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Tom Tugend
L.A.‘s Larry Greenfield named national JINSA executive director
Larry Greenfield, a Los Angeles area native, has been named national executive director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs in Washington, D.C., JINSA president David Ganz announced Thursday.
Hershel Walfish, leading Orthodox cantor, 89
Hershel Walfish, a leading Orthodox cantor and survivor of several Nazi concentration camps, died Jan. 24 at 89, following a lengthy illness.
Israel’s entry to Oscars does not plan to become a ‘Footnote’
Joseph Cedar has made four movies during his 11-year career, and the first three have represented Israel in the Oscar races for Best Foreign-Language film.
CSU system debates restarting Israel study abroad programs
During the past few months, top California State University administrators, who oversee 23 campuses with 420,000 students, were spending a good deal of time wrestling with upcoming draconian state budget cuts and protesting students, yet they set aside some time to consider whether the largest four-year college system in the United States should restart its study abroad program in Israel.
Amid memories, cemetery documentary imparts lesson of Jewish survival
The Weissensee Jewish Cemetery is 130 years old and has survived the kaiser’s imperial Germany, the Weimar Republic, and, astonishingly, the Nazi regime.
Judea Pearl, father of slain WSJ reporter, is a leader in artificial intelligence
A man arrives at an airport for a flight, and as he goes through security the agent asks some questions.
Agnieszka Holland: Grappling with humanity’s contradictions
Agnieszka Holland, director of “In Darkness,” has always been intrigued by the contradictions and extremes of human nature.
Surviving a descent into ‘Darkness’
In the run-up to the Academy Awards last year, when not a single domestic or foreign film entry touched on a Holocaust or Nazi-era theme, I speculated that this particular genre had probably run its course.
Klein Halevi speaks at UCLA on Israel’s foes, friends
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s constant Holocaust denial is not only a personal obsession, but also part of a larger policy by the Iranian president, according to Yossi Klein Halevi, the influential Israeli-American journalist, writer and commentator. Ahmadinejad’s calculation is that if he succeeds in discrediting the Shoah, “he will undermine the basis of Western support for Israel and that the Jewish state will eventually disappear,” Halevi said.
Postcards From Hell: Nazi-era documents shed light on fate of families
After arriving by cattle car at Auschwitz, many Jews were handed postcards, with the uniform message thoughtfully prepared by the Nazis.
Tracking a Warsaw ghetto fighter
I met Leon Weinstein, hale and hearty at 101, three months ago and listened to his dramatic recollections as a fighter and survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, one of the bravest chapters in modern Jewish history.
Broadcast journalists receive Bill Stout award
Some 250 veterans of numerous journalistic triumphs and embarrassments gathered on Oct. 18 to relive the brave old days, toast their colleagues and wonder what the future held for their breed.
Jerusalem Museum of Tolerance architects threaten to quit
The architects of the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem have threatened to resign, two weeks before the scheduled start of construction.
First-known Hitler Writing on ‘Jewish Question’ Displayed
Ten months after the end of World War I, a 30-year-old German army veteran wrote a two-page letter in which he explained the Jewish question on what he called a “rational” and “scientific” basis.
Meet David Siegel, L.A.’s new Israeli consul general
David Siegel, Israel’s new consul general for the southwestern United States, along with his wife, Myra, and their three kids, arrived in Los Angeles on a Monday in late August and hit the ground running.
Multimedia show explores Gershwin’s genius
Rather than compose “Porgy and Bess,” what if George Gershwin had instead scored the opera “Dybbuk and Leah”?
Eichmann revisited at Loyola Law School
In the midst of World War II, when a German general demanded that a noted Jewish radar expert be exempted from deportation to help the Nazi war effort, SS Lt. Col. Adolf Eichmann icily replied that as a matter of principle he could not make any exceptions in ensuring the success of the Final Solution.
Peretz’s tales of caring inspire actor
Sholem Aleichem and Isaac Leib (I.L.) Peretz died almost a century ago, but the works of the two giants of Yiddish literature live on in film and on stage.
Two Yiddishe Boys and a Bissel of Berlin
About a dozen years ago, actor Mike Burstyn auditioned in New York for the role of Al Jolson in the national touring company of the musical “Jolson.” While waiting for a decision, he flew home to Los Angeles and on landing at LAX decided to stop by the nearby Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary and visit the grave of the legendary jazz singer.
‘Rachel Corrie’ on stage: agitprop or art?
“The American Jewish community has a problem keeping silent,” says scholar Michael Berenbaum, and he ascribes the “problem” to guilt over our collective failure to speak up during the Holocaust.
