Masha Leon
By Masha Leon
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The Schmooze Conversation With Steve Okazaki Director of “Mifune: The Last Samurai”
In “Mifune: The Last Samurai” a new documentary by director/producer Steven Okazaki [at the IFC Center through December 1] he cites Steven Spielberg: “Without Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune, there would be no “Magnificent Seven”, Clint Eastwood wouldn’t have “A Fistful of Dollars” and Darth Vader wouldn’t be a Samurai…. Toshiro played a wild character…from…
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The Schmooze Remembering Ruth Gruber: Indomitable Writer, Photographer and Friend
Ruth Gruber—fearless documentarian, photojournalist and memoirist who died on November 17th in New York at the age of 105 was a once-in-a- century phenomenon—fearless and best known for chronicling the saga of the ship “Exodus” in 1947— the basis for Leon Uris’s book Exodus” and epic film. Among my special Ruth Gruber memories: ‘Jewskimos’—the February…
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The Schmooze When Donald Trump Was Part of a “Minyan”
In 1995 Donald Trump [now president elect] was among the crush of “Who’s Who” guests at the December 18th “Minyan of the Stars” Chanukah celebration at the Pennsylvania Hotel was who had been invited by fellow real estate giant Abe Hirshfeld then celebrating his 75th birthday and who two days earlier on December 16 had…
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The Schmooze Remembering Yaffa Eliach—Holocaust Memorialist Extraordinaire
Yaffa Eliach—Holocaust survivor, professor and longtime friend—who died on November 8 at seventy-nine—was a unique Holocaust memorialist. Her 800+ page tome “There Once Was A World”—a meticulous revisit to her 900-year-old shtetl Eishyshtok—has the heft of memory. But it is her 1982 “Hasidic Tales of The Holocaust’ (Oxford University Press) with its documented oft ”supernatural”…
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The Schmooze Budapest Festival Orchestra To Perform at Hungary’s Great Dohany Synagogue
The Budapest Symphony Orchestra’s upcoming December 1 Concert at Budapest’s glorious Great Dohany Street Synagogue was announced by Hungary’s Consul General Dr. Ferenc Kumin at the New York consulate’s Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution [which began on October 23, 1956 as a national revolt against Soviet occupation and repression]. The…
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The Schmooze When King Mohammed VI of Morocco’s Father King Hassan II Feted NY Jewish Leadership
With Hillary Clinton and king Mohammed VI of Morocco in the news, I recalled my March 23, 1995 meeting with his father—King Hassan II at a reception hosted on behalf of the Presidents of The Conference of American Jewish Organizations—a then first by an Arab monarch for a Jewish organization. Invited by telephone, my instructions…
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The Schmooze A Conversation with ‘Finding Babel’ Producer and Grandson Andre Malaev Babel
Though not officially listed as a “ Yiddish” writer/poet, the name of Isaac Babel had been part of the “conversation” about the fate of Yiddish writers and poets who were brutally executed at the orders of Stalin. When I was invited to see Andre Malaev Babel’s documentary “Finding Babel” about his grandfather’s legacy, I managed…
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The Schmooze Steve Forbes Touts Israel Innovative Beit Hatfutsot Museum of the Jewish People
The powerhouse roster of speakers at Beit Hatfutsot’s 38th Anniversary Tribute to Leon Charney included—among others—Stephen Greenberg, Chair, Conference of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations, Steve Forbes, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media, Senator Joseph Lieberman and Wolf Blitzer. “Beit Hatfutsot” (The Museum of the Jewish People} is much more than a museum,” Forbes told…
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