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PEOPLE, EVENTS AND NEWS by maximillien de lafayette WHAT'S NEW?
FILM AT THE VILLAGE TEMPLE: “DIVAN”, a Journey from Brooklyn to Budapest and Back
DIVAN, by film maker Pearl Gluck, is a personal diary that traces one woman's quest for individual and cultural identity through her stubborn fixation on an object, in her case a couch. In her quest to reclaim an ancestral couch upon which esteemed rabbis slept, Pearl Gluck travels from her Hasidic community in Brooklyn to her roots in Hungary. Along the way, a colorful cast of characters gets involved – the couch exporter, her ex-communist cousin in Budapest, a pair of matchmakers, and a renegade group of formerly ultra-Orthodox Jews. Divan is a visual parable that offers the possibility of personal reinvention and cultural re-upholstery. This film offers a testimonial to the devastation caused in Hungary by the Holocaust, a glimpse into the richness of Yiddish folklore, a passive-aggressive assault on the patriarchal fastness of Hasidic orthodoxy and a vast self-reflexive joke.
Events for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, North American Council
Two major events are coming
up soon and we would welcome your support and participation.
Please join us! As a growing organization we would also
appreciate names of those who you believe would have an active
interest in attending these events and connecting with the Museum.
Wednesday, November 30:
Cocktail reception overlooking
Presentation of
the International Architectural Competition for
the Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
MUSEUM
OF THE HISTORY OF POLISH JEWS,
North
American Council
and
AMERICAN
INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS
CROSSING THE RIFT OF HISTORY
The North American Council of the Museum of the History of Polish
Jews will host a symposium and panel-discussion featuring the
winning design by the Finnish team of Lahdelma and Mahlamäki and
other entries of the recent international architectural
competition for the Museum building held in
The Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy Presents The Noshing Tour Extravaganza
New Jersey Artist Maurice Ascalon Honored Posthumously in Tel Aviv November 25, 2005 to March 30, 2006 At“Modern Creations from an Ancient Land”. Eretz Israel Museum, 2 Haim Levanon Street, Tel Aviv, Israel
The Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv, in conjunction with Tel Aviv University, bestowed an enormous posthumous honor on long-time Cherry Hill, New Jersey resident, Maurice Ascalon (1913-2003). Last week, the museum launched a major exhibition featuring the work of Ascalon, which coincided with the release of Professor Nurith Kenaan-Kedar’s book “Modern Creations from an Ancient Land”, in which Ascalon is deemed one of early Israel’s most important designers. The exhibition and book highlight much of Ascalon’s earlier work, which includes many Art Deco designs and decorative metalworks that became a hallmark of the early Israel craft movement.
Maurice Ascalon was born Moshe Klein in eastern Hungary in 1913. From an early age, he was determined to pursue his artistic yearnings, however in order to do so, he was forced to abandon his ultra-religious Chasidic Jewish roots – for artistic expression was frowned upon in the eastern Hungarian “Shtetl” in which he was raised. When he was 15 years old Ascalon left his family and boyhood home to study art at the Academy des Beaux Arts in Brussels. He took with him an in-depth understanding of the rituals and traditions of the Jewish ceremonies, which knowledge he would later apply to his artistic endeavors. In 1934, after concluding his formal artistic training in Brussels and later Milan, Ascalon immigrated to Israel (then Palestine). There he met his wife-to-be, Ziporah Kartujinsky, a Polish-born Jew, granddaughter to the distinguished cartographer and scientist of the same surname. (Ziporah, who died in 1982, became a sculptor in her own right late in her life, creating magnificent bas reliefs depicting the Shtetl life of her childhood). In 1939, Maurice Ascalon designed and created the enormous 14 foot tall hammered copper relief sculpture of three figures, "The Toiler of the Soil, the Laborer and the Scholar", which adorned the façade of the Jewish Palestine Pavilion of the 1939 New York World's Fair.