Priest, born Jewish, is ‘Torn’
In the opening scene of the documentary “Torn,” an official asks an elderly man for his name, and he replies, “Romuald-Jakub Weksler-Waszkinel.”
A diplomatic partnership
When Jacob Dayan — along with his wife, Galit, and their three children — arrived in Los Angeles in October 2007 to take up his post as Israel’s consul general for the southwestern United States, L.A. got two activist diplomats for the price of one.
Gogol, Chekhov ... Sholem Aleichem — Russia’s other great author
Despite a long life of distinguished writing, it’s not without irony that Sholem Aleichem today is probably known to most people as the guy who wrote the story behind “Fiddler on the Roof.”
Growing up in Jewish Boyle Heights
“Boyle Heights wasn’t just a geographical term, it was a mind-set.” So says Abraham (Abe) Hoffman, and he should know.
Spinoza’s Crucible: Faith, Reason Spar in ‘Jerusalem’
Some theater patrons prefer to switch off their brain cells and watch a light-hearted play, while others opt for strenuous mental exercise.
Technion professor engineering a social conscience in developing countries
After he tired of prospecting for gold in his native Canada, Mark Talesnick moved to Israel, where he did exploratory drilling for the proposed Mediterranean-Dead Sea (Med-Dead) Canal project and founded the national ice hockey team.
French film asks, what’s in a ‘name’?
Baya Benmahmoud, the heroine of the French film “The Names of Love,” gives new meaning to the concept of political activism. A fervent, if rather naïve, left-winger whose guiding motto is, “Make love, not war,” her mission is to convert right-wing politicians to the correct ideology by sleeping with them. “I am a political whore,” she announces proudly when she meets Arthur Martin, a 40-ish, uptight ornithologist, who rambles on about bird diseases when Baya inquires whether they should make love at his or her place.
Wiesenthal Center Gets Hitler’s First Anti-Semitic Screed
“An anti-Semitism based on reason must lead to systematic combatting and elimination of the privileges of the Jews… The ultimate objective [of such legislation] must be the irrevocable removal of Jews in general.”
Why can’t California students go to Israel?
How do you nudge the largest four-year college system in the United States to change its mind and greenlight its students for study at Israeli universities?
Dodgers continue support for Maccabiah games
The Los Angeles Dodgers will again underwrite the baseball tournament at the Maccabiah games in Israel, according to an announcement from the Maccabiah Organizing Committee. Frank McCourt, though occupied with ownership of the team and a contentious divorce, said, “Our sponsorship hugely enhanced the baseball experience at the 18th Maccabiah Games in 2009, and the Dodgers are proud to continue our close association with the Jewish Olympics.
‘LUV’ Endures
Murray Schisgal’s comedy “LUV” is, as the alert reader might suspect, about love, even passionate love, but don’t expect any moon in June or till death do us part nonsense. Actually, “LUV” works best as an anti-love play, and, after seeing it, any starry-eyed boy or girl might opt for a celibate life of devotion, if only their parents would let them.
L.A. Consulate’s Yom HaAtzmaut program: Entertainment, pols, supporters
Twelve national and international television crews, plus another dozen photographers and print reporters jostled for positions Tuesday evening May 10 to cover the Israel Independence Day celebration hosted by the country’s Consul General Jacob Dayan in Los Angeles.
Foreign fighters for Israel’s indepedence recall life-changing experience
For Ira Feinberg, what he calls the "pinnacle of my life's experiences" took place 63 years ago. Feinberg was a 17-year-old New Yorker when he joined the elite troops of the Palmach force fighting in Israel’s War of Independence. “No other experience in my life had such meaning as this period serving in the first army to fight for the Jewish people and for the independence of the State of Israel,” he says in the film, adding that “Nothing comes close to it.”
Deceiving the audience and the self
“The Führer Gives the Jews a City” must rank as the oddest film fragment in cinematic history.
AJU women to honor filmmaker Mazursky
Filmmaker Paul Mazursky will be honored with the Burning Bush Award by the University Women of the American Jewish University (AJU) at the group’s author-artist luncheon on May 3. Sharing the stage at the Beverly Hills Hotel will be Marion Goldenfeld, who will receive the Woman of Achievement Award.
‘My Brother’s Keeper’ keeps soldiers’ story alive
When Israel fought its War of Independence, there were no embedded TV cameramen, and even combat newsreel photographers were practically nonexistent. The newly created state had more important matters to worry about. More surprisingly, there have been hardly any movies celebrating the near miraculous victories of 1948-49, and, later, of the Six-Day War in 1967.
Israeli astronaut’s story highlights Jewish film fest
The Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival returns to town for the sixth year May 5-12 with a diverse menu of 26 feature movies, documentaries and shorts. “Our films are not just SELECTED, they are chosen,” festival director Hilary Helstein said. Her picks cover such themes as tradition and identity, conflict and issues, history and legacy, and inspiration.
Holy land revealed
With the introduction of photography in 1839, pioneer practitioners of the nascent medium flocked to the Holy Land, expecting the glorious biblical scenes imagined by Renaissance painters, but finding instead mainly dusty villages and a largely ramshackle Jerusalem.
‘Schindler’s List’ producer to mark belated Bar Mitzvah at Auschwitz
Branko Lustig, 78, two-time Oscar-winner for “Schindler’s List” and “Gladiator,” will celebrate his bar mitzvah on May 2 at Auschwitz, in front of Barrack 24. He missed his rite of passage as a 13-year-old because at the time he was a prisoner in the very same barrack, having been deported from his Croatian hometown to the death camp when he was 10.
Films of triumph and despair
When Israel fought its War of Independence, embedded TV cameramen were unknown and even combat newsreel photographers were practically non-existent. The newly created state had more important matters to worry about. More surprisingly, there have been hardly any movies celebrating the near miraculous victories of 1948-49, and later of the Six-Day War in 1967.
Concert honors Bat Mitzvah
It’s not every Jewish girl whose parents commission a new work by a renowned classical composer for her bat mitzvah, but then Dora Schoenberg’s lineage made a musical tribute all but mandatory.
Early Holy Land photos surprise viewers in 1800s
With the introduction of photography in 1839, pioneer practitioners of the nascent medium flocked to the Holy Land, expecting the glorious biblical scenes imagined by Renaissance painters, but finding instead mainly dusty villages and a largely ramshackle Jerusalem.
Sidney Lumet, Director, 86
Director Sidney Lumet, who started his career as a child actor in the Yiddish theater and whose films examining social justice in America stand as landmarks of his craft, died April 9 of lymphoma at his New York City home. He was 86.
A peek at ordinary lives in modern Russia
What happens to members of a generation when all the seemingly immutable verities of their childhoods are turned upside down? Suppose you are in your late 30s or early 40s and are suddenly told that everything you learned in school about American democracy and its Founding Fathers was a lie. Such abstract questions seem ready-made for a seminar at an American Psychological Society meeting but come to vibrant life in the documentary “My Perestroika.”
Abraham unlocks nuances of Shylock in ‘Merchant’
F. Murray Abraham’s performance as Shylock, praised by New York critics as the greatest in memory, owes much to the fact that the actor is almost invariably taken as Jewish. That pardonable error, he says, is central to his portrayal of the much-vilified Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” which opens April 14 on The Broad Stage in Santa Monica.
Ameinu head to lead L.A. seminar
Though Labor Zionism, at one time Israel’s dominant political force under David Ben-Gurion and a major voice in the American Jewish community, no longer wields its once-muscular power, it is not dead and is even showing signs of revival and rejuvenation.
Women journalists to speak to changing Middle East
The protests sweeping the Middle East are driven by a second revolution — the empowerment of Arab women.
Itzhak Perlman and Cantor Yitzchok Meir Helfgot to play Saban Theatre
Arranging a concert program is like planning a dinner, says Itzhak Perlman, calling from New York. First comes an appetizer, then the main course, and finally something to clear the palate.
Love on the fringe
Israel’s “The Matchmaker” headlines the sixth annual Santa Barbara Jewish Film Festival, taking place April 7-10. The opening night film, which was also spotlighted on the first night of Los Angeles’ 25th Israel Film Festival in October, has garnered two Ophirs — Israel’s equivalent of the Oscars — for best actor and best actress. But don’t expect a heartwarming shtetl romance or a Hollywood-ish “Father of the Bride” comedy.
Israel’s bad boy of cinema gets L.A. fest
“My country, Israel, is full of contradictions and volcanic eruptions. We fluctuate between extremes. One morning you say peace is at hand and all problems will be resolved. The next day, it’s the apocalypse.” The thumbnail description comes from Amos Gitai, who, more than any other Israeli filmmaker, has explored the emotional peaks and valleys of his people in more than 40 feature films and documentaries.
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Who is that masked Jewish man? It’s Hero Man!
David Filmore is a mild-mannered filmmaker. A Shabbat-observant Jew from Australia who moved to West Hollywood 10 years ago, he spends his days focused on his production company, Plutonian Films. REMOVE
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The 85-year-old comedy icon signs DVD copies of “The Jazz Singer,” the 1959 television remake that features Lewis as Joey Rabinowitz, a nightclub singer torn between show business and his faith. Wristbands will be distributed at 9 a.m., and Lewis will only sign copies of
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