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Jewish Journal

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November 7, 2018

UCLA Says NSJP Complied With Request to Remove School’s Name From Logo

Leave a Comment / Online, United States /

UCLA has told the Journal in an email that they believe that National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) has complied with their request in their cease-and-desist letter to remove the UCLA name from the logo of their upcoming event.

On Oct. 31, UCLA sent the letter to NSJP demanding that they cease using the UCLA Bruin Bear in the logo of their conference, scheduled for Nov. 16-18, which depicts the bear playing with a Palestinian kite. Palestine Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union argued on behalf of NSJP that the bear is simply a depiction of a California grizzly bear rather than the UCLA Bruin.

““The bear on the poster was neither modeled after nor inspired by any existing bear image and our search revealed no logo, emblem, or image of the Bruin Bear that the bear on the poster resembles,” Palestine Legal and the ACLU wrote in a letter to UCLA. “There is no credible claim that the bear on the poster risks confusion with the Bruin Bear. The University of California can have no trademark on bears as a general matter, particularly one with a long history of affiliation with the state of California.”

However, they noted that NSJP has agreed to modify the logo to remove the name UCLA from the logo.

Here is a before-and-after comparison of the logos:

The UCLA name is also gone from the logo on NSJP’s website.

Ricardo Vazquez, UCLA’s associate director of media relations, told the Journal in an email, “NSJP has complied with our request to remove the UCLA name from their conference logo and have committed to include ‘at’ or will otherwise clearly indicate the reference to UCLA as the place in which the event is being held.”

Vazquez did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment if the university was fine with the bear remaining the same on the logo

Palestine Legal and the ACLU also accused UCLA of engaging in “viewpoint discrimination” in their cease-and-desist letter by describing the Palestinian kite on the logo as “an intention to endorse violence against Israel.”

“Your emphasis on how ‘some’ might perceive symbols of Palestinian freedom indicates that the real reason for the University’s 4 unconstitutional censorship of SJP is the group’s support for Palestinian rights,” Palestine Legal and the ACLU’s letter states. “Your sensationalist mischaracterization of SJP’s viewpoint is further evidence of viewpoint discrimination.”

NSJP said in a Nov. 7 statement that kites are seen as a “symbol of freedom” to Palestinians; Palestinians in Gaza have been flying incendiary kites across the border, decimating fields belonging to Israeli farmers.

Judea Pearl, chancellor professor of computer science at UCLA, National Academy of Sciences member and Daniel Pearl Foundation president, said in an email to the Journal, “If UCLA needed a legal reason to move the NSJP conference away from its campus, every sophomore law student could have given it dozens, if not hundreds such reasons, starting with the racist character of SJP, their record of intimidation and disruption, and ending with the terrorism connections of their speakers.”

“The creative UCLA team however managed to find only one objection, a UCLA-marked logo, and our campus will soon become a recruiting center for Hamas, to the triumphant sound of chuckling SJP’s lawyers,” Pearl added.

UCLA Says NSJP Complied With Request to Remove School’s Name From Logo Read More »

When Anger Becomes a Political Force

Leave a Comment / Books /

Al Franken, accused of sexual harassment, felt compelled to resign his seat in the U.S. Senate. Republican Brett Kavanaugh, accused of sexual assault and misconduct, fought for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court and won.

What is wrong with his picture?

The wildly uneven results of the women’s movement in American governance are likely to be on the mind of every reader who picks up a copy of “Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger” by Rebecca Traister (Simon & Schuster), a deeply well-informed study of women in politics that is also lively, rousing and timely.

She’s an award-winning journalist for New York and Elle magazines whose beat is the role of women in politics, entertainment and the media, and the author of “All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election That Changed Everything for American Women.” The theme of her latest books, she declares, is “the specific nexus of women’s anger and American politics, about how the particular dissatisfactions and resentments of American women have often ignited movements for social change and progress.”

Traister looks candidly and unapologetically at the anger of women — “deep, rich, curdled fury — as a political phenomenon. She reaches back in history — all the way back to ancient Greece, in fact — to make the point that anger has boiled up among oppressed women again and again over the centuries and millennia, and she argues that it has served as “the sparking impetus for long-lasting, legal, or institutional reform in the United States.” She shows how “the rages of women” have been focused on slavery and lynching, the denial of the right to vote, and the exclusion of women from many jobs and the exploitation of women in the jobs they were permitted to take.

