Is the Film "The Endless Summer" Jewish?

My favorite movie is Bruce Brown's, The Endless Summer. No, it wasn't Jewish at all that is, until I made it into a metaphor for my quest for perfect Jewish spirituality and the inspiration for my book cover (see below). I haven't found any other Jewish connections to the film or the poster.

Vanity Fair has a story about the famous iconic Endless Summer movie poster. "One Summer, Forever: The Endless Summer poster is 50 years old, and it hasn't aged a minute. Kitchen-table project turned pop-culture phenomenon, the Day-Glo movie promo created by John Van Hamersveld for his friend Bruce Brown’s 1964 documentary is still selling the dream—on T-shirts, TV shows, beer bottles, and dorm walls. Lili Anolik looks back at the moment an iconic image was born, the social upheaval it presaged, and the surfer-dude-slash-designer whose life it changed."

In 1966 I saw a film that documented two boys seeking simple perfection in a quasi-mystical sport. IMDB sums up, "Brown follows two young surfers around the world in search of the perfect wave, and ends up finding quite a few in addition to some colorful local characters."

The film spoke to me, as it did to many others of a more idealistic age. The essence of surfing of course is the wave. And the lover of surfing no doubt wants to embark on the quest for the best wave. To experience the performance of the essence is to find the perfect wave.

Brown's two surfer dudes found one in South Africa, see the video clip below.

Times: How did Jewish Actor Kirk Douglas Quit Smoking Cigarettes?

Kirk Douglas passed away at 103 today. He quit smoking cigarettes years ago. His story is below, reposted from 2010... Please, if you smoke, stop today!

On occasion, we suggest to people we know who smoke cigarettes, and sometimes even to random smoking strangers, that today is the perfect day to quit smoking cigarettes.

Here is Kirk Douglas' first person account from the Times in 2003 of why today is the best day of your life to quit smoking cigarettes. (Yes he was Jewish, born born Issur Danielovitch, now 92 years old. He played the Jewish Col. David 'Mickey' Marcus in the film, "Cast a Giant Shadow.")

If you do smoke cigarettes, please do quit today.

My First Cigarette, and My Last
By KIRK DOUGLAS
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.

My father, a Russian peasant, came to this country in 1910. Like all of his pals, he smoked. It's hard for me to picture my father without a cigarette in his mouth.

My Existentialist Zionism Answer in my Dear Rabbi Zahavy - Jewish Standard Talmudic Advice Column for May 31, 2019

Dear Rabbi Zahavy - Jewish Standard Talmudic Advice Column for May 31, 2019

Dear Rabbi Zahavy,

I visited Israel recently, and from what I saw I admired the continued growth of the country. But at the same time, I felt a deep apprehension about the manifold internal and external dangers that it faces. I am worried that Israel has lost its way and is no longer serving to fulfill its Zionist missions. How can I regain my confidence in the present vitality and the future prospects of the State of Israel?

Fearful in Fair Lawn

Dear Fearful,

I too have spent a lot of time in Israel of late and I do share your concerns. It’s a complex country of more than nine million inhabitants. It faces many internal conflicting points of view and differing aspirations. And yes, it is beset by the external challenges of hostile foes who seek to damage or even destroy the state.

But my take on the situations it faces is positive and confident, and not simply by virtue of any of the classical definitions of Zionism. I have a personal and original take on the matter.

Let me explain first a bit about the historical context of past Zionist visions and then tell you how I now formulate my own conception of Zionism for the modern State of Israel.

The great historians of Zionism tell us about its major forms: political Zionism, socialist Zionism, cultural Zionism, and religious Zionism. I respect and venerate all the past great Zionist thinkers and activists. To some degree the modern state is the successful expression of the four classical forms of Zionism. And to some extent it represents a failed or incomplete implementation of each of them.

Was Roger Bannister Jewish?

No, the first athlete to run a mile in under 4 minutes, Roger Bannister was not a Jew.

