When German filmmaker Caroline Link read Stefanie Zweig\’s 1995 autobiographical novel, \”Nowhere in Africa,\” she was riveted by the unusual Holocaust story. The book describes how 5-year-old Zweig and her parents fled the Nazis to Kenya, where the girl fell in love with the harshly beautiful land.
Shattering the cinematic taboo made the film, and its filmmakers, virtual pariahs in Hollywood and beyond.
Irving Brecher, my 88-year-old writing partner, stood onstage at the Arclight Cinemas on Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street after screening "Meet Me in St. Louis." Irv wrote this classic in 1944, one of seven MGM musicals he did.
When Dr. Joel L. Strom was attending services recently at Congregation Kehillat Ma\’arav in Santa Monica, a lady walked up, fixed him with a stern eye and spit out, "You are a traitor to your people."
The subject of evil is something that has entered my mind often this past year. Since Sept. 11, and also from the ongoing news coverage from Israel, I have had many questions and have engaged in frequent discussions about this subject.
Journalism 101, Rule No. 1: The interview is about the interviewee, not about you. Ask a question, then shut up and listen.
Michael Bender and Mia Kirschner admit there\’s no Jewish archetype in Joel Gallen\’s \”Not Another Teen Movie\” — a \”nasty and frequently hilarious assault on 20 years\’ worth of youth pictures,\” according to The New York Times. \”The \’Jewish kid\’ isn\’t really a character that\’s consistently come up in teen movies,\” says Bender, one of the writers and co-producers of the comedy which does to teen movies what \”Scary Movie\” did to the horror genre. Maybe that\’s why the football team in the film\’s fictional John Hughes High is called the Wasps, suggests Kirschner, who plays the school\’s \”Cruelest Girl\” (a spoof of the film, \”Cruel Intentions\”).
Steve Wasserman is the literary editor of the Los Angeles Times. A former Berkeley political activist, Wasserman became deputy editor of the Times\’ Op-Ed page in 1978, at the age of 26. He went on to become editorial director of Times Books, a Random House imprint in New York. In 1996, Wasserman returned to California to take over the Los Angeles Times Book Review. The Journal spoke with Wasserman before his speech this week at the Jewish Community Library of Los Angeles on the topic \”People of the Book: Jewish Citizenship in the Republic of Letters.\”
Jewish Journal: It has been 10 years since the East-West Transit Corridor was first proposed. Why do you think there is still so much resistance to the project, despite the fact that everyone is affected by the dismal traffic conditions in the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles?
Eileen Horowitz, an elementary school teacher for two decades, taught general studies at Adat Ari El Day School for six years. She became principal of Temple Israel of Hollywood Day School in 1995.
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