Above all, Traister upholds the open expression of anger by women as a political weapon, and she repudiates the argument that it is counterproductive. “There will be, already is, a desire to treat this iteration of women’s uprising as hysteria, a mob, a witch hunt, a passing phase, a childish tantrum, something irrational, something niche, something that can be averted or neutralized as soon as everyone just calms down,” she writes. “But these are all strategies that have long been used to get people, including women themselves, to look away from, disregard, and suppress one of the great drivers of social upheaval and political change in this country: their own fury.”

“Rebecca Traister upholds the open expression of anger by women as a political weapon, and she repudiates the argument that it is counterproductive.”

Of course, she is not surprised that the activism of women does not always result in positive change in American politics. Indeed, she points out that anger itself is perceived differently in men and women, which is why “both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders can wage yelling campaigns and be credited with understanding … the rage felt by their supporters while their female opponents can be jeered and mocked as shrill for speaking too loudly or too forcefully into a microphone.”

And Traister is compelled to confront the fact that the first woman to win the popular vote in a presidential election did not win. Hillary Clinton was characterized by Sean Hannity as “angry, bitter, screaming,” and yet a Washington Post reporter insisted that she “turned soft and thoughtful.” Ironically, she was forced to run against the angriest man in living memory of American presidential politics. “To fight her … the Republican party had chosen a figure who embodied every one of the strains of denigration and disrespect that had historically worked to bar women and nonwhite men from the presidency and to deny them equal access to political power,” Traister writes. “It worked.”

The separate and different fates of Franken and Kavanaugh are illuminated, although her book went to press before the Kavanaugh hearings. Franken was forced out because the Democratic women who serve in the Senate “chose to do what women had been unable to do, or had chosen not to do, during the [Bill] Clinton mess — they openly rebuked a powerful and widely beloved man.” By contrast, she points out, “Fox News chief Roger Ailes had protected Bill O’Reilly, keeping him in a multi-million-dollar berth for years after public claims of harassment had surfaced; O’Reilly in turn had defended Ailes when Ailes was accused of serial harassment at his network. And their network had defended Donald Trump.”

Traister ponders “the most incandescently furious” figure of the women’s movement in recent American politics, a Cuban-American teenager named Emma González. She’s the young woman with a shaved head who spoke up for her fellow survivors of the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., by repeatedly and forcefully “calling B.S.” on the pieties and verities of conventional politics. González reminds Traister of Rose Schneiderman, a 28-year-old labor organizer who spoke up for the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that killed 146 women in 1911. “Public officials have only words of warning to us — warning that we must be intensely peaceable,” declared Schneiderman. “I can’t talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been spilled.”

Exactly here is the proof text of Traister’s doctrine of rage as a tool of politics. Compare González and Schneiderman to Christine Blasey Ford, the accuser of Brett Kavanaugh. Surely, it was her decision to suppress her own anger and to present herself as temperate, measured and mild — to remain “intensely peaceable.” It was Kavanaugh who erupted in volcanic anger, and it is Kavanaugh who now sits on the Supreme Court.   

Jonathan Kirsch, author and publishing attorney is the book editor of the Jewish Journal.

When Anger Becomes a Political Force Read More »

Newly Elected Palestinian-American Congresswoman Dons Palestinian Flag at Victory Party

Leave a Comment / Online, United States /

Rashida Tlaib, the newly elected Palestinian-American Democrat congresswoman in Michigan, can be seen donning the Palestinian flag at her election party.

In the video below, Tlaib’s mother hugs her and drapes the Palestinian flag around her, right before Tlaib gives her victory speech:

https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1060027114618085377

It’s not the first time that Tlaib has literally wrapped herself in the Palestinian flag, as during her primary victory speech she also had the flag draped around her as she pledged to “fight back against every racist and oppressive structure.”

Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American woman to be elected to Congress, has voiced her support for one-state solution over a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, stating: “It has to be one state. Separate but equal does not work. I’m only 42-years old but my teachers were of that generation that marched with Martin Luther King. This whole idea of a two-state solution, it doesn’t work.”

Her position on this caused J Street to rescind their endorsement of Tlaib.

Tlaib also said she supports cutting aid to Israel because it “doesn’t support human rights.” The newly elected congresswoman has also voiced support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and was the keynote speaker at a Detroit BDS rally in 2014.

Additionally, Tlaib has issued positive tweets about convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh.

Tlaib ran unopposed in the general election, although one of her primary opponents launched a write-in campaign against her.

