Josh Frankel is an unlikely publisher and an even more unlikely entrepreneur. Yet he’s the founder of Zip Comix, the publisher of “Cleveland” — the critically acclaimed posthumous work by underground comics legend Harvey Pekar, author of the long-running autobiographical series American Splendor. Both Frankel and I went to Drew University, where he was a…
Mira Awad — singer, songwriter and actress — is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, the first Arab to represent Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest, and the singer of a song called, hopefully, “There Must Be Another Way.” Awad, 37, was born in the same village where her father was born, in the Upper Galilee…
Actor James Franco was named by Salon.com as one of “10 men who might just inspire the rebirth of Jewish male cool.” Though of Russian Jewish heritage on his mother’s side, Franco never had a Bar Mitzvah. “I wish I had though,” he said wistfully. He played a Jewish drug dealer in Pineapple Express and…
While he is waiting for Larry David to decide if there is going to be a ninth season of the HBO hit “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” comedian Richard Lewis is embarking on a comedy tour that will take him to Carolines on Broadway in New York City and the Helium Comedy Club in Philadelphia in the…
Before Marion Jacobson discovered the accordion, she was a classical music critic for The Washington Post and an academic with a doctorate in ethnomusicology from New York University. But after wandering into Manhattan’s Main Squeeze accordion store in the fall of 2001, she knew she had found a new passion. So, needing to make space…
Joshua Bell, the mop-topped musician who plays the $4 million “Jewish” Stradivarius previously owned by Israeli Philharmonic founder Bronislaw Huberman, is perhaps the world’s most recognized violinist. His playing to a naked Greta Scacchi in the movie “Red Violin” garnered the film an Oscar for best score. His violin solos have also been featured in…
For most people, Linda Lavin will always be Alice from the TV show of the same name: a widowed, would-be singer who found a home and family at Mel’s Diner. But she’s more than a one-hit wonder — even if that hit ran for nine seasons. Lavin is also an accomplished jazz singer who performs…
Screenwriter and director Lawrence Kasdan has been nominated for four Academy Awards and has written some of the highest-grossing films in Hollywood history, including “The Bodyguard,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi.” But Kasdan is best known to some for “The Big Chill” and “Grand Canyon,” the…
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