Ascalon was commissioned to create this work by the noted Israeli architect, Arie El-Hanani, who designed the historically significant Pavilion which introduced the world to the concept of a modern Jewish state. The work is now part of the collection of the Spertus Museum in Chicago. In the late 1930s, Ascalon founded Pal Bell Co. Ltd., an Israeli decorative arts manufacturing company which produced trademark bronze and brass menorahs and other Judaic and secular decorative art items that were exported in large numbers worldwide. Ascalon's Pal Bell designs, some art deco, others more traditional, introduced the use of "green patina" (verdigris) to Israeli metalwork, which is now a hallmark of Israel's crafts industry. During Israel's War for Independence in 1948, Ascalon designed munitions for the Israeli Army and retrofitted the Pal Bell factory to produce munitions for the war effort. In 1956 Ascalon immigrated to the United States. It was shortly before he relocated to the U.S. that he parted with his former surname “Klein”, and adopted the name “Ascalon”, after the ancient biblical city. During the 1950s and 1960s, Ascalon resided in New York and Los Angeles. He gained a reputation as a master silversmith, creating for synagogues magnificent Torah crowns and other ceremonial objects of Judaica that he first learned of in his youth. For a time, he served as a professor of sculpture on the fine arts faculty of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. In the late 1970s, Ascalon’s workshop, now formally dubbed Ascalon Studios, relocated to the Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill, New Jersey. It became (and still is today, under the direction of Maurice’s son, David Ascalon) a multifaceted art studio dedicated to the creation of monumental sculpture and art for the adornment of worship and public spaces. (The studio, today, still based in Southern New Jersey, employs a handful of talented artisans who execute the younger and elder Ascalon concepts in a variety of media, including metal, stone and ceramic sculpture, stained glass, and mosaics.) Shortly after the death of his eldest son artist Adir Ascalon, in August of 2003, at the age of 90, Maurice passed away in Cherry Hill, after a long fruitful life. He succumbed to complications related to Parkinson's Disease, an illness he endured during most of the final decade of his life. Ascalon was also survived by a daughter, Sarah Ascalon Benjamin, a painter who resides in New York. Maurice Ascalon’s commissions include permanent installations at synagogues and public spaces throughout the United States and Mexico. His works have been exhibited at and are among the collections of institutions including the Jewish Museum in New York, the Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, the Spertus Museum in Chicago, and the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, where Ascalon taught. Artist contact: eric@ascalonstudios.com
SHOREFRONT JEWISH COMMUNITY COUNCIL CONFERENCE FOCUSES ON HUNGER AND POVERTY IN THE IMMIGRANT COMMUNITY
Close to 200 community leaders, elected officials, activists, organizational heads, and professionals dedicated to meeting the needs of the poor and hungry attended a special conference to address the growing problems of hunger and poverty in the immigrant community. The conference, entitled “The Key is the Need” was sponsored by the Shorefront Jewish Community Council (SJCC). “We expect this conference to generate significant interest in the needs of the poor and indigent in our community,” remarked Rabbi Moshe Wiener, Executive Director of SJCC and the Jewish Community Council of Greater Coney Island. The population of poor and needy has risen dramatically in recent years. According to the NYC Dept. of City Planning, in SJCC’s local Community District (Brooklyn CD 13), total persons assisted in receiving income support rose from 31,861 in 2000 to 43,490 in 2004. This represents 41% of the total population of District 13. The conference was held at the Oceanview Jewish Center, the site of SJCC’s Food Pantry program. This Food Pantry program has made a tremendous impact on the most vulnerable residents of the Brighton Beach immigrant community, as it continues to distribute more than 1,100 food packages to the poor and needy every month. Close to 200 people receive hot and prepared meals at the Food Pantry on a weekly basis. Oceanview Jewish Center partners with SJCC in administering the program. The day of the conference coincided with the fifth anniversary of the opening of the Food Pantry program. The conference paid posthumous tribute to Mr. Louis Maron, a highly accomplished and devoted social worker who dedicated his career to improving the quality of life of the poor and needy. The Food Pantry program was officially renamed “The Louis Maron Memorial Food Pantry,” in memory of Louis Maron. He worked as the Senior Case Worker at SJCC for 28 years until his passing at age 88 this past August.
