November 11, 2010 | 1:58 pm

Can Haim Saban bring peace to the Middle East?

Posted by Danielle Berrin

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Billionaire mogul Haim Saban says it’s his “ultimate” goal to help bring peace to the Middle East.

It’s a lofty aim if there ever was one, but if anyone’s got the guts, green and political clout to do so, it’s Saban. For this week’s cover story, I talked to the Egyptian-born, Israeli-raised Saban about how he spends his billions, his friendship with the Clintons and how he uses his political influence to keep Israel safe.

Read the full story here:

Haim Saban is sitting at the head of the table in his conference room on the 26th floor of his Century City tower offices. Here, he is kingpin, an image strongly reinforced by where he sits, as well as the attentiveness of his traditionally dressed office butler, who ducks in and out of the meeting continuously, pouring Pellegrino and serving cappuccinos.

Saban wears a white dress shirt and black sport coat with thick gold buttons. He has a broad, brawny stature and a deep, sonorous voice. His 66-year-old face is full of the sharp etchings of time, which makes him appear expressive even when he is not displaying emotion. He is naturally authoritative, though this, too, is reinforced by the austere decor — a dark, wood-paneled office with sweeping city views, from the Wilshire Country Club immediately below to the hills and sea in the distance.

On this afternoon, Saban is meeting with a roomful of representatives from the Israeli Leadership Council (ILC) who have come hoping to draw from the well of their favorite sugar daddy.

Lesson No. 1 in how to pitch to a billionaire: Speak a common language — or two.

“B’ivrit or b’anglit [Hebrew or English]?” Marissa Sharpe, director of operations for the ILC asks Saban. She is about to pitch the ILC’s latest initiative, “Netina” (giving).

“Anglit,” Saban tells her.

November 5, 2010 | 2:36 pm

Forbes ‘Most Powerful’ list proves it’s still a Man’s World

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Introducing their annual Most Powerful List, Forbes declares: “There are 6.8 billion people on the planet. Here are the 68 who matter.”

Aside from the fact that that statement relegates some 6.799999 billion people to insignificant lemmings, there’s a figure even more disturbing than that: Forbes’ account of the 68 most powerful people on the planet includes a mere five women. That’s right: five. The amount you can count on one hand. Or with respect to this list, a pathetic 7% of the total.

So who are the women that made it into this impossibly exclusive club? German chancellor Angela Merkel tops the list at #6, followed by Sonia Gandhi, the head of India’s ruling Congress Party, who clocks in at #9. Dilma Rousseff, who was recently elected the first female president of Brazil comes in at #16, followed by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at #20. And lastly, everyone’s favorite female mogul, Oprah Winfrey, nearly bottoms out the list at #64.

What the list proves, other than the fact that it’s a really silly thing—how exactly do you quantify power?—is that women are not nearly as “equal” on the world stage as we assume, and that the writers of the Forbes list were probably born in 1950. And as far as Jewish women are concerned, they’re not.

Jewish men, however, did just fine. According to JTA:

Ben Bernanke, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, was ranked at No. 8; Sergey Brin and Larry Page, co-founders of Google, ranked No. 22; New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg came in at No. 23 and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came in at 24; [o]ther Jewish businessmen on the list include Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, ranked No. 40, and Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, at No. 42.

On the bright side, the only thing the United States is leading in these days is how many U.S. born women made the list. It’s only two, of course, but it’s a promising start, don’t you think?

The dark side of this already sad reality is that there a hundreds of millions of women in the world who still lack basic civil rights. They live in conditions so far from the corridors of power it seems frivolous to even suggest any woman is powerful when not every woman is free. The feminist movement still has a long way to go before women become “equal” in the eyes of the world, until more women make The Power List, and oppressed women everywhere gain the right to live with dignity. It will be interesting to see which happens first.

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November 2, 2010 | 11:25 am

Jewish Journal story on Godard’s anti-Semitism inspires New York Times

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Mazel Tov to The New York Times for lending credence to a Jewish Journal report on French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard’s alleged anti-Semitism. (Nevermind that it took them a month to pay attention - we’re not counting.)

