http://www.jweekly.com en Copyright 2010 2010-03-18T21:25:30+00:00 http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/39736/ellie-greenwich-good-bye-to-a-great-songwriter-leader-of-the-pack-be-my-bab http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/39736/ellie-greenwich-good-bye-to-a-great-songwriter-leader-of-the-pack-be-my-bab#When:20:05:18Z by nate bloom | Ellie Greenwich, Good-Bye   Ellie Greenwich, a famous rock songwriter, died last month, age 68.  In the words of the first paragraph of the linked obituary:   “In 2004 Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time included six by Ellie Greenwich and her husband and writing partner, Jeff Barry – more than by any other songwriting team. They had 17 singles in the pop charts of 1964, surpassed only by John Lennon and Paul McCartney of the Beatles and the Americans Holland, Dozier and Holland.”    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/music-obituaries/6100832/Ellie-Greenwich.html   Songwriter Jeff Barry, who was married to Greenwich during the ‘60s, is Jewish and actually was distantly related to Greenwich.   The top Barry/Greenwich ‘60s rock hits include: “Be My Baby," "Da Doo Ron Ron," "And Then He Kissed Me," "Chapel Of Love," "River Deep, Mountain High," "Hanky Panky," "Do Wah Diddy,” and “Leader of the Pack.”   In an old interview, Greenwich described her background: “I was born in Brooklyn. At the age of ten we moved to Levittown, Long Island. We lived on the corner of Starlight and Springtime Lane. My birthday is October 23rd, on the cusp of Libra and Scorpio. My father was Catholic and my mother was Jewish. I was destined for something - half and half, and on the cusp of everything. “   http://www.spectropop.com/EllieGreenwich2/index.htm   Greenwich was raised Jewish and identified as Jewish her whole life.   Greenwich was one of the stable of great rock songwriters/performers who worked out of the "Brill Building" in New York City during the late '50s through the late '60s. During rock's so-called fallow period, from the death of Buddy Holly in 1958, to the coming of the British Invasion/Dylan 'goes electric' (1965-65)--- these writers provided the best rock songs around.   Virtually all were Jewish---Don Kirshner, Artie Kornfeld, Carole King and her songwriting partner husband Gerry Goffin, Neil Sedaka and his songwriting partner, Howard Greenfield; Burt Bacharach and Hal David; Neil Diamond, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, and Laura Nyro (whose mother was Jewish).   blogs 2009-08-28T20:05:18+00:00 http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/39681/ben-stiller-christina-applegate-and-others-to-join-shalom-sesame http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/39681/ben-stiller-christina-applegate-and-others-to-join-shalom-sesame#When:15:50:13Z by amanda pazornik | The Associated Press is reporting that a slew of popular actors in the U.S. will be making cameos on Israel's version of Sesame Street, "Shalom Sesame."  And you thought big-name celebrities only showed up at the Oscars... Click here to read the complete article.      blogs 2009-08-26T15:50:13+00:00 http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/39675/real-life-inglorious-basterds-german-speaking-jews-who-fought-as-allied-com http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/39675/real-life-inglorious-basterds-german-speaking-jews-who-fought-as-allied-com#When:03:40:01Z by nate bloom | Quentin Tarantino's new film, "Inglourious Basterds," centers around a mostly Jewish group of American soldiers who go behind enemy lines to attack the Nazis during WWII. The film is a fantasy, not based on any specific real-life event.  However, there certainly is a glorious record of Jewish fighting men, serving in the American and British armed forces, who fought in heavily Jewish special units. These heavily Jewish special units were largely composed of Jews of German or Austrian background who had critical language skills and were "a natural fit" for anti-Nazi assignments including commando raids and espionage work.  Sometimes their tasks were more mundane--but still critical--such as translation of enemy documents and interrogation of captured Germans.  Many German and Austrian Jews, who fled Nazi Germany for America-- were trained for special armed forces duty at Camp Ritchie, Maryland. They became informally known as the "Ritchie Boys."  A 2004 documentary entitled, "The Ritchie Boys," was an award winner and the website for the film gives a very good capsule summary of their heroic service:  http://www.ritchieboys.com/EN/story.html Likewise, many German, Austrian, and other European Jews who fled to Great Britain---served in a special British army commando unit called that had the official designation of 3 Troop of the No 10 Inter-Allied Commandos. Winston Churchill dubbed them 'X-Troop'. There was an excellent article in the British paper, the Daily Mail, last May--contrasting their real life heroics with the "cartoon history" in the Tarantino film. Read the article on this link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1186731/The-real-Inglourious-Basterds-Why-Britains-secret-Jewish-commandos-far-heroic-Nazi-scalpers-Tarantinos-new-film.html I also want to highlight the life of one incredible German-born Jew who served during WWII---John Weitz. The name may be familiar to you--he was a famous fashion designer.  But he was much, much more than a fashion designer---read this long excerpt, blow, from a People magazine profile published in 1992.  (Weitz died in 2003. Before his death he wrote a second biography of a major figure in the Nazi regime).  