He died 3/3/2018 at age 88. British Prime Minister Theresa May remembered Bannister as a "British sporting icon whose achievements were an inspiration to us all. He will be greatly missed."

Note that Harold Abrahams, the timekeeper who recorded Bannister's first, was a Jew. Wikipedia reports. "Abrahams's father, Isaac, was a Jewish immigrant from Poland, then Congress Poland as part of the Russian Empire. He worked as a financier, and settled in Bedford with his Welsh Jewish wife, Esther Isaacs."

May 6, 1954: "Bannister crossed the line and slumped into the arms of a friend, barely conscious. The chief timekeeper was Harold Abrahams, the 100-meter champion at the 1924 Paris Olympics whose story inspired the film 'Chariots of Fire.' He handed a piece of paper to Norris McWhirter, who announced the time."

In 2011 there was some controversy over Abraham's role as timekeeper at the event.

Maimonides Films from Israel - 2017: The Great Eagle - in three parts

A new set of professional documentaries about the great Sephardic rabbi Moses ben Maimon, Maimonides. Approximately three hours. A valuable course of study with scholars and interviews and travels.

בפרק הראשון חייו המוקדמים של הרמב"ם, מלידתו בקורדובה (ספרד של היום), הבריחה למרוקו התאסלמותו בכפייה והגעתו לארץ ישראל.

הפרק השני מלווה את חייו של הרמב"ם במצרים בה חיבר את ספר ההלכה המונומנטלי "משנה תורה" אשר ממשיך להשפיע על חיינו עד עצם היום הזה.

הפרק השלישי עוסק ב"מורה נבוכים" ספר הפילוסופיה אותו כתב הרמב"ם אשר נותר שנוי במחלוקת ומציב שאלות קשות ליהדות בת ימינו אנו.

Chapter One


Chapter Two


Chapter Three

Is Kevin Spacey Jewish?

No, Kevin Spacey is not a Jew.

Spacey plays the disgraced lobbyist and Orthodox Jew, Jack Abramoff in the 2010 film, Casino Jack. At the original web site for that film you could take a "Test" to find out how corrupt you are.

Spacey has already been nominated for this role, a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

Previously Spacey played the Jewish attorney Ron Klain in the HBO film, Recount. Klain was Al Gore's chief of staff in the White House and General Counsel to Al Gore's recount committee after the 2000 election.

Spacey was born in South Orange, New Jersey, the son of Kathleen Ann, a secretary, and Thomas Geoffrey Fowler, a technical writer and data consultant. According to rumor, Spacey's father was an antiSemite.

Spacey has been accused in 2017 of the sexual harassment of a 14 year old boy in 1986.

Is Warren Beatty Jewish?

No, the actor Warren Beatty is not Jewish. He  was raised in a devout, churchgoing Baptist family, but he is not known to be a practicing Baptist now.

Barbra Streisand said of Beatty: "He's an incredibly gifted...gentile."

In New Yorker, Woody Allen (definitely Jewish) hilariously mocked the story that Beatty slept with 12,775 women during his lifetime in his essay, "Will the Real Avatar Please Stand Up".

