In Other Jewish Newspapers: Gentiles for Zion, Trimming Israel’s Leaders, Goldie Hawn Saves the Day
GENTILES FOR ISRAEL: Two articles in two different Jewish newspapers from opposite ends of the country focus on non-Jews who are taking leadership positions in pro-Israel organizations. The Jewish Advocate reports on three gentiles who are involved with the Boston branch of the Jewish National Fund, while San Francisco’s J. speaks with the new non-Jewish leader of the local chapter of the America-Israel Friendship League.
CAPITAL RENAISSANCE: The Washington Jewish Week finds that Jewish life is blossoming in new neighborhoods in the nation’s capital.
LEO FRANK REVISITED: The Breman Jewish Heritage Museum revisits an infamous moment in the history of Georgia Jewry — the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank. The Atlanta Jewish Times reports on the museum’s new exhibit.
COLUMBUS’S JEWISH FIREFIGHTER: Columbus’s New Standard profiles the city’s “only” Jewish firefighter — who happens to be Orthodox to boot! “I go to the firehouse and it’s ‘A Jewish fireman?’ And then I go to the synagogue, and it’s ‘A Jewish fireman?’ Really, I don’t fit in anywhere,” firefighter David Bernzweig tells the paper.
THEY KNOW SNOW: Snowfall may be a rarity in Israel, but some young Jerusalem residents sure do know how to make a nice snowman, as a photo on the Web site of Houston’s Jewish Herald-Voice shows.
NORTHERN EXPOSURE: Rachel Freedenberg of San Francisco’s J. weekly samples Jewish life in Fairbanks, Alaska. She finds that area Jews wear flannel and jeans to shul and, much to her surprise, you can buy Tam Tam crackers there.
LET THEM SPEAK: In an editorial, J. raps the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly’s policy banning people who are intermarried from speaking at its convention (a policy that was first reported by the JTA).
BUY LOCAL: The Detroit Jewish News’s Arthur Horwitz urges area Jews to patronize locally owned businesses — in part because chains don’t advertise with his newspaper.
TRIMMING ISRAEL’S LEADERS: Jerusalem barber Marcel Sluk is closing shop after a half-century of grooming Israel’s presidents and prime ministers. He has contended with everything from Moshe Sharett’s moustache to Ehud Olmert’s comb-over. “I tried to get Olmert to stop it,” the Casablanca-born Sluk tells London’s Jewish Chronicle. “But he just wouldn’t agree!”
HELENA BONHAM CARTER’S RIGHTEOUS GRANDPA.: The J.C. reports that acclaimed actress Helena Bonham Carter is hoping to travel to Jerusalem for a ceremony at Yad Vashem recognizing her maternal grandfather, Eduardo Propper de Callejón, as “Righteous Among the Nations.” The actress’s grandfather was a Spanish diplomat posted in France during World War II who issued thousands of visas to refugees. Propper de Callejón had a Jewish father and was married to a Jewish woman (which makes Bonham Carter halachically Jewish).
ISRAEL NEEDS PROPHETS: In an essay for the J.C., the chief rabbi of the British Commonwealth, Jonathan Sacks, writes that Israel needs “a renewal of its moral energy and a restatement of its ideals” — and a couple “prophets” couldn’t hurt either.
GOLDIE TO THE RESCUE: Michael Douglas bailed out at the last minute. Thankfully, Goldie Hawn stepped up to fill the celebrity guest void at next month’s fundraising dinner for the Scottish branch of Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael (aka the Jewish National Fund). The J.C. has the story.
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