Photo: Shorefront Jewish Community Council Conference participants. PHOTO CREDITS: ELI HOROWITZ. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in his greetings to the Conference, stated: “Today’s event provides a wonderful opportunity for the staff at Shorefront JCC and the South Brooklyn community to come together with a shared commitment to ending hunger in our great City.” He went on to describe what a remarkable difference can be made when people and organizations dedicate themselves to the lives of others, as SJCC does. Other greetings and good wishes were extended from Betsy Gotbaum, Public Advocate of the City of NY; Assemblyman Steven H. Cymbrowitz; Councilman Domenic M. Recchia, Jr.; Councilman Michael C. Nelson; and Caryn Resnick, Deputy Commissioner, NYC Dept. for the Aging. Jennifer McLean, Director of Food Development at City Harvest, and Veronica Hendrickson, Director of Policy and Research at the Food Bank for NYC, offered special perspectives and important information on hunger and poverty in our communities. The keynote speaker at the conference was Professor Jonathan Leader, President of the Leader Family Fund and a major initiator and supporter of programs for the poor and needy. He discussed the significant impact that reduction in aid programs is having on the poor, and offered suggestions as to what can be done about it. “In view of the tremendous cutbacks in Federal financial aid to the disenfranchised, it is more incumbent on the private community to volunteer their time, give charity, and advocate on behalf of those who need help. All of this, of course, is at the heart of the Jewish tradition,” he said. Professor Leader, together with his partner in philanthropy and human service program development, his wife Dina, received an award from SJCC in appreciation of their ongoing support and efforts on behalf of the frail elderly, poor and immigrants of Brighton Beach and its surrounding communities. Prof. Leader also presented an award to John S. Ruskay, Executive Vice President and CEO of UJA- Federation. Rachel Kraft Elliot, Program Executive of the Jewish Communal Network Commission and Lilly Wajnberg, Director of the Russian Division of UJA-Federation accepted the award on behalf of John S. Ruskay. Jessica Blum, Community Liaison for Seniors, Aging, Disability and Mental Health of the Brooklyn Borough President’s office, presented a Proclamation issued by Borough President Marty Markowitz. The Proclamation saluted the administration and staff of SJCC for their crucial role in meeting the needs of the residents of Brooklyn, and offered posthumous thanks to Lou Maron for his nearly three decades of service to the community. State Senator Carl Kruger issued a Senate Resolution honoring SJCC for sponsoring the conference that showcased the good work of the food pantry program, and for all it does to maintain the dignity of those living at the poverty level. Alec Brook-Krasny, Executive Director of the Council of Jewish Émigré Community Organizations also honored SJCC and presented it with an award for its decades of service to the immigrant community. William E. Rapfogel, Executive Director and CEO of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty welcomed everyone to the conference. He was also the recipient of a special award for his care, concern and sensitivity to the needs of the poor and needy. Assemblyman Steven H. Cymbrowitz presented the award to him on behalf of SJCC. Benny Wechsler, Director of the Kosher Food Network of the Metropolitan Council, received a gift for his dedicated efforts and impressive achievements in improving the quality of life of indigent and impoverished families. Contact: Malya Gross, Site Director, 718-743-0575, Ext. 131. Shorefront Jewish Community Council, 3049 Brighton 6th St., Brooklyn NY 11235. m.gross@shorefrontjcc.org DOROT TO MOBILIZE 200 VOLUNTEERS TO HELP HOMELESS AND OTHER SENIORS ENJOY FOOD AND FRIENDSHIP AT A FESTIVE THANKSGIVING CELEBRATION. Congregation Rodeph Sholom, 7 West 83rd Street, New York. Sunday, November 20. Thanksgiving Dinner served Noon to 3 p.m
DOROT Invites Hundreds of Seniors to a Thanksgiving Feast on Sunday, Nov. 20. If Seniors Are Too Frail to Leave Home, Volunteers Will Bring the Turkey to Them. DOROT is a not-for-profit organization providing programs and services to enhance the lives of the elderly and allow them to live independently at home. DOROT’s Homelessness Prevention Program provides homeless elders with transitional housing and helps relocate them into affordable, permanent housing -- their homeless elders will be there. DOROT’s Annual Thanksgiving Celebration is an afternoon of food, live music, dancing, and conversation, for isolated and homeless Manhattan seniors. DOROT also will send dozens of volunteers to visit the homebound elderly and deliver Thanksgiving dinners to them. About 19% of seniors live in poverty in Manhattan – double the national poverty rate. Of 354,336 single households in Manhattan, about 23% are comprised of individuals 65 and older. Contact Jeannie Mandelker, Harrison Edwards PR, 914-242-0010 or jeannie@harrison-edwardspr.com. On Sunday, Nov. 20, call 914-318-1568. Jeannie Mandelker, Vice President, Harrison Edwards PR & Marketing, 51 Babbitt Road - Suite 7, Bedford Hills, New York 10507 Tel: 914-242-0010 fax: 914-242-0011. mobile: 914-318-1568.
