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A DIFFERENT ISRAEL
•When Israel is discussed these days, more often than not it is in terms of an existential crisis, or "the situation," or as the subject of international news headlines. However, reading recently published works by three different Israeli fiction authors, Etgar Keret, Benjamin Tammuz and A.B. Yehoshua, is a bracing… -
A Passion for War (Steve Rubin)
•To meet him, you might think Steven Rubin is a normal person. Tall, handsome, happily married with young children, he is personable, affable -- in short, one of the gentlest and nicest guys you could meet. But he is a man obsessed with war -- World War II to be… -
Walk Like A Mom/Rockstar (Susanna Hoffs)
•"Hannah Montana," a Disney Channel program I watch on occasion with my daughter, features a 14-year-old girl with a secret identity: she's actually a rock star. This is an absurd fantasy. In real life, the rock star at my daughter's school is a mom. Although she leads a double life,… -
Hate the Game, Love The Player (Michael Tolkin and "The Return of The Player")
•The fall season is upon us, with new books, movies and TV programs all vying for our attention as palliatives to the news of war, terrorism and melting ice caps. Even as the days get shorter and our own day of judgment looms imminent, we wonder: Is there a hero… -
Kaplan's Collage
•Here's Marty Kaplan blogging on Huffington Post about suggested treatments for Mel Gibson's "problem": "'Jew Like Me' is another strategy. Walk a mile in my shoes. Gain 10 pounds at my table. Wait two hours after lunch before swimming. Laugh that ironic meta-laugh right along with us when Jon Stewart… -
The Mad Adventures of Gerard Oury
•"The King of popular comedy is dead," proclaimed Le Figaro after Gerard Oury, one of France's most successful directors (if not its most successful) died on Thursday, July 20, at his home in St. Tropez. I know Oury's work because as a teenager I went with my mother to New… -
Life vs. Death
•In college, I wrote the same literature essay over and over again. Regardless of the novel, its plot or its country of origin, I found that I could always work up four pages on the subject of "Life vs. Death." My ideas on this subject were not particularly original. In… -
A Little Respect (for Jewish journalism)
•For the 20th anniversary issue of The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, it was suggested that I write a column about Jewish journalism. Herewith the result: Jewish journalism is a much-maligned enterprise -- it cries out like the late Rodney Dangerfield for respect. No one really admits to reading a… -
Schimmel's Summer School (Paul Schimmel & MOCA)
•Paul Schimmel, the Museum of Contemporary Art"s (MOCA) chief curator, wants us to spend our summer looking back -- 50 or so years to around the time of his birth, and to the city where he grew up, New York, to focus on the remarkable work of a young, poor… -
Great Scott: Scott Steindorff's Excellent Adventure in Hollywood
•Scott Steindorff is a happy man. A successful movie and TV producer, his NBC series, "Las Vegas," just got picked up for another season; he won a Golden Globe for the HBO miniseries, "Empire Falls," starring Paul Newman, and produced the feature film of Philip Roth's "The Human Stain" with… -
Zade's Road
•How does an idea come to life? How is it that someone has an idea -- an idea that he or she believes will help change the world -- and it actually takes flight? I'm not sure anyone really knows how that process occurs, only that it does. Just ask… -
A Graham of Rock
•Here's a strange coincidence: Both my doctor and my rabbi share the same leisure pursuit: They are passionate about attending rock concerts. U2, The Stones, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen -- If they perform, my good doctors of the body and the soul will attend. They both say it's their way…