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Jewish Journal

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June 24, 2019

Colt Cabana on Ring Of Honor, Scotland, and His Bar Mitzvah

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Past or present, no one has had a career like Colt Cabana. Not only a popular and world-traveling professional wrestler, Chicago-based Colt Cabana has also found success as a podcaster, entrepreneur, actor, comedian, author and documentary filmmaker.

While many wrestlers feel that they have “made it” when getting signed by WWE, Cabana has been far more successful in the 10 years since leaving the company in 2009. Beyond hosting his weekly “The Art Of Wrestling” podcast and continuing to tour the world as a wrestler and comic more weekends than not, Cabana appears weekly as an announcer (and sometimes-wrestler) for popular wrestling company Ring Of Honor. Summer 2019 also brings his seventh appearance at Scotland’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which runs from August 2 through 26.

I had the pleasure of doing Q&A with Colt Cabana about his past, present and future. To put it simply, this interview will remind you that anything is possible – including a long-term career as an entertainer and/or athlete – when you work hard, say “yes” to new opportunities, and don’t take “no” for an answer.

 

 

Jewish Journal: You’ve been successful as a wrestler, entrepreneur, podcaster, actor, comic and author; maybe I’m leaving out a title or two. Is there a way you like to be described career-wise?

Colt Cabana: I think above everything I’m a pro-wrestler. I do a lot of stuff adjacent to the in-ring stuff, but it’s only possible to do that stuff because of my in-ring work. I’m a performer. I have hustle and I want to keep a roof over my head, but I just love performing and I feel the most comfortable when I’m in my spandex in the middle of a wrestling ring.

JJ: When did you first realize that you were going to be fine in your career without a traditional day job?

CC: That’s a loaded question. I was working as a teacher’s assistant in Deerfield, Illinois when I thought I made enough money as a wrestler to quit that gig. At the time, I made about 6K a year as a wrestler. My career was only going on an upwards trajectory at that point. I was 23. I knew I was going to wrestle full-time until I wasn’t able to make a living wrestling anymore.

Sometimes I told myself in my own head, that at 30 if I hadn’t done anything “of worth” in the wrestling world, that I would go to National Lewis University and get a teaching certificate. Still going strong and I’ll be 40 next year.

JJ: You’re sort of a “gateway wrestler” in that lapsed fans and people who wouldn’t normally watch wrestling may get roped in by watching you. Do you remember when you first realized that it paid to be original and not a traditional character?

CC: There was a period in my career where I was a wrestler just like everybody else. THEN there was a period where I kind of started to be a little silly and started using my sense of humor in matches. There was a stretch of about a year or so where I would read online that wrestling fans really started especially enjoy my performances. It’s at that point where I realized how important it was to be the wrestler that stands out at the show.

To be the wrestler that people remember and an impression is made. And that’s how I’ve grown over the past 20 years. I’m by NO means an overnight sensation, but I’ve gradually stood out to individual fans for so long, on so many shows, that I’ve cultivated an audience. 

JJ: This summer you’ll be off to Scotland like you’ve been the past few summers. How do your shows at Edinburgh compare to that of the comedy shows you do in the States?

CC: The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is like nothing else in the world. There’s over 4,000 shows every single day in the middle of this town in Scotland for 25 straight days. In America, there’s shows here and there, but the comedy and theatre, it takes over the town. If in Edinburgh during the Fringe and NOT seeing a show, then it’s odd.

JJ: If you had it your way, would you be touring as a comic the way you currently do as a wrestler? Being on the road more weekends than not for one-nighters?

CC: If I had it my way, I’d be doing it the way I’m doing it. I’d like to wrestle as long as I possibly can. Other means of comedy are just done because I’m unable to wrestle 365 days a year. My preferred method of comedy to the masses is through my wrestling style and matches.

JJ: Edinburgh aside, what is coming up for you career-wise?

CC: A lot of wrestling. I travel and work with Ring Of Honor, which is on weekly television, along with traveling all over the world as a performer. It never stops.

JJ: Since this is for the Jewish Journal, I feel compelled to ask: What was the theme of your bar mitzvah?

CC: Six Flags, Great America. I’ll be honest, I wanted it to be wrestling, but at 13 in 1993, the WWF wasn’t very cool and I didn’t want to be made fun of. If I had to do it all over again, I’d stay true to myself and do wrestling.

