bar, who lives in a small town near Haifa, reposted an image of Zoey’s note along with Gadot’s response. In an accompanying message, she praised Gadot as a real-life superhero.
“I haven’t admired anyone for a very long time, and then Gal arrives with tons of personal magic and strength that can stop the entire planet,” Vardi-Bar said. “This is just a little note of a 7 1/2 year-old girl (my daughter who will be so excited when she comes back home from school), but in my eyes, it’s huge and testifies so much about this woman who is Wonder Woman on the outside and apparently the inside as well.”
The Facebook page of the popular nightly news show Hazinor on Israel’s TV Channel 10 picked up the story on Thursday, which quickly spread across Hebrew Facebook. By the afternoon, the post had more than 6,000 “likes” and 100 comments praising Gadot.
“She served in the army, a beauty queen, a successful actress in Hollywood, a mother and still a kind person. Apparently she really is Wonder Woman,” said one woman.
Long popular in Israel, Gadot has become an international sensation since “Wonder Woman” premiered last week — raking in hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide and earning largely positive reviews. Israelis have watched with pride as Gadot, who is from Rosh Haayin and served as a combat instruction in the army, has become a bona fide movie star and feminist icon.
Gadot’s appearances on American TV or in Facebook live videos gets breathless coverage by the local press. Photos and videos of her as a soldier, a young model, 2004’s Miss Israel and an actress in smaller Hollywood roles seem to blanket Israeli social media, accompanied by kvelling comments.
A huge billboard for the movie overlooking Tel Aviv’s main highway declares, “We love you!” Nearby, the Azrieli Towers, the tallest buildings in Israel, featured illuminated messages in honor of the Israeli premiere of “Wonder Woman.” One read, “We are proud of you, Gal Gadot,” and a second said, “Our Wonder Woman.”
Lebanon’s ban of the film, because of its Israeli star, has done little to dampen the mood.
At a screening of “Wonder Woman” at a cinema in central Tel Aviv Saturday, the sold-out audience applauded Gadot’s on-screen heroics from the beginning to the end.
But for at least one little girl, all that was not enough.
“My heart exploded with pride that the way I work and what I believe permeates the children,” said Vardi-Bar, describing her reaction on finding Zoey’s note. “Want something? Make it happen.”
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Outstanding Graduates 2017: Difference-makers in and out of class
Today’s exceptional high school seniors are about much more than their GPAs. They may be scholars, but they also are inventors, innovators, activists, performing artists, agents of social change, volunteers and all-around good people. Here are 12 impressive young people who already have made major strides in healing the world — and who are just getting started.
To read about all of this year’s Outstanding Graduates, click here.
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A Moment in Time: Don’t Let Fear Get in Your Way
Dear all,
I recently visited my alma mater, Colby College in Waterville, Maine, for my 25th reunion. One of the landmarks in Waterville is the “Two Cent Bridge.” Built in 1901, it originally enabled workers to cross the Kennebec River to and from the neighboring city of Winslow. For 60 years, the price to cross was $.02. Today it is free!
As I gazed across the bridge, I thought of a rabbinic saying by Rabbi Nachman of Breslav (1772 – 1810). He taught, “The whole world is a narrow bridge. What’s most important is that you don’t allow fear to prevent you from crossing it.”
It’s ok to be afraid. Each time we face the unknown, there is an element of fear.
A new job or a job loss.
A potential relationship or a breakup.
Moving homes.
Life transitions.
Standing before a community at a Bar Mitzvah.
Sticking our neck out to stand for what we believe in….
Yes, the world is a narrow bridge. But putting one foot forward to cross it takes but a moment in time.
With love and Shalom,
Rabbi Zach Shapiro
A change in perspective can shift the focus of our day – and even our lives. We have an opportunity to harness “a moment in time,” allowing our souls to be both grounded and lifted. This blog shows how the simplest of daily experiences can become the most meaningful of life’s blessings. All it takes is a moment in time.