Godard, a seminal and brilliant auteur filmmaker was selected to receive an honorary Oscar for his prolific body of work, which includes more than 70 films—but the decision to honor him sparked controversy in some circles, raising questions about Godard’s personal and artistic politics.

Times Hollywood correspondent Michael Cieply writes:

Over the last month, articles in the Jewish press — including a cover story titled “Is Jean-Luc Godard an Anti-Semite?” in The Jewish Journal — have revived a simmering debate over whether Mr. Godard, an avowed anti-Zionist and advocate for Palestinian rights, is also anti-Jewish. And this close examination of his posture toward Jews has put a shadow over plans by the academy to honor him at the Nov. 13 banquet

Spokespeople for the 79-year-old Godard recently announced he would not show for the ceremony. Whether his decline to participate is related to charges of anti-Semitism is inconclusive, but there has been speculation since the announcement that he would not attend. After all, the reigning King of French New Wave couldn’t be caught dead near the likes of Hollywood.

As Journal contributing editor Tom Tugend noted in his story, “[Godard] and his cohorts, among them Francois Truffaut and Eric Rohmer, rebelled against the traditional French movie, and later against all things Hollywood.”

Whether or not Godard is a verifiable anti-Semite is still in question. In a recent post, I suggested that Godard’s anti-Jewish sentiments may not be hardcore Jew-hatred, but a kind of casual anti-Semitism that is pervasive in French culture.

“There is a casual anti-Semitism in French culture that is quite different than that of the virulent anti-Semitism of the extreme French right, and that is very much connected to a kind of antagonism towards Jews in power,” Maureen Turim, professor of English at the University of Florida, explained.

Film critic Bill Krohn, the Hollywood correspondent for the iconic French film magazine Cahiers du Cinema, may have picked up on this in his defense of Godard. He excused Godard for calling Braunberger a “sale Juif ” (filthy Jew), by dismissing the remark as banter between friends, insisting it was a reference to Jean Renoir’s indictment of French anti-Semitism “La grande illusion.”

Turim, who is at work on a book about Jews, Anti-Semitism, and Resistance in the French Cinema, thinks Krohn is missing the point.

“No amount of reference to ‘La grande illusion’ allows you to make that kind of comment,” Turim said by phone from Gainesville, Florida where she is teaching a graduate seminar on Godard. “It’s not a joke; it’s not a joke in ‘La grande illusion,’ which is one of the strongest statements in the history of French film that anti-Semitism exists in France, and that it’s a horrible thing, and you can’t just turn it into a joke.”

“Godard should just say ‘I’m sorry, I spoke terribly.’ But there’s a whole way that people find to excuse such unconscious anti Semitism that runs through [French] culture.”

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November 1, 2010 | 9:31 am

Top Ten slogans from the Stewart/Colbert ‘Sanity’ rally

Posted Rabbi Lizzi Jill Honeyrose Heydemann

Top Ten Charming Non-Partisan Signs:

10. Fear Bella Lugosi, not Nancy Pelosi.

9. Impeccable spellers for nuanced political discourse.

8. When people are laughing, they’re generally not killing each other. – Alan Alda

7. Things are pretty OK.

6. I have an education and I’m not afraid to use it.

5. GOD HATES (or is at least totally unimpressed with) IDEOLOGUES

4. YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH ME? Okay, let’s get some coffee and talk about it.

3. COMPROMISE (if that’s okay with you)

2. Cynicism isn’t sexy

1. If your beliefs fit on a sign, think harder.

Top Six Scathing Partisan Signs:

1. Millennials… You’d better be nice to us. We’ll be on your death panel.

2. Every time Sarah Palin tweets God kills a kitten.

3. The Invisible Hand is giving us the finger.

4. Teabag me.

5. Shlock and Awe.

6. Palin and Beck in 2012: Lipstick and dipstick.

Read Hollywood Jew’s full, live coverage of the Stewart/Colbert National Mall gathering: ‘Rabbi at the Rally’ PART ONE and PART TWO.

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November 1, 2010 | 9:11 am

Live from the ‘Sanity’ rally: A Rabbi spends Shabbat with Jon Stewart [PART TWO]

Posted Rabbi Lizzi Jill Honeyrose Heydemann

The day before the rally, journalist Will Bunch wrote this in the LA Times:

“The dynamic duo of Comedy Central seem to have a similar Woodstocky vibe in mind — with fun and music — but they are also entering uncharted territory by seeming to elevate ironic detachment to the level of a political manifesto. One danger is that a rally that doesn’t meet the sky-high expectations of 200,000 attendees could undercut the hard-won reputations of both Stewart and Colbert for using comedy to speak truth to power in a way that traditional journalism has failed to do over the last decade. But a bigger issue is treating the challenges of 2010 — from rising poverty to unending war in Afghanistan to global warming, which are every bit as serious as those confronted on the National Mall in 1894 or 1963 or 1969 — with little more than humor and intellectual distance.”

Bunch’s first concern– that the anticipated throngs would not show up (a fear ostensibly shared by Stephen Colbert, forcing him to hide out in a Fear Bunker hundreds of feet beneath the rally before it began)– was unfounded.  More people than expected showed up, myself among them (as I didn’t respond Yes to the Facebook event, I wasn’t counted among the 223,609 expected attendees).  The fear that the Stewart-Colbert duo’s reputation might be undercut by an underwhelming turnout couldn’t have been further from reality.

But the second question remained– now that you have us here, what are you going to do with us?  Is “humor and intellectual distance” the appropriate response, even from two self-described comedians/pundits/talker-guys, to the nation’s serious woes?

I talked this over with Rachel (in her last year of an American History PhD at University of Virginia) over coffee before we left. I said it would be a shame for Stewart not to use his significant political power to do something bold, to influence his audience to vote and vote wisely.  She thought for a moment and asked, “Do you really want Jon Stewart endorsing candidates?  Isn’t his entire power located precisely in his ability to walk and to mock both ends of the spectrum? To draw attention to the quality of our political discourse, but not participate in it?”

We let the question hang there– for me it would be answered later, in the final moments of the rally.

At first the rally did seem like just a live, musically-enhanced version of the Daily Show.  You can go to Comedy Central and see the minute-by-minute run-down of the three hour event, but suffice it to say that the first three quarters of it was indeed an entertaining blend of music (Cat Stephens/Yusef Islam’s Peace Train dueling Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train, with the compromise being the OJ’s singing Love Train; the Roots, Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow and Tony Bennett), comedic skits and face-offs between Stewart, representing rationality, and Colbert, representing fear.

As entertaining as all that was, by 2:30 pm, I was hoping desperately that there would be something more, something substantial… something inspiring.  I wasn’t the only one.  I sensed from the crowd by that point almost a cognitive dissonance between our trust in Jon Stewart, and our fear that he may let us down today.  We’d come for more than just a live staging of the Daily Show.  We prayed he would preach to us. 

When, at quarter to three, Stewart said, “And now I thought we might have a moment, however brief, for some sincerity,” I, along with 300,000 other sane, reasonable folks on the Mall, held our breath.  The moment we had been waiting for: his sermon.

Stewart’s point, a point that he has been honing in on for years, is that the media has a responsibility to the public to inform us accurately of the realities of our world, and is failing miserably as it descends into shouting matches, stale talking points and fear-driven drivel.  And we buy it.  The media, he says, doesn’t create the problems it reports on, but it makes them a lot harder to fix.  In his own words, “The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen. Or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire, and then perhaps host a week of shows on the dangerous, unexpected flaming ants epidemic. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.”

And then I got it.  He isn’t talking about politics.  He’s talking about how we talk about politics.  And in that way, taking a particular side on the current political debate would have compromised his basic point.  Because he’s not talking just about this election; he’s talking about an epidemic of bad journalism that plagues both the liberal and conservative media.  It’s FOX and it’s NBC, and it’s KTLA and it’s NPR, and it’s Rush Limbaugh and it’s Air America. Some commentators actually shout and cut people off, and some speak in a normal tone of voice but nonetheless insinuate fearful tidings and condescending opinions. I have no idea whom to trust, because I don’t know what qualifies anymore as real news and real commentary. It makes me not want to listen to news anymore, not want to talk politics, not want to talk problems nor solutions.