I suppose gods in human form may well have dropped in on this blue marble from time to time, but I strongly doubt that one has ever tooled around Rodeo Drive in a T-bird with the aplomb and good looks of Warren Beatty. Reading “Star,” the new biography by Peter Biskind, one can’t help but be blown away by the actor’s overwhelming accomplishments. Think of the movies, the grosses, the reviews, the Oscars, the endless nominations springing from this quadruple-threat voracious reader and marketing maven, who is nimble at the Steinway, savvy in the ways of politics, and a full-time Adonis, with accolades accruing from divers ones who believe he belongs not just up on the silver screen but in the Oval Office. More spectacular than a Tinseltown résumé that would humble Orson Welles are the star’s legendary exploits on the bedsprings. Here recounted are innumerable love affairs, with women of every heft and feel and station in life, from actresses to models, hatcheck girls to First Ladies. It seems that endless varieties of pulchritude salivated to plunge into the kip with this virtuoso of the percales. “How many women were there?” asks the author. “Easier to count the stars in the sky. . . . Beatty used to say that he couldn’t get to sleep at night without having sex. It was part of his routine, like flossing. . . . Allowing for the stretches when he was with the same woman, more or less, we can arrive at a figure of 12,775 women, give or take.” As a supplicant who has yet to achieve double digits when it comes to bedding the juicy gender, and those conquests requiring the aid of my Hypno-disk, I could not help imagining the following account of one gal’s irresistible swoon into the Guinness Book. But let her speak for herself...more...

Thank You New York Times for introducing me to virtual reality for free today

The Times delivered a cardboard virtual reality viewer to my door today with the weekend paper.

I had no clue what it was or how it worked. I followed the steps and folded the viewer, downloaded the app, put my android phone in the viewer, and played the videos.

It was incredible, magical and mysterious.

Mashable explains:

After an October announcement of a partnership with Google to produce virtual reality (VR) films, The New York Times has launched its new VR app, appropriately titled NYT VR, on Thursday. The app debuted with two feature films, one titled The Displaced tells the story of three children swept up in the world's refugee crisis, and the other shows making of a recentNew York Times Magazine cover.

If you did not get one from the Times, buy yourself a cardboard viewer and try it out.

VR is going to be big.

Is Bob Dylan Jewish?

Yes, Bob Dylan is a Jew. He is a strange and famous musician whose personal views on things have always been hard to figure out.

Dylan turned 74 on his birthday, May 24, 2015.

Dylan was born a Jew named Robert Allen Zimmerman (Hebrew - Shabtai Zisel (or Zushe) ben Avraham) in 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota, and raised there and in Hibbing, Minnesota. His paternal grandparents, Zigman and Anna Zimmerman, emigrated from Odessa, Russia around 1905. His mother's grandparents, Benjamin and Lybba Edelstein, were Lithuanian Jews who arrived in America in 1902. His paternal grandmother's maiden name was Kyrgyz and her family originated from Istanbul.

Dylan’s parents were Abram Zimmerman and Beatrice "Beatty" Stone. When Dylan was six, his father was stricken with polio. The family returned to Hibbing, where Zimmerman grew up.

A few years back Dylan recorded a Christmas album. Ryan McDuff, from the blog Bully! Pulpit reported:

LOS ANGELES, Calif -- Bob Dylan is recording his first Christmas album, Bullypulpit.com has exclusively learned and has been quietly compiling a collection that includes both Christmas carols and modern songs. At least four songs have reportedly been recorded for the album including, “Must Be Santa,” “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “I’ll Be Home For Christmas" and “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”

The recording sessions have been taking place at fellow recording artist Jackson Browne's Groove Master’s Studios in Santa Monica, California, where Browne produced his album, "I’m Alive."

Prominent media expert and best-selling author Michael Levine said the move by Dylan was "completely consistent with his longstanding tradition of doing the unexpected. Concerning Bob Dylan literally nothing would surprise me which of course is part of his lasting appeal. He confounds like no other pop artist ever."

The inclusion of “O Little Town of Bethlehem," written by an Episcopal priest named Phillips Brooks in 1867 after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, is likely to fuel speculation about Dylan's religious beliefs that have swirled ever since he publicly converted to Christianity in 1979, recorded explicitly religious material on three subsequent albums and for a time refused to play his old songs. Religious references on subsequent recordings became less overt after 1981's "Shot of Love."

The other three songs, “Must Be Santa” by Hal Moore and Bill Fredricks, “Here Comes Santa Claus” by Gene Autry and Oakley Haldeman and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” by Buck Ram, Kim Gannon and Walter Kent were all written between 1943 and 1960.