Jerusalem Hanukkah Lamp Enhances Judaic Art Collection at N.C. Museum of Art Crosscurrents:
Art, Craft, and Design in North Carolina:
September 25, 2005 through January 8, 2006
The
Potter's Eye: Art and Tradition in North Carolina Pottery:
October 30, 2005 through March 19, 2006
The North Carolina Museum of Art is one of only two art museums in the nation with a gallery devoted to Jewish ceremonial art. Founded by the late Dr. Abram Kanof, the Judaic Art Gallery displays finely crafted objects for both the synagogue and the Jewish home. The collection continues to grow. This month the Museum has placed on view a magnificent recent acquisition, a large silver Hanukkah lamp in the form of a menorah. Crafted in Jerusalem around 1930, the lamp is a masterpiece of the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts, the first modern design workshop for Jewish ceremonial art. This 3-foot-high lamp was made for either a synagogue or an affluent family. Shaped from cast and hammered silver, it has a basic form that derives from the menorah, the candelabrum of the ancient temple. The style and quality of craftsmanship strongly suggest the work of master silversmiths of Yemenite origin. “Visually marrying European and Middle Eastern artistic traditions, this extraordinary lamp speaks eloquently of Jewish aspirations in the twentieth century,” said John Coffey, deputy director for art at the Museum. “The beauty and aesthetic ambition of this object also speak to the Museum’s own aspirations for the Judaic art collection.” Acquisition of this lamp was made possible through the Friends of the Judaic Art Gallery, a volunteer affiliate group with a mission to support art acquisitions, scholarship and public educational programs related to the Judaic Art Gallery. Founded in 2001, the Friends have raised significant funds and secured donors for a variety of important ceremonial objects for the gallery. “Thanks to the strong and sustained support of the Friends of the Judaic Art Gallery, we are well advanced toward our goal of presenting the finest survey of Jewish ceremonial art in the southeastern United States,” said Coffey. For more information on the Judaic Art Gallery or the Friends of the Judaic Art Gallery, please call (919) 664-6759. For more information on the Museum, call (919) 839-6262. The North Carolina Museum of Art's permanent collection spans more than 5,000 years, from ancient Egypt to the present, making the NCMA one of the premier visual arts museums in the Southeast. The Museum uses its collection to provide educational, aesthetic, intellectual and cultural experiences for the citizens of North Carolina and beyond. The Museum offers a series of changing national touring exhibitions, classes, lectures, family activities, films and concerts. Visit the NCMA’s Web site at The North Carolina Museum of Art, Lawrence J. Wheeler, director, is located at 2110 Blue Ridge Road in Raleigh. It is the Art Museum of the State of North Carolina, Michael F. Easley, governor, and an agency of the Department of Cultural Resources, Lisbeth C. Evans, secretary. Museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. In addition, the Museum is open until 9 p.m. every Friday. Closed Monday. Admission is free. Contact: Jennifer Bahus, Communications Manager, North Carolina Museum of Art , (919) 664-6772, 2110 Blue Ridge Road, Raleigh, NC 2760. Jennifer Bahus JBahus@ncmamail.dcr.state.nc.us
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CONCEIVED AND DESIGNED BY Maximillien de Lafayette http://www.lafemmemagazine.com PUBLISHED BY DE LAFAYETTE WORLD MEDIA ODDITIES OF THE WEEK $65.4-million US Powerball winner found dead in Kentucky home
Norwegian falls asleep on airline flight and ends up landing at starting point
Peanut-allergic Canadian teen dies after kissing her boyfriendA Chicoutimi, Que., high school is in mourning after a 15-year-old girl with a food allergy died suddenly after kissing her boyfriend who had eaten peanut butter. Christina Desforges died earlier this week, after receiving the kiss during the weekend. A shot of adrenaline failed to revive her. She died in hospital Wednesday. "It's a very sad event. (Classmates) are feeling emotional and we had them meet with a psychologist," said school official Michel Cloutier. Health Canada estimates 600,000 Canadians have potentially deadly allergies. Approximately one to two per cent of Canadians -- perhaps eight per cent of children -- are allergic to peanuts and/or tree nuts. Nuts, milk, eggs and shellfish top the list, but peanut is the main cause of fatal food allergy reactions (anaphylaxis), said Ernest Seidman, immunology and food allergies researcher at Ste. Justine Hospital in Montreal. When someone comes in contact with an allergen, the symptoms of a reaction may develop quickly and rapidly progress from mild to severe to fatal, according to Health Canada. The most dangerous symptoms include breathing difficulties, a drop in blood pressure or shock, which may result in loss of consciousness and even death. Severe allergic reactions can occur quickly and without warning. Even trace amounts can be fatal, which is why food labelling is so crucial and why most schools have banned peanuts, Seidman said. People with a nut allergy can have an immediate anaphylactic reaction if they kiss someone who has recently eaten the offending substance, he added. Antibodies to the allergen provoke facial swelling, respiratory distress, bronchial spasms, a drop in blood pressure and hives. Just smelling "peanut vapours" in a poorly ventilated area can send someone into an asthma crisis, Seidman said. About 100 people in the United States die of food allergies every year, most from exposure to nuts. Canadian statistics are not available. "We presume that 10 people die of food allergies on a yearly basis in Canada," said Seidman. An autopsy is expected to reveal Desforges's cause of death .- By C. Feldman.