JJ: Finally, Colt, any last words for the kids?

CC: Do your homework! Shalom.

More on Colt Cabana can be found online and here. 

Colt Cabana on Ring Of Honor, Scotland, and His Bar Mitzvah Read More »

Report: Iran Terror Attack in France Foiled

Leave a Comment / Online, Worldwide /

A British newspaper is reporting that French authorities thwarted an Iran terror attack, according to the Jerusalem Post.

The Independent in Arabic newspaper reported that an Iranian intelligence official transferred a half ton of triacetone triperoxide (TATP) explosives on a civilian airplane that flew from Tehran to Austria in June 2018. The explosives were then transferred to an Iranian Belgian couple to take to Paris in their car; French authorities arrested the couple on their way to Paris.

The report states that “Iran frequently uses civilian aircraft and civilian airlines to transport explosives, weapons and ballistic missiles, as well as funds to Hezbollah in Lebanon and elsewhere in the world,” per the Post, constituting a violation of international aviation treaties.

President Donald Trump announced new sanctions on Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his office on June 24, highlighting the Iranian regime’s increasing belligerence in the region and against the United States.

“The supreme leader of Iran is one who ultimately is responsible of the hostile conduct of the regime,” Trump told reporters. “He’s respected within his country. His office oversees the regime’s most brutal instruments including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”

Iran funds myriad Islamic terror organizations, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Iran has also had reported dealings with al-Qaeda in the past. Hezbollah, Iran’s Shia proxy, reportedly plotted a terror attack in Britain in 2015 that was ultimately thwarted.

Report: Iran Terror Attack in France Foiled Read More »

Kellan Lutz Helps Theater by the Blind Fundraise

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L.A. theater group Theater by the Blind, the only theatre troupe composed entirely of blind actors, is getting a fundraising boost for their post-apocalyptic show, “Point of Extinction” with the help of “Twilight” actor Kellan Lutz.
Moved by the work the non-profit is doing, Lutz will match up to $10,000 in total donations to Theater by the Blind, after attending on of their shows.
Theater by the Blind, a subgroup of CRE (Create, Reflect Empower) Outreach, offers services to veterans, the blind and disabled community in the L.A. area.
“Point of Extinction” which runs through July 7 takes place 100 years into the future where a supervolcano leaves many disabled and 60 percent of the population blind. As a result, the U.S. president becomes a dictator and passes a law requiring them to take a serum that will cause them to regain their site, even though she knows that 1 out of 3 people who take it might die.
“Point of Extinction” will run at the Blue Door Theater in Culver City until July 7. To donate along with Lutz, click here. For ticket information please visit the website. 

Kellan Lutz Helps Theater by the Blind Fundraise Read More »

Ocasio-Cortez Should Visit ‘The Evidence Room’

Leave a Comment / Editor's Note /

It’s a sign of how politicized our national discourse has become that nothing is out of bounds—not even the Holocaust. When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used the charged term “concentration camp” last week to describe migrant detention centers, maybe she didn’t realize that the term, semantics aside, uniquely reverberates with the murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust.

If she still has any doubt, she ought to walk over to the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., and check out “The Evidence Room,” the subject of our cover story this week. The exhibit, which opened June 12, reproduces the expert architecture that turned the Auschwitz concentration camp into a systematic factory for murder.

Reporting from the museum, our writer Jordan Schachtel describes some of the haunting details that facilitated the efficient killing of Jews. First, the doors:

“Nazi architects designed this door, an entrance to the gas chamber, with two ideas in mind – maximum ‘security’ and maximum killing speed and efficiency. The door to the gas chambers acts simultaneously as an impenetrable jail cell and as a key component of a rapid extermination machine.

There is something so unspeakable about the calculated murder of millions of Jews that it behooves us not to taint the memory of the victims with the ugliness of today’s politics.

“The gas-tight door is modified so that it opens out, rather than in, so that more corpses could be retrieved from the gas chamber more efficiently. A latch is installed to further reinforce the door. The door has a peep hole so the guards can observe the swift murder of everyone inside. The victims’ side of the door was fitted with a mesh wiring surrounding the peep hole to prevent prisoners from attempting to break the glass.”

Interior perspective of “The Evidence Room” at the Hirshhorn Museum. Photo by Fred Hunsberger.

