PEOPLE SOCIETY 2006

JEWISH PEOPLE. CELEBRITIES. EVENTS

NAOMI SOLOMON PRESENTS: SETTLERS.

A photographic portrayal of daily settlement life and the disengagement from Gaza. Thursday, February 16, 7:30pm. Congregation Mogen David • 9717 West Pico Blvd • in the school building. With a musical introduction by Yehuda Solomon and Duvid Swirsky of MOSHAV BAND. Driven to understand the human experience within the political tornado, Los Angeles photographer Naomi Solomon embarked on a personal exploration of Israeli settlement culture and society in March of 2002. She lived inside West Bank and Gaza Strip settlements for as long as three months at a time, executing twelve photographic expeditions to the region. Her project culminated in August of 2005 with the evacuation and destruction of Gaza’s Gush Katif settlements. Join Naomi as she discusses her journey as an independent photographer living among Israel’s front-line settlers and gives a first-hand account of the evacuation and demolition of Gush Katif. Naomi received a BFA in photography from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Her photographs have been published in Mamm Magazine, Newsweek, The Baltimore Jewish Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Jewish Journal, The Jewish Week, and The Philadelphia Exponent. She has lectured in Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York, and Los Angeles. For more information please email: naomisolomon@comcast.net

Beit T’Shuvah Annual “The Steps to Recovery” Gala. Blair Belcher, Warren Breslow and The Skirball Foundation Honorees

Photo: Blair Belcher.

Los Angeles, CA) – Blair Belcher will receive the “Harriet Award,” Warren Breslow will be honored with the “Moses Award,” and The Skirball Foundation has been chosen as the recipient of the “T’Shuvah Award” at Beit T’Shuvah’s The Steps to Recovery annual gala on Sunday, January 29^th at the Beverly Hilton Hotel as announced by Beit T’Shuvah Chief Executive Officer, Harriett Rossetto. “We could not have chosen a more deserving trio to be honored this year. They exemplify what ‘giving back’ to the community is all about,” according to Rossetto, CEO and Founder of Beit T’Shuvah (http://www.beittshuvahla.org/). “There is nothing so moving as being witness to the transformation of the human spirit,” she adds. The Gala Dinner begins at 5:30 PM with a Silent Auction with one-of-a-kind items including a ride for two in the Goodyear Blimp, a party of 18 in the Laker Suite, tickets to the Grammy Awards, and amazing cruises. Dinner will be served at 7 PM.

Photo: Warren Breslow. A universal blend of businessman, visionary and idealist, Warren manages to pay attention to the bottom line while imagining the future. He is a man of irrepressible optimism and enthusiasm who almost always answers “superb” when asked how he is. Warren accepted the presidency of Friends of Beit T’Shuvah in 1995 and in the words of the residents of Beit T’Shuvah, Warren “walks his talk”. As Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Treasurer and General Partner of Goldrich and Kest Industries, Warren has access to the corporate and financial world. He is chairman of the Beit T’Shuvah Capital Campaign Committee. Warren was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1942. He graduated from the Bernard Baruch School of Business Administration in 1965 and he is a Certified Public Accountant in the State of California. He has been with G&K since 1972 and is a Past President and lifetime member of the Board of Directors of Stephen S. Wise Temple.

Lynn Bider and Heidi Praw are gala dinner Co-Chairs. Jeremy Zimmer Chairs the Honorary Dinner Committee with members Scott Berg, Jim Berkus, Tevia Celli, Donald Deline, Toby Emmerich, John Gatins, Adam Goodman, John Goldwyn and Jeff Klein, Clark Gregg and Jennifer Grey, Lynn Harris and Marty Leshem, Tracey Jacobs, Carole Katleman, David Kramer, Tom and Romi Lassally, Amy Lederman, Julianna Margulies, Kevin McCormick, Brian Robbins, Brad Ruderman, Scott Sassa, Caitlin Scanlon, Alex Schwartz, Stacey Sher, Mike Tollin, David Weber, Tom Werner and Julie Yorn.

Photo: Chief Executive Harriett Rossetto, creator and Director of Beit T’Shuvah. Always a woman in search of her “calling”, she knew she had found it 15 years ago when a small want ad in the Los Angeles Times caught her eye. Person of Jewish background and culture to work with Jewish criminal offenders. Masters in Social Work required. Harriet soon realized that the majority of Jews behind bars were there as a by-product of addictive/compulsive behaviors. Their addictions to drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, money and power were stronger than their fear of punishment, creating a revolving door in and out of jails and prisons. Many of them wanted to change and came to the JCPS office when they got out. They were penniless, homeless, hopeless, and helpless. Harriet gratefully accepted the mission to establish a Jewish home to welcome them upon release and help them to heal their souls. The blessing is that the process has been reciprocal. Harriet’s energy and conviction that people can change has sustained Beit T’Shuvah since 1984. The power of her belief and a God-given gift to inspire people has drawn others who want to help.

Beit T’Shuvah, a residential Jewish addiction rehabilitation program, is a therapeutic and spiritual community based on the integration of Jewish wisdom, 12-step recovery and psychotherapy. One of the leading recovery centers in the country, Beit T’Shuvah has served as a haven for many that are emotionally, spiritually and financially bankrupt. In addition to treating those who have “bottomed out,” Beit T’Shuvah staff and residents bring the message of recovery and spirituality to those who may be at risk. Their outreach identifies potential problems early, in order to avoid an inevitable downward spiral of the disease. Beit T’Shuvah’s Professional Staff is headed by Chief Executive Harriett Rossetto and includes Administrative Director Elaine Breslow, Rabbi Mark Borovitz, Controller Faina Geller, Director of Development Lori Tessel, Development Assistant Stacey Rosenholz and Creative Manager Tim Foster. For reservations to the Annual Gala on January 29^th at the Beverly Hilton Hotel’s International Ballroom, please call 310-204-5200 or fax to 310-204-8908. Contact: Lori Tessel 310-204-5200 ext. 212 lori@BeitTshuvahLA.org - By Monique Moss

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Film Screening & Discussion: La Haine (Hate) 97min

Performing Democracy Salon, hosted by Dr. Benjamin R. Barber and the CivWorld Citizen’s Campaign for Democracy. Wednesday, February 15th, 6:30 p.m. At The Brecht Forum, 451 West Street.