NOW! ON THE WEBSITE OF THE
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
AGENCY
TWO EXPLOSIVE ARTICLES:
Photo: American
Nick Berg beheaded by Al Zarqawi Terrorist group.
THE
ARAB/PALESTINIAN/ISLAMIC POINT OF VIEW. THE ISRAELI/JEWISH POINT
OF VIEW. PUBLISHED UNEDITED "AS IS". By Maximillien de Lafayette
http://www.internationalnewsagency.org
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MORE TO READ NEWS: ISRAEL AND THE ARAB WORLD... Iran's president says Bush administration should be tried for war crimes
LIFESTYLE If you want to look sharp, wear a "chapeau"!
Old-fashioned hats are experiencing a remarkable boom as 30-somethings copy the look of both modern rappers and jazz stars from the 1950s. Decades after a bare-headed President Kennedy sounded the death knell for traditional hats, sales of homburgs, pork pie hats and bowlers, otherwise known as derbys, have doubled in two years. "The trend began a few years ago with homburgs, when people wanted to dress like rappers such as Biggy Smalls and Tupac Shakur," says Marc Williamson, 36, manager of the JJ Hat Centre on New York's Fifth Avenue. The store, founded in 1911, is the city's oldest hat shop and its panelled walls are lined with fedoras that have teardrop, diamond and round crowns, some with a centre crease, others a pinch front. "The rappers were borrowing from the blaxploitation films of the 1970s, such as Shaft, with that whole big hat, suit, cape and walking-stick pimp look taking off," says Williamson. Last month's edition of Vanity Fair, devoted to rap fashion, pictured singers in a variety of trilbys and Burberry flat caps. Among those photographed in antique British-style clothes designed by Ralph Lauren were Adam Yauch and Mike Diamond of the Beastie Boys, both in pork pie hats.
I'd love to direct, says Madonna
Photo: Madonna attended the Harry Potter premiere with daughter
Lourdes.