Then, the wall hatches and ladders:

“This system was designed so that guards could lob Zyklon-B, the human-killing pesticide, into above ground gas chambers. Nazi troops would climb a ladder and toss the Zyklon-B gas cannisters into an open hatch, leaving locked-in victims with nowhere to go. This type of killing machine could take out an estimated 1,000 innocent lives per day.”

And then, the gas column:

“The floor-to-ceiling column was designed to double the killing speed of the ladder system. The column system allowed Nazis to lower the Zyklon-B through an airtight hatch and then remove the gas cannisters in an expedited manner, freeing up the gas chambers for more rounds of total extermination. The gas column was utilized to murder as many as 2,000 people at once.”

Yes, these details are chilling and difficult to read, but they remind us how careful we must be when we dare tread on one of humanity’s worst atrocities. 

Allowing our anger at current events to make us weaponize this atrocity is not just wrong, it’s counterproductive. As we saw last week, Ocasio-Cortez’s justified rage at the conditions of our migrant detention centers got obliterated by the controversy over her use of “concentration camp.” So, instead of talking about what we can do to improve conditions, we argued over her use of the charged term.

By all means, let’s never forget the Holocaust and let’s always fight for the rights of migrants. But for the sake of both, let’s not mix them up.

That term may be useful to bash a political opponent, but it does little to further either the cause of migrants or the cause of Holocaust memory.

As the head of the USC Shoah Foundation, Stephen Smith, writes in the Journal:

“The rule of thumb is never to appropriate the Holocaust to explain, compare or contrast contemporary issues, whether we are Jews, Christian or Muslims; Republicans or Democrats.

“Families on the southern border of the USA, the rights of Palestinians, the existence of the State of Israel, do not need the Holocaust to have legitimacy as pressing issues in their own right. We do not need to invoke the deaths of Jewish children 75 years ago, who have no voice of their own, to make our voice sound more legitimate.”

Maybe we can’t help ourselves. Maybe we need those dramatic, incendiary tweets to bludgeon our political rivals. But this is having a corrosive effect on our national conversation. Loosely appropriating Holocaust imagery is just an extreme example of this widespread phenomenon.

As Smith reminds us, the memory of the millions who perished in the Holocaust “should always provoke us to be more humane in every situation.” And, as “The Evidence Room” makes clear, there is something so unspeakable about the calculated murder of millions of Jews that it behooves us not to taint the memory of the victims with the ugliness of today’s politics.

By all means, let’s never forget the Holocaust and let’s always fight for the rights of migrants. But for the sake of both, let’s not mix them up.

Ocasio-Cortez Should Visit ‘The Evidence Room’ Read More »

Cabaret Singer Victoria Gordon Brings Her One-Woman Show to the Hollywood Fringe Festival

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“When I was growing up, we would watch a lot of TV Land and Turner Classic Movies and I would dream of being my own Judy Garland or Debbie Reynolds, starring in a movie musical and finding love on the screen.”

So says Victoria Gordon during her one-woman cabaret show currently playing at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. Simply titled “Victoria Gordon — Live at the Hollywood Fringe,” during the hour-long performance, the 25-year-old actress/singer takes the audience on an intimate journey of self-discovery, performing a wide array of beloved Broadway songs interspersed with observational comedy vignettes.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Gordon was always drawn to the performing arts, even as a young girl. “I grew up in a musical family. My mother’s uncle, Ernst Katz, was a symphony conductor so everyone in my family played instruments and as a kid I played the violin,” Gordon told the Journal. “But I really enjoyed singing and not so much the violin, so when I was nine, I begged my parents to let me switch to singing and it took two and a half years before they finally let me start taking voice lessons, so when I was 12, I started taking formal singing lessons.”

Gordon cites Bernadette Peters, Jane Krakowski and Andrea McArdle as a major influence on her career. “Growing up, I remember in school we did biography reports and kids would pick Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears, and I was like, ‘Can I find a biography on Bernadette [Peters]?’ I was just a theater kid and I always wanted to part of a Broadway show or something more in that vein versus what was popular at the time.”

Having worked for many years in film and TV production, Gordon’s idea for her one-woman show came about following a conversation with her mother, Lori; after Gordon’s voice coach of nine years announced that she was moving to Nashville.