Newly Elected Palestinian-American Congresswoman Dons Palestinian Flag at Victory Party Read More »

Connecting Shepard’s ‘Fool for Love’ to the #MeToo Era

Leave a Comment / Entertainment /

Almost a year after playwright Sam Shepard’s death from complications of ALS, local director Kymberly Harris decided to stage Shepard’s iconic 1983 play, “Fool for Love.”

Set in a cheap motel in the Mojave Desert, the play looks at the complex relationship of former lovers May and Eddie, and the secrets they have buried. 

In an effort to have her cast of four actors capture and embrace the sparseness of Shepard’s world, Harris took them on a road trip to Montana, where they studied wild horses and took roping lessons. 

At a recent rehearsal at Hollywood’s Lounge Theatre, where the play is scheduled to run Dec. 6–9 following a New York run, actors Andrew Dits and Sophia Silver (who play Eddie and May) were comfortable displaying their new roping skills.

“That trip to Montana was incredible, the bonding was amazing,” said George Oliver Hale, who plays the Old Man in the production and praised Harris’ openness and creativity.

“Kymberly’s vision,” Dits added, “always gives a lot of room for the actor to feel alive in the part.”

Harris, who comfortably straddles both theater and film, has enough experience to go out on a limb with her actors. She’s an acting teacher at The Lee Strasberg Film and Theatre Institute in West Hollywood, a playwright and a film director. Her recent film, “FAITH,” won Best Short at the 2018 New York International Film Festival. 

“[My dad] grew up in these small, really rural Texas towns, so I come by this cowboy stereotype honestly. I always say I’m half Texan and half Jewish.” — Kymberly Harris

  Harris’ background has allowed the actors in “Fool for Love” to trust each other during onstage moments of physical violence and hateful dialogue between Eddie and May that are difficult to watch. “You’ve really got to work yourself up for those scenes,” Dits said.

“But,” Silver added, “we bonded completely during rehearsal and on our [road] trip. I trust Andrew completely.” 

In choosing to mount “Fool for Love,” Harris said, “What’s most relevant right now is the exploration of gender roles and how they are created in a world where there is clearly a stereotype of how to be masculine, which is formed by this cowboy culture.”

And in the era of the #MeToo movement, she added, “The question that becomes interesting to me is how to be a fully realized woman in relationship to a man’s identification with that stereotypical male role.”

Silver concurred. “Kymberly’s interpretation and vision is so poignant and powerful. How do you have this soul-mate connection, if you believe in that, and stay true to yourself and have your own independence as a sole human?”

“I feel it’s challenging to find your voice as a woman,” said Silver, who is 24. “Things are changing today and I’ve struggled with that a lot. I really resonated with [May’s] need for independence.”

The issues addressed in Shepard’s play are particularly important and poignant when juxtaposed with the current upheaval in America’s political, cultural and sexual landscape, Harris said. 

“In the wake of Pittsburgh and the past couple of years, there’s such a long list of things politically that feel almost too difficult to fathom, and it would be easy to just shut down,” she said. “But I feel like creating art is the most redemptive and revolutionary act right now.

“One of the things that makes me want to shut down,” she added, “is this disease of toxic masculinity. I’m interested in being empathic to how it cages men as well as women.” 

 Harris said her Jewish background  — “belonging to a culture but also being an outsider” — informed her decision to undertake this production. In her program notes, she wrote how Shepard “has created a space to explore the force of
love itself. To explore love without barriers, and to explore what certain barriers do
to love.” 

Harris said she recently was inspired by a Martin Buber poem, entitled “What We Seek,” that was included in a booklet for Yom Kippur services held at IKAR, the congregation where she is a member. 

During the production, she has found connections to Shepard that relate to their shared Midwestern roots. And she has been touched by the deaths of both the playwright and her father this past year. “I’ve spent a lot of time with both of them in my mind while directing [this play],” she wrote in the program notes.

“My dad has been influential exploring this piece,” Harris said. “He grew up in these small, really rural Texas towns. And his father was a railroad man. So I come by this cowboy stereotype honestly. I always say I’m half Texan and half Jewish.”

“Fool For Love” runs Dec 6–9 at the Lounge Theatre, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd., in Hollywood. For tickets and information, visit plays411.com/LoveLA

Connecting Shepard’s ‘Fool for Love’ to the #MeToo Era Read More »

Israeli’s Next Stage: Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ — in English

Leave a Comment / Entertainment /

When actors talk about tackling the works of Shakespeare, they talk about richly layered villains, eloquent lovers and the “Everests” of getting through an evening portraying Hamlet, Richard III or King Lear.