After this excerpt there are links to Weitz's obituary; a profile of his sons--filmmakers Paul and Chris Weitz; and a John Weitz interview with Charlie Rose. John Weitz (People Magazine, 1992) By Paula Chin The Dashing Designer, An Ex-Secret Agent, Explores the Life of Hitler's Evil Chief Diplomat SITTING IN THE ELEGANTLY SUBDUED OFFICES of his menswear firm high above Madison Avenue, Manhattan designer John Weitz is explaining how he, of all people, could be an authority on Nazi Germany. "Find me another fashion designer who was born in Germany, served in the OSS and knows the Nazi Party to the point where many people, including the President of Germany, consult him about it," he says. Then, smiling, he pulls back from the brink of pomposity. "Find me a fashion designer who has those qualifications...and I'll show you a lousy fashion designer!" Weitz, 69, is known not only for his clothes but also for his ads—those curious, photoless posters with nothing but teasing snippets of conversation emblazoned on the backs of buses in New York City. His new book, Hitler's Diplomat—a dispassionate, detailed biography of Joachim von Ribbentrop, the onetime champagne salesman who became Adolf Hitler's foreign minister—may bring even more cachet to the Weitz name. The New York Times called it a "thorough, engaging" work of "designer craftsmanship" that guides readers through Ribbentrop's life, up to his execution by hanging in 1946 for complicity in the Third Reich's reign of terror. The Times of London praised Weitz's "keen, discerning understanding of most of the cast of clowns, rogues and psychopaths who inhabit his elegantly written pages." "Who but a fashion designer would understand a social climber?" asks Weitz. In his view, Ribbentrop was the ultimate go-getter, an aristocrat who became enamored of Hitler. Having no ideology or scruples, he used everything and everyone to ingratiate himself with the Führer, says Weitz, simply because "he wanted to be terribly important in the world. Eventually, that's what he got." Diplomat isn't merely the portrait of an opportunist. Weitz, who was born into a wealthy Jewish family that fled Germany in 1938, was pursuing a longtime fascination with his fatherland and how it came to be seduced by a madman. "The important thing is the 70 million, not the one twerp," he says. "I wanted to write about the Nazis through the eyes of somebody I might have met at a cocktail party, so I could say, 'Don't give me the party line. I want the country club talk.' " Weitz managed to evoke Ribbentrop's world thanks to his own privileged background and several years of research. He interviewed scores of eyewitnesses, including Ribbentrop's 80-year-old former secretary, who knew Germany before and during Nazism. Weitz's own social connections also helped. "I have sat in rooms for the last 40 years talking to people who sat at dinner tables with Hitler," he says. Other connections were more unsettling. While looking through Ribbentrop's family albums at the National Archives in Washington, "I felt slightly embarrassed because the albums look exactly like my family's," he says. "[The Ribbentrops] went to the same resorts, played on the same tennis courts, wore the same clothes." Born in Berlin, Weitz was the only child of a prominent textiles manufacturer, Robert Weitz, and his fashionable wife, Hedy. At 9, he was sent to London's prestigious St. Paul's School where, even in regimented uniforms, he cut a stylish figure. One teacher told Weitz's classmate, the art critic John Russell, that Weitz's grades might improve if he paid less attention to the cut of his collars and more to French declensions. Meanwhile his parents were alarmed by the virulent anti-Semitism at home, and by the time Weitz was 15, they had decided to flee to America. After finishing school in London—where, because German-born, Weitz was classified an enemy alien—he spent a year in Shanghai waiting for a U.S. visa before he joined his parents in New York City. In 1943 his fluency in German landed him a job with the Voice of America. Weitz joined the Army, then became a U.S. citizen after he was assigned to the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA. Working as an undercover espionage agent, he infiltrated enemy lines in France and worked with the German Resistance, including the officers who plotted the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944. After leaving the OSS, Weitz was among the troops who liberated the concentration camp at Dachau. "To me, the Holocaust means that grim, horrible day," he says. "I can never forget." After the war, Weitz began designing ready-to-wear women's clothes in New York City. He formed John Weitz Designs in 1954, and after LIFE magazine highlighted him in an article, his career took off. "I never planned on being a great couturier," says Weitz, who switched to menswear in 1964. "To me fashion is not an art but a craft." And one he mastered extremely profitably; his licensing empire, which also splashes his name on colognes, luggage and cigars, pulled in $250 million last year. For a while the striking, 6'2" designer posed for his own ads, but it was the quirky, quotes-only ones, which he created with the ad agency C.J. Herrick Associates, that really created a buzz. "The idea is to amuse without annoying and make for a little adult entertainment," he says. "My favorite is the one that reads, 'Cute.' 'What? The one wearing the John Weitz tie?' 