"A Christmas album by Bob Dylan in the pipeline doesn't really shock me," said Scott Marshall, author of a forthcoming book on the singer, "God and Bob Dylan: A Spiritual Life". "At first glance it may sound bizarre, but I don't think Dylan cares much about what his detractors might make of it. Dylan still sings songs from "Slow Train Coming" to this day and he's both never renounced being Jewish or renounced his experience with Jesus some three decades ago. He remains enigmatic and this will probably be talked about for years to come."

Dylan's spiritual pendulum swings back and forth. In 2007 Dylan went to Chabad Lubavitch for Yom Kippur, where he got an aliyah to the Torah. JTA Reported back then:

Bob Dylan's religious odyssey took a turn home on Yom Kippur.

The folk legend attended services at the Chabad-Lubavitch of Atlanta... Dylan was born Jewish but has dabbled in several faiths.

He arrived at morning services wearing a ski cap and a tallit, and stayed for the duration, the Web site said. Dylan was called to the Torah for an aliyah by his Hebrew name, Zushe ben Avraham, according to the Chabad outpost's rabbi, Yossi Lew.

Dylan was in Atlanta for a concert following the holiday.

As always be sure to see my friend Larry Yudelson's Tangled Up In Jews site for more background on the Jews and Jewishness connected with Bob Dylan.

שווה צפייה: לא תרקוד - "Thou Shall Not Dance" - a 2011 documentary about Religious Jewish men who study modern dance in Jerusalem

I subscribed to MAKO TV on my tablet and have discovered many TV shows and films in Hebrew from Israel. Through Chrome Cast I can watch the shows on TV in New Jersey as if I am in Israel.

"Thou Shall Not Dance" - is a 2011 documentary that I stumbled across on MAKO about Religious Jews who study modern dance in Jerusalem.

The premise of the film is that this is daring because religious Jews are not permitted to dance. To be technical about this, if you have ever been at a Jewish wedding you know that's not true. Men dance, women dance, not together, but there is a lot of dancing. Maybe not great quality. Also on Simchat Torah Jews dance.

Still there is a lot of struggle depicted in the film since these men decided to take up dance as an art for its own sake.

And yes, there is the big issue of Orthodox gender segregation that gets put on the table by telling this story about three men. They take as a given that they will not mix genders in their dancing because they are holding on to their Orthodox premises - paramount among those is the separation of the sexes. It was uncomfortable to me and odd to watch the struggle of these individuals within narrow constraints of their religion and culture as they grappled with their natural inherent needs to be artistic and expressive and to perform.

Israel 2011, Documentary 50 min
Directors: Eyal Sela, Yochai Shalom Hadad
Producers: Zafrir Kochanovsky , Miri Ezra
Synopsis
This illuminating documentary explores the obstacles faced by three Orthodox men who establish a dance school for religious males. The sensual nature of dance, particularly in a public forum, poses a unique challenge to those who live in a community where modesty is valued as the highest virtue. The film chronicles the struggles experienced by three dancers, as they try to reconcile their desire to express themselves physically while still maintaining an Orthodox life.



"Thou Shall Not Dance" is a heartfelt documentary about Religious Jews living in Jerusalem, who choose - despite a personal and social price they pay - to express themselves through dance. This is the 4 minute official trailer for the film.

רציתי לשתף אותך:  קבוצה של דתיים אדוקים מקימה בית ספר למחול
See the whole 50 minute film (with random ads) on MAKO TV.

Is Sigourney Weaver Jewish?

Now it is far-fetched that anybody would think that actress Sigourney Weaver is Jewish. No, Sigourney Weaver is not a Jew.

The tall actress whom we know and love from Alien, to Working Girl to Avatar, and whom we once met, and told her how much we liked her work, is a Christian of Scottish-English extraction.

But it is noteworthy that IMDB reported that when she was young after graduating from high school in 1967, she spent several months on a kibbutz in Israel.