Lior Ashkenazi understands the verbiage. The acclaimed Israeli actor, a three-time winner of the Ophir Award (the Israeli equivalent to the Oscar), has taken part in non-English-language performances of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Israel. But now, for a Los Angeles production of “The Tempest,” he will make his American stage debut and perform onstage in English for the first time — in Shakespearean English, no less.

During a recent interview with the Journal, Ashkenazi used a rather earthy expression to describe the challenge he faced in preparing for the production’s lead role — the wizard Prospero.

“I now know what the term ‘I’m sh***ing my pants’ means,” he confessed with a laugh during a rehearsal break at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. “You can’t say no to doing this kind of thing. And I’m having fun now. But I was afraid of it. I thought, ‘Oh, God, why did I say yes? What have I done?’ ”

Although “The Tempest” is limited to three performances from Nov. 8-10, its staging — a joint venture of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre — has been given few limitations. The production features a cast of 27 actors, dancers and opera singers, as well as a choir of 40. Susanna Mälkki will conduct the Philharmonic orchestra in playing this staging’s rarely performed incidental music composed by Jean Sibelius. The company includes Tony-nominated actors Beth Malone and Tom McGowan and Emmy Award winner Peter MacNicol.

At the center of it all will be Ashkenazi, performing in English.

“That’s the most challenging thing in this production for me,” he said. “I’ve never done English [language] theater in my life. My English is very poor. Shakespearean English is even harder. It’s even difficult for American actors to do it. Except for the opera singers, I’m the only foreign guy here, Barry is a very brave man to put me in this production.”

His reference was to Barry Edelstein, the production’s director and the Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director at the Old Globe. One of the leading directors of Shakespeare in American theater, Edelstein said he was confident in Ashkenazi’s performance, despite the actor’s inexperience with English.

Edelstein has been a fan of Ashkenazi’s since seeing his work in the 2001 film “Late Marriage,” for which Ashkenazi won his first Ophir award. Edelstein tried to cast Ashkenazi in his production of Nathan Englander’s “The Twenty-Seventh Man” at New York’s Public Theatre in 2012, but the scheduling didn’t work out. However, the two men became friends and informally pledged to work together when the opportunity arose. 

“I’ve never done English [language] theater in my life. My English is very poor. Shakespearean English is even harder.” — Lior Ashkenazi

That opportunity has come with this unique rendition of “The Tempest” — presented as part of the L.A. Philharmonic’s centenary celebration — at a time when Ashkenazi is still riding the momentum from his award-winning turn in the 2017 film “Foxtrot.” Ashkenazi put a film-directing project on hold and spent five weeks rehearsing in San Diego before coming to Los Angeles.

“He’s one of the world’s great actors,” Edelstein said of Ashkenazi. “The thing about the acting culture in Tel Aviv is that actors change back and forth from stage work to camera work routinely. Lior has 30 years of high-level stage experience in everything from modern to classical. He’s got all the chops and tools that a Shakespearean actor needs. He has an incredible gift with language and all the physical awareness skills distinguished by truthfulness and bravery.

“In the American acting community, once a guy gets to be a movie star, it’s hard to entice him back to the theater,” Edelstein added. “Only a few do it, and only very occasionally. Lior has got theater in his blood.” 

A role like Prospero will get any theater lover’s blood boiling. Having had his dukedom stolen by his usurping brother, the vengeful Prospero stirs up a storm to bring the men who wronged him to an enchanted island that Prospero rules with his daughter Miranda and assorted fairies and monsters. The play is one of Shakespeare’s last works, and Prospero, an aging magician who seeks to grant forgiveness near the end of his life, is a favorite among older actors.

But Ashkenazi, who will turn 49 in December, brushes aside the notion that he’s taking on an older man’s role. “[Prospero] has a 19-year-old daughter. How old can you be if you have a 19- year-old daughter? My daughter is 19. It’s not that old.”

Is he finding other personal connections to the role? 

“I can tell you after I’ve finished the show,” he said. “I’m still exploring [Prospero] and trying to figure out who he is.”

“The Tempest” will be performed on Nov. 8 and 9 at 8 p.m. and Nov. 10 at 2 p.m. at Walt Disney Concert Hall. You can purchase tickets here. 