'No, the one standing next to him.' " Weitz's pursuits are as dashing as his looks. His favorite is race-car driving, which he calls "the affliction of all European boys of my generation." From 1954 to 1960 he was an international amateur race-car driver who competed in Sebring, Fla., and the Bahamas Grand Prix circuits. "I drove Morgans, Bristols. It was a fashionable, poloesque sport that's now gone," he says. Though he has sold off his vintage-car collection—they dripped too much oil, he says—he still keeps a Jaguar and a Ferrari Testarossa, which is capable of hitting 180 m.p.h. "He doesn't smoke or drink. He has to have some vice," says former actress Susan Kohner, now 55, who retired after marrying Weitz in 1964, shortly after his second divorce, from fashion editor Eve Orton. The couple have two sons, Paul, 26, a playwright, and Chris, 22, a journalist who graduated from Cambridge. (Weitz also has two children, Karen, 43, and Robert, 41, from his first marriage, in 1943, to Philadelphian Sally Blauner.) The Weitzes divide their time between Manhattan and Westhampton Beach, on Long Island, where he boats and she gardens. Weitz began to fit writing into his busy schedule 30 years ago after John Steinbeck, who was living in nearby Sag Harbor, told him, "You had a decent education, you've no right not to write." Weitz was receptive. "I asked him how to do it, and he said he'd tell me the next morning," says the designer. "He arrived that day with a big yellow lined pad and said, 'This is how you write.' " Weitz soon began his first novel, The Value of Nothing—about a New Yorker from an unlikely background who becomes a fashion designer—which hit the 1970 best-seller lists. A 1982 novel about the Third Reich called Friends in High Places became a cult favorite in Germany. Weitz is already planning his second historical book, about the Gestapo. As usual the subject isn't nearly as important to Weitz as the setting. Writing about Hitler's Germany, Weitz says, is less an obsession than a duty. "If you are a witness to anything that needs to be set straight," he explains, "then you must tell about it." PAULA CHIN DAVID HUTCHINS in New York City John Weitz Obituary: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2002/oct/12/guardianobituaries.veronicahorwell Charlie Rose, 1997 Interview with John Weitz:                                      http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/5200 LA Jewish Journal Profile of Filmmaker Sons, with more info on John Weitz: http://www.jewishjournal.com/arts/article/about_two_boys_20030314/     blogs 2009-08-24T03:40:01+00:00 http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/39584/woodstocks-jewish-connections-photos-of-bay-area-jewish-musicians-at-woodst http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/39584/woodstocks-jewish-connections-photos-of-bay-area-jewish-musicians-at-woodst#When:18:04:34Z by nate bloom | Woodstock's many Jewish connections are explored in the linked article: http://www.jstandard.com/content/item/woodstock/9360 Written by Nate Bloom, the article includes the surprising "Borscht Belt connection. Also excerpts of interviews with musicians Barry Melton, Jorma Kaukonen. Also interviews with Woodstock producer Artie Kornfeld and Sam Yasgur, the son of Jewish dairy farmer Max Yasgur. Woodstock, 1969, was held on the Yasgur farm site. Also linked, below, is an article by Nate Bloom which lists all the Jewish musicians who played Woodstock, with bio notes. http://www.jstandard.com/content/item/woodstock3  Photo Gallery of Bay Area Jewish Musicians who Played Woodstock, 1969:       Jefferson Airplane (Group):  Marty Balin, singer, songwriter:       Also in the Airplane Jorma Kaukonen, lead guitarist (as he appeared in the late '60s): Jorma, as he appears today: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Country Joe and the Fish (Group) Four out of five of members of the band line-up that appeared at Woodstock, 1969, are Jewish.    Depicted below are Jewish members Country Joe McDonald and Barry Melton.  (Not depicted are Jewish members Doug Meltzer and Mark Kapner) Country Joe McDonald, guitarist--songwriter:             Barry Melton, "the Fish" of Country Joe and the Fish:                         blogs 2009-08-15T18:04:34+00:00 http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/39581/roseanne-barr-a-holocaust-denier-who-dresses-up-like-hitler-for-heeb-magazi http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/39581/roseanne-barr-a-holocaust-denier-who-dresses-up-like-hitler-for-heeb-magazi#When:02:55:37Z by nate bloom |   About ten days ago, Stacy Palevsky, a staff writer for JWeekly, laid out in a J. blog entry the controversy over Heeb magazine’s publication and web posting of photos of comedian Roseanne Barr, dressed as Hitler baking burnt “Jew cookies.” http://jweekly.com/blog/full/39437/roseanne-as-hitler/   If I had the skill of a Frank Rich or Christopher Hitchens, I could turn out in a matter of hours a New York Review of Books type review of most of the cultural issues raised by Heeb’s magazine’s publication of an “unfunny,” so-called satire of the Holocaust.  But I am not so skilled and I want to get my “unique angle” about Roseanne on the web before this story goes completely away in the midst of the ever-changing news cycle.     Some Intro—Then the Shocker   To paraphrase the words of the late Jewish screenwriter Paddy Chayevsky (speaking through actor Peter Finch in the movie, “Network”)---I just cannot stand the post-modern, “aren’t we clever and naughty?”  bullshit anymore.   I refer to the bullshit stance that anything created by Jews, which is labeled satire, and has as its central subject the Holocaust and/or the Nazis, is automatically funny and breaks some cultural shibboleths that need breaking.   Sure, some Jews have joked among themselves about the Holocaust in the style of “ black comedy.”  Likewise, Jews are ‘notorious’ for telling jokes at a funeral or during a shiva call.  ‘We’ Jews cope with tragedy with humor.   In the past, black comedy by Jews has generally been funny, intelligent, and presented with some sensitivity. (Even though sensitivity, in the context of black humor, seems to be a contradiction in terms).     Anyone can tell try and craft a funny joke or try to present an acutely perceptive and funny satire. But most people fail. Jews, as a group, have historically failed far less often than others.   Jews have honed comedic skill for at least a thousand years. It is actually a betrayal, not an affirmation of Jewish values, to commit the sin of passing off unfunny crap as comedy.   Jews can certainly engage in “gallows” black humor.  Gallows humor can be funny and it can make a point—as in this “Jewish” joke, which probably antedates the Nazi era, but is often set in that era as told .     “Three Jews are put before a firing squad to be executed. The officer in charge of the firing squad, in a fit of mercy, offers the Jews a blindfold. The first Jew takes the blindfold. The second Jew sighs, and takes the blindfold. The third Jew refuses the blindfold. The second Jew turns to the third Jew and says,  “Don’t make trouble; take the blindfold.”   The joke, of course, satirizes the ‘traditional’ Jewish tactic of surviving persecution by “not making waves” and being passive. Passivity in this joke has reached the point of comedic absurdity. .   This joke is particularly apt in a Holocaust context—because Jews learned during the Nazi era that no level of passive acquiesce to persecution would long deter the Nazis from their ultimate goal of total extermination of the Jewish people.   The joke is funny and makes a point.   But most attempts to satirize the Nazis/the Holocaust haven’t really been successful.   I suspect because it is like trying to satirize a torture-rape.  A totally horrible event in which, ultimately, evil holds the upper hand.   Charlie Chaplin, not Jewish, but a friend of the Jewish people, satirized Hitler and was funny in “The Great Dictator.” Chaplin’s film was released just as WWII broke out. Later, however, Chaplin said he would not have made that film if he had known the level of barbarity the Nazis would descend to.  The relatively light tone of the film was a mismatch with the reality it satirized.   Mel Brooks’ “The Producers,” kind of works as it makes fun of the Nazis because it is so over the top and almost cartoon-like. It does not go near the reality of Nazi atrocities and does not mention the Holocaust.     There is a little psychic relief in seeing Hitler, in “The Producers,” being played as if he was a drug-addled ‘60s hippie. The most evil man in the 20th century is, in effect, being taunted.  Similar to the way medieval peasants, terrified of the devil, made sport of him in their festivals.   Reasonable people can differ whether “The Producers” is a bit offensive---by trivializing, at least to a very small degree, the horrors of Nazism.   But “The Producers” is rescued, in my opinion, from real condemnation by virtue of the fact that the movie/show is funny. Most of the funny parts, in fact, have nothing to do with Nazis—and we know that Mel Brooks, a combat veteran of the European theater during WWII, is a fiercely proud Jew well aware of the “real Hitler.”   There is virtually no humor in the Roseanne/Heeb photo spread. There is shock value for shock itself and a self-serving explanation that Jews gain by ridiculing Hitler. But there is no empirical evidence for that proposition.       And Then There is Roseanne   Barr's appearance as Hitler in “Heeb” wasn’t an accident. She was not the victim of some other person’s bad satire that she foolishly went along with. Heeb’s editor writes:   As I wait for Barr to arrive, I contemplate the pop culture folklore that surrounds her: the alleged multiple personality disorder, the roller coaster relationship with Tom Arnold—which culminated in a bitter divorce—the theory (her own) that she may in fact be the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, whom she has requested to be dressed as for her Heeb photo shoot. “Nervous” doesn’t begin to describe my feelings about meeting this 5’4” Jewish grandmother. {End] (emphasis added) ------------------------   After protests arose, this (just below) was Roseanne’s defense, posted on her website blog. Her defense of appearing as Hitler in “Heeb”  seems sort of rational. She seems to “have her heart in the right place.”  But in light of earlier comments on her web-blog about Jews, it seems like she is now trying to be “politically correct” after the fact.   Roseanne writes:   Hitler thought he was being really manly “cleaning Germany up” by burning people in ovens. I was making fun of him, not his victims. My caricature of him very aptly imitates the “man with a godly mission” pose that he struck in all the early photographs taken of him. I portray him being very proud of his burnt cookies, because in his last words, he was proudly congratulating himself for killing so many Jews, and encouraged the German people to carry on his mission against the “International Jew.“ The guy actually thought that killing jews was a good thing! The language that he used is still being used by many world leaders to this day. He killed my whole family, it is true, but he is also dead, and I, a Jewish woman, am still alive to make fun of him, and I will continue to make fun of the little runt for the rest of my life! He, and his ideas need to be laughed at even more these days, picked apart and analyzed up and down, as there are more and more people denying his crimes, and more and more despots trying to copy them. (End)   Now here are Roseanne’s web blog comments on Jews, Hitler, etc, posted in 2006 and still on her web blog. The punctuation is Roseanne’s. (Except for one sentence I put in bold).       