Me, and 300,000 people on the National Mall yesterday and thousands more in front of TV screens all around the country, have been longing to hear a message of encouragement to participate in the political conversation with patience, with trust, with reason.  Sanely.  Quietly.  With humor.  We approach most of our lives this way.  We talk rationally every day at work, with our friends and coworkers, we don’t let our differences get in the way when we order coffee, work on projects, or share the highways … why can’t we have the same measured approach when talking about our country’s most challenging issues? 

Truly, it’s a good question, Jon.  Thank you for reminding us to ask it.

Missed PART ONE of ‘Rabbi at the rally’? Click here

Rabbi Lizzi Jill Honeyrose Heydemann is the Revson Rabbinic Fellow at IKAR, a spiritual community in the westside of Los Angeles

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November 1, 2010 | 8:50 am

Live from the ‘Sanity’ rally: A rabbi spends Shabbat with Jon Stewart [PART ONE]

Posted Rabbi Lizzi Jill Honeyrose Heydemann

The walk from David’s house on S and 10th, Northwest, to the National Mall was going to be half an hour or so.  Fine for me, as I was set on walking anyway (Shabbos and all) but I was most pleased when Rachel, Toru and Lea, all people with whom I’d gone to high school at the University of Chicago Lab School, arrived and said that the Metro was packed to the gills– better to walk to than to fight the underground hoards.  While I wasn’t trying to hide my observance from these friends who knew me before Judaism had become a central driving force in my life, I kind of wanted to be a plain old, rationality-and-Jon-Stewart-loving American today just like everyone else, and draw as little attention to my special religious requirements as possible.

It was a glorious Saturday morning.  Sunny, but “with an autumnal chill,” as David’s British roommate, Tom, put it.  As we walked through the unusually crowded streets of DC I couldn’t help but imagine that this is perhaps what it looked like in the days leading up to Sukkot or Pesach in Israel, people flooding from all over the ancient near-East toward the Temple to make sacrifices. Except instead of livestock, people of all races and ages carried funny, and sometimes biting, signs, and rather than an air of solemnity, exhilaration and irreverence filled the city.

We were here!  Other people will watch this on TV (and now I know that would have been the way to go if I’d wanted to actually hear everything). We had arrived for the event itself, in flesh.  One day when our grandchildren ask with wonder, “Where were you for the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear?” we’ll be able to say we were there, stretching six long city blocks down the Mall from 3rd Street, where the stage and too-small Jumbotrons were located.

“It’s like a huge tailgate party for a Michigan football game,” said David as we walked. “Except that instead of getting drunk, probably these people just drank coffee this morning.  Pretty much like us.”

And “us” was a great mixed bunch, comprised of Jews spanning the spectrum from the JewBu’s to my left to the Modern Orthodox families in front of me that walked straight from shul with their strollers and blankets upon which they ate shabbos lunch; there were Muslim women in hijab, college girls dressed up as the oil spill and as frat boys as the American flag, people from literally across the nation, old, young.  Peoples’ signs said things like, “Things are pretty OK,” and “Impeccable spellers for nuanced political discourse,” and “God hates (or is at least totally unimpressed by) ideologues,” and the one Jon Stewart coined the day he announced the rally, “I may disagree with you, but I’m pretty sure you’re not Hitler.”  (Some of the more political signs I saw included, “Every time Sarah Palin tweets God kills a kitten,” and “The Invisible Hand is giving us the finger.”)

While a Comedy Central rally could easily become an excuse to get wasted at 11 am on a Saturday, this was an exceptionally polite crowd.  (“Quite civilized,” said Tom later).  We – all three or so hundred thousand of us – were quiet when spoken to from the stage, followed instructions to whisper and to jeer when prompted, put our hands in the air and did the wave when it was our turn.  We showed up ready to participate in whatever Stewart and Colbert had planned for us.

But what did they have planned for us?

Click here for PART TWO of Rabbi at the rally

Rabbi Lizzi Jill Honeyrose Heydemann is the Revson Rabbinic Fellow at IKAR, a spiritual community in the westside of Los Angeles

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