Rabbi Zach Shapiro is the Spiritual Leader of Temple Akiba, a Reform Jewish Congregation in Culver City, CA. He earned his B.A. in Spanish from Colby College in 1992, and his M.A.H.L. from HUC-JIR in 1996. He was ordained from HUC-JIR – Cincinnati, in 1997.
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Some of James Comey’s best friends are Jewish (legal scholars)
We now know that James Comey, the FBI director President Donald Trump fired last month, thinks the president is a liar. (It’s mutual, by the way.)
Asked in Senate testimony Thursday why he wrote memos immediately after each conversation he had with Trump regarding the FBI’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, Comey said: “I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting so I thought it important to document.”
We also know that in order to make that case — he surely anticipated making that case in some forum, although perhaps not as dramatically as he did Thursday, testifying to the Senate — he twice confided in friends who happened to be a) legal scholars and b) Jewish.
Comey, a longtime Washington insider, has proved expert at shaping the narrative, and never more so than when it comes to the investigation. (Trump has said Comey’s handling of the investigation is one reason he fired Comey.)
It’s not just Comey’s dramatic opening statement released Wednesday, describing awkward moments when Trump appeared to be pressuring him to drop the investigation. The release drowned out what might have been a good news moment for Trump, nominating as Comey’s successor Christopher Wray, a former top Justice Department official respected across party lines.
Comey had left a careful paper trail, taking notes immediately following his meetings with Trump — and conveying to his friends his concerns.
Trump’s private lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, was furious and called for an investigation in a press conference after Comey’s testimony was completed. “Today, Mr. Comey admitted that he leaked to friends of his purported memos of those privileged communications,” he said, although Trump said previously that he would not claim executive privilege when it comes to his communications with Comey.
Last month a dramatic New York Times story that first revealed the lengths Comey took to keep Trump at a distance included on-the-record comment from Benjamin Wittes, who described a lunch he had with Comey around the time Comey was most intensely feeling Trump’s pressure. Wittes says he did not speak to the Times at Comey’s behest, but Wittes’ description of the March 27 lunch made it clear that Comey had concerns about Trump in real time, and not just in the wake of his firing.
“He had to throw some brushback pitches to the administration,” Wittes told the Times, referring to Comey’s efforts to get Trump and his aides to stop making inappropriate requests.
Wittes, the Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and the editor of the influential Lawfare blog, has said he and Comey are meet-now-and-then-for-lunch friends, but not close friends. He is married to Tamara Cofman Wittes, a senior Middle East scholar at Brookings. (In 2010, Wittes, discussing airport security, recalled, bemused, how his bad Jewish day school Hebrew got him an exemption from a security line at Ben Gurion airport.)
Comey revealed in his testimony Thursday that in an another instance he leaked information to a friend in order to push back against Trump’s intimations — post-firing — that Comey could be embarrassed should the content of their conversations be revealed. (Trump had tweeted that Comey had better hope there were no tapes of the conversations; on Thursday, Comey drew laughter when he said, “Lordy, I hope there are tapes.”) Comey delivered his friend his private notes of the meetings taken immediately after one of his interactions. He explained why:
“My judgment was, I need to get [his memo] out into the public square,” he said. “I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter.”
Asked who the friend was, he said: “A close friend who is a professor at Columbia law school.”
Twitter soon identified the friend as Daniel Richman, and the Washington Post called Richman, who confirmed it, but would not add anything more.
JUST IN: Columbia U professor Dan Richman confirms to @washingtonpost he was the friend Comey asked to share info about his mtg w/ Trump.
— Ed O'Keefe (@edokeefe) June 8, 2017
Wittes has not said how he and Comey became friends, nor has Richman, although both men were federal prosecutors in New York around the same time.
What we do know is that Comey, an Irish Catholic born in New York and raised in New Jersey, was close to Jewish organizations throughout his FBI career, and has been enormously affected by the lessons of the Holocaust.
His final speech as FBI director was to the Anti-Defamation League, the week he was fired.
“I believe the Holocaust is the most significant event in human history. And I mean significant in two different ways,” he said in that speech. “It is, of course, significant because it was the most horrific display of inhumanity—one that simply defies words and challenges meaning. How could such a thing happen? How is it consistent with the concept of a loving God?”
Then, he added how the Holocaust informed his deeply held beliefs about preventing the abuse of power.
“I also believe the Holocaust was the most significant event in history not just because it was a display of inhumanity, but because it was also the most horrific display of our humanity—our true capacity for evil and for moral surrender,” he said. “And that second significance is the reason we require every new FBI special agent and intelligence analyst in training to visit the Holocaust Museum. We want them to learn about abuse of power on a breathtaking scale.”
Two other Jewish scholars, meanwhile, were duking it out at Twitter over whether what Comey was describing amounted to Trump obstructing justice.
Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard University constitutional law expert, has argued that Trump’s right as an executive to fire Comey (and other officials) meant that the firing could not be construed as obstruction:
You cannot have obstruction of justice when the president exercises his constitutional authority to fire the director of the FBI. https://t.co/PUPmb2gfdh
— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) June 8, 2017
Norm Eisen, who had been ethics lawyer in the Obama administration, disagreed, saying that if Trump acted with “corrupt intent,” he could be liable:
Wrong @alandersh. Cong. has put limits on Pres. exercise of firing authority & criminal law is 1. Can't act w/corrupt intent @JeffreyToobin https://t.co/025lUQ51T4
— Norm Eisen (@NormEisen) June 8, 2017
Trump’s son, Donald Jr., was excited that Dersh was ostensibly defending his Dad (although Dershowitz has also consistently said he believes Trump has been unwise.)
Interesting! When @AlanDersh (not exactly the alt right) is continually backing up @realDonaldTrump you know its over. #NothingBurger https://t.co/MUYbmk2VdR
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 8, 2017
Trump Jr., who has had his own brushes with the alt-right, likely is referring to Dershowitz’s reputation as a liberal when he calls the scholar “not exactly the alt right.” Of course, Dershowitz’s well-known commitment to Judaism also would make him less than comfortable in those precincts.
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Noah Daniel: Perpetual motion suits him
AGE: 18
HIGH SCHOOL: Milken Community Schools
GOING TO: Princeton University
Noah Daniel doesn’t care much for down time.
“I just get bored when I have too much free time,” said the recent Milken Community Schools graduate who lives in Encino. “I find myself functioning at my best when I am really busy. In a weird way, I enjoy being under that much pressure.”
There has been little risk of boredom these past few years. In addition to a full load of classes, many of them honors and advanced placement, and volunteering at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys, Daniel, 18, spent part of his junior and senior years at USC’s Brain and Creativity Institute, assisting a graduate student with his research as well as working on his own research related to music and the brain.
“There are known correlations between personality traits and music,” he said. “I wanted to know why that is.”
Daniel is a musician who plays several instruments, but guitar is the principal one. He first picked up a guitar at age 9 when his older brother started taking guitar lessons. Daniel tagged along. “After two lessons, he gave it up, and I kept going,” he said of his brother, Aaron. “That was a happy coincidence.”
Indeed, music is a huge part of his life.
“As cliché as it is, it’s a great way to express myself. I feel like I’m not always the best with words,” he said. “But musically, I can get across ideas I would not be able to through dialogue. To me making music is a way to give people insight into how I feel more viscerally and emotionally than if I were to tell them.”
In addition to being part of the jazz bands at both Milken and the Colburn School, a performing arts school in downtown Los Angeles, Daniel wrote a piece called “Tracks,” inspired by Holocaust survivor Armin Goldstein, whom he met through The Righteous Conversations Project, an organization that pairs high school students with Holocaust survivors. The piece was performed at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust in conjunction with a photography exhibition, and again in Washington, D.C., when the exhibition traveled there.