ROSEANNE’S Own Unedited WORDS (December 11, 2006)   In safed, 1999, is where I experienced for the first time in my life, a knowingness that eclipsed the physical world. There it was that I made contact with the mystics that I have studied since the age of nine years. When we went to the grave of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, it was on the anniversary of his death. To sephardic jews, that is when the connection to the departed's soul is most possible. Sephardic Jews have very different traditions and culture and thoughts than do Ashkenazi jews. Ashkenazi jews are consumed with germanic principles and philosophies. When Hitler wrote that the soul of the aryan was up for grabs between the german and the jew, I think he was very accurate. When he decided to remove that option, by removing jews from the german presence, in order to tip the balance, he was hoping to seal the ultimate fate of the european gestalt as being german and pagan, not christian. It is the german (jew) who after many years in power positions in Israel, is acceding power now to the russian (jews), who more sino-aryan in their cultural gestalt. However, it is the sephardic jew who has lived in peace for thousands of years with his arab neighbors, and he who is under represented in the government of Israel.   The history of the jews is extremely interesting when viewed as a racial division between arab jews and european/russian jews. Not one sephardic jew was killed by Hitler, because he considered them to be "real jews" and the german jew as a bastard german. (emphasis added)   This fact is not seen by american jews at all. In Israel though, it is whispered about by the sephardic. The Kabbalah is sephardic. The Talmud is Ashkenazi. Jews are at war with jews over old books. Jews are at war with jews and muslims over old books, and jews are at war with christians over old books. Jews are the people who are at war with books. We need to call ourselves not people of the book, but people who are at war with books. In Rome, jews tried to have the kaballah burned and totally destroyed, in their war on it on behalf of the talmud. It was the pope who saved the kabballah. The jews brought the kaballah out of egypt, where Moses was a scholar of Hermetic Wisdom, which is what the kabballah is based on. Moses liberated the hidden esoteric philosophy and gave it to the common man, much as jesus did later on. Bar Yochai wrote the zohar, which he channelled, while hiding in a cave in safed. It is actually his story that makes up a large part of the story we recognize as being about Jesus. Safed is where the sephardic mystics have always lived. Jesus was one of these. He was an arab. (End)   ----------------------------------------------------------------     Sadly, Roseanne's 2006 web blog comments remind me of classic anti-Semitic screeds penned by anti-Semites who have only the most passing acquaintance with Jewish history and don’t feel bound to play by the “rules” that bona fide historians, journalists, etc. follow.       These Jew haters go on and on making stuff-up, being largely ahistorical, in order to make their Jew-hating point.     If you, or any other educated person, starts to take on their screeds, point-by-point, and refute them---it takes you hours and hours. In the end, you feel like an idiot because you are arguing with an idiot, and you have done the idiotic thing of wasting your time answering an idiot with mainline history.   Where does one begin to discuss Roseanne’s comments?   Does one say, in response to Roseanne, that the Talmud was written in Jerusalem and Babylon by ‘just plain’ Jews?   Does one respond that the Talmud was written before there was a separate geographical distinction between Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews? (Sephardi Jews are Jews originally from Spain or Portugal. Although the term is sometimes extended to Jews from North Africa and the Middle East whose ancestors were not from the Iberian Peninsula. Ashkenazi Jews are Jews whose recent ancestors lived in Northern and Eastern Europe).   Does one respond that Barr’s understanding of the origins of the Kabbalah have little to do with anything scholars says?     Does one point out the many great Ashkenazi Kabbalah scholars, or the many great Sephardi Talmudic scholars, including Maimonides?   I could go on and on, but I already feel like an idiot by answering an idiot like Barr with the basics of Jewish history.     Still, this is what I most take away from Roseanne’s illiterate screeds.   Roseanne, like Hitler, has set up her own racial distinctions. The ill-defined Sephardi Jews are “good’---Ashkenazi Jews (including Russian Jews) are “bad.”   Despite her defense of her Hitler photo appearance, one almost has the sense that Roseanne feels that the Ashkenazi Jews had it coming from Hitler. After all, they were and are “so bad.” They battle over “old books,” they are consumed with Germanic philosophies,” etc.     In Roseanne’s view, the Ashkenazi Jews were doing something bad and Hitler fought back against these bad guys. The fact that Roseanne thinks Hitler is bad, too, doesn’t excuse her stupid, mean, illiterate view of Ashkenazi Jews.   Roseanne’s knowledge of Arab history is similarly appalling.   I seriously doubt she knows the Arabs---people originally from the Arabian peninsula—were a minor presence in the Middle East outside Arabia until the time of Mohammad and the rise of Islam in Arabia in the 7th century.   But in Roseanne’s words, ‘Sephardic’ Jews were” living in peace with Arabs for “thousands of years.”     It is obvious Roseanne doesn’t know who the Arabs are as defined by virtually every historian, anthropologist, et.. She really knows nothing about the history of Jewish/Arab relations in historical terms.   This Sephardi Jewish/Arab peace she refers to ignores the historical fact, set out in the Koran, that (the Arab) Mohammed clashed with the Jews of Mecca/Medina when they refused to convert to his new faith.   Does Roseanne know that Jews have been barred from most of what is now Saudi Arabia since the rise of Islam?   Does one point out, to Roseanne,  that although the Koran mandates a certain degree of tolerance for Jews and Christians—no forced conversion—that these “peoples of the book” were historically discriminated against in Muslim lands---forced to wear distinct clothing and pay much higher taxes among other disabilities?    Does one send Ms. Barr to the United States Holocaust Museum where she can learn about the destruction of European Sephardi Jewry, by Hitler? At least 100,000 European Sephardi Jews killed by the Nazis.   http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10006079   Are the 60,000 or so Greek Sephardi Jews dead in the Holocaust ---burned in the ovens of Auschwitz—a fake?  Or is it Roseanne’s position that they are not “real” Sephardim?. Is it Barr’s position she knows who the ‘real’ Sephardim are?   Again, as I make the points above, I feel like I am arguing with an idiot. ----------------------------   It is laughable when Roseanne Barr says, above, that she posed as Hitler “to refute those who deny his [Hitler’s] crimes”—when Roseanne Barr, herself, denies Hitler’s crime of destroying most of the Sephardi European population.   I doubt that anyone at Heeb looked-up Roseanne’s older blog entries on the Jews. Query whether if they did they would just think these comments are also some kind of hoot.   I am not a psychiatrist or a psycho-historian, so I am loath to try and posit the psychological reasons why Barr volunteered herself to be photographed as Hitler. I don’t accept her ‘defense’ as the “complete story” based on her other comments about Jews.   I believe her to be a seriously disturbed individual with a tortured Jewish identity and an understanding of history, Judaism, and religion that is a mishmash of bits and pieces of mostly meta-physical, quasi-new agey crap she picked up along the way.   By virtue of her fame, she gets pose as Hitler, courtesy of Heeb magazine.  And people who don’t know anything about her twisted views try to fit her into the history of Jewish black comedy—when she is really something so much sadder and worse.   She’s in a class of her own---a famous Jewish comedian who dresses up like Hitler and more or less thinks that the Ashkenazi Jews are evil, kind of had the Holocaust coming, and that Hitler and the Nazis didn’t touch the hair of a Sephardi Jew.   Maybe next year she can appear in Heeb, dressed up like Doctor Mengele, the Auschwitz Angel of Death, and separate “Jewish cookies into two piles—those that go into the oven and those that sit out on the table for awhile.   The oven-bound pile can be crafted by artists who work the dough so they really look like little Polish Jewish children and stripped naked Polish Jewish women. I don't find this proposed photo shoot amusing nor do I or believe it would be making fun of Dr. Mengele.     I see no logical reason why Roseanne should refuse to do this Mengele shoot. It is virtually the same as the Hitler photo spread in Heeb. I see no logical reason why Heeb should refuse to publish photos of Barr as Dr. Mengele.  After all, if you want to shake things up, as Heeb says, each year you have to raise the ante on shock value.   I guess Roseanne would refuse, however, to appear as Hitler or Mengele if any cookie depicted a Sephardic Jew.      ------------- Roseanne's Comments on Her Web Blog Can Be Found Here: blogs 2009-08-14T02:55:37+00:00 http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/39305/michael-douglas-honored-by-american-film-institute-dylan-fetes-him-with-mum http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/39305/michael-douglas-honored-by-american-film-institute-dylan-fetes-him-with-mum#When:18:31:19Z by nate bloom | Last month, Michael Douglas was honored by the American Film Institute with their lifetime achievement award.  Yesterday, July 19, a tape of the proceedings was shown on the TVLand cable station. Most of the gala, divided into short highlights,  is now available for viewing on the TVLand web site. The complete gala tape will be re-run several times this month on TVLand.  Bob Dylan was a surprise musical guest--singing a song he wrote for "Wonder Boys," a film starring Douglas.  It was a disappointing performance--Bob's singing rendered the lyrics virtually incomprehensible. TVLand has put together a comprehensive web page dedicated to the AFI gala honoring Michael Douglas. You can view just about every speech by a celebrity who spoke in honor of Michael Douglas, including his father, the legendary Jewish actor Kirk Douglas. http://www.tvland.com/prime/shows/afi/michael_douglas/videos.jhtml?v=show_cuts Frankly, I was appalled at Bob Dylan's performance. Everyone treats him like a living legend, a status I guess he has earned. The AFI guests gave Dylan a nice round of applause after he performed "Things Have Changed," a song he wrote for "Wonder Boys," an excellent indie film that starred Michael Douglas.  But I have to believe that most of the AFI audience was like me---appalled that Dylan mumbled so badly that his lyrics were incomprehensible. Nobody, of course, has ever listened to Dylan for his "golden voice."  