“Growing up, I remember in school we did biography reports and kids would pick Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears, and I was like, ‘Can I find a biography on Bernadette [Peters]?’” — Victoria Gordon

Gordon brought her mother to her final lesson with her teacher. “[My mom] listened and said, ‘Look you are great at what you do. Take those skills and put them on the stage because your singing is incredible and you deserve to give it a shot.’ So from there I started developing a one-woman show.”

Gordon’s love of musical theater comes through during the show, as she performs selections from a variety of shows including “The King and I,” “Oliver,” and “On the Town.”

“Some of them I picked because they really spoke to me and I wanted to sing them like ‘It Might As Well Be Spring’ from ‘State Fair,’” Gordon said. “I always dreamed about singing that song in a show. But some came from other sources of inspiration like ‘I Am What I Am’ from ‘La Cage Aux Folles.’ My sister said that this song just speaks to who you are and you should do it. It’s probably one of my favorite songs in the show.”’

Gordon does not write her own music or lyrics, a fact she finds amusing because she is a comedy writer by trade. “The fact that I don’t write music surprises people, but there is so much beautiful music out there that I don’t think has necessarily gotten the attention it deserves and I feel like those are the kind of songs I gravitate toward,” she said. “The ones I wish more people knew and had gotten a greater amount of exposure when they were first released. Those are the songs that I mostly try to put into my show.”

Moving forward Gordon’s goal is to produce this show in New York during the winter. From there, she hopes to record it maybe as a CD and tour with it.

“Victoria Gordon – Live at the Hollywood Fringe” has one more performance on Thurs. June 27, at 8:30 p.m. For more info and tickets click here.

Cabaret Singer Victoria Gordon Brings Her One-Woman Show to the Hollywood Fringe Festival Read More »

Poll: 5% of West Bank Palestinian Arabs Approve of Homosexuality

Leave a Comment / Online, Worldwide /

A BBC News Arabic poll published on June 24 found that only 5 percent of Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank find homosexuality to be acceptable, the lowest percentage of the Arab countries and territories surveyed.

The poll, which was taken from the end of 2018 to the spring of 2019, found that 6 percent of the surveyed Arabs in Lebanon accepted homosexuality, as did 7 percent in Jordan and Tunisia, 17 percent in Sudan, 21 percent in Morocco, and 26 percent in Algeria.

On the matter of honor killings, where Islamists believe that a family member must be killed in order to restore honor to the family, 8 percent of Palestinian Arabs approved. That same percentage was found among Arabs in Lebanon and Tunisia, 14 percent in Sudan, 21 percent in Jordan, 25 percent in Morocco and 27 percent in Algeria.

When asked if which country they view as their biggest threat, 63 percent of Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank said Israel, second only to Lebanon at 79 percent.

A 2013 Pew Research Center survey found that only 4 percent of those in the Palestinian territories believed that homosexuality should be acceptable societal behavior. Pew’s analysis of the survey at the time noted the “a strong relationship between a country’s religiosity and opinions about homosexuality. There is far less acceptance of homosexuality in countries where religion is central to people’s lives – measured by whether they consider religion to be very important, whether they believe it is necessary to believe in God in order to be moral, and whether they pray at least once a day.”

The BBC poll found a slight uptick from 2013 in Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank saying that they weren’t religious, but that number was still below 10 percent.

A 2014 Anti-Defamation League poll found that 93 percent of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank hold some type of anti-Semitic belief, including that Jews have too much influence over the United States government and the Israel dual loyalty trope.

H/T: Algemeiner

Poll: 5% of West Bank Palestinian Arabs Approve of Homosexuality Read More »

Bill Maher Criticizes AOC’s Concentration Camp Remarks

Leave a Comment / Online, United States /

HBO “Real Time” host Bill Maher criticized Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) comparison of the migrant detention facilities on the United States-Mexico border to concentration camps, saying that the “connotation” of the term isn’t appropriate for the situation.

Maher said on his June 21 show that while the term “concentration camp” may be technically accurate to describe the detention facilities, “there are certain words that we just associate with something truly at the ultimate end of horrendous. Holocaust just means a big fire, but we don’t use the word, hey, let’s go have a holocaust, I’ll bring the wieners. No one says that.”

LGBTQ activist and columnist Dan Savage defended Ocasio-Cortez, arguing that concentration camps are defined as the “mass detention” of people without a trial, prompting Maher to respond that there actually are trials for the migrants but they take a long time to occur.

“When we think of concentration camps, I don’t know what you think, I think of mass graves,” Maher said. “I think of experimenting on human people.”

