Max Gross
By Max Gross
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News A Note on Fathers
There’s an old joke about a boy who comes running home from Hebrew school shouting: “Mommy, Mommy! I just got a part in the school play!” “That’s wonderful, dear,” the mother replies. “What’s the role?” “I’m going to be playing the part of the Jewish father.” “Don’t worry,” the mother says, “next year you’ll get…
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Israel News Mel Brooks Makes ‘Frankenstein’ Sing
Fans of the 1974 movie might not believe this, but Mel Brooks was forced to include the song “Puttin’ on the Ritz” in “Young Frankenstein.” The monster forcing him was Gene Wilder. The soft-shoe dance by Wilder and a tuxedoed creature (Peter Boyle) to the old Irving Berlin song is a masterpiece — one of…
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News The Big Apple
The World in a City: Traveling the Globe Through the Neighborhoods of the New New York By Joseph Berger Ballantine Books, 288 pages, $25.95. Joseph Berger’s new book, “The World in a City,” will make you hungry. In any case, it made me hungry. The book can be summed up neatly by its subtitle: “Traveling…
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News Biblical Bio: Life of Steinberg
The Book of David David Steinberg Simon & Schuster, 191 pages, $23.00. Getting bumped from “The Tonight Show” sucks — but getting bumped three nights in a row feels like wandering in the desert for 40 years. At least that’s how David Steinberg describes it in his new quasi-memoir, “The Book of David.” “David reflected…
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News Laughs Online
How many Jews does it take to produce an Arab American and Muslim American comedy show? Only one, provided that the Jew in question is Mel Brooks’s son. From the folks who brought you “Springtime for Hitler” (well, folks descended from those folks, anyway) comes a new Web broadcast on Comedy Central’s Web site (www.comedycentral.com),…
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News The Secret Ingredient
Danny Meyer won’t be cooking this Thanksgiving. When the Forward visited Meyer in Manhattan at his Union Square offices to ask the great restaurateur how to prepare for a Thanksgiving party, his answer was: “Spend the week before just loving each other. By the time [Thanksgiving comes], the warmth in your house will be palpable.”…
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News Rocky Mountain Rabbi
The Adventures of Rabbi Harvey: A Graphic Novel of Jewish Wisdom and Wit in the Wild West By Steve Sheinkin Jewish Lights Publishing, 144 pages, $16.99 Could it be that the Wild West — that vast frontier immortalized by the likes of Gary Cooper and John Wayne — bears a startling resemblance to the Mild…
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News Haplessly Turning the Tables on a Poker Ace
the hapless jewish writer once lost $50 in less than five minutes, playing texas hold’em. The loss occurred at a somewhat sketchy underground poker room that was run by Orthodox Jews in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn and featured free punch and Hydrox cookies. The HJW asked for $50 in poker chips (the lowest…
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די אזדרכת, אויף ייִדיש — מעליע, ציט צו כּלערליי מינים פֿייגל, וואָס עסן אירע פֿרוכטן