Masha Leon
By Masha Leon
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Culture From A to Zorn: Musical Tributes To History
“Great Jewish Artists Perform Great Jewish Composers,” the September 7 concert at the 92nd Street Y, launched the weeklong New York Jewish Music & Heritage Festival celebrating the 350th anniversary of Jews in America. Festival founder and director Michael Dorf attributed the festival’s success to, among others: UJA-Federation’s John Ruskay, the Jewish Community Relations Council’s…
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Culture Reuniting Refugees Upstate
“I’ve just come back from the 60th reunion of the “Oswego Refugees,” an excited 93-year-old Ruth Gruber told me on the phone. Gruber (foreign correspondent, photographer, author of 14 books) was referring to the August 4-6 weekend at Oswego, N.Y., at which 38 of the nearly 1,000 refugees she shepherded August 4, 1944, to “Fort…
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Culture Two New Beginnings and a Sad Ending
“This is my first day on the job,” said Arye Mekel, Israel’s new consul general to New York, at the August 16 preview screening of Margarethe von Trotta’s film, “Rosenstrasse,” at the Center for Jewish History. “The movie is a reflection of [how] human courage can make a significant difference.” “This is [also] my first…
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Israel News Fiddler on the Hot Seat: Molina & Co. Chat
To the delight of the overflowing audience at the August 15 American Jewish Historical Society-sponsored Dialogue Forum Series at the Center for Jewish History, Alfred Molina, Broadway’s current Tevye, shared Rabbi William Berkowitz’s “hot seat” with “Fiddler on the Roof” composer Jerry Bock and lyricist Sheldon Harnick. Asked how he dealt with playing a role…
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Culture Home is Where the Heart Is: In the South Bronx
Lauding the Met Council’s “mix of government, the good people of the building industry and [the] nonprofit community that cares,” John Ruskay, UJA-Federation of New York executive vice president and CEO, set the tone for the August 10 Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty Builders’ luncheon at Tavern on the Green. Met Council CEO William Rapfogel…
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Culture A Dog’s Life: A Veterinarian Extraordinaire Dishes
“I’m part of the lives of the families of the pets I care for,” said veterinarian Amy Attas, as we sipped tea in the art and book-filled apartment atop the “pet friendly” Buckingham Hotel (across from Carnegie Hall), which her husband, Stephen Shapiro, owns. A graduate of Barnard College, with a master’s degree in animal…
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Culture Eli Wallach Knows His Lines
Bypassing his usually well-researched curriculum vitae of his interview guests, Rabbi William Berkowitz let Eli Wallach explain himself to the July 12 overflow crowd at the Center for Jewish History. “I tell journalists. ‘Please don’t put my age in,’” the 89-year-old Wallach said. “It’s a handicap for directors who think I can’t remember lines.” He…
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Culture Honoring the President’s Mensch
“As a Jew I have found myself becoming angrier and angrier at the current times we face,” declared Kenneth Bialkin, chairman of the board of the America-Israel Friendship League at its July 1 lecture — “Agenda Setting in the Middle East: Media, the Third Party in the Conflict Between the Israelis and the Palestinians”— held…
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