Photo: Award-winning French filmmaker, Mathieu Kassovitz.

On February 15th, Dr. Benjamin R. Barber, author of international bestseller Jihad Vs. McWorld, and the CivWorld Citizen’s Campaign for Democracy, are presenting the first in a series of Performing Democracy Salons. The evening will include a screening of La Haine (Hate), the award-winning French film by Mathieu Kassovitz, as well as a post-screening discussion with Dr. Barber and special guests. La Haine was a landmark film at the time it was made – Mathieu Kassovitz was named Best Director at the Cannes Festival in 1995, the year the film was released – but its themes and message are still highly relevant in light of the recent violence in the suburbs of Paris and other French cities. A chronicle of the frustrations of life in an economically depressed suburb of Paris, La Haine follows three teenage boys of different ethnic backgrounds through the streets, violence an ever-present reality of their daily lives.

Photo: Dr. Benjamin R. Barber

Dr. Benjamin R. Barber is a distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and director of the New York office of the Democracy Collaborative. An internationally renowned political theorist, Barber is the author of 17 books including JIHAD VS. MCWORLD (1995) translated into 26 languages; FEAR'S EMPIRE (2003), also published in eight foreign editions; and the classic STRONG DEMOCRACY (1984) reissued in 2004 in a twentieth anniversary edition. He is the founder and director of the CivWorld Citizen’s Campaign for Democracy, centered on Interdependence Day (September 12), a new global holiday modeled on Earth Day, to be held in Morocco in 2006 (and held in Paris in 2005, Rome in 2004, and in Philadelphia in 2003). Dr. Barber's honors include a knighthood (Palmes Academiques/Chevalier) from the French Government (2001), the Berlin Prize of the American Academy of Berlin (2001) and the John Dewey Award (2003). He writes frequently for LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR, DIE ZEIT, LA REPUBBLICA, EL PAIS, HARPER'S MAGAZINE, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE ATLANTIC, and THE NATION. To R.S.V.P. or for more information, please send an email to events@civworld.org $15 in advance; $20 at the door. Light refreshments will be served.-By Julia Green, Media and Public Relations Coordinator, The Democracy Collaborative.

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American Sephardi Federation

with Sephardic House

in association with Yeshiva University Museum and Manhattan JCC

Present

10th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival

February 2-8, 2006

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Celebrating 10 Years of Cinematic Explorations of Sephardic Jewry

Opening Night Screening & Reception Featuring

The Highly Anticipated and AWARD WINNING

Live and Become

Opening Night Thursday February 2nd at 7 PM and Sunday February 5th at 7:30 PM

Photo: John Turturro.

Live and Become (Va, Vis et Deviens); Radu Mihaileanu / France-Israel / 2004 / 143 minutes / Hebrew, French, and Amharic with English subtitles. Audience Award winner of the Berlin Film Festival 2005 will open the festival on February 2nd. From director Radu Mihaileanu comes a poignant story of an Ethiopian boy airlifted from a Sudanese refugee camp during 1984’s Operation Moses. Adopted by a Moroccan family in Israel, the film follows Schlomo’s conflicted journey into adulthood as he struggles with survival, a secret identity, and love.

Saturday February 4th 6:30 PM. Elias Canetti ; Thomas Honickel / Germany / 2005 / 59 minutes / German with English subtitles A "Spanish poet of German language," Elias Canetti grew up a polyglot, living at different periods of his life in Bulgaria, England and Vienna. He was born into an elite Sephardic family who when expelled from Spain in 1492, settled in the Ottoman Empire. His masterpieces “Auto-da-Fé” and “Crowds and Power,” are considered among the most original works of the 20th Century. The film will be followed by a talk with Gloria Ascher, Tufts University on Canetti’s Sephardic heritage.

Saturday February 4th 9:00 PM and Wednesday February 8th 6:00 PM. Secret Passage; Ademir Kenovic / UK-Luxembourg / 2004 / 94mins./ English. Directed by Ademir Kenovic and starring John Turturro, the film is a period piece filled with intrigue and romance. Set in 16th century Venice, Isabel and Clara are growing up in a time of terror. It is 1492, and Spain has decreed that all Jews must either convert to Catholicism, go into exile or face trial and execution. Although forcibly baptized, the sisters are chased through Christendom until they arrive in Venice. It is in this great maritime empire, where opulence rhymes with tolerance, that Isabel organizes secret passages to the Ottoman Empire for refugees fleeing the Inquisition while Clara falls in love with a Venetian nobleman.

Sunday February 5th 12:00. Noon and Tuesday February 7th at 4:00 PM. Salaam Shalom; Vanessa C. Laufer / Canada / 1999 / 50 minutes / English. A colorful film about the Jews of India that brings to life a remarkable history dating back two millennia. A microscopic minority living within a vast, varied nation, Jews who have been in India for thousands of years and more recent immigrants from Iraq and Spain, co-existed in an environment of tolerance and pluralism. With the declaration of Indian independence in 1947 and the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, many of the Jews of India decided to “leave their home to find their home: their religious loyalty stronger than their national loyalty to India.”

Sunday, February 5th 3:30PM. The Last Greeks on Broom Street; NY Premiere by Ed Askinazi / USA / 2004 / 27minutes / English. A personal exploration of filmmaker Ed Askinazi’s heritage doubles as a fascinating glimpse into the little known community of Greek Jews, known as Romaniotes, with 2,000 years of history, their own culture, language, food, liturgical rites and customs. Ethnic communities and the cultures that help define our identities are vanishing throughout America. The Last Greeks on Broome Street explores one such culture, New York City’s Greek Jews – a unique community that thrived on Manhattan’s Lower East Side only a century ago but now borders on extinction.

Sunday February 5th 2:30 PM (DOUBLE FEATURE). A Matter of Time, Common Fate; NY Premiere by Serge Ankri and Marco Carmel / Israel / 2005 / 52 minutes / Hebrew with English subtitles. The little-known story of the Jewish Communities of North Africa (Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco) during WW II, revealing how, had fate not intervened, it was only “a matter of time” until they would share the fate of their co-religionists in Europe. While often considered a Jewish community “apart,” the film reveals through archival and contemporary footage and stills, and extensive interviews with surviving witnesses and historians, that these Jews too were very much in the thoughts of Nazi planners.