Maher later added that the term “concentration camps” has a “connotation that goes far beyond as so many words do.” After a back-and-forth between Savage, Republican strategist Liz Mair and progressive radio host Thom Hartmann, Maher concluded the discussion by positing that calling the detention facilities “concentration camps” would hurt the Democrats’ electoral chances in 2020.

“I’m not saying you can’t do it but it would be very hard to argue that this is helping,” Maher said.

Watch the full clip below:

H/T: RealClearPolitics

Bill Maher Criticizes AOC’s Concentration Camp Remarks Read More »

British Lawmaker Calls for Recognizing Arab Jews Forced to Flee Their Countries

Leave a Comment / Online /

A British lawmaker called on the government to recognize the plight of Jews forced to flee their homes in Arab countries during the 20th century.

Theresa Villiers, who represents the Conservative Party, said the government should acknowledge Jewish refugees when discussing the Middle East and urged fellow Parliament members to support efforts to preserve Jewish sites in the region, the Jewish Chronicle reported Monday. 

Some 850,000 Jews were forced to flee their home countries in the Middle East and North Africa following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Many faced violence in their home countries and had to leave behind most of their property.

“This is an untold story and an unresolved injustice: between 1948 and the 1970s, pogroms and violent attacks were perpetrated in across the Muslim world against Jewish citizens,” Villiers said during a parliamentary debate.

Villiers, who is not Jewish, previously served as secretary of state for Northern Ireland.

British Lawmaker Calls for Recognizing Arab Jews Forced to Flee Their Countries Read More »

Trump Imposes New Sanctions on Iran

Leave a Comment / Online, United States /

President Donald Trump announced new sanctions on Iran on June 24 targeting Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Khamenei’s office.

According to a White House statement, the sanctions will also single out anyone Khamenei appointed to the Iranian as well as anyone who does business with Khamenei or his office.

“We call on the regime to abandon its nuclear ambitions, change its destructive behavior, respect the rights of its people, and return in good faith to the negotiating table,” Trump said in a statement.

Trump told reporters on June 24 that the sanctions were in response to “a series of aggressive behaviors by the Iranian regime in recent weeks, including shooting down of U.S. drones. The supreme leader of Iran is one who ultimately is responsible of the hostile conduct of the regime. He’s respected within his country. His office oversees the regime’s most brutal instruments including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said that later in the week the Trump administration will impose sanctions on Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.

Additionally, the Treasure Department announced eight Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders would be sanctioned:

Zarif responded to the new round of sanctions in a tweet accusing the Trump administration of having a “thirst for war.”

Foundation for Defense of Democracies Chief Executive Mark Dubowitz praised Trump for “targeting the massive corruption of [Khamenei].”

On June 21, Trump announced that he had called off a strike against Iran retaliating for the downed drone, saying that he didn’t like the fact that 150 people would have been killed.

Trump Imposes New Sanctions on Iran Read More »

Louis-Dreyfus, Bening, Hamill Read Mueller Report via Live Adaptation

Leave a Comment / Entertainment /

If you haven’t read the Mueller report yet you will have the opportunity to have it read to you by a star-studded cast June 24.

Tribe members Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Kevin Kline will join Annette Bening, John Lithgow, Justin Long, Piper Perabo, Michael Shannon, Zachary Quinto, Sigourney Weaver and Mark Hamill to perform a live reading of passages from the Mueller report. 

Playwright, screenwriter and tribe member Robert Schenkkan’s stage adaptation of the Mueller report, “The Investigation: A Search for the Truth in Ten Acts,” will be streamed online only bipartisan site Law Works.

The stream starts at 9 p.m. EDT/ 6 p.m. PT.

Law Works is an organization catering to bipartisan voices to make sure that the public is educated on the Mueller investigation among other issues in American politics. Their goal is to share resources and stories from experts to shed light on important developments based on the rule of law, making sure that neither Congress nor the American people consider themselves above the law.

Schenkkan won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for “The Kentucky Cycle” and a Tony award for “All the Way” in 2014. He has also picked up Emmy nominations for his HBO limited series “The Pacific” in 2010.

Susan Disney Lord, Abigail Disney and Timothy Disney are the executive producers behind the live reading.

Louis-Dreyfus, Bening, Hamill Read Mueller Report via Live Adaptation Read More »