Israeli’s Next Stage: Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ — in English Read More »

Letters: Pittsburgh Shooting, Mike Pence and Weaponizing Evil 

Leave a Comment / Letters to the Editor /

Pittsburgh Shooting
No one is born as an anti-Semite, and there are probably different reasons why one becomes anti-Semitic. One reason must be failure: failure to become educated, a failed family life, failure in the workforce. A common quality of failure is to blame everyone but yourself for your failure. Jews are a likely target because Jews are predominantly educated, usually have stable family lives, and are generally successful in the areas they become involved in. In the few instances where I have encountered an anti-Semite, I am able to consider it as a veiled compliment. The anti-Semite is basically saying, “You are successful and I am not, and I resent you for that.”
Michael Gesas, Beverly Hills

The suspect in the Pittsburgh synagogue killings, Robert Bowers, reportedly told a SWAT officer, “I just want to kill Jews.” This seems to have escaped the attention of Columbia’s student life office (“Columbia U. Updates Statement On Squirrel Hill,” Nov. 2). The office’s initial response to the murder of 11 Jews because they were Jews was intersectional. Various identity groups — but not Jews — were mentioned as victims of recent attacks.
Deflecting attention away from the stated anti-Semitic motivation of the Pittsburgh attack trivializes the specifically Jewish nature of this tragedy and is akin to giving assent through silence. This was obvious to the many people who objected to Columbia’s response. As a result of this, the words “Jewish community” were inserted into a revised statement, but the focus on intersectionality was not changed.
In this way, Columbia, like other American universities, trivializes Jewish concerns and contributes to the normalization of antisemitism.
Julia Lutch, Davis, Calif. 

Is Mike Pence a Missionary?
Two days after the massacre in Pittsburgh, at a campaign rally for Lena Epstein, a Republican running for Congress in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., Vice President Mike Pence prayed with “Rabbi” Loren Jacobs, who he called a true leader of the Jewish people. As reported by CNN, this has been labeled offensive by real Jewish leaders in Michigan.

Loren Jacobs is neither a rabbi nor a leader of the Jewish people. He is a preacher in the virulently anti-Semitic Christian sect called Jews for Jesus. Jacobs has been quoted as saying that Jews will burn in ….!

From all available knowledge thus far, Pence is the nominative political voice for Evangelical Christians in the Republican Party. Can we afford this?
Yitzchok Gruber, via email

Weaponizing Evil
Of the many diverse articles and opinions in last week’s Journal dealing with the anti-Semitic massacre of the Jews at Shabbat prayer in Pittsburgh, the reflections of the astute Karen Lehrman Bloch are in my opinion the most compelling (“The Politics of Evil,” Nov. 2).

The weaponizing of evil enables the extreme forces of the alt-left and the alt-right to demonize one another even at the risk of tearing asunder the already fragile fabric of American society and the Jewish people. The blind hatred of “the other” creates this poisonous, political firestorm to the point where sane discourse is eviscerated.

Jewish community leaders of every persuasion must wake up to this threatening and present danger to every American Jew, and recognize that continuing on this demonizing path will bring no solutions, only more anger and divisiveness. This real and deplorable crisis cries out for unity among Jews, even as we disagree on certain sensitive, social issues.

It’s inherent in Judaism to disagree. Yet, for the sake of our survival we must adopt the indispensable attitude of being able and willing to listen to one another, and if need be, to agree to disagree. It’s a proven fact of Jewish history that, when outside hostile forces become a mortal threat to Jews, they looked to one another for unity, comfort, security and solace, and yes, also love and understanding. I’ve seen it, I’ve felt it in the Lodz Ghetto, in Auschwitz and during six years of Nazi hell and persecution. I implore you, in the name of the entire Jewish people, don’t let history repeat itself.
David Lenga, Woodland Hills

Trump and the Left
“Trump has said so many vile things that were once unspeakable in American politics that some people have lost the capacity to be surprised or outraged” (“The Lethal Power of Words,” Nov. 2). This so-called leftist Jew couldn’t agree more.
Kennedy Gammage, San Diego 

Uniting Israeli Jews, Diaspora
I couldn’t agree more with the agenda and focus of the General Assembly of the Jewish Federation that took place in Tel Aviv last week (“Tel Aviv GA Sought to Bridge Israeli-Diaspora Gap,” Nov. 2).

The acknowledgment of the divide that exists between Israelis and North American Jewry is the first step that needs to be recognized before a solution to bridge that gap can be discussed. The different priorities and “fundamentally different life experiences” make it harder for both sides to find common ground but doesn’t make it impossible to focus on shared values and common interests.