Madonna has revealed that the shooting of the latest documentary about her has made her want to follow film director husband Guy Ritchie behind the camera. I would love to direct," she said. "I felt very inspired by making this movie and I learned a lot about film-making. "I would like to do it on my own next time," continued the singer, whose film I'm Going to Tell You a Secret will be shown on Channel 4 on 1 December. Her latest album, Confessions on a Dance Floor, is top of the UK charts. Madonna's comments are part of an interview due to be screened on Channel 4. 'Incredible ballerina': In the program, conducted by TV presenter Dermot O'Leary, the mother of two speaks proudly about her nine-year-old daughter Lourdes and five-year-old son, Rocco. Viewers will see her describe Lourdes as "very musical". "She sings quite well and she's an incredible ballerina," she says. Earlier this month Madonna attended the London premiere of the new Harry Potter film with Lourdes, also known as Lola. There, she revealed, her daughter was left speechless after a chance encounter with one of its stars, Emma Watson. "In the middle of the movie she had to go to the bathroom," she told O'Leary. "Hermione was in there washing her hands and Lola's jaw hit the ground." But Madonna refused to discuss her recent riding accident, which left her with a broken collarbone and three cracked ribs. "I don't want to go there - I get flashbacks," she said. "I'm just starting to feel better." ENTERTAINMENT ISRAELI HIP-HOP GIANT, SUBLIMINAL AND TACT ARTISTS BACK FOR A 2-NIGHT ENGAGEMENT IN NEW YORK AND LOS ANGELES DEC. 24TH AND 25TH TEL AVIV. After their huge success with a sold out U.S tour earlier this year, Kobi Shimoni, known by the stage name of Subliminal -- along with his the TACT crew (The Shadow, SHI 360, Sivan, BooSkills, Itsik Shamly and Gavriel Butler) will head out to the U.S for two dates: New York on Dec 24th at B.B King and Los Angeles on Dec 25th at the Hollywood Avalon. Israeli rapper Subliminal’s presence has been felt around the world and his popularity has generated tens of thousands of record sales hitting gold with the latest album Tact All-Stars on the first day in stores. In his last album Subliminal kicked up some controversy by confronting right-wing political issues in Israel and the neighboring countries. The rapper was not shy about his lyrics in Hebrew and Arabic making his message more powerful to the Middle Eastern community around him. For Israeli teens, it has given voice to their outrage at the state of affairs in their country. Today Subliminal and the TACT family have embraced creative avenues in Israeli Hip-Hop by sampling “old-school” and classic Hebrew songs, collaborating with platinum Israeli singers and well known US artists such as Wyclef Jean, Ashanti, Hip-Hop violinist Miri Ben-Ari, Remedy, Killah Priest and many others. Subliminal and TACT has had an unprecedented success with Hip-Hop music in Israel rapping with nationalist themes into chart-topping albums. In 2006, Subliminal will be dropping his new album with special guest Jean Wyclef. Currently the Israeli club scene and mixtape circuit is playing Subliminal’s song featuring Miri Ben-Ari titled “You Can Get It From Me REMIX” which was recently recorded. Subliminal will be back on their 2nd U.S. tour after album drops. Contact: adeeglazer@echoingsoundz.com Nyack's Bern Cohen Back On NY Stage
Bronfman Youth Fellowships’ Alumna and Producer Screens Excerpts
from Documentary on Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
Nahanni Rous Leads Screening
and Discussions for Fellow BYFI Alumni in
THE BIZARRE Muslims claim Al Aqsa Mosque built by Adam or Abraham A few years ago, an
article appeared on the Web site of the northern branch of Israel's
Islamic Movement by the Egyptian archaeologist Abed al-Rahim Rihan
Barakat, the director of antiquities in the Dahab area of Sinai.
Barakat wrote, "The legend about the Jewish temple is the greatest
historic crime of forgery." Barakat went on to explain that David and
Solomon had small houses of prayer and had no connection to a temple. He
is not alone. A Saudi Arabian historian named Mohammed Hassen Sharab
alleges that the Temple of Solomon was built on the site on which the
Tower of David now stands. A fatwa on the Web site of the Muslim religious
trust (Waqf) in Jerusalem contends that Solomon and Herod did not build
the Temple, but only renovated an earlier structure, dating to the time of
Adam. Another claim, made by the Palestinian Authority mufti for
Jerusalem, Ikrama Sabri, is that the Temple has been built three times,
and that Herod built the third construction. Following this line of logic,
the Third Temple has already been destroyed, and therefore the Jewish
traditions regarding its future reconstruction are groundless. According
to another Muslim version, which has found favor in the past few years,
the Temple of the Jews was in Yemen, of all places. The historian Dr.
Yitzhak Reiter, who is now publishing a book entitled "From Jerusalem to
Mecca and Back - the Muslim Rallying Around Jerusalem," has been collating
for years thousands of publications, religious legal rulings, statements
and pronouncements of Muslim clergymen, historians, public figures and
statesmen on the subject of Jerusalem. His book draws in great
detail a portrait of the great Muslim denial, a denial of the Jewish
connection to Jerusalem, the Temple Mount and to the Temple. This argument
has strengthened in intensity since the Six-Day War. The book is being
published by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, a policy studies
institution established at the initiative of Teddy Kollek in 1978 and has
since published hundreds of studies related to the city and its future.