Last year, Daniel was one of a dozen Los Angeles-area high school students accepted into the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Associate Composer Program. Students attend a series of master classes, and each works closely with a mentor on a composition. On May 20, Daniel’s composition “feel” was performed by five members of the philharmonic.
“I was really amazed at how broad composition is and how free it is,” Daniel said. “It showed me a whole new world that I hadn’t really explored. I think I am going to minor in composition because of it.”
This coming school year, Daniel hopes to do service work in Bolivia through Princeton University’s Bridge Year Program. While he already has been admitted to the university, he will learn soon whether he has been selected for this nine-month adventure.
“I am Latino but I have never really explored that side of myself,” said Daniel, whose mother’s family is from Spain. “I am so connected to my Jewish identity. I want to have the same experience with my Latino roots.”
Beyond that, Daniel imagines becoming a science researcher but is open to other possibilities.
“I want to imbue my research with music as many ways as I can,” he said. “Not just to do it, but in ways so I can help people … to make a lasting impact.”
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Sophie Levy: Lights, camera, college
AGE: 17
HIGH SCHOOL: Wildwood School
GOING TO: Barnard College
Sophie Levy remembers practicing religiously — not for her bat mitzvah but for a cameo opposite Hugh Jackman in the 2011 film “Real Steel, ” which was directed by her father, Shawn.
Levy appears in the opening minutes, asking Jackman’s character, a former prizefighter, for an autograph.
“I was so excited about it — I think I was 11 at the time. I think I got to wear a cowboy hat, and I was pretty thrilled with my two lines,” Levy said. “I was so nervous it would get cut, but it made it and I was so happy.”
This wasn’t the last time Levy, 17, a senior at Wildwood School, appeared on the big screen — she appeared in two “Night at the Museum” sequels, also directed by her father (an executive producer of last summer’s Netflix hit “Stranger Things”).
But perhaps more meaningful, Levy has had a starring role elsewhere — at The Righteous Conversations Project, a Los Angeles-based Holocaust remembrance organization that pairs high school students with Holocaust survivors. Participants in the program create public service announcements based on survivors’ stories and focus on other issues like Syrian refugees and neighborhoods lacking access to healthful food.
Levy, who will attend Barnard College this fall, said she appreciated the opportunity of working with survivors.
“These people are all pretty old and late in their lives,” she said. “My generation is the last one to have the privilege of hearing their stories.”
Her lifelong passions include poetry and theater — she has appeared in school productions, including “Grease,” “The Sound of Music” and “The Drowsy Chaperone.” Her poems have addressed survivors’ stories in works called “Cold,” “The Chambers” and “Then & Now.”
“I thought it would be a cool art form to get these stories out there in my own personal way,” said Levy, who draws inspiration from Sylvia Plath and Tina Fey.
Her family belongs to Kehillat Israel, a Reconstructionist synagogue in the Pacific Palisades. She attended Hebrew school and became a bat mitzvah there.
Levy has three younger sisters, Tess, Charlie and Coco, ages 15, 10 and 6. The family is so close that it might follow Levy after she moves from Los Angeles to New York, she said.
“We are so incredibly close, we sweetly all agreed if one of us is gone, everybody else has to follow.”
Still, Levy said she hopes she gets a little time to settle in before anything like that happens, if it ever does.
“I know it’s super important to have my own independence and make my own mark there without them as a backboard,” she said. “And at the same time, it would definitely be nothing to complain about.”
Levy plans to study literature at Barnard, her mother Serena’s alma mater.
She credited her family, which she described as a “strong, passionate, loud Jewish family,” for instilling in her an appreciation for her heritage.
“I have grown up in a family that is not necessarily super religious but has always emphasized celebrating Jewish holidays and recognizing why it is such a special group to belong to,” she said. “We are always supposed to remember where we come from, how fortunate we are to be here, and from a young age, my parents told my sisters and I about the Holocaust and why it is a monumental event in our history, and why as Jews it is our job to spread stories of survivors to ensure it doesn’t happen again. I always felt this tremendous responsibility.”
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