If we refocus our attention on what really matters to both sides, Jewish identity, coexistence and making a difference around the world, we will succeed in our quest to bring all Jews together and unite as one.
Menachem Nissim, via email

As tragic events occur, like the event last week in Pittsburgh, there is no better time to  unite various communities of Jews. A great way to join communities, as mentioned during the GA in the story, is to make a “Reverse Birthright.” This would bring so many opportunities to Jewish children in Israel to come to the United States and teach them about the greatness of life in Israel, as well as learn about the life of American Jews. This would influence and inspire Americans to travel and possibly move to Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people.

Another great connection that can be made with Israel and the Diaspora would be to set up programs worldwide that teach Jews about Israel, and grant trips for children who can’t afford to make the trip. This would help the unification of the Jews and bring forth the coming of Mashiach.
Jeremy Wizenfeld, Valley Village

Two Pillars of the Community Lost
Thank you for Tabby Refael’s column “Get a Lot, Then Give It Away” (Oct. 26).

Our Jewish community lost two huge pillars — Jack M. Nagel and Max Webb — within 10 days of each other. We all stand on their shoulders as we move ahead to the future to create a better life for our children and grandchildren. Having lived through the worst period of human sorrow, Max and Jack gave everything they had to fortify the State of Israel and the Jewish people. They lived the adage that “It wasn’t the Holocaust that created the State of Israel but the nonexistence of the State of Israel that created the Holocaust.” After working with them both for decades, I have decided, in the spirit of Refael’s column, to stop some students next time I am in Israel on the campus of Bar-Ilan, at an exact point on the promenade where you can see both the Nagel Jewish Heritage Center and The Anna and Max Webb Family Psychology Building, and to tell these students the stories of Max and Jack.

That will be my way of saying to these two giants: “We miss you.”
Ron Solomon, Executive vice-president, American Friends of Bar-Ilan University

Letters: Pittsburgh Shooting, Mike Pence and Weaponizing Evil  Read More »

Producer Jason Blum Booed at Israeli Film Festival

Leave a Comment / Entertainment /
Photo from Twitter

“Get Out” and “Halloween” producer Jason Blum received boos from the audience and was physically removed offstage Tuesday night after making political statements in his acceptance speech at the 32nd Israeli Film Festival.

“Tonight we have much to celebrate with the opening of the 32nd Israeli Film Festival, but at the same time today, Americans went to the polls to exercise our right to vote. I have been quietly checking my phone and we’re doing pretty well. The election results are pouring in as I speak and a lot is on the line,” said Blum, who was accepting the 2018 IFF Achievement award in film and TV. said. “The great thing about this country is that you can like Trump, but I don’t have to, and I can say what I feel about it — and I don’t like it!”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, a few people walked out of the Steve Tisch Cinema Center in Beverly Hills while Blum was speaking.

He continued speaking as booing became louder. At one point, Israeli reality TV star Yossi Dina approached the stage and attempted to pull the producer down, according to Variety.

Blum went to Twitter to express his feelings saying, “I was honored by the Israel film festival tonight and, unfortunately was not allowed to finish the speech I was trying to give.”

Following the tweet, Blum left a thread with his entire speech and the point he was trying to make.

“If we are not accountable, we may wake up one day in a country we don’t even recognize. Let us all hope that today’s election starts to chart a different course – not just for the U.S., but for the world – one that reaffirms the values that we all cherish,” Blum added. “Thank you.” 

“Over the past three decades, we have never shied away from allowing a filmmaker or actor to express themselves either personally or through their work,” Festival director and founder Meir Fenigstein said in a statement obtained by the Journal. “We have often highlighted films that some may deem not to their liking or are controversial. We in no way condone violence but do wholeheartedly support dialogue that allows people to share ideas and viewpoints in a respectful way.  Sadly, some audience members at last night’s opening greatly lacked that respect and turned an evening of celebration and recognition into something else.

“This is the first time we have ever experienced anything like this,” Fenigstein continued.  “I am in total shock, but I realize that yesterday was a very tense day in America with the elections.”

Producer Jason Blum Booed at Israeli Film Festival Read More »

Talking to Your Children About Pittsburgh

Leave a Comment / Community /

While the Los Angeles community has come together to remember and honor the victims from the Tree of Life Congregation synagogue, many parents are asking, “How do we talk to our children about this terrible tragedy?”  

“It really depends on if you think your child is going to be exposed to it any way,” Samantha Bookman, a therapist, told the Journal in a phone interview. “I work with families where the grandparents always have the radio on in the car. If your child is going to hear about it, I don’t think any age is too young. You have to address it.”