The institute is funded mainly by contributions and is not dependent on
municipal or state institutions. It releases an annual statistical
yearbook of Jerusalem, and prior to the Camp David Summit in 2000, drafted
the options of the repartitioning of Jerusalem and the surrounding area
between Jews and Palestinians. Its scholars are now conducting studies in
collaboration with Palestinian think tanks.
POLITIC
Resolutions of the 5th
Moledet General Assembly |
Features
visits to Congregation Chasam Sopher, Congregation B’nai Jacob
Anshei Brezezan and Kehila Kedosha Janina, Sunday, December 25th
at 11:15 AM
Photo:
Another masterpiece by Ascalon.
Photo:
Rabbi Moshe Wiener, Executive Director of SJCC and the Jewish
Community Council of Greater Coney Island...A most outstanding
Jewish leader at many levels. A great asset to our Jewish world.
NEWPORT,
Kentucky-- A Kentucky woman who won a $65.4-million US Powerball
jackpot with her husband five years ago was found dead at her
home overlooking the Ohio River, where she had apparently been
for days before anyone found her, police said. Virginia Metcalf
Merida's son discovered her body Wednesday. Police were awaiting
autopsy and toxicology results before announcing a cause of
death. When the woman and her husband, Mack Wayne Metcalf, won
the jackpot, they told lottery officials they were going their
separate ways to fulfill their dreams. Merida planned to quit
her job making corrugated boxes and buy a home. Metcalf, a
forklift operator, wanted to start fresh in Australia. He never
did. Metcalf died in 2003 at age 45 while living in a replica of
George Washington's Mount Vernon estate built in Corbin, Ky. His
death followed multiple run-ins with the law, including a
TERRORISM
AND THE RIGHT TO EXIST.
Nyack's Bern
Cohen Back On NY Stage in Sholem Asch's Motke Thief Decades after
an earlier acting career was traded for child-raising
responsibilities and a career in education, Nyack's Bern Cohen
returned to acting in 2004 via principal roles in feature films
due out shortly where he has scenes alone with the likes of Lena
Olin (Chocolate, The Unbearable Likeness), Freddie Prinze, Jr.,
Jerry Ferrara (Entourage), Malcolm DeNere, and others. "I went
back to school at age 58 to study Acting-For-The Camera with Penny
Templeton and she undid my thirty-year old BA in Theatre Arts and
gave me a contemporary approach and awareness." After what Cohen
describes as a surprisingly successful first year back in acting,
with principal or lead roles in over ten films, his agent, Naomi
Kolstein, suggested he get his stage chops back by getting into a
low-key stage production with high-end talent in Manhattan. Bern
had read lots about Careid O'Brien and her Ireland upbringing,
Yale major in Yiddish, and 2001 Off-Off-Broadway award-winning
production of her first English translation, Sholem Asch's God of
Vengeance. He saw she was mounting a production of her second Asch
translation, Motke Thief. Cohen auditioned and plays a principal
role in this drama of cyclical failure for the lowest of the low
housed in the Warsaw ghetto prior to Nazi rule but in a life of
fear and survival under Polish police. Motke, an abused child,
becomes a killer, changes his name, runs away to be a pimp with
the new name, and falls in love with Cohen's daughter in the play.
"I'm the only one in the ghetto who's as tough as Motke, so he
picked the wrong guy to mess with." Cohen plays Melach, the owner
of a café with a customer base of pimps and prostitutes, and who's
family is on an emotional roller coaster because of Motke's
history. Cohen points out, "Anybody remembering their grandparents
speak of the Yiddish theatre, probably only remembers it as
vaudeville-type melodrama because the elders never shared with the
kids the sad, tragic Yiddish plays they attended, especially the
socially-relevant plays by Asch." Motke Thief is one of them. "I
returned to the stage in an Off-Off Broadway venue because I felt
it would be high-end talent in a more relaxed, less stressful and
hopefully, collaborative environment, all of which has been true."
Bern has also been lucky with scheduling. Last week, on a
rare day with no rehearsals, he played Humphrey Smith, Lena Olin's
agent in Devil You Know, due out in late 2006. This past weekend,
on a Sunday shoot, he was an evil racist CEO to Billouh Greene's
foil in The Minority, also due out in 2006. Motke Thief opens
November 17th for a one-month run at University Settlement in
collaboration with Todo Con Nada Theatre. Bern Cohen can be
contacted via Kolstein Talent Agency 212-937-8967. Contact:
