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| Tuesday, March 30, 2004 |
Super Seinfeld
 Heebs Barry Levinson and Jerry Seinfeld have teamed up with Superman (yes, that one) and American Express to make mini-movies featuring Seinfeld and the Man of Steel hanging out on the streets of New York City. The hilarious shorts can be watched online at jerry.americanexpress.com. In other Seinfeld news, the comedian spilled the beans about a potential new show with NBC about family life. Seinfeld, who is turning 50 next mnth, has a wife and two kids. So, maybe this show will be about something.
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| Monday, March 29, 2004 |
The definition of chutzpah
Lea Fastow, the wife of accused former Enron head Andy Fastow, asked the judge in her tax fraud case to postpone her setencing -- because the date fell on Passover. The judge told her to suck it up.
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Sunday! Sunday?
The Pope believes that Sunday should be for God and not the gridiron. Every major sports league in the world had no comment.
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'Passion' inspires
A Norwegian neo-Nazi has confessed to two bombings a decade ago after a pang of repentance triggered by watching Mel Gibson's controversial film The Passion of the Christ. It was at least the second confession sparked by Gibson's film, which has been criticized for graphic violence. A Texan man admitted last week, after seeing the movie, to murdering a 19-year-old woman who was pregnant with his child. That's not all the movie is inspiring. The film has sparked anti-Semtic incidents around the globe including in France and Denver.
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Religious redux
Dogville director Lars von Trier talks about finding out that his dad was a Roman Catholic classical musician and Text goes herenot a Jewish communist academic in the new issue of Newsweek. "Can you imagine? That you are part of a plan that a bitch had -- to contrive your creation and then destroy your life? Who does that to a child?" he told the magazine. Um, somebody's got issues.
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| Sunday, March 28, 2004 |
Survivor challenge
Ten years after Jerry Seinfeld got caught necking during Schindler’s List, reverence for the Holocaust still makes Larry David squirm. Read Stephen Vider's essay at Nextbook.org.
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| Friday, March 26, 2004 |
Novel idea
Entertainment Weekly reports that member of the tribe Ben Stiller is working on a dramatic screenplay based on the 1941 novel entitled What Makes Sammy Run? about the rise of a ruthless Jewish Hollywood mogul. It's sensitive topic has many studios scared to make the film, but word now comes that Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks are negotiating making the film. Stiller's dad Jerry (most famous for playing George Costanza's dad on Seinfeld) told the magazine that he worries that the film may cause anti-Semitism. "I worry about that, I do," he said. "How can you like that character? It could be very inflammatory at this time, when Jewish people seem to be on the firing line."
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Polley posits
Actress Sarah Polley on why her zombie flick, Dawn of the Dead, beat out Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ at the box office. "It makes sense that we beat 'em out," she says. "I mean, we've got more people rising from the dead. They've got one. We've got thousands."
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Cruise control
Tom Cruise has split with Penelope Cruz and his publicist says it has nothing to do with his religion.
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| Thursday, March 25, 2004 |
Courtney the Christ killer?
Embattled rocker Courtney Love is upset that she's being blamed for so many things these days. Her incredulous response? "Am I the one that killed Jesus too? I'm part Jewish."
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| Wednesday, March 24, 2004 |
Kerry's Kike Konnection
A little known Czech historian believes the presidential candidate John Kerry is a descendant of the famous Maharal of Prague, the 16th century Talmudic scholar, kabbalist, and philosopher. Does this mean Kerry's now lost the self-hating Jewish vote?
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This is your brain on drugs
Prince Asiel Ben Israel, Whitney Houston's spiritual advisor, says that the pop singer’s drug problem is the result of living a high-pressure celebrity life. In related news, two plus two equals four.
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Brian's resurrection
 Attempting to jump on the Passion bandwagon, the producers of Monty Python's Life of Brian will be re-releasing the film in April in select cities. The 1979 film is a biblical satire is a controversial film about a Jewish guy from Nazareth who is worshiped as the Messiah and crucified by the Romans. What, no Holy Grail re-release?
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| Tuesday, March 23, 2004 |
Rebel rabbi
Jewish motorcyle clubs are nothing new (Chai Riders, Star of Davidson, etc.), but a South Florida group is going one step further. The King David Bikers are seeking a motorcycle riding rabbi. "It would be great to start every ride with a little prayer, a blessing and some meaningful message," says the group's founder Jeff Mustard, who rides a 1600 cc Yamaha Road Star. "What could be better than combining things you love -- riding, a little religious message and something to eat?"
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Daily dose continues
Comedy Central has brains. They just signed Jon Stewart to host The Daily Show for another four years. "A lot of people like to get out when their show’s still going well," Stewart said. "This gives me the opportunity to beat this thing into the ground."
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Stop wine-ing
MSNBC offers up their list of the best Passover wines where, among other things, they debunk myths about kosher wine. "The idea that kosher wines have a particular 'kosher taste' is nonsense," says Anthony Dias Blue, wine and spirits editor at Bon Appetit. And, despite popular belief that to make a wine kosher all you have to do is "dump a cup of sugar into it," kosher wine need not be sweet. Could've fooled us.
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Write makes might
Literary wonder Joseph Skibell has received the Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Fiction 2003 from the Texas Institute of Letters for his Jewish angst novel The English Disease.
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| Monday, March 22, 2004 |
I'll be back ... in Israel
Continuing his "Just-because-my-dad-was-a-Nazi-doesn't-mean-I'm-anti-Semtic" campaign promise, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will travel to Israel in May to attend the groundbreaking ceremony of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's for Human Dignity - Tolerance Museum in Jerusalem. Man, is it re-election time already?
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Hanks' holiday
 Tom Hanks needs to get himself a Hebrew calendar. He told a reporter that working on his new film with the Coen brothers was a breeze. "It's very calm and there's no panicking that goes on," Hanks says of the Jewish directors. "I must say sometimes the production office was so quiet when I came in, I wondered, 'Is there a Jewish holiday or something?'"
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'Dead' beat up Jesus
Jesus is not the only dead guy making it big at the movies. After spending three weeks atop the box office list, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ was finally unsetaed this week by ... the Dawn of the Dead, a campy remake of a 1979 horror classic. Who would've thought?
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Ashton gets heady
In Time Out New York magazine (Feb 10), actor Ashton Kutcher reveals his penchant for yarmulkes: "Most of the energy that we receive comes in through our head, much like the heat in our body comes out of our head. So the only way to achieve enlightenment is to restrict that. You wonder why Jewish people wear a yarmulke? That's why. I'm not even Jewish, but I'm telling you man, it's gotta be working in some way because there's no reason why I should be in the position I am now."
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| Thursday, March 18, 2004 |
Spielberg refuses blood money
Out promoting the 10th anniversary DVD release of Schindler's List, Steven Spielberg told Katie Couric on the Today show that he didn't take any of the profits from the film. "It is blood money. Let's call it what it is," he said. "I didn't take a single dollar from the profits I received from Schindler's List because I did consider it blood money. When I first decided to make Schindler's List I said, if this movie makes any profit, it can't go to me or my family, it has to go out into the world and that's what we try to do here at the Shoah Foundation. We try to teach the facts of the past to prevent another Holocaust in the future." And then he gave Couric a Hebrew lesson. "We have a thing, we say in Hebrew, tikkun olam which means, the world always needs fixing and we as Jews, we as all people, have a responsibility to help fix things when they're broken and I think Schindler's List and the Shoah Foundation does exactly that." Wonder is Mel Gibson will be taking the phenomenal profits of his Passion and doing the same thing.
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| Wednesday, March 17, 2004 |
The Passion of the Maccabees
In a radio interview with WABC's Sean Hannity, director Mel Gibson said he wants to make a movie about the story of Chanukah. The story that's always fired my imagination ... is the Book of Maccabees," Gibson said. "The Maccabees family stood up, and they made war, they stuck by their guns, and they came out winning. It's like a Western." When Abe Foxman, the head of the Anti Defamation League and a virulent opponent of Gisbon, heard the news, he quipped: "My answer would be 'Thanks but no thanks.’ The last thing we need in Jewish history is to convert our history into a Western. In his hands we may wind up losing," he joked.
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A hard pill to swallow
A Madison, Wisconsin pharmacist refused to fill a woman's birth control prescription because of his religious beliefs. Believe it or not, the law allows for such actions by pharmacists. But he got in trouble when he then refused to even transfer the prescription to a more liberal pharmacy.
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Fight for peace
Mike Tyson, he of ear-biting fame, says he wants to stage a "Peace in the Middle East" boxing bout at Tel Aviv's Ramat-Gan soccer stadium. The former heavyweight champ made the comments while performing 100 hours of community service arising from a disorderly conduct conviction.
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Jesus' European vacation
Jim Caviezel, who portrays Jesus Christ in Mel Gibson's film, has been traversing around Europe promoting the movie. Two highlights this week: Caviezel, a devout Catholic actor, actually got to meet the Pope. And now the actor is telling London newspapers that he told J.Lo to keep her clothes on. While taping a sex scene during the filming of Angel Eyes, Caviezel told the diva to keep her bra and knickers on. Note to Janet Jackson: Stay away from Caviezel.
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| Tuesday, March 16, 2004 |
Adam ... and Eve?
 Reality television is getting some religion. NBC debuted its latest installment of Average Joe this week with the return of audience favorite Adam Mesh. The 28-year-old self-made millionaire is looking for love and his Jewish mother may be happy to hear that one of the girls that's courting him is Jennifer Lifshitz, the daughter of a Chicago rabbi. We're surprised JDate hasn't bought commercial time during the show.
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Paris invasion
It's not news that Paris Hilton has been sporting a red Kabbalah bracelet for the last several months, but she's now upped her Jewish mysticism quotient by seeking solace in the study of Kabbalah after the death of her grandmother last week. She's been seen going to Kabbalah classes on both coasts. As for the grandmother, the funeral mass was held at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills.
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| Monday, March 15, 2004 |
Welcome to the tribe
 How did we miss this story? Apparently, Today Show host Katie Couric came out of the religious closet recently by announcing that she is Jewish. She said that even though she was raised an Episcopalian, her mother was Jewish. So, yes, the Jews do control the media.
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