/repost from 7/16/10/

Is Kevin Kline Jewish?

Though his father was Jewish, actor Kevin Kline is not a Jew. Wikipedia reports, "Kline's father was Jewish, from a family that had emigrated from Germany; Kline's mother was of Irish descent, the daughter of an emigrant from County Louth. Kline was raised in his mother's Catholic religion (his father had become an agnostic)... He graduated from the Catholic Saint Louis Priory School in 1965."

In the controversial new film, The Last of Robin Hood Kline plays Errol Flynn (who was not Jewish). The movie recounts Flynn's last scandalous affair with young underaged girl - Beverly Elaine Aadland - and has received some criticism and negative reviews because of that pedophilic theme.

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Was Robin Williams Jewish?

How sad. He is dead. 

Was Robin Williams a Jew?

No. His father was Episcopalian, his mother was a Christian Scientist.

It makes no difference. I mourn.

He was such an amazing talent. A phenomenal energy.

Too young. Too soon. Too tragic.

Woody Allen was Right in his film Sleeper in 1973 - Red Meats and Fats are Healthy

Woody Allen was right in "Sleeper" in 1973. Hat tip to MZW.

A new book backs him up and asserts that the dangers of saturated fat is now under debate viz. 'The Big Fat Surprise' - see the story at CNN.com:

For the past four decades, we've been told to stay away from red meat, dairy and cheese -- foods high in saturated fats -- because saturated fat is bad for the heart.

But investigative reporter Nina Teicholz says that isn't the case...

Peter Griffin Mocks Chris Christie and Bridgegate

Peter Griffin - a Family Guy cartoon character - Mocks Chris Christie and Bridgegate in an Emmy campaign cartoon.

He looks like Christie.

Esquire raises some more serious questions about Christie's misuse of PA funds to repair NJ roads.

And our local politician Loretta Weinberg, a true hero of the efforts to prosecute the perpetrators of Bridgegate, is the truly wonderful cover story at the Jewish Standard.

Was Noah Jewish?

No, of course the biblical Noah was not a Jew. There were no Jews in the world until much later.

Abraham, the first Hebrew came ten generations after Noah. And Moses received divine revelation six generations after that.

According to BBC News the new film "Noah" has been criticized by religious groups.

Regarding the Jewish links to Noah (the film) Eric Goldman, my favorite film critic, wrote about the film's Jewish director Darren Aronofsky in the Jewish Standard, "Noah and the Jews." Here is some of what he says.

...Jewish tradition has a long history of encouraging interpretation of the “p’shat,” the literal text. Mr. Aronofsky and Mr. Handel have done so, drawing from a rich mix of rabbinic literature. In contrast, some Christian and Muslim scholars and clergy have had trouble with the film, because it changes the Noah story’s fixed literal reading. Because of this initial reaction, Paramount, the film’s distributor, has chosen to alter its advertising, now saying that the film was “inspired” by the Bible story.

Catching up on the News of Jews: Chained Melodies and Celebrities Good and Bad

Chained Melodies:

I support civil rights for Jewish women in all marital and in all ritual issues. I am surprised that the Agunah issue has become mainstream news all of a sudden in the Times and at the Jewish Channel. The Times has this, "Unwilling to Allow His Wife a Divorce, He Marries Another - NY Times" The reporter presents some of the baffling facts about the rabbinic legal jungle:

Mr. Kin, who in recent years moved to Las Vegas, has repeatedly insisted that Ms. Kin agree to binding arbitration from one particular religious court based in Monsey that is controversial and has been widely denounced by rabbinical authorities in the United States and Israel. Several leading rabbis, including the chief rabbinical office of Israel, have said they would not accept a divorce document signed by this particular court. Mr. Kin has said that the head of the beit din, Rabbi Tzvi Dov Abraham of Monsey, granted him dispensation to marry again.