Sunday February 5th 5:00 PM and Tuesday February 7th 6:30 PM. Forgotten Refugees; NY Premiere / Michael Grynszpan / USA / 2005 / 49 minutes / English. A documentary that traces the decline and disappearance of once vibrant Middle Eastern Jewish communities that had existed for over 2,500 years. Compelling interviews from modern day Jews from Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, and Libya, who quietly carry the memory, give insight into a destroyed civilization.

Monday February 6th 6:30 PM. Love Iranian American Style; Tanaz Eshaghian / USA / 2005 / 62 minutes / English and Farsi with English subtitles. The film first premiered at the festival in 2001 as a short entitled “The Persian Girl.” Sexual purity, money, and a mother’s worries come together in Tanaz Eshaghian’s humorous documentary, offering a rare glimpse into the inner circles of the tightly knit Persian community in the United States. The film follows Tanaz, the narrator, a hip New Yorker whose Iranian family attempts to marry her off now that she’s reached the ancient age of 25. As they arrange dates with suitors, lament her liberal American upbringing, and agitate about the passing of youth, Tanaz explores whether she can find love in her own way.

Monday February 6th 9:00 PMThe Garden of Finzi Contini; Vittorio De Sica / Italy-West Germany / 1970 / 94 minutes / Italian with English subtitles. Adapted from Giorgio Bassani's 1962 semi-autobiographical novel, the film chronicles the gradual disintegration of the Jewish community living in Italy at the beginning of World War II. As Fascist persecution of the Jews escalates from the onset of Benito Mussolini's anti-Semitic edicts in 1938 to the mass arrests and deportations in 1943, the wealthy Finzi-Contini family open their lush gardens to the persecuted friends of their daughter, Micol, and their son, Alberto. It is through the eyes of one of these friends, a middle-class, Jewish-Italian student named Giorgio, that the story of unrequited love, unfolds.

TICKET INFORMATION: $10.00 General Public; $8.00 American Sephardi Federation/Sephardic House, and Yeshiva University Museum members, seniors and students; $40 Festival Subscription pass good for five films not including Opening Night. Reservations for specific screenings must be made at time of purchase. Opening night screening and reception $45. Tickets can be purchased in advance through the Center for Jewish History Box Office, 15 West 16th Street. Mon-Thur. 12-5pm; Fri. and Sun. 12-3pm; and two hours prior to screenings, or by calling 917-606-8200. Tickets include entrance to Yeshiva University Museum at the Center for Jewish History. Galleries will be open 15 minutes prior to screenings, except Saturday and until 8pm on Mondays. Contact: Anna Samuel, 718.623.3113 or anna@annasamuel.com
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HADASSAH HONORS BONNIE McELVEEN-HUNTER

Photo: Bonnie McElveen-Hunter

Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, saluted the American Red Cross recently by presenting its Chairman of the Board of Governors, Bonnie McElveen-Hunter, with a plaque in appreciation for “its steadfast leadership and unwavering support of Magen David Adom of Israel in its quest for admission to the Federation of the International Red Cross.” In accepting the honor at the national board meetings of Hadassah in Florida last week, McElveen-Hunter confirmed that over the years the ARC had withheld $42 million in dues to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in its unyielding support of Magen David Adom’s admittance to the international body. In early December, governments amended the Geneva Conventions by an overwhelming majority to adopt the third, additional protocol, which would pave the way for Magen David Adom to become a full voting member of the international Red Cross movement by early summer.

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Jewish National Fund Women’s Alliance 2006 Luncheon Series

The Women’s Alliance of Jewish National Fund will host a four-session luncheon series throughout the winter and spring to guide women in making informed decisions about their futures. Sponsored by The Bank of New York, the series will explore topics of importance to women of all ages, from mothers planning for their children’s college funds to baby boomers nearing retirement to seniors applying for Medicaid. "If you are a woman anchoring a family, caring for aging parents or praying that your own senior years will be comfortable, you can't miss JNF's informative approach to the old scout motto of 'be prepared'," said Ita Fink, Esq., Senior Staff Attorney at the JASA Legal Services for the Elderly in Queens and a featured guest speaker of the lecture series. The first of four sessions will be a discussion of the legal, ethical, and religious issues related to Advance Healthcare Directives, living wills, and healthcare proxies featuring guest speakers Barbara H. Urbach Lissner, Esq., of Lissner & Lissner, LLP and Rabbi Elie A. Abadie, M.D., rabbi of the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue and practicing physician. The luncheon will take place on Wednesday, February 8, 2006, from 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm at the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue in Manhattan. A tour of the synagogue and a Tu B’Shevat celebration will follow. Ms. Urbach Lissner and her husband, Michael Lissner, are partners at one of the only firms in the U.S. that specializes in protecting the restitution assets of Holocaust survivors. The children of Holocaust survivors and refugees, they have devoted their careers to helping survivors seek compensation and protect their assets as they age. The firm also focuses on estate planning, elder law and care, and Medicaid planning. Rabbi Abadie, rabbi and spiritual leader of the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue, has a master’s degree in Jewish Philosophy and a medical degree from SUNY Downstate Medical Center. He has a private practice in internal medicine and gastroenterology, and in 2000 was appointed Medical Director of the Beth Israel Medical Center Williamsburg Family Health Center. He has lectured on Jewish themes, philosophy, law, and medical ethics. On Wednesday, March 8, the second session of the lecture series will be held at Congregation Emanu-El in Manhattan, featuring guest speaker Juliette S. Levin, Esq. The session will explain the differences between living trusts and wills and will be followed by a tour of the Herbert and Eileen Bernard Museum of Judaica and a Purim celebration. The third session, dealing with retirement planning for baby boomers and seniors, college savings plans, and IRA withdrawal rules, will be at the JNF House at 42 East 69 Street in Manhattan on Wednesday, April 5. Guest speakers include Moira Katz, Esq., Senior Associate at Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker LLP and Edward J. Mooney, Esq., Managing Director of Financial Planning for The Bank of New York. There will also be a special Passover program. The final session, focusing on asset management and issues concerning the elderly, will be held at the JNF House on Wednesday, May 3 and will feature Ms. Fink of the JASA Legal Services for the Elderly and Wendy H. Sheinberg, Esq., partner at Vincent J. Russo & Associates, P.C. of Nassau and Suffolk. An Israel Independence Day celebration will follow. For more information about JNF’s Women’s Alliance or to register for the luncheon series, please contact Sheila Klamen at 212-879-9300 ext. 294 or by email at sklamen@jnf.org. Each individual session is $18, or subscribe to all four sessions for $50. The Women’s Alliance is a special group of JNF supporters who commit to a minimum annual tax-deductible donation of $365. By joining the JNF’s Women’s Alliance, all four sessions of this luncheon series are complimentary and you will be invited to other exclusive events. Jewish National Fund is a non-profit organization founded in 1901 to serve as caretaker of the land of Israel, on behalf of its owners—Jewish people everywhere. Over the past century, JNF has planted over 240 million trees, built over 180 reservoirs and dams, developed over 250,000 acres of land, created more than 450 parks, provided the infrastructure for 1,000 communities and educated students around the world about Israel and the environment. Today, JNF is putting its century of experience to work with the Blueprint Negev initiative, supporting Israel’s newest generation of pioneers in developing the Negev Desert, Israel’s last frontier. For more information on JNF or to plant trees in Israel, call 1-800-542-TREE (8733) or visit www.jnf.org. To contact your local office, please call 888-JNF-0099.