But he used to clearly enunciate his lyrics--lyrics that made him a seminal and critically important figure in the history of American culture and song. I've been a Dylan fan for decades. But watch his performance at the AFI and see if you don't agree with me that "something is off with Bob."  Then watch the next performance, embedded below.  It is Dylan at the height of his "powers": the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh.  He is performing with George Harrison and Leon Russell. I could have selected any song Dylan sang at that concert as a contrast with his Douglas gala performance Dylan "nailed" all his songs at the Bangladesh concert. But I've decided to pick, "Just Like a Woman."  A very "wordy" song--but every word is clearly enunciated. The song and performance are still powerful.  If Dylan had sang "Just Like a Woman," at the Bangladesh concert, the way he just sang "Things Have Changed"--well, we would have been lucky to barely make out the title of the song as he sang the chorus (i.e., "She takes just like a woman...) It is time for somebody close to Dylan to get him to look at himself as he is singing today. Yes, fanatic old fans will listen to him mumble a grocery list and applaud. But everybody else watching his AFI appearance has to think, "This guy is a legend? Why?" Dylan at AFI Douglas tribute:   Dylan at Concert for Bangladesh:           blogs 2009-07-20T18:31:19+00:00 http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/39303/ivanka-trump-becomes-a-member-of-the-tribe-converts-to-orthdox-judaism http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/39303/ivanka-trump-becomes-a-member-of-the-tribe-converts-to-orthdox-judaism#When:18:02:09Z by nate bloom | On July 16, the engagement of Ivanka Trump, 27, to New York Observer newspaper publisher Jared Kushner, 28, was announced.  Kushner comes from a prominent New Jersey Orthodox Jewish family most active in real estate.  His father, Charles Kushner, is a major philanthropist whose projects includes the Jewish Educational Center in Elizabeth, New Jersey and the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy and the Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston, N.J.. The schools are named after Charles’ late parents, both Holocaust survivors.   Ivanka, as most people know, is the daughter of real-estate mogul Donald Trump and his ex-wife, Ivana Trump. (Neither of whom are Jewish).  Beautiful and smart, Ivanka is currently Vice President of Real Estate Development and Acquisitions at the Trump Organization.   On July 17, after the engagement was announced, New York magazine was able to release details of a recent interview with the couple. Here is an excerpt:   Ivanka and Jared appear, genuinely, to be very much in love. [Ivanka says] "Jared is my best friend for many reasons, largely because I've allowed him to see who I truly am and he still loves me. I don't feel like I have any defensive He's so kind as a human being, I look up to him," she said. "He's a bit of a hero of mine. His ability to remain focused — he lacks an anxiety that's natural for someone his age handed so much responsibility. Sometimes I catch myself looking at him and being thankful that I have grown to a level of personal maturity that I would value so much the qualities he has."   "We met through mutual friends," [Ivanka] told me. "We started dating pretty quickly after we met. It still felt like a slow process — a courtship, if you will." Jared's Orthodox Jewish background presented a challenge to the relationship, but Ivanka has worked hard to show Jared's parents that she embraces Judaism. This week, she completed her conversion, after studying under Rabbi Hillel Lookstein at [Modern Orthodox] Congregation Kellillath Jeshrun on the Upper East Side. (Before this, they could not be officially engaged.) This spring, for instance, Ivanka attended a benefit for the Mikvah, the traditional Jewish bath, in Jared's hometown of Livingston, New Jersey, with his mom, Seyrl, and his two sisters, Nicole and Dara.”...   Full Interview: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/07/ivanka_trump_on_new_fiance_jar.html blogs 2009-07-18T18:02:09+00:00 http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/38223/tony-time-2009s-jewish-tony-nominees1 http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/38223/tony-time-2009s-jewish-tony-nominees1#When:20:21:28Z by nate bloom | Tony Time   The Tony awards, for excellence in the Broadway theater, will be presented on CBS on Sunday, June 7, at 8PM.  The following are the Jewish nominees I am aware of in the non-craft categories.   Jewish playwrights YASMINA REZA, 50, and MOISÉS KAUFMAN, 45, are nominated for best play for, respectively, "God of Carnage" and "33 Variations." “Carnage” is a comedy-of-manners about two affluent married couples who meet for dinner following a playground tiff involving their young children. The play's performers, none of whom are Jewish, were all nominated for best actor or best actress in a play (Hope Davis, James Gandolfini of “Sopranos” fame, Marcia Gay Harden, and Jeff Daniels).    Reza, a French Jew, is the daughter of an Iranian Jewish father and a Hungarian Jewish mother.  “God of Carnage” was a hit in the British and French theater before being mounted on Broadway. Reportedly, James Gandolfini saw the play in London and was so taken with it that he helped bring it to the Broadway stage.    “Variations,” which has ended its run, is about Ludwig Beethoven. It co-starred Jane Fonda, who is up for a Tony for best actress in a play. Kaufman is perhaps best known for writing "The Laramie Project," about the real-life gay-bashing death of Matthew Shepard. A native of Venezuela, Kaufman has described himself as “the hardest-working Jewish Latino gay artist in the New York theater. “   MARC KUDISCH, 42, a veteran Broadway musical actor, earned his third Tony nomination for best featured actor in a musical for his portrayal of a sexist, egotistical boss in "9 to 5."  (The musical is based on the hit 1980 film, starring Dolly Parton. Parton composed the Tony-nominated score for the Broadway show.)   CAROLE SHELLEY, 69, is nominated for best featured actress in a musical for playing the Grandma in "Billy Elliot, the Musical.”  Shelley, a native of Britain, created the role of the daffy Brit Gwendolyn Pigeon in the original 1965 stage production of "The Odd Couple" and she reprised this part in the film. This is her fourth Tony nomination--she won the best actress Tony in 1979.    “Billy Elliot” is based on a hit 2000 film of the same name about a British working-class boy who trades-in his boxing gloves for ballet shoes. The title role in the stage show is played by a rotating trio of teenage actors. All three, including KIRIL KULISH, 14, are nominated for best actor in a musical. Kulish grew-up in San Diego, the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrant parents.  He has got it all—the face of an angel; a fine singing voice; ballet ability that puts him in the top tier of American dancers in his age group; and he’s quite an athlete—excelling at many sports, including karate.   Kulish Official website:   http://www.kirilkulish.com/ blogs 2009-06-03T20:21:28+00:00 http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/38222/tony-time-2009s-jewish-tony-nominees http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/38222/tony-time-2009s-jewish-tony-nominees#When:20:21:26Z by nate bloom | Tony Time   The Tony awards, for excellence in the Broadway theater, will be presented on CBS on Sunday, June 7, at 8PM.  The following are the Jewish nominees I am aware of in the non-craft categories.   Jewish playwrights YASMINA REZA, 50, and MOISÉS KAUFMAN, 45, are nominated for best play for, respectively, "God of Carnage" and "33 Variations." “Carnage” is a comedy-of-manners about two affluent married couples who meet for dinner following a playground tiff involving their young children. The play's performers, none of whom are Jewish, were all nominated for best actor or best actress in a play (Hope Davis, James Gandolfini of “Sopranos” fame, Marcia Gay Harden, and Jeff Daniels).    Reza, a French Jew, is the daughter of an Iranian Jewish father and a Hungarian Jewish mother.  “God of Carnage” was a hit in the British and French theater before being mounted on Broadway. Reportedly, James Gandolfini saw the play in London and was so taken with it that he helped bring it to the Broadway stage.    “Variations,” which has ended its run, is about Ludwig Beethoven. It co-starred Jane Fonda, who is up for a Tony for best actress in a play. Kaufman is perhaps best known for writing "The Laramie Project," about the real-life gay-bashing death of Matthew Shepard. A native of Venezuela, Kaufman has described himself as “the hardest-working Jewish Latino gay artist in the New York theater. “   MARC KUDISCH, 42, a veteran Broadway musical actor, earned his third Tony nomination for best featured actor in a musical for his portrayal of a sexist, egotistical boss in "9 to 5."  (The musical is based on the hit 1980 film, starring Dolly Parton. Parton composed the Tony-nominated score for the Broadway show.)   CAROLE SHELLEY, 69, is nominated for best featured actress in a musical for playing the Grandma in "Billy Elliot, the Musical.”  Shelley, a native of Britain, created the role of the daffy Brit Gwendolyn Pigeon in the original 1965 stage production of "The Odd Couple" and she reprised this part in the film. This is her fourth Tony nomination--she won the best actress Tony in 1979.    “Billy Elliot” is based on a hit 2000 film of the same name about a British working-class boy who trades-in his boxing gloves for ballet shoes. The title role in the stage show is played by a rotating trio of teenage actors. All three, including KIRIL KULISH, 14, are nominated for best actor in a musical. Kulish grew-up in San Diego, the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrant parents.  He has got it all—the face of an angel; a fine singing voice; ballet ability that puts him in the top tier of American dancers in his age group; and he’s quite an athlete—excelling at many sports, including karate.   Kulish Official website:   http://www.kirilkulish.com/ blogs 2009-06-03T20:21:26+00:00 http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/38219/american-idols-adam-lambert-apparently-says-he-is-jewishtune-in-friday-nigh http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/38219/american-idols-adam-lambert-apparently-says-he-is-jewishtune-in-friday-nigh#When:23:49:02Z by nate bloom | Ever since videos of American Idol contestant Adam Lambert singing in Hebrew surfaced on the Internet, there has been speculation—and sometimes unsourced assertions—that he is Jewish.   The host of the upcoming episode of VH1’s series, “The Best Week Ever,” cut to the chase and asked the glam-rock singer whether he is Jewish. The episode airs, tomorrow, Friday, the 29th of May, at 11PM (check the VH1site for the re-run schedule).   You can read the transcript of the interview, along with photos, on the following link. But I am going to tune-in to see his reply on video---it is slightly cryptic on the written page. You might want to tune-in, too.   Click over and you’ll see what I mean. http://www.bestweekever.tv/2009/05/28/the-adam-lambert-interview-that-will-change-your-life/   blogs 2009-05-28T23:49:02+00:00