“The rabbinical court system is such an ad hoc system where any man is able to call himself a rabbi and any three rabbis are able to call themselves a court, so that even if it’s not accepted by anyone, he is able to hide behind this,” said Rabbi Jeremy Stern, the executive director of the group that organized the protests against the wedding. “What empowers him to continue is the support of friend and family and community. We need everyone to say clearly we will not tolerate this kind of behavior.”

The notion that rabbis act within a legitimate system of law has always seemed to me to be a grand exaggeration at best. In the realm of rabbinic law, there is no transparent means of publishing decisions or appealing decisions. Facts are hard to come by and rumors rule. Often a rabbinic case works like this: you go to the local rabbi of your choice and he whispers his opinion in your ear. Then you go tell everyone what he said.

Speaking of rumors, I stumbled on this blog (which when asked, a reporter first told me was Kin's former husband's blog and then he changed his mind and said he was not sure that is the case): THE PHONY AGUNAH: LONNA KIN RALBAG IS A PHONY AGUNAH. The post raises issues and makes me think - did Lonna Kin ever actually go to the court to receive her get? One begins to wonder if this case is a clash of two manipulators who no longer wish to live together. Something doesn't smell right. This instance is probably not going to turn out to be the best poster case for the issue of women's rights in Orthodox Judaism, once we hear all the allegations about these two people. Too bad - the cause of women's rights overall is a just one.

Celebrities Good and Bad:

New Yorker had two fantastic profiles: one on actress Scarlett Johansson - Anthony Lane: The Unstoppable Scarlett Johansson- and the other on Paul de Man who was an acclaimed academic until he was exposed as a writer for the Nazis and all-around scoundrel - Louis Menand: Paul de Man's Hidden Past

And the Times brought us news of some wonderful New York Jews, They Kept a Lower East Side Lot Vacant for 47 Years: telling us, "Nearly four decades ago, a new assemblyman named Sheldon Silver and his young protégé escorted Edward I. Koch, then a mayoral candidate, through the Orthodox Jewish enclave on Manhattan’s Lower East Side where the two had both grown up. It was the first day of Rosh Hashana, 1977..." and going on to extol (?) the contributions of William E. Rapfogel to this neighborhood preservation effort. to recall, "Mr. Rapfogel, who led the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, was arrested last year and accused of looting the agency." I got a mailing today from the Met Council asking for a Passover donation. I'm gonna pass. You may want to shower thoroughly after reading that article.

Comic Genius Seth MacFarlane is Not Anti-Semitic

The Forward's critic Mark I. Pinsky asks, "Is 'Family Guy' Anti-Semitic?" Actually he doesn't ask at all. He informs us that there is not a shadow of a doubt that the show's creator Seth MacFarlane is anti-Semitic.

Pinsky is terribly confused about the meaning of anti-Semitism. He is wrong to say of MacFarlane that it is "well past time to call him out" for being an anti-Semite.

'Family Guy' is a satirical TV cartoon. It is a brilliantly funny show. It mocks just about everything in our culture from family values to relationships to religions in general and in specific - all religions, all values, all relationships - without prejudice for one over another. We all know that stereotyping in jokes is not the highest form of humor. It's usually cheap and crass and obnoxious, it's bigoted, but it's not anti-Semitic to make a joke about Jews loving money.

Real anti-Semitism is where you hate all Jews as part of your systematic world view or you discriminate against Jews by policy or laws. Seth MacFarlane does not do that. Mel Gibson does do that. Pinsky ends his article making the ridiculous claim that, "Seth MacFarlane, it seems, is simply a wittier version of Mel Gibson."

Pinsky obviously did not pay attention to what Mel Gibson has done in his personal life and his career. Pinsky is all wrong when he equates tasteless cartoon jokes with Gibson's flat-out full-blown anti-Semitism.

Here's the beginning of an awful ill-conceived opinion article that should never have been published, that is so bad it should be retracted and removed from the Internet. And I rarely say things like that. I mean it.

Sunday night’s episode of “Family Guy,” the long-running animated comedy, included a 25-second segment that illustrated once again creator Seth MacFarlane’s unapologetic anti-Semitism.

In the episode, main character Peter Griffin and his friends are off on a typically absurdist search to find God and to get Him to stop thwarting their favorite football team, the New England Patriots. In a Jerusalem square they spot Mort Goldman, the obviously Jewish pharmacist from their hometown of Quahog, Rhode Island.

Actually, they spot a “flock” of bobbing Morts, whom they attract by tossing pennies, as you might use popcorn to draw pigeons. The message being, Jews love money. MacFarlane used similar imagery in a much earlier episode, in which Peter’s anti-Semitic father-in-law tries to use a dollar bill tied to a string to distract his wife, who has just told Peter’s wife Lois that she was raised Jewish.

Anti-Semitism is a serious charge, made too quickly and too often. But as someone who has followed MacFarlane’s career, I think it is well past time to call him out. His star is clearly on the rise in Hollywood — he has hosted a major awards show, been writing and directing movies and, most recently, produced the Fox series “Cosmos.” And thus far he has been unimpeded by his consistent record of anti-Semitism...

My opinion, shared by many, is that Seth MacFarlane is a comic genius, and he is not anti-Semitic.

Is an eye for an eye kosher justice?

The latin lex talionis means the law of retaliation. Some think  this law is a core element of early biblical justice, familiarly expressed as, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, an arm for an arm, a life for a life."

I was teaching a Jewish Studies class a while back about how Talmudic law interprets virtually all retaliation in terms of monetary compensation. The Talmud provides methods to determine what is the value of the damages to an eye, the cost of pain, medical expenses, loss of income, suffering and humiliation.

This is a qualitative advance over the previous forms of justice via the literal direct retaliation of an eye for an eye, I explained. Any questions?

A student raised his hand. "How can you say the biblical idea is justice? It is barbaric to take out an eye. What kind of biblical morality was that?"

I was caught off guard. "By the standards of our developed sense of civilization you are right," I replied tentatively. "But imagine, if you will, what came before the biblical reforms. I put out your eye, then you took vengeance on my entire family, and I in turn came to wipe out your whole tribe. In comparison, the biblical scales of justice are a great leap forward in civilization. And the Talmudic interpreters carry justice further forward. They say that money compensates for damages, not direct physical retaliation."

Is Idina Menzel Jewish? Is Adele Dazeem Jewish?

Yes, Idina Menzel is a Jew. Yes, Adele Dazeem would be a Jew if she existed. That is the mangled name given to Idina Menzel by John Travolta at the Academy Awards in 2014. No, John Travolta is not a Jew.

To get a mangled Travoltafied version of your name, go to this website. Mine came out "Theo Zamirez". I kinda like that name.

Wikipedia reports on the early life of the actual Idina Menzel:

Menzel was born in Queens, New York. Her mother, Helene, is a therapist, and her father, Stuart Mentzel, worked as a pajama salesman. She has a younger sister, Cara. Her family is Jewish; her grandparents emigrated from Russia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Her family lived in New Jersey (East Brunswick, Somerset and Marlboro) from when she was in kindergarten to third grade, but she considers herself raised in Syosset, New York.

When Menzel was 15 years old, her parents divorced and she began working as a wedding and bar mitzvah singer, a job which she continued throughout her time at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Menzel herself, however didn't have a Bat Mitzvah after she quit Hebrew school as a girl. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Drama at New York University prior to being cast in Jonathan Larson's rock musical Rent. She changed the spelling of her surname to Menzel to better reflect the pronunciation the Mentzel family had adopted in America. She was friends with actor Adam Pascal before they worked together in Rent.

Hat tip to our musical good friend who says all of this is amazingly hilarious :-)

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