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Lost Hero by Danny Smith Tribute to Raoul Wallenberg

Tribute to Raoul Wallenberg at the Raoul Wallenberg School in New York Wallenberg's aid to speak to the students, portrait by Mossad Agent will be donated to the school. Agnes Adachi, who aided WWII hero Raoul Wallenberg, will speak for the first time to students at the Raoul Wallenberg School in New York on January 24th. Adachi, 87, will join members of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation in a unique commemoration of Wallenberg, who was captured by the Soviets on January 1945. The event will take place on January 24th at 9:30 am at the Raoul Wallenberg School, located at 3117 Avenue W in Brooklyn. A portrait of Wallenberg, painted by renowned Mossad Agent Peter Malkin, the man who captured Eichmann, will be donated to the school. Malkin, who died in 2005, wrote, "The hands that caught Eichmann, the same hands drew Wallenberg," in the dedication of the painting to the Wallenberg Foundation. During the event, children of the school will read poetry and sing chorus in memory of Raoul Wallenberg.

Photo: Raoul Wallenberg

Raoul Wallenberg is known for his courageous efforts in the rescue aid of over 100,000 lives during the Second World War in Budapest, Hungary. After completing his triumphant feat, he was arrested by the Soviets and never to be heard from again. This week is dedicated to his deeds. Agnes Adachi is a Hungarian Jewish woman who lived in Budapest during the Second World War. Not only was she able to meet and be saved by Raoul Wallenberg, but she also aided him in the rescue of so many of the lives that he had saved. In her personal accounts written in her book, Child of the Winds, she states, "The radio made a new announcement that all the young women between the ages of 15 and 25 had to be in the sports palace the next morning by seven o' clock to work, cleaning up rubble. But we knew better. This was a way to the trains and the gas chambers. Raoul asked all of us to come and write passes for all the young women we knew, while he was again on the road pulling people from the Death Marches. I delivered 500, including one each to [my friends] Anita and Lydia, and to a couple of other friends."

Photo: Agnes Adachi

Her bravery as well as that of Raoul Wallenberg will be commended during the event. Other events and commemorations have been taking place throughout the country. In Boardman, Ohio, a commemoration held at Ohev-Tzedek, Rabbi Joel Berman made a congregation of Sha'arei Torah. Shalom Israel, a radio program in Miami, Florida, had a commemoration hour, featuring Mr. Glanz and Jose Weiss, a Holocaust survivor saved by Raoul Wallenberg. And in New York, two commemoration ceremonies have commenced: the first was at the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue lead by Rabbi Elie Abadie, M.D.; and the second was at the Village Temple, congregation B'nai Israel lead by Rabbi Chava Koster. The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation is known for their prestigious efforts towards Holocaust awareness. Their current task is called the 'Signature Campaign' which is a petition asking for 100,000 signatures (one for each of the lives that Wallenberg saved). In turn, those signatures will be presented to the United Nations and the President of Russia demanding that the truth behind Wallenberg's mysterious disappearance be revealed. The Foundation currently bears 21,795 signatures on their petition.- Press release by Adriana Karagozian

THE BEST AND THE WORST OF THE YEAR:

WINNERS, LOSERS AND TURKEYS.I

fIF you want to know more about the character of a man, watch him playing cards, driving a car, treating an animal, eating out, tipping and observe what he notices first about a woman he just met. If you want to learn more about the occupants of a house, look at their backyard first. If you want to learn more about a nation, count how many public libraries, museums, schools, places of worship, animal shelters, literature and music centers, this or that nation has. If you want to learn more about the social values of a society, count how many couples divorce a year, how many domestic violence lawsuits are filed in each county, how many children and grown ups still revere their parents, teachers and the elderly. And finally, if you want to know more about the civilization and culture of a nation, find out what citizens of that nation read, search for, learn about, and value most. In other words, you got to know about the "most and less" important stuff they look at and or search for. Thanks to the Internet, your task becomes easy, because your computer set allows you to easily find out what people today visit most, read about and click on. And here is what I found about the preferences, priorities, choices, "the most and less" important "stuff" of people of our civilized world...quite revealing and chocking. Judge for yourself. PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 PART 4 PART 5 PART 6 PART 7

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Koret Foundation Funds Awards $100,000 Matching Grant
to Caravan for Democracy High School Edition
Funding Will Allow for Expansion of Israel Advocacy Program

Photo: Ephraim Sneh, member of the Israeli Knesset and Hillel Kipnis, a student at the Midrasha school in Berkeley, California, at a Caravan for Democracy HSE event.

On the heels of a successful pilot year, Koret Foundation Funds of San Francisco has renewed its support of Jewish National Fund’s Caravan for Democracy High School Edition by awarding the program with a $100,000 matching grant. "After funding the inaugural year of this program, we are happy to once again participate in JNF's Caravan for Democracy High School program in Northern California,” said Jeff Farber, Executive Director of Koret. “Surely our support recognizes JNF's work in high schools to better acquaint students with the positive aspects of Israel, and ways in which to advocate for Israel once they reach college." Caravan for Democracy High School Edition (HSE) empowers high school juniors and seniors to advocate for Israel and respond to anti-Israel sentiments when they go off to college.

Jane Whitfield and Jeffrey Farber Photo: Jeff Farber with Jane Whitfield.

The program has filled a void in Jewish education that previously left many students unprepared to support Israel when faced with opposing viewpoints or hostility. Through advocacy training, public speaking seminars, and lectures featuring media specialists, Israeli politicians, and professionals in interactive learning, Caravan for Democracy HSE prepares students for the challenges they will face when they are away from home and removed from familiar surroundings. It teaches them about the current situation in Israel and guides them to stand up for Israel in concrete and meaningful ways. “In The UnCivil University, a book we just released, we found systemic anit-Israelism on campuses throughout the United States, and will be releasing a volume this year on anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism in America’s high schools and middle schools,” said Dr. Gary Tobin, president of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research. “We found there are many negative images in textbooks and supplemental materials and many negative sentiments expressed by guest speakers. It is important that programs like Caravan for Democracy High School Edition be successful in dealing with this serious issue.”

Koret, founded in 1979, is dedicated to promoting educational excellence and opportunity, shaping a diverse cultural landscape, and bolstering agencies that are innovative in their approach to meeting community needs in the San Francisco Bay Area. Koret’s generous funding of Caravan for Democracy HSE will enable JNF to expand the program, which reached 700 students and more than 50 community professionals and teachers in the Bay Area last year, to include those who are not affiliated with Jewish schools, clubs, or centers of Jewish learning. This year Caravan will hold 10 main programs with multiple events, reaching 3,000 students in the San Francisco region. Additionally, the matching grant will allow Caravan for Democracy HSE to give each participating student a paperback copy of the internationally acclaimed book The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land by award-winning journalist Donna Rosenthal. The book is a balanced portrait of the many faces of contemporary Israelis--from students to soldiers to high-techies, Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews to Israeli Druze, Christian and Muslim Arabs to Ethiopian and Russian immigrants. The Israelis provides students with a deeper understanding of Israeli culture and society than mainstream media coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict does. "I'm delighted that my book will become part of this exciting, innovative project to smash stereotypes and provide students insights into the rich tapestry of modern Israeli society little known by Jews and non-Jews alike," said Ms. Rosenthal, a former Israel TV producer, Israel Radio reporter and journalism instructor who has written for The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and Newsweek. Ms. Rosenthal will discuss her book and Israeli diversity with Caravan for Democracy HSE schools and facilitate breakout sessions with students and teachers. A member of the JNF Speaker's Bureau, she was rated one of the top ten most popular Jewish speakers by Publisher's Weekly magazine. “JNF is proud to work together with Koret and other local organizations to bring Israel advocacy and education to Northern California,” said Dr. Sol Lizerbram, JNF Vice President of College Activism. “By preparing and empowering high school students for Israel activism, we are helping to promote pro-Israel education and activity on campus and in our communities.”To find out how you can join the effort to support Caravan for Democracy HSE in San Francisco, contact Sherri Morr, JNF Western States Zone Director at 415-677-9600 or smorr@jnf.org. To learn more about Caravan for Democracy HSE or support a program in another community, contact Mara Suskauer, Executive Director, Israel Advocacy and Education at 212-879-9305 ext. 245 or msuskauer@jnf.org.

Jewish National Fund is a non-profit organization founded in 1901 to serve as caretaker of the land of Israel, on behalf of its owners—Jewish people everywhere. Over the past century, JNF has planted over 240 million trees, built over 180 reservoirs and dams, developed over 250,000 acres of land, created more than 450 parks, provided the infrastructure for 1,000 communities and educated students around the world about Israel and the environment. Today, JNF is putting its century of experience to work with the Blueprint Negev initiative, supporting Israel’s newest generation of pioneers in developing the Negev Desert, Israel’s last frontier. For more information on JNF or to plant trees in Israel, call 1-800-542-TREE (8733) or visit http://www.jnf.org/.

About Koret -- An entrepreneurial spirit guides the Koret Foundation and its sister philanthropy, the Koret Fund, in addressing societal challenges and strengthening Bay Area cultural and community life. By investing in pioneering, strategic solutions, Koret helps develop models that inspire replication in communities across the nation and around the world. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Koret focuses its support on strengthening organizations that improve the quality of life in our region. By promoting educational excellence and opportunity, shaping a diverse cultural landscape, and bolstering agencies that are innovative in their approach to meeting community needs, Koret adds to the region’s vitality and opportunity. Internationally, Koret Israel Economic Development Funds (KIEDF) provide loan guarantees to small businesses, and Koret Fellows pursue policy reform to help move Israel toward a free-market economy. The Koret Foundation and the Koret Fund are private philanthropic organizations run by independent boards of directors. Since 1979, these boards have directed more than $315 million towards projects that reflect a new philanthropic vision.

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ELIAS CANETTI: A SPANISH POET OF GERMAN LANGUAGE A Celebration of the Nobel Laureate On His Centennial Anniversary presented at the Center for Jewish History

Elias Caneti (July 25, 1905-August 14, 1954). Click on each photo. It is a treat!

Elias Canetti, Juni 1973 Photo: Elias Caneti.

Behind the accessible smoothness of his autobiography, there is a reserve which, twisting and taking on disguise, conceals an unsuspected otherness, an ungraspable and unconceivable identity. (…) Both of them are teaching us, day in and day out, how to unmask the mad delusion of power and of death, and both remind us of a statement in “The Human Province:”

“Everyone is the center of the world. Everyone.” Claudio Magris, author of the “Danube,” winner of the 2001 Erasmus Prize.

The American Sephardi Federation, Leo Baeck Institute, and Centro Primo Levi at the Center for Jewish History are presenting day-long festivities to mark the centennial year of writer, intellectual, and Nobel Laureate, Elias Canetti. With special events dedicated in several European cities to honor Canetti’s 100^th anniversary this past year, the Center for Jewish History represents the only venue in the US to pay homage to one of the great revolutionary thinkers of the 20^th century. The Center for Jewish History is located at 15 West 16 Street, New York City. Elias Canetti’s considerable reputation, and one that is especially revered by his peers, is based largely on his articulation – outside of ephemeral ideologies and short-lived battles – of the way in which totalitarian rulers come to power through the mythical culture of historical heroes.

Photos from L to R: #1. Caneti in 1904, the child. #3. Caneti the man and the poet.

Through films, readings, and talks by preeminent scholars at the Center, audiences will be given a rare opportunity to participate in a dialogue exploring the link between Canetti’s Sephardic roots and his Mittlel European identity that formed the basis for his ideas. Of all his contemporaries, Canetti is the one who by the very nature of his persona and his writings, most drastically defies general expectation and eludes specific explanation. The internationally acclaimed Italian author, Claudio Magris, will lead the talks in exploring the man and his work. Speakers from the academic community will examine Canetti’s life-long reticence to be public, his eclectic; quasi-Renaissance interest for the human experience as a whole; his annoyance at ethnic labels; the almost disorienting absence in his writing of any obvious rhetoric and any ready-made morale; the unemotional way in which he analyzes the ability of humans to commit horrors; all of which contributed to alienating Canetti from the wider readership he so richly deserved. Yet, writers and intellectuals with an international perspective, e.g. the late Susan Sontag or Salman Rushdie have been able to treasure these traits and have written beautifully of the importance of Canetti’s thought, placing his work into an immediate relation to American culture. This event is presented by the Primo Levi Center, the Leo Baeck Institute, and the American Sephardi Federation and is made possible through the generous contributions of The Cahnman Foundation, the Italian Cultural Institute, and the New York Council for the Humanities, a State affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Photo: The tomb stele of Caneti in Zurich.

Program schedule: Sunday, October 30, 2005 , Brunch time film screening , 12 noon - ELIAS CANETTI by Thomas Honickel, Germany, 2005. (60 min., German w/English subtitles. U.S. premiere). Talks and debates 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm , Gloria Ascher, Tufts University , Michael Taussig, Columbia University , Dagmar Barnouw, University of Southern California , Robert Elbaz, University of Haifa . Readings, lecture, and public dialogue 7:30 pm - An evening salon on Elias Canetti with Claudio Magris and other guests. Introduced and moderated by Liliane Weissberg, University of Pennsylvania. For reservations, please call the Center for Jewish History Box Office at 917-606-8200. Film & talks: $20 and $10 students /faculty, and members of LBI and ASF. Evening lecture: $20 and $10 students/faculty, and members of LBI and ASF. The Date Palm Café will remain open all day. All-day Pass: $35 (includes 10% discount at the bookstore and café). This event is presented by the Primo Levi Center, the Leo Baeck Institute, and the American Sephardi Federation and is made possible through the generous contributions of The Cahnman Foundation, the Italian Cultural Institute, and the New York Council for the Humanities, a State affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The following organizations have contributed to the outreach for this symposium: Center for the Humanities at CUNY Graduate Center, Institute for the Humanities at New York University, the Goethe Institute New York, the Deutsches Haus at NYU, and the National Book Foundation.The Canetti Centennial Celebration is being presented as part of the Gisella Levi Cahnman Open Seminar Series at the Center for Jewish History, which brings together international scholars and public audiences. It is made possible through the support of the Cahnman Foundation, the Italian Cultural Institute and the New York Council for the Humanities, a State affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. For further information and a complete press packet, including biographical information on Elias Canetti, Cluadio Magris and speakers, visit www.cjh.org. You may also contact Natalia Indrimi, Program Curator for the Center for Jewish History at 212-294-8314, nindrimi@cjh.org.

Biographical Information on Elias Canetti AND HIS WORK

Novelist, essayist, sociologist, and playwright, Elias Canetti, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981. Canetti was born in Roustschouk, a small port in Bulgaria on the river Danube, into a well-to-do Jewish family of Sephardic descent. His parents Jacques Canetti and Mathilde Canetti run an amateur theater. One of his brothers became a famed producer who launched among others, Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel, Serge Gainsbourg, and Boris Vian. At age six, his family moved to Manchester, England. After the death of his father, his mother took the family to Vienna. From 1916 to 1921 Canetti studied in Zürich, and produced his first literary work. During a visit to Berlin in 1928 he met Bertolt Brecht, Isaak Babel, and George Grosz, and started to plan a series of novels on the subject of human madness. He graduated in 1929 with a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Vienna, where he became exposed to the salon of Karl Kraus and met his lifelong companion Venethiana Taubner-Calderon. In 1938 he fled to Paris and a year later to England, where he lived for the rest of his life. Canetti has defined himself by defining his languages: “A Spanish poet of German language;” “The only literary person in whom the languages of the two great expulsions are found in close proximity."

The dialogue between his Sephardic roots and his Mittel-European identity is essential to his self-perception, and at the same time is what makes his experience completely foreign to many, Jews and non-Jews. His place in the history of ideas is twice removed from the current “center:” The entire historical memory he represents is rooted in the exile from Spain and the successful resettlement all across Europe and the Ottoman Empire of a highly sophisticated, integrated, and multifaceted strand of the people of the book. Canetti’s mental map lies on the European-Ottoman axle, which, by the end of World War I, had been supplanted by the Soviet-American axle. Secondly, even in the face of what he defines as “Hitler’s most monstrous undertaking,” Canetti chooses to continue his battle against “the culture of the survivor,” which his people, the Jews of Spain, had always, even as conversos, refused to accept as a possible way of life. To understand Canetti, his fierce rejection of death, and the adoring exploration of life in all its forms, colors, inventive as well as destructive manifestations, his non-normative, ever-open approach to the queries of the mind, we must understand the Sephardic perspective on history and the way in which Inquisition changed the face of Europe. Furthermore, from the Sephardic tradition of sages, healers, thinkers, and practitioners of all trades of life, Canetti draws a form of humility that has long been won over by the “culture of the survivor.” It’s a humility that at the same time regards one’ self as a respected given, valuable part of the creation, but not as a primary object of one’s own inquiry.

A humility thanks to which one’s ego does not need to be harnessed, because it is simply understood as one of the many points of view co-existing in the universe. It is precisely in this perspective that his three autobiographical works can be better understood, not as a way to conceal his “true” (and possibly mystifying) self, as most critics lament, but as a way to use facts from one’s relatively (un)important life, to disclose a broader human reality. This background is equally relevant to fully appreciate Canetti’s masterpiece, Auto-da-Fé. Auto-da-fé is a puzzling work. It is a modern epic on the folly brought about by the separation of the book from the world. Unlike Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, however, Auto-da-Fé does not entrust to the book per se any saving power. While composing some of the most heartbreaking paragraphs on book burning, Canetti clearly sees that the book is an instrument, a means of expression and communication, but is not the primary source of life. Nor can be called upon as a justification for isolation or death. For Canetti the ultimate responsibility to communicate and renew life rests with no other but man.

THE SPEAKERS

Gloria Joyce Ascher was born in the Bronx, New York of parents from Izmir, Turkey. Descended from the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492, she grew up in the Sephardic (Judeo-Spanish) tradition. She attended the Bronx High School of Science, Hunter College (B.A., summa cum laude), the University of Bonn, Germany (Fulbright Grant), and Yale University (M.A., Ph.D., Germanic Languages and Literatures). She is the co-director of the Program in Judaic Studies at Tufts University. Her Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) Language and Culture course is the only one offered by a US college. Gloria Ascher also teaches German and Scandinavian literature. She is a writer and composer. Her poems are included in the trilingual (Judeo-Spanish, German, and Turkish) anthology of Sephardic poetry published in Austria in 2002 as part of the series “Lyrik der Wenigerheiten” (poetry of minority peoples). Ascher’s translation of Matilde Koén-Sarano’s two-volume Ladino grammar text (2002, 2003) is the only Ladino grammar available in English.

Dr. Professor Dagmar Barnouw

Dr. Barnouw is a professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. She has taught at Brown University, University of Texas and as a guest professor at numerous German universities, notably a semester at Rostock University. Her research and teaching has been interdisciplinary, extending into the fields of historiography, anthropology, sociology, political science, the history and theory of documentary photography, and more recently also clinical and cognitive psychology. She is the author of 11 books, including studies of Eduard Moerikes poetry, the cultural politics of Thomas Mann, of Elias Canetti's poetic anthropology and sociology of death (1979 and 1996), on utopian discourse from Thomas More to feminist science fiction (1985); her books published in the US include Weimar Intellectuals and the Threat of Modernity (1988); Visible Spaces: Hannah Arendt and the German-Jewish Experience (1990); Critical Realism: History, Photography, and the Work of Siegfried Kracauer (1994); Germany 1945 Views of War and Violence (1997); Naipaul’s Strangers (2003). Her current book project is The Uses of Remorse: Memory and Politics in Postwar Germany which begins with a critical comparative discussion of fundamentalisms in political Zionism and Islam.

Professor of German and Comparative Literature, (Ph.D. Yale University). Fields of research and teaching: the intellectual history and theory of cultural and political modernity (18th to 21st century), Dagmar Barnouw came to USC's Departments of German and Comparative Literature in 1988 from positions as Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Brown University (1981-1985; Associateprofessor 1979-1981) and the University at Texas at Austin (1985-1988). She has taught as a guest professor at numerous German universities, notably a semester at Rostock University (German Democratic Republic, 1982. Her numerous grants and awards include a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (1983/84), a Getty Senior Research Fellowship (1993/94), a Humboldt Senior Research Award Fellowship (1997/98); two Phi Kappa Phi USC Faculty Recognition Book Awards (1991 and 1998); a USC Associates Award for Creativity in Research and Scholarship (1998) and a variety of book prizes and nominations including Choice's "Outstanding Academic Book of 1990" and the Maine Photographic Workshops Award, Best Critical Photographic Study (1997) . Her research and teaching has been interdisciplinary, extending into the fields of historiography, anthropology, sociology, political science, the history and theory of documentary photography, and more recently also clinical and cognitive psychology. She is the author of 11 books, including studies of Eduard Moerikes poetry, the cultural politics of Thomas Mann, of Elias Canetti's poetic anthropology and sociology of death (1979 and 1996), on utopian discourse from Thomas More to feminist science fiction (1985); her books published in the US include Weimar Intellectuals and the Threat of Modernity (1988); Visible Spaces: Hannah Arendt and the German-Jewish Experience (1990); Critical Realism: History, Photography, and the Work of Siegfried Kracauer (1994); Germany 1945 Views of War and Violence (1997); Naipaul’s Strangers (2003). In a large number of essays and research articles she has explored contemporary cultural and political issues in the context of their history, including questions of feminism, technocracy and the politics of identity, modernity and documentarism (verbal and photographic), the cultural politics of memory, and most recently the growing power of fundamentalisms in both Western and non-Western political culture. Her current book project is The Uses of Remorse: Memory and Politics in Postwar Germany which begins with a critical comparative discussion of fundamentalisms in political Zionism and Islam.

Born in Morocco under French colonization, Robert Elbaz is professor and chairman of French studies at the University of Haifa. He received his PhD. in comparative literature from McGill University. A literary critic and a fascinating reader of Maghrebian, Mediterranean, and Sephardic literature of the 20^th century, Elbaz wrote on extensively on authors such as Tahar Ben-Jelloun, Albert Memmi, Mouloud Feraoun, Rachid Mimouni, Albert Cohen, Elias Canetti. Robart Elbaz’ interests span from semiotics to 19^th century political theory and many of his studies wrestle with the notion of marginality in the narrative of the contemporary global world. The shifting of cultural paradigms and power centers from Europe and the former Ottoman Empire to the United States and former Soviet Union provides the backdrop for some of his work on the theory of autobiography and the changing nature of the self. His new book, Literature and Society in Elias Canetti will be published in January.

Photo: Claudio Magris

An internationally acclaimed writer, scholar and public figure, Claudio Magris began his literary career in 1963 when, at the age of 24, he published his first book, Il mito absburgo nella letteratura austriaca moderna (The Hapsburg Myth in Modern Austrian Literature). One of the last commentators of Central European intellectual history. Magris has significantly contributed to contextualize for a broad readership the works of such writers as Arthur Schnitzler, Hugo von Hofmansthal, Karl Kraus, Franz Kafka, Elias Canetti, and Joseph Roth.

