Archive for 2006

Swimming in the Holocaust

Recently, I attended a screening of “Swimming in Auschwitz,” a still unreleased documentary directed by Jon Kean about the experience in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp of six women — Eva Beckmann, Rena Drexler, Renee Firestone, Erika Jacobi, Lili Majzner and Linda Sherman — all of whom survived and today live in the Los Angeles area.
The film [...]

Old Jewish Jokes

Tom Teicholz tellsJewish jokes

Let us quote from sacred text: the 2005 Emmy Award acceptance speech by “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart.
Spaketh Stewart:
“When I first said that I wanted us to put together a late-night comedy writing team that would only be 80 percent Ivy League-educated Jews, people thought I was crazy. They said you need [...]

Mamet’s Question

David Mamet has written a book, “The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Self-Hatred and the Jews” (Shocken/Nextbook), that is by turns bold, courageous, and outrageous — it is a book that calls Diaspora Jews to the table and asks: “In or Out?”
“The underlying premise of the book,” Mamet told me recently, “is to all Jews: If you [...]

A DIFFERENT ISRAEL

When Israel is discussed these days, more often than not it is in terms of an existential crisis, or “the situation,” or as the subject of international news headlines. However, reading recently published works by three different Israeli fiction authors, Etgar Keret, Benjamin Tammuz and A.B. Yehoshua, is a bracing reminder that there is an [...]

A Passion for War (Steve Rubin)

To meet him, you might think Steven Rubin is a normal person. Tall, handsome, happily married with young children, he is personable, affable — in short, one of the gentlest and nicest guys you could meet.
But he is a man obsessed with war — World War II to be precise.
Recently, Rubin launched www.ww2daily.com, a Web [...]

Walk Like A Mom/Rockstar (Susanna Hoffs)

“Hannah Montana,” a Disney Channel program I watch on occasion with my daughter, features a 14-year-old girl with a secret identity: she’s actually a rock star. This is an absurd fantasy.
In real life, the rock star at my daughter’s school is a mom. Although she leads a double life, it is no secret. Her name [...]

Hate the Game, Love The Player (Michael Tolkin and “The Return of The Player”)

The fall season is upon us, with new books, movies and TV programs all vying for our attention as palliatives to the news of war, terrorism and melting ice caps. Even as the days get shorter and our own day of judgment looms imminent, we wonder: Is there a hero out there who can set [...]

Kaplan’s Collage

Here’s Marty Kaplan blogging on Huffington Post about suggested treatments for Mel Gibson’s “problem”:
“‘Jew Like Me’ is another strategy. Walk a mile in my shoes. Gain 10 pounds at my table. Wait two hours after lunch before swimming. Laugh that ironic meta-laugh right along with us when Jon Stewart says, ‘Jewey.’ Sensitize yourself to code [...]

The Mad Adventures of Gerard Oury

“The King of popular comedy is dead,” proclaimed Le Figaro after Gerard Oury, one of France’s most successful directors (if not its most successful) died on Thursday, July 20, at his home in St. Tropez.
I know Oury’s work because as a teenager I went with my mother to New York’s 68th Street Playhouse, an art [...]

Life vs. Death

In college, I wrote the same literature essay over and over again. Regardless of the novel, its plot or its country of origin, I found that I could always work up four pages on the subject of “Life vs. Death.”
My ideas on this subject were not particularly original. In a high school English class, some [...]