Scene-stealing actor Charles Grodin, star of ‘Beethoven’ and ‘Midnight Run,’ dead at 86

Published by New York Daily News Actor Charles Grodin, whose dry wit and everyman persona led to long-running Hollywood success in films like “The Heartbreak Kid” and the unlikely family movie hit “Beethoven,” died peacefully Tuesday at his Connecticut home. The 86-year-old Grodin died at his Wilton, Connecticut, residence of bone marrow cancer, his family […]

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Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Analysis: Biden sticks to Israel-Gaza playbook, irking progressives and allies

Published by Reuters By Matt Spetalnick, Steve Holland and Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With his muted response to the Gaza conflict, President Joe Biden is largely sticking to a time-worn U.S. playbook despite pressure from progressive Democrats for a tougher line toward Israel and from America’s allies for a more active role to end

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Middle East

US condemns Erdogan ‘anti-Semitic’ remarks

Published by AFP Washington (AFP) – The United States on Tuesday sharply criticized Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for what it called “anti-Semitic” remarks amid his denunciations of Israel’s strikes in Gaza. “The United States strongly condemns President Erdogan’s recent anti-Semitic comments regarding the Jewish people and finds them reprehensible,” State Department spokesman Ned Price

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Middle East

Responding to the ‘Proportionality’ Argument Against Israel’s Actions in Gaza

Israel’s battle with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza exceeds one week. It may not end soon. The citizens of Israel most impacted by the daily rocket attacks (3300 and rising) are those who live in the “Gaza envelope,” very close to the Gaza borders, but towns across Israel have also been hit, some many times. Are Israelis physically exhausted, psychologically exhausted, and scared? Yes. Do they want Israel to sign a ceasefire today or tomorrow? No. What Israelis want is a different paradigm in their country, which will lead to a better, more peaceful relationship with the Gazan Arabs.  [Steve Kramer]

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Middle East, Steve Kramer, USA

‘Proof of Life,’ though a memoir, reads like a suspense novel

I jumped into this book without reading the introduction and believed right through the end that I was reading a well-crafted, highly believable suspense novel.   In fact, Daniel Levin had written a memoir about his efforts to find out what had happened to a young man who had disappeared in Syria.  He didn’t know the young man, but as a favor to a friend, he had promised to make inquiries. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Middle East

Children’s Literature: ‘The Rabbi and the Painter’

‘The Rabbi and the Painter,’ a children’s book imagines a fictional friendship between the Mannerist painter Tintoretto and Rabbi Leon of Modena, whose most famous work, Historia de gli riti Hebraici, describing for non-Jews the rites and customs of the Jewish people, was written more than 40 years after Tintoretto’s death.

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Fiction

The Lasting Significance of David Hume

The pandemic, which has taken over three million lives and continues to ravage parts of the world; the rise of Trumpism, culminating in the January 6th attack on the Capitol; the degradation of the environment and the threat posed by anthropogenic climate change; these things, and others, have served to alert many of us that the comfort we take in the notion that what has always been the case one’s whole life will always remain the case is nothing more than a pleasant fiction. Several centuries ago, a Scottish philosopher made a similar observation, and notably took it quite a bit further. [Sam Ben-Meir, Ph.D]

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Sam Ben-Meir, Science, Medicine, & Education

Wartime Chaos and Speculation

Lots of missiles coming from Gaza to Israel. Lots of damage in Gaza. And something close to civil war within Israel, with Arab mobs attacking Jews and their property in what had been peaceful settings with two communities; plus Jewish mobs doing the same to Arabs and their property.Overall, leaving aside the actions of the security forces in Gaza, it’s not too different from occasional bursts of racial violence in the US and some European cities. [Ira Sharkansky, Ph.D]

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East

Tikkun Olam: Adventures in Tijuana

Saturday, May 15th was Teacher’s Day in Mexico. Teachers were celebrated all over the country.  As a retired teacher, I found it the perfect day to go to Tijuana on a delivery run to a migrant shelter built on a canyon in a poorer neighborhood. My friends, Alba Orr who is retired from Grossmont College and Juan Martin Sajche, a Spanish teacher at Morse High School, and I met at my home at 9 a.m.. We filled two cars up with large bags of stuffed animals, different snacks, mandarins, juice boxes, and school supplies. [Mimi Pollack]

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International, Lifestyles, San Diego County

A Jewish Odyssey from Ethiopia to Israel and Back

“From Africa to Zion” is a remarkable memoir that takes us from the author’s childhood in a rural Ethiopian village without electricity or running water through his perilous journey to a crowded, multi-ethnic refugee camp in the Sudan, where disease and crime were rampant, and onto his arrival to the modern world of Israel, in which his family were initially mystified by such conveniences as toilets and refrigerators. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Middle East

Making Our Nation Safe From Computer Hackers

Some small-minded sages are chortling in America that people with electric cars don’t have to worry about the Colonial Pipeline, shut down by a cyber attack, because they can get their “gas” from the electric company. They go on to argue for more electric cars. Of course if it was the power company that was knocked out, the electric cars would not run. And power companies have been knocked out.  The Russians killed one in Ukraine, putting it offline for some time. [Stephen D. Bryen]

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Business & Finance, International, Stephen D. Bryen, USA

Good News from Israel (May 16, 2021)

NETANYA, Israel — In the May 16, 2021 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:
–US doctors use an Israeli device to remove blood clots from stroke patients.
–Israel has sent tons of coronavirus aid to India.
–4 top multinationals are expanding Israeli hi-tech operations.
–Israeli innovators are turning CO2 emissions into an energy source.
–Israel’s economy continues to improve.
–An Israeli has won France’s top literary prize.
–The festival of Shavuot is uniting Israelis, just as it did 3,333 years ago
[Michael Ordman]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Business & Finance, Jewish Religion, Michael Ordman, Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education, Sports & Competitions, USA