Their books, collectively and individually, document the dissolution of the Hapsburg Empire and reveal the existential predicament of individuals faced with the cultural crisis of a once monolithic social order. Magris's most critically acclaimed works are Danube, published in Italy in 1986 and in the United States in 1989, and Microcosms, which was published in Italy in 1997 where it won the Strega Prize, Italy's top literary award; it was published in English by Harvill Press.

Michael Taussig is a professor of anthropology at Columbia University and is considered one of the most eminent cultural anthropologists and public intellectuals working in the United States today. With an international reputation for scholarly work that crosses disciplinary boundaries, addresses contemporary issues and is innovatively engaged with the process of writing and performance, Professor Taussig speaks to and writes for a broad audience within and outside the academy. An Australian by birth and originally trained in medicine at the University of Sydney, Professor Taussig's internationally renowned major works have been stimulated by continuing fieldwork in South America, principally Colombia, over more than thirty years. His writing has addressed areas of theoretical interest in the social sciences and humanities apart from anthropology, including geography, history, political science, cultural studies, post-colonial studies, international studies and creative writing. Taussig has talked about Elias Canetti in relation to ethnological concepts expressed in Crowds and Power.

Since Michael Taussig began fieldwork in 1969 in Colombia his writing has spanned different issues in roughly the following order: two books in Spanish for local people on the history of slavery and its aftermath, and books and articles in academic journals on 1) commercialization of agriculture, 2) slavery, 3) hunger, 4) the popular manifestations of the working of commodity fetishism, 5) the impact of colonialism (historical and contemporary) on "shamanism" and folk healing, 6) the relevance of modernism and post-modernist aesthetics for the understanding of ritual, 7) the making, talking, and writing of terror, 8) mimesis in relation to sympathetic magic, state fetishism, and secrecy, and 9) defacement. Much of his work is an attempt to develop new forms of cultural artifactuality in the writing itself. His two most recent books are Law in a Lawless Land: Diary of a Limpieza (The New Press, 2003), and My Cocaine Museum (Chicago U.P., 2004).

Liliane Weissberg is professor of Germanic languages and literatures at University of Pennsylvania. She is an extensively published scholar and frequent lecturer both in the U.S. and abroad. After completing her M.A. at the Freie Universität Berlin, she earned her A.M. and Ph.D. in comparative literature from Harvard. She arrived at Penn from Johns Hopkins University in 1989 and was named the Joseph B. Glossberg Term Professor in the Humanities (Almanac October 21, 2003). She has had visiting appointments at universities throughout Germany. Before her current term as graduate chair of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Liliane Weissberg served for seven years as chair of the Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory. She teaches a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses and is a member of the Center for Folklore and Ethnography, the graduate group in art history, the Jewish Studies Program, and the Women's Studies Program. Her commitment to teaching was recognized in 2003 with a Lindback Award (Almanac April 22, 2003).

Dr. Liliane Weissberg, Professor of German and Comparative Literature, has been reappointed the Joseph B. Glossberg Term Professor in the Humanities, a title she has held since 1998. After completing her M.A. at the Freie Universität Berlin, Dr. Weissberg earned both her A.M. and Ph.D. in comparative literature at Harvard University. Before coming to Penn in 1989, Dr. Weissberg taught at Harvard University, Hochschule der Künste Berlin, and The Johns Hopkins University. In addition to her faculty position in the department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, she is a member of the Center for Folklore and Ethnography, the Jewish Studies Program, the art history graduate group, and the advisory committee in Women's Studies. Since 1986, Dr. Weissberg has held visiting appointments throughout Germany, including a professorship at Hochschule für Jüdische Studien in Heidelberg this past summer.Dr. Weissberg's research interests include German, American, and French literature; literary theory; aesthetics; and cultural studies. To address themes of German-Jewish literary and cultural tradition, her recent work focuses on Jewish women writers of the early 19th century. Distinguished scholarship in these fields has earned her fellowships from the American Philosophical Society, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture as well as recognition from the Netherlands-America Association. In April, Dr. Weissberg received a Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Award to honor her commitment to teaching excellence. In addition to publishing close to 100 articles, she has authored or edited ten books and recently completed a monograph entitled Approaching Gentility: Early German-Jewish Autobiography and the Quest for Acculturation. She currently serves as general editor of the book series Kritik: German Literary Theory and Cultural Studies and is on the editorial boards of the Lessing Yearbook, Poe Studies, and Medienkultur. Dr. Weissberg has shared her expert commentary on BBC WorldServices and CBC in Toronto broadcasts.

Contact: Natalia Indrimi, Program Curator, 212-294-8314; nindrimi@cjh.org Eric Katzman, Public Relations, 212-294-8252; ekatzman@cjh.org

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AMERICA'S 100 GREATEST JEWISH WOMEN OF THE YEAR. Read full article

Jewish women of greatness in all fields. Clicking on the link will direct you to our Mega website at http://www.worldjewishnewsagency.org

DISTINGUISHED JEWISH PERSONALITIES OF THE YEAR

The European Journal ( http://www.europeanjournal.net ) in the section "JUDAICA" of its annual feature article "THE BEST AND THE WORST OF THE YEAR", included the following:

JUDAICA:

Photos from L to R: #1. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. #2. Dr. Jerome S. Kaufman. #3. Diva Paulette Attie. #4. Dr. Ilil Arbel.

America's most generous Jewish people: Dr. Ilil Arbel, Diva Paulette Attie, Dr. Jerome S. Kaufman.

New York's most honored and appreciated Rabbi for his humanitarian contributions: Rabbi Moshe Wiener. New York's best Jewish charitable and educational organization in service of the general public: Jewish Community Council of Greater Coney Island, Inc., 3001 West 37th Street, Brooklyn, New York

Photos from L to R: #1. Moti Sandak. #2. Rabbi Moshe Wiener. #3. The fabulous Isabel Rose.

World's most revered Rabbi and Judaic scholar-author: Adin Steinsaltz. World's best Jewish Theater Organizations: 1-Jewish Theater of New York, created by Tuvia Tenenbom. 2- All About Jewish Theater, created by Moti Sandak. USA's brightest, most delightful and tragi-comic columnist and TV host: Arlene Peck. New York's most talented, educated and brightest entertainer and movie star: Isabel Rose. Congrats! And Mazel Tov!!