Bookman said offering up the bare minimum is the best course of action, and then if your children ask a follow-up question, “answer it. You don’t need to answer a bunch of questions your child isn’t asking.”

Bookman, who lives in Agoura Hills, said she told her 11-year-old son about what happened in Pittsburgh but not her 8-year-old daughter. Her children attend a Waldorf-based school, where there’s a big emphasis on protecting childhood. As a result, younger kids’ exposure to the media is limited. 

“I was cautiously optimistic [my daughter] would not hear about this,” Bookman said. “And just because of her age and personality, I knew it would be a lot more difficult for her than for my son.” 

When talking to her son about what happened, Bookman said she was factual and straightforward. “I didn’t go into any specifics. I didn’t tell him anything about what the gunman said. I just said he went into the synagogue and shot and wounded a bunch of people and killed a lot of people. Then I answered his questions. And then we just sat there and held each other and talked about how sad and scary it was.”

“If your child is going to hear about [the tragedy], I don’t think any age is too young. You have to address it.” — Samantha Bookman

Bookman said her son said something along the lines of, “I thought people hating Jews and wanting to kill us was a really long time ago.” She told him there was definitely a pattern, this has been around a long time and is also why most of the Jewish holidays talk about it.

Bookman, who belongs to Congregation Or Ami, did make a point, though, to shield her son from the media coverage and community services. “I didn’t want to make it any more real for him than it already was,” she said. 

She also reassured him that “those sad things happened at a synagogue really far away, but it didn’t happen in our synagogue and we’re really safe at our synagogue.”

Sinai Temple Rabbi Erez Sherman’s children are 3, 5 and almost 7. He told the Journal they have very little inkling of what happened in Pittsburgh. However, he has spent the past week speaking with and comforting his school’s students and parents.

“The day after [the shooting], during our morning tefilah, we held a moment of silence for those who lost their lives and also acknowledged that our synagogue is really a safe place,” he said. “When I went to the third and fourth grades, I talked about it mostly through music, which is sort of a healing power.” 

Sherman also encouraged students to share their feelings. Some said they felt scared, exhausted and fearful, while others said they felt safe, because they were surrounded by their community.

When asked what people can do in the coming weeks and months to support their children, Sherman suggested building deeper relationships within your synagogue.

“A synagogue is there in times of joy and sorrow,” he said. “The fact that tomorrow we are having a bar mitzvah but also a memorial service is exactly what a synagogue needs to be. Make sure your synagogue is a place where you can laugh and cry all at the same time.”

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Milano Won’t Participate in Women’s March Because Leaders Won’t Denounce Farrakhan

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Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Actress Alyssa Milano, a prominent figure in the #MeToo movement, said on Wednesday that she would not participate in the Women’s March because its leaders won’t denounce Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

Milano told The Advocate that she was “disappointed” in the Women’s March leaders for their warmth toward Farrakhan. When asked if she would appear at the Women’s March and speak, Milano responded, “I would say no at this point.”

“Unfortunate that none of them have come forward against him [Farrakhan] at this point,” Milano said, “or even given a really good reason why to support them.”

Milano had spoken at the Women’s March in January 2018.

Women’s March leader Tamika Mallory had appeared at a Nation of Islam event in March, where Farrakhan referred to Jews as part of the “Synagogue of Satan”; Mallory and other Women’s March leaders Linda Sarsour and Carmen Perez have all posted “laudatory” things on social media about Farrakhan, according to Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.

The Women’s March has not responded to the Journal’s request for comment as of publication time.

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Remembering ‘the Boys’: David and Cecil Rosenthal

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The funerals of brothers Cecil Rosenthal, 59, and David Rosenthal, 54 — who were killed in the Tree of Life Congregation shootings on Oct. 27 — were held at Rodef Shalom synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood on Oct. 30. Below is the text of the eulogy delivered by their brother-in-law, Michael Hirt. 

David was very social in some respects and, at the same time, private and shy. Phone calls with him always started with “Hey, Michael, the police are looking for you.” To which I would always playfully reply, “No, David, the police are looking for you.”

He loved this type of banter. David loved anything related to the police or the fire department. When his favorite toy, the scanner radio, broke recently, he was relentless in asking us to fix or replace it. He carried that scanner with him everywhere he went.

David was an intensely hard worker and he loved his job. Many of his work awards hang on his parents’ walls. His jobs were always related to cleaning, and he was fanatical about keeping things neat and in order. If you were sitting in a chair and put your water glass down for a minute and turned your head, it would be gone. He would scoop it up, take it the kitchen, rinse it, put it in the dishwasher. 

He was a reflection of his mother, Joy. She and David were a team in the kitchen, especially with her recent broken leg. And he was her right hand. He gathered up dirty plates after dinner, rinsed everything, loaded the dishwasher, and put everything away. 

David loved women. I’m sure that most of the ladies here today were at one time or another asked by David, “Are you married?” Followed by, “Wanna go to Hawaii?”

During our annual family holidays, he would always suggest that we go out and have a beer and meet some girls. I agreed that this sounded like a lot of fun. Of course, David didn’t drink, except for his Shirley Temple with extra cherries, and he usually liked to be in bed by 8 p.m., not earlier. But the excitement of the plan -making made David very happy.

Every year, David would ask us to take him to the flea market so that we could buy him a new pair of sunglasses and a new bottle of cologne. He always picked the exact same sunglasses: mirrored lenses, the state highway patrolman type. Always the same two items. Always. 

His choice of items was consistent with his persona: a ladies man. If David had not been handicapped, I think he would have been a movie star or a celebrity that maintained a fine balance between public and private life.

“They were kind, thoughtful and innocent. They were pure souls who carried no ill will toward anyone.” — Michael Hirt

Cecil was very different from David. Cecil was the consummate politician. The planner. The organizer. The socialite. To this end, he was his father Elie’s mirror image. Cecil knew everyone in town. He knew everyone’s business. He knew if your mother was sick or if your grandfather had died. How many times did Cecil stop one of you on the street to tell you about someone’s pending marriage or pending divorce? If you wanted local news gossip, Cecil was your source.

When Cecil answered the phone, he would thunder, “HELLO DEAR!” and immediately transition to questions about how our daughters Jen and Li Wen were doing. “How is the dog and does he miss me?” And of course, “When are you coming to Pittsburgh?”  

Cecil always inquired about the well-being of those who were not well. He would ask, “How’s your mother? Tell her I’m thinking about her.” 

If Cecil was anywhere in earshot and we were discussing something we wanted to keep private, such as a divorce or someone’s illness, we would take special care to try and make sure that he wasn’t listening. But he would always manage to find out, and he would broadcast the news throughout town. We affectionately called him the town crier. 

On one occasion we tried to keep a funeral we were attending a secret from the boys so as not to upset them. Somehow, Cecil managed to find out about the funeral service and managed on his own, by a combination of walking and riding the bus, or hawking a ride from someone, to find his way to the service and pay his respects. 

I still remember him strolling in, not wearing his usual suit and tie and carrying the bag of trinkets and papers that always accompanied him. This was Cecil’s character.

When the girls had their B’nai Mitzvah several years ago, Cecil wandered from table to table to introduce himself, and he proudly told everyone that he was the party planner. And in a way he was. He talked about the B’nai Mitzvah for what seemed like years before the event actually occurred. 

Cecil absolutely loved a party, and I can guarantee that he is looking down upon us now, asking, “Are you proud of me?”

Cecil also had his list of items that he needed from the flea market during our annual holiday get-together. These always included the same items: a new wristwatch and a calendar. The watch never lasted more than a day or two. He would either lose it or break the band. He disliked anything on his wrists. 

Curiously, after we bought him the watch and calendar, he would always wander into a particular store to buy greeting cards using his own money. I was always curious about the cards he would buy because he could neither read nor write, with the exception of being able to spell his name. 

This was always curious to me until one day I received a letter in the mail from him. It had been addressed by his supervisor at his group home. The card contained nothing but jumbles of random letters but somewhere in the middle of the jumble was his name, clearly spelled out.

His choices of things were consistent with his character as the planner and the organizer. Had Cecil not been handicapped, he would have been the mayor of Squirrel Hill. In fact, there are many who would argue that he was already the mayor. 

Last weekend was the last time we spoke to the boys. The last thing Cecil said to me in his thunderous voice was, “We’ll be seeing you in Florida for Thanksgiving.” Thanksgiving will never be the same for me.

It was easy to feel sad for what could have been, had the boys been “normal.” But when I think about it more, I realize that we were much more enriched by them than they were by us. They were kind, thoughtful and innocent. They were pure souls who carried no ill will toward anyone. They would be overwhelmed — as is our entire family — with the outpouring of support and the prayers of people from all over the world. 

We miss the boys.

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