The Arts

‘Black Widow’ spins new Covid-era box office record

Published by AFP Los Angeles (AFP) – New Disney superhero film “Black Widow” took in an estimated $80 million in North America this three-day weekend, a pandemic-era record as the Marvel Universe showed continuing lure, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported Sunday. The movie, starring Scarlett Johansson as the cat-suited superspy, took in an additional $60

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Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Good News from Israel (July 11, 2021)

-In the July 11, 2021 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include: 
–Israeli breakthroughs in transplantation and medical device technology.
–Israel provides running water to Tanzanians and Native Americans.
–Israel’s Technion is Europe’s top institute for Artificial Intelligence.
–Israel has begun producing pure water from the Jordan River.
–A face-recognition tech startup is Israel’s latest $1 billion company.
I–sraelis won medals at informatics and acrobatics.
–Stunning discoveries revealed during excavations in Jerusalem.
[Michael Ordman]

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Business & Finance, International, Jewish History, Michael Ordman, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Science, Medicine, & Education, Sports & Competitions, Travel and Food, USA

Scarlett Johansson: I’m done with Black Widow

Published by BANG Showbiz English Scarlett Johansson has “no plans” to return to playing Black Widow. The 36-year-old actress has played Natasha Romanoff and her superhero alter-ego in several Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies, and recently took on the role in her own solo movie after the eponymously titled ‘Black Widow’ movie hit cinema screens

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Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Why I Launched a Podcast About Antisemitism

In August 2016 in Berlin my younger daughter and I visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism, and Holocaust exhibits at the Jewish Museum Berlin. It seemed that Germany was doing rather well with coming to terms with the country’s horrendous crimes against Jews and others during WWII. [Phyllis Zimbler Miller]

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International, Jewish History, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, USA

Good News from Israel (July 4, 2021)

In the July 4, 2021 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include: 
–An Israeli TB diagnosis patch could save up to 1.4 million lives a year.
–Israeli experts are helping rescuers in the Miami building collapse.
–Israeli scientists have developed a material two atoms thick.
–Two Israeli startups make record-breaking public launches.
–Israeli teenagers win gold at European gymnastics competition.
–Israeli mother donates her kidney to save a Gaza boy.
[Michael Ordman]

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Business & Finance, International, Lifestyles, Michael Ordman, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Science, Medicine, & Education, Sports & Competitions, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Travel and Food, USA

‘The Princess Bride’ Was a Jewish Fantasy Film

While the sixties saw a boom in Jewish culture (the Fiddler and Yentl movies, the Anne Frank play, Woody Allen, Barbara Streisand, etc.) the tradition of covertly Jewish characters continued for decades more. And that brings us to The Princess Bride. Blond, British Wesley and his peasant-to-princess Buttercup read as goyish. They’re the heroes, fighting the spoiled prince who won’t let them fall in love. However, basically every other character reads as a European ethnic minority –if not Jewish then honorary mishpucha. [Valerie Estelle Frankel]

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Jewish History, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

One-of-a-Kind Biography about Author of ‘All-of-a-Kind Family’ Books

When the Association of Jewish Libraries evaluates a book with Jewish content that it finds particularly good, it awards the author its Sydney Taylor Book Award after the author of the All-of-a-Kind series of books that introduced a Jewish family, with siblings who dressed alike, to America’s non-Jewish children and to their parents.  The Jewish series was the first put on the market by a general publisher, thus breaking a barrier in children’s literature. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Jewish History, USA

Motion, Violence are Elements of MMA’s Cézanne Exhibit

The Museum of Modern Art is currently presenting an exhibition devoted to an in-depth review of Paul Cézanne’s drawings. If there is any criticism to be made of this extraordinary show, it is that it is frankly overwhelming: with roughly 280 pencil, ink and gouache drawings and watercolors (and even a handful of oil paintings), there is so much to take in that two or three visits to the exhibition may be required to do it justice. [Sam Ben-Meir, Ph.D]

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Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Sam Ben-Meir, USA

If Only She Had Remained in Pre-State Israel

I read this in ebook form as I was told it dealt with Chortkow, the town in Poland (now Ukraine) from which my in-laws came. As I read on I found many similarities between the two stories – both Syma, the heroine of the book, and my in-laws came from a medium-sized town with a large Jewish population, many of whom were assimilated and prosperous. The crux of the story takes place in the port town of Haifa in pre-State Israel, which is also where my in-laws lived. But they fortunately remained there, whereas the heroine of this (real-life) story returned to Chortkow, where the Holocaust caught up with her, leading to her tragic death. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Jewish History, Middle East

Yoni Netanyahu Proved Himself a Hero Before Entebbe

It is not widely known that Yoni Netanyahu was a hero long before he commanded the Entebbe operation. He played a key role in many other crucial Israeli security operations exhibiting courage and valor in the most dangerous of circumstances. He was a living example to the world’s statesman that terrorism can be beaten – if the nations of the world have the will to fight back. [Moshe Phillips]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Jewish History, Middle East

Jews in ‘The Decameron’

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) authored The Decameron around 1348, a word meaning “ten days,” referring to the activities described in the book. The book’s subtitle Prencipe Galeotto refers to the legendary friend of Lancelot, an enemy of King Arthur. He helped Lancelot seduce and bed Arthur’s wife Guinevere. The subtitle catches the theme found frequently in the book of tricks played on unworthy men, usually husbands, and of lonely women who were confined in their homes in the 14th century by their spouse and fathers while longing for sex, while men engaged in a fun-filled life which included bouts of drinking and forbidden sex. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr.