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June 30, 2008
Baby Killer: Hero to the Arabs
Israel has just handed a huge victory to Hizbullah and to the world-wide jihadist movement. Israel has agreed to swap a notorious baby killer, and other terrorists, for the corpses of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.
Baby killer Samir Quantar, not surprisingly, is a hero to the Arab world. Because he crushed a Jewish child's skull with a rock, because he made the Jewish father watch this bloody deed and then murdered the father, he has become a symbol to the Arab world of their jihad against Israel, against Jews.
Do not fool yourselves that this a "moral victory" for Israel.
This is self-righteous nonsense and deeply delusional.
Moral victories like this result in jubilation in every Arab capital and the guarantee that more Jewish babies will be murdered in cold blood; more Jews will be kidnapped, tortured and murdered by jihadists.
Moral victories like this swap are part of the incremental steps that lead a society to collapse from within.
Moral victories like this reward the IslamoNazis for every atrocity—past and future. It's called positive reinforcement.
When Israel—a land under siege by genocidal enemies—makes national security decisions based on tragic individual cases, that society is doomed because her enemies will move forward, emboldened, to exploit this weakness again and again and again.
We know that Hamas, and Hizbullah, Persia's proxie, are celebrating this infamous deal. But take notice that Fatah, the "moderate" terrorist gang, are also publicly celebrating this human monster's deed and release.
So, sure, go ahead, keep negotiating with the Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas, and then hand over East Jerusalem to Fatah.
What could possibly go wrong?
According to the Palestinian Authority leadership, Samir Quntar epitomizes the ideal Palestinian prisoner. Quntar, who crushed the head of four-year-old Eynat Haran with his rifle, is serving four life sentences for murder in an Israeli prison, but is almost certain to be freed in a prisoner swap with Hizbullah this week.
On one hand, Quntar embodies what the PA considers the "heroism" of terrorists fighting Israel. On the other hand, he's the ultimate symbol of all terrorist prisoners who have murdered Israelis and will eventually be freed as a result of future kidnappings or through some other means.
PA TV, controlled by Mahmoud Abbas, broadcast the following picture honoring Quntar. He is depicted beside a map of Israel completely covered by the Palestinian flag.
Following are several recent quotes from PA leaders since April 2008, describing Quntar.
"Samir Quntar, the warrior from Lebanon."
"The brave warrior, Samir Quntar."
"The Palestinian people and the Palestinian leadership are standing behind you (Quntar)."
"You (Quntar) are an inseparable part of the action to free our homeland."
"Your (Quntar) patience and strength are a lesson for us."
Besides bludgeoning Eynat Haran to death with rocks and his rifle, Quntar killed her father and was responsible for the death of her infant sister. He also killed two policemen in the 1979 attack in Naharia. The Israeli cabinet today approved a prisoner exchange that would free Quntar and several other prisoners in exchange for Israeli soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, who were kidnapped by Hizbullah in 2006. The exchange could happen within the next few days.
By Itamar Marcus and Barbara Cook
Palestinian Media Watch
For excellent commentary and what a grand time baby murderer Samir Quantar has had in prison, see Soccer Dad: The Deal Keeps Getting Worse and Worse.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:54 AM | Comments (17)
June 29, 2008
Best of the Jewish Blogosphere # 171
Miriam Cooper says: “We're gonna read
Haveil Havalim no matter what.”
Haveil Havalim #171 The Packing for Camp Edition is up and live.
We'd like to than Ima on (and off) the Bima—translation: A Mother who is on and off the Pulpit—for including Seraphic Secret's The Jew Hating Savages of Paris in this excellent round-up.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:01 AM | Comments (0)
June 27, 2008
Hollywood Hair
So, I've been taking a look at portraits of Hollywood stars from the 50's, a time when the studio system was collapsing, and I noticed a few things.
The quality of studio portrait photography was dismal. The images are, for the most part, bland, with little creative inspiration. Everyone seems bored—the photographers and the stars. Hollywood once employed geniuses like George Hurrell and C.S. Bull, whose iconic photography helped mold the G-d-like images of Hollywood's golden age.
Gene Harlow by George Hurrell
Clark Gable by C.S. Bull
But as the studios were shrinking in power, they drastically cut back on their still departments. And because actors were no longer under long-term contract to the studios, the technocrat executives who replaced the original passionate moguls had no stake or ability to carefully shape and control the images of their most promising thespians.
Since then, Hollywood stars have been shrinking at an incredible speed, eventually collapsing into what we have now: not movie stars, but celebrities who fight for media space with reality TV personalities, serial murderers and scandal choked, drug addled rock stars.
I also noticed hair.
Something was happening to the hairstyles of Hollywood stars in the 50's. There was, in the cultural air, a reversal in the natural order of masculine and feminine. In the past, great Hollywood female stars were often defined by luxurious and cascading curls. But in the 50's a startling number of Hollywood women submitted to a radical and often sexless 'do.
The resulting images come uncomfortably close to evoking memories of post WW II photos of European women who were publicly humiliated and punished as German collaborators, their proud locks severely shorn, harshly clipped and plastered down into tight, impenetrable helmets.
But the men, like vain peacocks, display incredibly complex hair architecture—frequently built in layers like towering wedding cakes. The sensuality just drips from their rococo, thickly gelled cuts.
What was happening? Did the apocalyptic nature and mass slaughter of the Second World War turn fashion conscious Hollywood women into hard-to-define gamines? If so, a new generation of Hollywood men, with pillowy lips and come-hither eyes, stepped into the breach morphing into sexually charged male objects, yet seductively hinting at the inner female.
I'd love to get some input on this vital issue from my readers.
Here are a few samples:
Robert Wagner, '52
Shirley MacLaine, '55
James Dean, '55
Jean Seaberg, '57
Burt Lancaster, '57
Leslie Caron, '55
Tony Curtis, '52
Audrey Hepburn, '56
Elvis Presley, '56
Lilli Palmer, '56
Charlton Heston, '50
Claire Bloom, '52
And finally:
Yul Brenner, '57
Karen and I wish all our friends a lovely and restful Shabbat.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:51 AM | Comments (17)
June 26, 2008
Olmert Transferring Millions Directly to Hamas
Hamas speaks
The Olmert-Livni-Barak government are directly responsible for enabling Hamas' reign of terror.
The Olmert-Livni-Barak government are directly responsible for the murder of Israeli citizens.
This infamous government aids, abets and arms Hamas, a proudly genocidal gang of Jew-haters.
This is the second paragraph of the Hamas Covenant: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
By transferring hundreds of millions of dollars into Gaza this Israeli government is funding the Gaza terrorist tunnels.
By transferring hundreds of millions of dollars into Gaza this Israeli government is bolstering Iran's onslaught on Jews and the Jewish state.
By transferring hundreds of millions of dollars into Gaza this Israeli government is guilty of money laundering.
We know that the Olmert-Livni-Barak government is the most inept in the history of the Jewish people, sacrificing security at almost every step by following a delusional path of appeasement to the IslamoNazis of Fatah, Hamas and the Persian proxy Hizbullah.
We know that Olmert is corrupt to the core.
We know that Olmert's sons evaded service in the IDF and suffered no consequences.
Now, we know that the Olmert-Livni-Barak government are traitors—with rivers of Jewish blood on their hands.
In an unprecedented admission, the office of Israel's Prime Minister revealed today that it is allowing the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza due to “Israeli diplomatic considerations.”
Translation: Israel channels hundreds of millions of dollars directly to Hamas because of diplomatic pressure from the Jew-hating EU and the jihadist enabling American State Dept.
In a response letter sent to Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of human rights organization Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) wrote that the transfer of funds to the Hamas controlled government in the Gaza Strip does indeed regularly take place after "consultations among the relevant bodies." Shurat HaDin had accused the Israeli government of secretly transferring hard currency to the Hamas.
And further down:
In the initial letter of warning sent by Shurat HaDin on behalf of victims of Hamas terror attacks to the PMO, Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner wrote: “The currency of record in the Gaza Strip is the New Israeli Shekel (NIS). Most of the financial activity in the Gaza Strip runs on a cash basis, using the NIS. Tens of thousands of Hamas terrorists and governmental official get their salary in Israeli currency — in cash. Thus, the transfer of large sums of cash into the Gaza Strip is, by definition, an act that directly fuels the terrorist activity of Hamas and is therefore a violation of the Terror-Funding Act of 2005 and the domestic and international laws against money laundering.”
To read the complete story on the fine blog Israeli Insider, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:31 AM | Comments (1)
June 25, 2008
The Jew-Hating Savages of Paris
The Islam you will not see in the mainstream media
Phyllis Chesler writes about the savage beating of Rudy Haddad, an orthodox Jew in Paris, and the shocking—but not surprising—silence of the arch-liberal media.
Here are several points to consider:
1. The human monsters who committed this atrocity are Muslim.
2. But the French media and the chattering elite, voluntary Dhimmis, refer to the Muslim gangs as French youths, or African immigrants—and a variety of cowardly and clumsy, self-defeating code phrases.
3. This unprovoked attack on a single, innocent and defenseless Jew is not a civil crime, though I'm sure that's how it will be treated. The attack on Rudy Haddad is pure jihadist aggression, and these Muslims should be prosecuted as terrorists.
4. Lack of jobs, lack of education, poverty or unfortunate childhoods will, no doubt, be advanced as the “root cause” of this atrocity. This is foolishness which can lead to national suicide.
5. Jihad has nothing to do with social conditions. It's part and parcel of Islam, a Jew-hating religious ideology that encourages violence against Jews and all non-Muslims.
6. These Islamic barbarians will probably claim that they attacked Rudy Haddad because of anger over “the occupation.”
7. When Muslims speak of occupation they are speaking of the entire state of Israel, a genocidal belief, and besides...
8. Muslim atrocities against Jews go back to the time of Muhammed who ordered the slaughter of the Jews of Medina when they refused to accept Islam and recognize Muhammed as a prophet.
9. Remember: There are always good excuses for killing Jews.
10. The French and all apologists for radical Islam should take note: If Muslims kill Jews and are excused for such savagery, guess who the Muslims next murder?
11. You.
As we've frequently written: Jews are the canaries in the coal mine of civilization.
Islam lights up Paris
In January of 2006, Ilan Halimi was brutally tortured for three full weeks in Paris by gangs of African Muslim immigrant torturers. The media did not describe them as “Muslims,” but rather as “youth,” “militants,” “gang-members, “immigrants,” and “immigrants from Africa.” Neighbors took turns and joined in torturing Halimi. Other neighbors heard his screams and did nothing. Some came to watch. Halimi died on February 13, 2006. The ringleader of the gang, Youssouf Fofana fled to Ivory Coast in Africa but was extradited back to France. He and 18 others are facing a trial in his torture and murder. American expatriate journalist, Nidra Poller, has written about this horrific case.
Ilan Halimi HSY'D, 1982 - 2006
May His Neshama Have an Aliyah
Now, a visibly Jewish, kipah-wearing 17 year-old, Rudy Haddad, walking in a Jewish quarter, was set upon by 15-30 “African immigrants.” No one is saying whether they are Muslims or not. Alright, Martians from Africa beat Haddad with iron bars and fractured his skull. Haddad, like Halimi, and like their attackers, are also of African or possibly Arab descent–as was Sebastien Selam who was murdered in Paris in 2003. Haddad has just come out of a medically induced coma.
And further down:
So, where are all the anti-racists now? I hear no condemnations. The silence is chilling. And all too predictable. Where are the mainstream media? Where is FOX, CNN, MSNBC, and the International Herald Tribune? (Only ABC ran a Reuters’ 190 word story earlier today). When I Googled this story, the first three pages consisted of stories filed by small bloggers and mainly by Jewish and Israeli media. (Military Photos carried a story as well). But where are The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times? For heaven’s sake: Where is Le Soir, Le Monde, and Figaro? Has France’s Channel 2 covered this?
Arguably, Channel 2 bears a great responsibility here for that is the channel that broadcast the fake murder of Mohammed al-Dura and that sued for defamation when Philippe Karsenty described the coverage as a hoax. As we all know, the French Court found that Karsenty’s criticism was not “libelous.” Charles Enderlin, of Channel 2, has vowed to appeal this decision and has gotten 300 of his journalist-buddies to form a circle of support for him.
I think that Haddad’s grieving family and the Chabad community (to which Haddad was apparently connected since he was on his way to pray at the Beth Chaya Mouchka Lubavitch synagogue), might explore a lawsuit (or at least a demonstration) against the state-owned Channel 2 and against Enderlin. If you think this is a far-fetched suggestion, please consider the other options.
Indeed, what is to be done? Do Jews world-wide, beginning in Europe, and particularly in the 19th arondissement in Paris, need Israeli Defense Forces to guard them as they walk to Parisian synagogues?
To read the complete article, please click here.
Hat Tip: seraphic Friend, David Paulin
And as Seraphic Friend Mere Rhetoric correctly states:
No responsibility is to be borne by academics or activists who froth at the mouth while screaming that shadowy cabals of Jewish bankers, journalists, and merchants are undermining the West and must be excised from decent society. Because their accusations are aimed at Zionist Jews. So that's OK.
The Fifth Annual Ariel Avrech Z'TL Memorial Lecture by Rabbi Dr. Gil S. Perl is now available.
Look at the sidebar to the right of this blog, and click the graphic directly below Ariel's picture, the video will download and play. Or you can click the Audio link and just listen to the lecture.
Karen and I are happy that we can share this special presentation with all our Seraphic Friends.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:52 AM | Comments (22)
June 24, 2008
Ads 4 Israel
Our friend David Suissa has created a series of ads in support of Israel:
Up against the anti-Israel, anti-Semitic machine propelled by the Arab world, it has been hard to fight back and give Israel the image she deserves. As a gift to Israel for her 60th birthday, David Suissa has put his advertising talent and his passion for Israel together in a new organization called ads4israel. Take a minute to check out the ads he created — they are brilliant!
Help spread the word.
Hat Tip: Mordechai Schiller
Update: Do check out Bookworm, who values David's ads, but has created several ads of her own that go on the offense against the malignant barbarisms of the Islamic world.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:17 AM | Comments (8)
June 23, 2008
Listen to the 2008 Memorial Lecture
The Fifth Annual Ariel Avrech Z'TL Memorial Lecture by Rabbi Dr. Gil S. Perl is now available.
Look at the sidebar to the right of this blog, and click the graphic directly below Ariel's picture, the video will download and play.
Karen and I are happy that we can share this special presentation with all our Seraphic Friends. We look forward to your comments.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 04:12 PM | Comments (8)
Israeli Factor in Iraq
Hamas terrorists in Gaza thanking Allah for
the recent Hudna
Here's an interesting article from Strategy Page that discusses the counter terrorist measures adopted by American troops from the Israeli model.
Perhaps the most vital strategic issue addressed in this analysis is that victory over terrorists can only be achieved when states abandon the notion that terrorism is a police, criminal problem—and moves effectively on the offense with aggressive military action.
The reason Hamas in Gaza have begged for a Hudna is because the Israeli Defense Forces have been eliminating their leaders and destroying terrorist cells with great efficiency. Has no one noticed that the Hamas leadership have gone to the mattresses for the past few months?
The leaders of Hamas and Hizbullah are terrified; in addition their resources have been seriously degraded.
That the Olmert-Livni-Barak government has accepted this Hudna is a sign of their ineptitude. It's no secret that the General Staff of the IDF are profoundly unhappy with the Hudna for it allows Hamas to rebuild their terrorist infrastructure, put new security measures in place, and rebuild their weapons capabilities by smuggling Iranian rockets and highly-trained Persian terrorists into Gazastan via tunnels from Egypt.
The jihadist Islamic world correctly views this Hudna as a victory for Hamas and Hizbullah. Of course the big winner is Iran, now solidifying their stranglehold on Lebanon and seeking hegemony over Gaza, thus surrounding Israel with two terrorist states who have vowed genocide against Israel and the entire Jewish people.
The recent Supreme Court decision handing Habeus Corpus to non-citizen terrorists is not just foolhardy, but deeply dangerous. In effect the court has extended the constitutional rights of an American citizen to Osama Bin Laden.
This is not how a state can effectively wage war against non-state actors.
In fact, it's a recipe for national suicide.
Barack Obama favors a return to the failed pre-9-11 policies—treating terrorism as a criminal problem.
John McCain correctly sees trans-national terrorism as a security threat that can only be defeated by an effective military.
No wonder the Islamic world is cheering Barack Obama's candidacy. They know a leaky vessel when they see one.
For political and diplomatic reasons, it's not likely that the Israelis will get the credit they deserve for the defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq. But it was Israeli concepts and tactics that helped bring IED (roadside bomb) casualties down from a high of 84 a month in May of 2007, to a low of 9 in May of 2008. While the new armored vehicles (MRAPs) and other technology (jammers and UAVs) played a role, it was the Israeli concept of going for the brains behind the bombs, that tore the heart out of the Islamic terrorist organizations in Iraq.
The armed forces of the U.S. and Israel have long worked together, to exchange tactics, techniques and technology. One of the items the Israelis shared was the tactics they developed to defeat a Palestinian suicide bombing campaign that began in 2000 (after Palestinian radicals refused to accept a recently negotiated peace deal).
The Palestinian terrorist groups still say they are going to destroy Israel. But as a practical matter, the current round of Palestinian terrorist violence is over. You can see this by the sharp decline in successful terrorist attacks, and the frequent pronouncements from the terrorists groups that they are going to behave, for a while anyway. What the terrorists really want is to avoid any more of the Israeli tactics that shot down their terrorist operations. This included going after terrorist leaders and technical specialists, and either capturing or (failing that) killing them. Raids and air attacks were made against buildings used by the terrorists, and tight security on Israelis borders were instituted. This last measure crushed the Palestinian economy, which put popular pressure on the terrorists to stop their attacks, and promise to keep it that way. The Israelis also set up an increasingly effective intelligence system inside Palestinian territories. What the Israelis did was "take the war to the enemy." This is an application of the old maxim, "the best defense is a good offense." This particular war is still going on, but the Israelis only adopted their winning tactics in 2003 and two years later the terrorists were rendered largely ineffective.
To read the complete story, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:34 AM | Comments (4)
June 22, 2008
Best of the Jewish Blogosphere #170
Louise Brooks says: "Read Haveil Havalim or else!"
Haveil Havalim #170 is up and hosted by none other than Soccer Dad AKA Our National Treasure.
We'd like to thank Soccer Dad for including Seraphic Secret's series How I Married Karen, presented on our 31st Wedding anniversary. I've rewritten quite a few of the original posts. You Tube videos and photos now enliven numerous entries.
I'm a screenwriter so for me writing is rewriting and the How I Married Karen series is under constant revision.
A new chapter is percolating in my so-called brain, and famous last words: should be up this week. Stay tuned.
Last Sunday, Karen and I and our girlses hosted the Fifth Annual Ariel Avrech Memorial Lecture at our shul The Young Israel of Century City here in Los Angeles. Our speaker was Rabbi Dr. Gil S. Perl. His topic: What Was the Rosh Yeshiva Reading, Intellectual Openness in 19th Century Lithuania.
Making her first appearance in Haveil Havalim is our blogmother and dear friend Jackie Danicki who flew in from the Bay Area to attend the lecture and writes about it on her blog.
Shameless plug: Jackie is Director of Marketing for a very cool new internet service, Qik. Do check it out.
Other friends who attended the lecture, and wrote about it on his fine blog, was Dirty Harry and his lovely wife—also their first time in a shul. As many of you know Dirty Harry has been blogging at Libertas for a few years. His religious convictions and Conservative take on Hollywood have added a breath of fresh air to the tediously conformist arch-liberal business of film reviews and Hollywood reporting.
Well, now Dirty Harry has moved his blog to Dirty Harry's Place. Make sure to bookmark his new home.
The lecture was videotaped and we were going to post it here on Seraphic Secret but discovered that our bandwith would get clobbered. So we're going to post the lecture at the Young Israel of Century City website and link to it.
Famous last words: The video should be up tomorrow.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:18 AM | Comments (15)
June 19, 2008
Seraphic Wedding Anniversary: 31
Today, June 19, is our 31st wedding anniversary.
I have been in love with my wife Karen since I was 9-years-old and we were both students at Yeshiva of Flatbush Elementary School in Brooklyn.
I have adored and been devoted to Karen for most of my life.
Every morning I wake and say to myself: It's true, Karen married you; together we have built a wonderful life and nurtured a glorious family. We have shared boundless joys and endured tragedy beyond the limits of language. Through it all, our love and friendship has endured and only become stronger, more profound.
Over the past few years, I have been writing a series called How I Married Karen.
It's an outline for a movie that will never be produced. But most of all it's a guide to the complex architecture of love and devotion, a modest attempt to give voice to the endless love I feel for Karen.
For those of you who have never read it, and for those who'd like to read it again, here it is, for the first time conveniently laid out in individual chapters.
I have rewritten a few sections and there are now pictures and several You Tube videos added to the series.
Happy Anniversary, Karen.
Introduction: Seraphic School Days or The Sadist of Yeshiva Flatbush
Chapter 1: The Rabbi's Seraphic Daughter
Chapter 3: Karen's POV on the Seraphic (Pity) Dance
Chapter 6: Seraphic Street Festival Bonus footage: Karen's Side of the Street.
Chapter 7: Karen Meets the Parents—Way Too Early
Chapter 8: Karen's View From Robert's Couch
Chapter 9: Sunday Afternoon Around the Corner From the Park With Robert
Chapter 10: Seraphic First Date
Chapter 11: Seraphic Shakesperian Urges
Chapter 13: Not So Seraphic Sweden
Chapter 14: Karen Meets The Seven Samurai—Sorta
Chapter 15: Karen and Robert Debate About—Get This—Art
Chapter 16: Seraphic Obsession Meets De Palma's Obsession
Chapter 17: How To Lose (Not So) Seraphic Friends
Chapter 18: Karrrrrrrrrren! Bonus Footage: Seraphic Loyalty.
Chapter 19: Robert Enters the Closet—Literally
Chapter 20: Seraphic Psycho—Plus Hitchcock's Great Crane Shot
Chapter 21: Flushing in Brooklyn
Chapter 22: Plan 9 From Bensonhurst
Chapter 23: Not Popping The Question
Chapter 25: Permission to Marry Karen
Chapter 26: My (Very Long) List of Sins
Chapter 27: Stanley Kubrick Plans Our Wedding, Bonus Wedding Pictures
Chapter 28: Negative on the Negatives
Chapter 29: Karen's at City Hall, Where's Robert?
Chapter 31: Beauty and Me, Bonus Photos of Robert & Karen in School
Chapter 33: The Seam, The Sword & Belle
Chapter 34: Karen Out of Context
Chapter 35: High School Confidential
Chapter 36: Be Good to My Daughter
Chapter 37: Seraphic Duel via Rashomon
Chapter 39: Two Tales of the Past
How Karen Feels About How I Married Karen
Karen, my kallah, bride, June 19, 1977
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:29 AM | Comments (33)
June 18, 2008
Cyd Charisse, 1921 - 2008
The lovely and talented Cyd Charisse passed away last night in Cedars Sinai Medical Center here in Los Angeles.
When I heard the news, I experienced a sense of deep loss.
I was a high school student the first time I laid eyes on the long-legged, sinuous Hollywood star Cyd Charisse. I cut school and took the subway into Manhattan to catch a screening of Singin' in the Rain, (1952) at one of Manhattan's revival movie houses. I think it was Dan Talbot's New Yorker Theater.
At the time, I was devouring esoteric film journals and Singin' in the Rain was frequently cited as one of the best musicals ever made.
Look, I was a dopey Yeshiva student obsessed with Japanese movies, but I had a hunger to know about all movies—though musicals struck me as somewhat, y'know, girlie.
But the the film magazines I was reading—and not truly comprehending—called Singin' in the Rain a “seminal movie.” So, when the opportunity arose to catch a screening, well, I took the plunge and made the trek from Brooklyn to Manhattan—another world.
Singin' in the Rain is a seminal movie. It's the finest treatment of the difficult transition from silent films to sound movies ever produced.
But here's the thing about Singin' in the Rain: Debbie Reynolds is all fresh, perky and just perfect in her ingenue role. But one look at Cyd Charisse just blew me out of my seat and erased all memory of Reynolds from my little mind.
Charisse has just one scene with the great Gene Kelly in the film, but she is brilliant, unforgettable, a dangerous slice of fire-breathing womanhood—smooth as silk. And to this day, when I watch the film, I'm once again that hungering, movie mad yeshiva student, cutting classes and coming face to face with one of the most graceful and magnetic dancers who has ever graced the silver screen.
I never had the opportunity to thank Cyd Charisse for making me care about and respect musicals.
This entry is written in deep gratitude.
A warning for those who are religiously modest: This dance number is smoking hot.
Cyd Charisse IMDb
The Official Cyd Charisse Website
The Cyd Charisse Appreciation Page
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:27 AM | Comments (5)
The Politics of Historical Amnesia
The face of Palestinian nationalism in Gaza—Hamas,
an Iranian proxy army.
Superb article by the mighty Melanie Phillips.
The conference in Berlin which I’ve been attending, organised by the Weidenfeld Foundation and the Axel Springer corporation, was about relations between the EU and Israel. It was simultaneously encouraging — touching, even — and dismaying. Encouraging because here was a Europe which – in the form of the German and Czech foreign and interior ministers at least, along with sundry diplomats and business people — had stopped hectoring Israel for its crimes and instead was pledging never to abandon it to its enemies; and it was touching to see the painful awareness of the Germans of their duty to ensure that their own history should never again be repeated elsewhere in the world. (Indeed, on the very day of this meeting the EU-Israel Association Council – the body headed by foreign ministers which conducts the bilateral relations between Israel and European Union member states – announced an upgrade in relations between Israel and the EU.)
What a difference from poisonous Britannia. The reason for the change in the European attitude is said to be twofold. First, and most important, the perspective of Europe’s elite has changed under the pressure of its own crisis of Islamist colonisation. As a result, it looks upon Israel, the front line of defence against this attack, in a new and more sympathetic light. Second, it approves of Israel’s apparent determination to hammer out a ‘two-state solution’ with the Palestinians.
But here was the rub. Speaker after speaker extolled Israel’s negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas and spoke of the 'sparks of hope' from such talks that must not be extinguished. But this hope was based on a high level of wishful thinking, not to say historical amnesia. For the two-state solution can hardly be a solution, given that two-states was the original compromise proposition put forward in the 1930s to appease Arab rejectionism of the proposed restored Jewish state — which is still rejected to this day, not just by Hamas but by the ‘moderate’ Holocaust-denier Mahmoud Abbas. Only recently he declared that the Palestinians would never accept Israel as a Jewish state; and yet he is being feted by Israel, America and Europe as a genuine interlocutor for peace.
Moreover, as I have noted before, a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza would mean that Iran was at the doorstep of Jordan and Egypt — a fact that causes the ‘two-state solution’ to fill them with undiluted horror. Far from providing ‘sparks of hope’ therefore, the ‘two-state solution’ would more likely spark a conflagration with an Iran whose quest for regional domination poses such a threat to the wider world.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Miranda Rose Smith
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:20 AM | Comments (2)
June 17, 2008
Al Jazeera Hears the Truth: Heads Explode
I love this clip from Al Jazeera. No doubt, this is the first time Al Jazeera viewers have been exposed to the truth. I'll bet there were lots of exploding skulls in an audience habituated to the pathological lies and Jew-hatred that Al Jazeera regularly spews.
Hey, I have an idea, somebody should make Ehud Olmert and Tzipi LIvni watch this clip. They might actually learn something about history and the centrality of Jerusalem to Judaism and the State of Israel.
There's an important lesson in the manner in which Dr. Kedar refuses to be put on the defensive by accusations disguised, none too cleverly, as questions by the Al Jazeera host. Mordechai Kedar just goes on the offensive immediately and because he knows history, because he's smarter than the Al Jazerra hack, and because he speaks fluent Arabic, he just destroys the stunned host.
It's basic to the art of war: Attack, always attack.
I don't know, but I get the feeling that next time Al Jazeera interviews an Israeli it won't be Mordechai Kedar, nope it'll probably be some seditious Israeli, no doubt a member of Peace Now or B'tzelem—reliable collaborators.
When Al Jazeerah's Jimal Rian asked Bar Ilan University political scientist Dr. Mordechai Kedar to guest on Rian's TV show, he obviously was expecting some Leftist academic. What he got was something very different!.
"Building in Jerusalem is another nail in the coffin in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority," narrator Jimal Rian asserted. Dr. Kedar answered in fluent Arabic, "This was our capital 3,000 years ago, and we were here when your forefathers were drinking wine, burying your daughters alive and worshiping idols. This is our city and it will be our city forever."
That set off Rian who shook his finger in the air and said excitedly, "If you want to talk about history, you cannot erase Jerusalem from the Koran, and don’t attack the Muslim religion if we want to continue talking."
Dr. Kedar replied, "Jerusalem is not mentioned even once in the Koran. Jerusalem is a Jewish city."
The Al Jazeera host responded by quoting a verse from the Koran which he thought mentioned Jerusalem but stopped right in the middle upon realizing that it only refers to "the farthest place."
Dr. Kedar replied: "Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Koran even once. You can't rewrite the Koran on air on Al Jazeera."
Whoopsie.
To read Joshua Pundit's complete analysis, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:39 AM | Comments (13)
June 16, 2008
First Time in Shul
Ariel Avrech ZT'L studying Torah during a visit to
Camp Morasha, Summer 1998.
Our dear friend and blogmother Jackie—check out Qik, Jackie is head of marketing for this amazing service—attended the Ariel Avrech ZT'L Memorial Lecture yesterday. It was her very first time in shul and here's her lovely and generous report.
Bonus footage: A picture of yours truly with Jackie.
Oh, almost forgot, here's Haveil Havalim #169, Part I presented by the cleverly titled, Writes Like She Talks.
Here's Part II.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:09 PM | Comments (10)
After the Lecture
The Fifth Annual Ariel Avrech ZT'L Memorial Lecture was well attended, and a resounding sucess. Rabbi Dr. Gil S. Perl's lecture was informative, compelling and beautifully organized. The audience was held in rapt attention throughout as Rabbi Dr. Perl delivered a thought provoking analysis of a little known corner of vital 19th Century Jewish intellectual and spiritual history.
The lecture was video taped and we will be posting this fine presentation here at Seraphic Secret as soon as possible.
Yosef Abrahamson, 16, right, with his mother, Dinah, and his sister, Sarah,
near their home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
In the meantime, here's a story Ariel ZT'L would have adored, a portrait of an amazing young Jewish man and his family.
Moments before Yosef Abrahamson, 16, accepted an award for the essay he’d written in a competition sponsored by the Police Athletic League, an officer approached him to complain about his fedora. The hat, an essential wardrobe item for Hasidic men, was gaudy, the policeman told him, and what’s with all these kids today and their nose rings and their attitudes. A second police officer, overhearing the conversation, came over to steer away the first one, who reappeared a few minutes later to apologize. He’d never seen a Hasidic Jew, he told Yosef.
A policeman working in New York who’d never seen a Hasidic Jew? What he probably meant, Yosef theorized, was “that he’d never seen a Hasidic Jew of color. I think he was probably making some assumptions there.”
Thanks to his Egyptian father, who left the family when Yosef was young, and his maternal grandfather, who was of African descent by way of Panama, Yosef looks African-American (though his family prefers to describe themselves as Jews of color, believing their culture to be exclusively Jewish). Yosef moved to Crown Heights only a year ago, until then having lived in Omaha, where his mother’s maternal family, German Jewish merchants, had settled several generations earlier.
To read the entire article, please click here.
And from Debbie Schlussel an important report on who's raising money for Barack Obama. What a shock. But I know, if you're a Kool-Aid Democrat, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters except Obama's soaring and empty rhetoric.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:23 AM | Comments (0)
June 13, 2008
Ariel Avrech ZT'L Memorial Lecture, 2008
Ariel Chaim Avrech ZT'L
The Fifth Annual Ariel Avrech ZT'L Yahrtzeit Lecture will take place this Sunday June 15, 2008, at 10 AM at the Young Israel of Century City, followed by a brunch.
Young Israel of Century City
9317 West Pico Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90035
We are pleased to announce that we have engaged Rabbi Dr. Gil S. Perl to present this year’s lecture.
Gil Perl is the Dean of the Margolin Hebrew Academy / Feinstone Yeshiva of the South, a Prek-12 day school serving the Jewish community of Memphis. Before arriving in Memphis, Dr. Perl served as an instructor of Modern Jewish History in Yeshiva University and as the Associate Head of School in Yeshiva University's High School for Boys. He earned his Bachelor's Degree from the University of Pennsylvania, his Masters and Doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University, and rabbinical ordination from Yeshiva University. As a Teaching Fellow at Harvard, Rabbi Perl was twice awarded Harvard's prestigious Certificate of Distinction in Teaching and in the Spring of 2006 he was named Yeshiva University's Lillian F. and William L. Silber Professor of the Year.
The title of Rabbi Perl’s lecture is: “What Was the Rosh Yeshiva Reading? Intellectual Openness in 19th Century Lithuania.”
We look forward to seeing all our Seraphic Friends and relatives at the lecture.
Learning Torah was Ariel's greatest joy. There is no better way of honoring Ariel's memory than by participating in this lecture series.
May Ariel's neshama have an aliyah.
You do not have to RSVP to attend. The lecture and brunch are courtesy of the Avrech Family and Friends.
The lecture will be videotaped and posted on Seraphic Secret for the benefit of those who cannot attend in person.
Karen and I wish all our friends a wonderful miracle in Shabbat .
And I must link to Joshua Pundit who explains why the Supreme Court decision on Habeus Corpus for non-citizen, non-combatants is a disaster for the American people and the war against terror.
I have a question: are our soldiers on foreign shores now required to read the Miranda rights to Islamo Nazi scum?
Here's my suggestion to our troops: Take no prisoners.
And here's an article about my friend Donald Etra, a member of my shul and a close—very close—personal friend of President and Mrs. Bush.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:41 AM | Comments (15)
June 12, 2008
Olmert's Gazastan
Hizbullah terrorists give the Nazi salute in Gaza.
Caroline Glick, the woman who should be Prime Minister of Israel, analyzes the perfidy of the current Olmert government.
The Olmert-Livni-Barak-Yishai government is marching the country into another military confrontation with an Iranian proxy army. As was the case in the last confrontation with an Iranian proxy army two years ago, the country's leaders are fully committed to Israel's strategic defeat in the current one.
Tuesday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak will meet ahead of Wednesday's security cabinet meeting to determine their preferred course of action in Gaza. As media reports and statements by the three's surrogates over the past several days make clear, Israel's political leaders oppose launching a military campaign aimed at defeating Hamas's Iranian directed, financed, trained and armed army and dislodging Hamas's jihadist regime from power.
Indeed, as their actions and statements over the past several months make clear, what Israel's political leaders really aspire to is a cease-fire agreement with Iran's Palestinian proxy regime. Under the proposed cease-fire, Hamas will suspend or scale back its illegal missile war against Israeli civilians in the South. In return, Israel will effectively accept Hamas rule of Gaza. Israel will allow Hamas to continue to build up its military forces in Gaza and have open access to the Sinai.
To read the complete article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:55 AM | Comments (3)
June 11, 2008
Obama: Without the Teleprompter
Obama is great when he's reading off a teleprompter. But when he has to think on his feet, he's a complete disaster, and these two clips are a pretty accurate indication of Obama's rambling cluelessness.
That's why his handlers will never allow Obama to accept McCain't invitation to a series of town meetings. McCain would chew him up and spit him out.
Behold, the shallowness that is Barack Obama. You have to laugh. Give the kid a breathalyzer? Completely incoherent. Obama's excuse? He's short on sleep. Really and truly.
This one is absolutely hysterical. Obama counts on his deep oboe voice to carry him through. But once again, without the teleprompter, Obama rambles, tries to make light and bluff his way out of obvious inoherence. But finally he confesses that he's, y'know, tired. For pity's sake, get the man some waffles.
Obama's rambling answers remind us of you know who.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend Kishke via Gateway Pundit.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 01:29 PM | Comments (21)
Jewish Democrats Defect to McCain
Who's the man in the blue shirt?
Obama's paymaster, arch-leftist George Soros.
Last week Obama pandered big-time to AIPAC—they claim to be non-partisan, but AIPAC's leadership is solidly Democratic, quietly shilling for Obama—and he hopes to erase all the blatantly anti-Israel and anti-Semitic material on his official Presidential website.
Yup, they're scrubbing the material now, But Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs has uncovered a sewer of Jew-hatred on Obama's site.
Listen if you spend over 20-years as a “proud member” of a racist, Jew-hating church, it means that Obama does not reject the vile theology of this church, it's leaders and its members.
When you proudly label Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pflagar as your “spiritual advisors” it means you're comfortable with their hatred of America, their paranoid conspiracy theories, and their vicious demagoguery.
When you associate with Bill Ayres and Bernardine Dorn, unrepentant Pentagon terrorists, it means that you're not averse to their radical message. In fact, Obama kicked off his Chicago political career with a fundraiser hosted by these two traitors.
When every major Middle East policy consultant on Obama's staff is solidly anti-Israel, well it means that Obama is in tune with their views.
Obama, like most liberals, wants America to trust his high-flying, utopian rhetoric.
But Judaism teaches that we judge people by their behavior.
And Obama's behavior is not to be trusted. Not in regard to Israel and America—and not as Iran stands on the threshold of acquiring nuclear weapons. The world is far too dangerous for an Obama presidency and his collectivist dreams.
America needs to pull the lever for McCain in November.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is attracting elite Jewish Democratic donors who backed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and are concerned about Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) stance toward Israel, say McCain backers who are organizing the effort to court Democrats.
McCain has already had several fundraising events with Jewish Democrats in Washington and Florida, say his supporters.
He also has the backing of Democrat-turned-Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), who made history as the first Jewish vice presidential candidate and has recently raised questions about Obama’s foreign policy vision for the Middle East.
Stephen Muss, the Florida developer, is the biggest Democratic donor and fundraiser to pledge his support for McCain and the Republican National Committee, said a GOP official. Muss has given tens of thousands of dollars to help Democratic candidates in recent years, including $80,000 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics and CQ MoneyLine.
Muss did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday afternoon.
“Many Jewish Democrats are sensing there is such an existential threat to Israel that you have to vote for an individual who strongly supports the U.S.-Israel relationship,” said Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), chairman of the GOP’s Jewish Victory Coalition.
To read the complete story, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:10 AM | Comments (2)
June 08, 2008
Shavuot 2008
Maayan Ariel says: “Have a lovely and meaningful Shavuot.”
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 05:55 PM | Comments (21)
Best of the Jewish Blogosphere # 168
Jimmy Cagney urges you to read Haveil Havalim.
Haveil Havalim #168, The Celtics Must Lose Edition, is live and hosted by the, not too fanatic Lakers fan, Jack.
This edition carries two Seraphic Secret articles: Democratic Politics: The Haunted, and ouch, Oil Prices.
Jack has done a great job of collecting choice blogs for this week's edition. Thanks so much Jack for all your hard work.
Karen and I wish all our friends a lovely and meaningful Shavuot.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:59 AM | Comments (2)
June 07, 2008
Canadian Muslim Terrorists: Kill Rats or Jews, No Contest
From Arab News, a Saudi Arabian state sponsored
newspaper. Cartoon depicts rats as Jews, scurrying through
a Palestinian home.
But of course, this has nothing to do with Islam.
The alleged leader of the alleged Toronto 18 terror bomb plot had just broken the news to one of his alleged co-conspirators that the house they were thinking of renting as a base had a rat problem.
"I don't like wanna live with rats," the leader said.
The co-conspirator, who clearly was still pining and pushing for the house rental, inquired rather timidly, "It's permissible to kill rats?"
The leader thought about it, and concluded, a bit reluctantly, that rat-killing was probably allowed by the Koran.
"Is there any good about rats?" the co-conspirator asked.
Well, said the leader, a little anguished because such matters are not so simple, only that the rat "is a creature of Allah."
Jews, not so much. There was no such hand-wringing about Jew-killing.
Jews, the leader had told this same co-conspirator and two others a month earlier, you can kill with abandon. Because of what they had done to Palestine and "stuff like that, they're all our enemies. It's not enough to say they're only my enemy in a certain part of land, they're your enemy everywhere you see them....every single Jew is your enemy."
For the complete story, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:56 PM | Comments (4)
June 06, 2008
Dull Brass in the Air Force
Ousted brass: Chief of Staff Air Force General T. Michael Moseley
and Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne
On Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates ousted the Air Force's senior civilian official and its highest ranking officer after it was revealed that nuclear weapons and components were mishandled. Recently, Seraphic Secret published Officer Rot, by Air Force Officer, a clear-eyed view of systemic problems in the Air Force.
Here, Air Force Officer sheds light on these high level Air Force firings.
See, what did I tell our wonderful readers?
Yesterday's purge wasn't so much a re-commitment to the strategic mission as it was a message to the entire service: GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER.
Now granted, the nuclear mission needs work and the fighter pilots who have run things since Linebacker I & II* have largely ignored the strategic force. Can't say I blame them, they're tactical guys. Jet to jet combat is how they think.
Plus, the nuclear mission has been screwed since the early 90s when the Air Force stood down Strategic Air Command. Mighty Mother SAC, once the ruler of all things blue, went the way of the dinosaur and she took her nuclear dominance with her. So we put our ICBMs under Space Command (doesn't make sense to me either) and our bombers under the conventional weapons orientated Air Combat Command. The Air Force merged the ICBM career path with the Space career path and lost an entire generation of officers who were “grown” to be nuclear experts. Oh, and we also lost control of six bombs for several hours and accidentally shipped ICBM fuses to Taiwan.
You know, little things.
So really, it was only a matter of time. General Moseley and Secretary Wynne just happened to be in the driver's seat when the decrepit nuke community crashed into the proverbial tree.
Secretary Gates is an old SAC guy, so I understand that he's reinstituting the old “zero defects” mentality that made Strategic Air Command great.
But...
I also think that Gates just sent a warning shot over the bow of the Air Force as a whole. He's tired of the acquisition disasters and he's tired of Air Force generals going behind his back on the F-22. He's tired of their reluctance to send more UAVs to theater and he's tired of the Air Force's clamoring for pricey weapon systems.
Especially when 100 dollar Iranian bombs are killing million dollar weapons systems in Iraq.
I suspect Gates just got sick of all the excuses and embarrassments and ego and finally had the wherewithal to put his foot down.
Questions abound. Will the bomber generals return to their throne? Are the fighter generals done? Will the new Chief and Secretary be company men, or will they be free-thinking innovators who have had it with the bureaucracy and red tape? Will close air support become a primary mission? Will strategic forces grow after 16 years of cuts?
And lastly, can anyone deny that there was—and is—a “rot” in the Air Force ranks?
As an Air Force officer, I sense a wonderful opportunity in this George C. Marshall style cleansing. I hope we take advantage.
Aside, but somewhat related: I ran into a Squadron Commander recently who banned MS Powerpoint in his command. Just mentioning this because I hear there's vacancy at the top of the chain...
*Operation Linebacker was a strategy to bomb the will to fight out of North Vietnam. The two-part operation caused enormous destruction, but failed to break the NVA. We took terrible B-52 losses during the missions, and the fighter pilots seized on the bomber pilots' failure—even though the B-52 drivers were trained to fly nuclear strike missions over the pole, not convention missions above dense jungles. The fighter pilots have been in control of the Air Force ever since.
Karen and I wish all our friends a wonderful miracle in Shabbat .
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:39 AM | Comments (8)
June 05, 2008
Oil Prices
The other day I filled up the gas tank in my car and got hit with a whopping $67.00 bill. Ouch!
The Democrats self-righteously lecture that we have to exploit alternative sources of energy.
I'm all for it.
Problem is, like almost all Democratic policies, it's delusional.
The industrial world runs on oil, and creating reliable and cheap alternate sources of energy is a long way from bearing fruit.
The Democrats like to blame oil companies for the world-wide spike in prices, making believe that the laws of supply and demand do not exist. They prefer dopey conspiracy theories, accusing multinational corporations of artificially inflating oil prices in order to gouge higher profits.
Barack Obama makes a point of attacking big corporations as a source of America's ills.
It's very odd, he hates big business, but his entire platform relies on the promise of Big Government—huge government. His acceptance speech yesterday promised higher taxes, cradle to grave socialism, surrender in Iraq, an end to global warming, to make the oceans recede, provide jobs for all, universal health care—Viva Fidel!—and of course the world will love us.
And oh yeah, he promised to walk on water.
Most frightening, his audience believed him.
INTERPOLATION
Hey, have you noticed that no one is fainting at Obama rallies any more? He's not gliding forward, the calm hero, with a bottle of water for the swooning maidens suffering from the Vapors, the result, no doubt, of being so close to the Savior—a savior who spent over 20-years as a “proud member” of a racist Church.
I guess that act was a bit too transparent, even for his gullible believers.
END INTERPOLATION
Anywhoo.
The only people who hate America are leftists. Which is absolutely cool. Being scorned by America and Jew-hating leftists is something we should be proud of.
Big government: History teaches that unlimited government always yields economic ruin and personal misery. And these states inevitably evolve, by internal design, into a Big Brother rule.
As the clever cartoon points out, it's Democratic policies that enable and encourage such high oil prices. Remember that next time you fill up your tank, confront massive heating bills, pay higher prices on your airline ticket. In fact, high oil prices permeate almost every nook and cranny of our economic lives.
Alternate sources of energy will be exploited. Not by massive government programs, wasteful and inefficient, but by private entrepreneurs spurred on by the spirit of innovation and capitalism.
This Israeli company is making fine headway—with seaweed.
In the meantime, we should be exploiting the oil resources that are readily available to us. New methods of drilling now exist that do not harm the environment.
Unless we act sanely oil prices will continue to rise, and the tyrants of the Muslim world will strengthen their stranglehold on our lives, using their economic leverage to export to American and European shores the radical Islam of the Wahhabi, Salafi and Khomeinist strains—to metastasize like a deadly cancer into Western culture.
Cartoon Hat Tip: Peter Stevenson
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:18 AM | Comments (20)
June 04, 2008
Since You Went Away
Miranda Rose Smith reviewed So Proudly We Hail (1943) a few weeks ago. Now, our movie-loving friend from Israel writes about another patriotic Hollywood movie, David O. Selznick's Since You Went Away (1944). Selznick's vision for this movie was a domestic Gone With the Wind whose subject matter he labeled, “The Unconquerable Fortress: Home.”
Warning: Spoilers ahead!
Claudette Colbert plays Anne Hilton, a wife and mother, valiantly holding things together while her husband is away at war. Colbert tries to keep up a brave front for her two daughters, Jane, Jennifer Jones, and Bridget "Brig," played by a luminous 16-year old Shirley Temple.
Jennifer Jones, Claudette Colbert and Shirley Temple in
Since You Went Away.
Colbert's husband abandoned a promising job in advertising to join the army. Colbert embarks on a Keep-It-Strictly-Platonic flirtation with an old family friend, Tony Willett, played by the durable and charming Joseph Cotten. Simultaneously, Colbert copes with catty neighbor Agnes Moorehead, the only major character who hoards food and deals in the black market.
Jennifer Jones, Robert Walker and Joseph Cotton in
Since You Went Away.
Academy Award winning Hattie McDaniel is the no-nonsense housekeeper, Fidelia. At Brig's suggestion, Anne takes in a lodger, the pompous Colonel William G. Smollett, Monty Woolley. Smollett is not the jingoistic military nut so favored by today's Hollywood elite. This character is carefully shaded with human layers. Beneath the boastful exterior lies a sensitive soul. The Colonel suffers a painful estrangement from his grandson, Bill, Robert Walker, expelled from West Point, now an enlisted man.
Bill and Jane, a beautifully doomed movie couple, fall in love and get engaged—only to have Bill killed in action.
The unfortunate Colonel is unable to express his grief and rage. On Christmas Eve, he paces around bitterly sputtering, "Peace on earth. Goodwill towards men."
Thoughts on the great black actress Hattie McDaniel: If McDaniel were alive today and looking for work in Hollywood, she would have to contend with Hollywood's anti-overweightism, a prejudice more deeply entrenched than past Hollywood racism. She would never, or almost never, be asked to play a romantic lead. She would be playing tediously heroic, Oprah-style black women: teachers, social workers, principals, welfare mothers, and nurses—Mammy with an education, Aunt Jemima, R.N.
Hattie McDaniel (center), Chairman of the Negro Division of the
Hollywood Victory Committee, poses with a group of entertainers and
hostesses before a performance and dance for soldiers stationed in
Minter Field.
Jennifer Jones volunteers as a Red Cross nurse's aide in a veteran's hospital. Here she meets combat fatigue victim Craig Stephens. Jones gives a lovely and nuanced performance as a young woman slowly recovering from the loss of a beloved fiance. By the end of the picture, Stephens, gradually healing from his breakdown, leaves Jones to reenlist. Duty before love. The film lovingly hints that something will develop between these two damaged people after the war.
This is one of Jennifer Jones' greatest performances. Unfortunately, she was so beautiful and so allergic to fame and publicity, that even with an Oscar to her credit, she's never been recognized as the superb and versatile actress she truly was.
Jennifer Jones reads Margaret Buell Wilder's Since You Went Away,
the novel on which the film is based.
Working in a shipyard, Anne meets refugee Zofia Koslowska, Nazimova, who tells Anne about her little boy. The two of them longed to come to America, but tragically the boy died before they could both emigrate. Zofia recites the Emma Lazarus poem inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty. Anne doesn't even know the poem, thus suggesting that immigrants appreciate this country in ways that many natural American-born citizens cannot.
Nazimova, one of the leading stars of the silent era, turns in a performance of great depth. It's gratifying to see silent players working in sound films. Too many silent stars were unfairly discarded by short-sighted sound engineers and studio executives when sound took over.
Except for Robert Walker's Bill, who is a little too aw' shucks in places, the performances are all superior. Need I point out that they don't make 'em like this anymore.
Joseph Cotton and Shirley Temple, Since You Went Away
We experience the heartache of families who lose loved ones—without blaming the U.S. government or cooking up delusional conspiracy theories. Mr. Mahoney, the local grocer, is proud that his son serves in the Air Force and burns indignant when several customers suggest that he trade in the black market.
Patriotic Americans are honest, decent and sane in this picture. Anne and Tony meet the grocer's son, Johnny, at a U.S.O. dance. Not long afterwards, Johnny is killed in a plane crash. Later, the elder Mahoney walks out of a movie when a newsreel announces a home town welcome for a returning hero. The pain is just too much for the father to bear.
This movie does not shrink from the unbearable tragedy of lost sons. The cost of war is great, says the film, but there is no choice in the face of evil rampant.
Everybody connected with this epic movie—it's three-hours long—sincerely believed that America was a force for good in the world.
Such sentiments have all but disappeared from contemporary Hollywood films—and we are all diminished by this cynical, post-modern attitude.
Robert Walker, Jennifer Jones, and David O. Selznick. Jones and Walker were married as “Since You Went Away” went into production. But the marriage was rocky. Jones and Selznick were having an affair. Cast and crew reported that the tension in the studio was unbearable as Jones and Walker worked before the camera, with Selznick behind the lights, insisting that Walker and Jones perform take after take of their love scenes. Jones and Walker separated during production in 1943. Selznick was angrily kicked out of the home he shared with wife Irene Mayer, daughter of powerful MGM chief, Louis B. Mayer. Robert Walker was never the same afterwards. He became an alcoholic and his career nose-dived. Walker pulled himself together for one last absolutely brilliant performance as Bruno, the oddly sympathetic killer in Hitchcock's classic, “Strangers on a Train.” Sadly, Walker did not receive the Oscar he so richly deserved. Robert Walker died, age 32, just seven years after separating from Jones. Selznick and Jones stayed together until Selznick's death in 1965. Jones' only child with Selznick, Mary Jennifer Selznick (born in 1954), committed suicide in 1976. In 1971 Jones married Los Angeles millionaire art collector Norton Simon. When she was in her eighties, Jones conducted tours of her husband's art collection. The couple remained married until Simon's death in 1993. Currently, Jennifer Jones is on the board of directors of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. Jones hates publicity and refuses all movie related interviews. She handed the Oscar she received for Song of Bernadette to her hairdresser. With good grace, a few days later, the hairdresser returned the precious statue.
Poster art of Jennifer Jones by the great American artist Norman Rockwell for “The Song of Bernadette.”
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:05 AM | Comments (6)
June 03, 2008
Democratic Politics: The Haunted
Hizbullah terrorists give the Nazi salute. Obama wants
to talk, without preconditions, to their masters, Iran.
It's become clear that Barack Obama is not a liberal, nor a progressive, but a radical leftist. He's clueless about foreign policy, which is why he receives support from the radical Islamic world. They understand exactly who he is: a leaky American vessel who would be steam-rolled by every tin-pot dictator and Jew-hating Muslim tyrant on the face of the earth.
Any man who is comfortable, for over 20 years, as a "proud member" of a racist church has deep character flaws. Any man who draws consistent support and spiritual sustenance from America and Israel hating radicals such as Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger (I keep wanting to say Father Flotsky, recalling the hysterical Lenny Bruce routine) Pentagon bombers Bernardine Dorn and husband, partner-in-terror, Bill Ayres, cannot be trusted with this country's highest office. Obama's judgement in matters of geo-politics and national defense is not just faulty, but warped by his radical ideology.
The Democrats have made their calculations. They know that Obama cannot win the general election. Hillary could have given McCain a run for his money. But she's female and Obama is black and race trumps gender in the, ahem, progressive mind.
Rather than alienate their black base, without whom they cannot win any elections, the Democratic leadership has opted to sacrifice the Presidency in favor of propping up a nominee for the most self-serving reasons: the superdelegates, AKA the party elite, will also be on the ballots in November, and though Obama will lose, they will secure the black vote and get to keep their jobs.
The superdelegates do have their priorities.
The Democrats boast that Obama's candidacy has prompted a record number of new Democratic voters. They argue that Obama has reactivated a new, untapped base that will be a signifigant factor in the elections.
Maybe yes, maybe no.
But keep in mind that the last time the Democrats made this claim was during the Presidential candidacy of George McGovern.
Republicans can be grateful that the Democrats, who have played the race card for so many years, will now down in flames as this insidious form of racism comes back to haunt them.
As Bobby Kennedy famously remarked: "Liberals are suicidal."
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:48 AM | Comments (17)
June 01, 2008
Name the Movie Star #1 Answer: Lana Turner
The movie star with Ronald Reagan is none other than Lana Turner.
No correct answers this week to our quiz.
The photo was taken in 1937, not long after Turner made her heart-stopping film debut, age 16, in Mervyn LeRoy's (real name, Levy) They Won't Forget.
Lana Turner in They Won't Forget.
Lana Turner, born Julia Jean Mildred Francis Turner, impoverished and fatherless—her father was murdered after a winning streak in a crap game—arrived with her mother in California, seeking a better life.
Lana (pronounced: Lah-na) attended Hollywood High School. One day, in 1936, cutting typing class and sipping a Coke at the soda fountain of the Top Hat Cafe—not Schwab's—W.R. Wilkerson, publisher of The Hollywood Reporter asked that fateful question: “Would you like to be in the movies?”
Lana responded: “I don't know. I'd have to ask my mother.”
Lana Turner, 15-years old, a student at Hollywood High.
Wilkerson introduced Lana to Zeppo Marx, born, Herbert Manfred Marx, who left the Marx Brothers to open a talent agency. Zeppo agreed to represent the innocent and luminous teenager.
At the time, director Mervyn LeRoy was having a difficult time casting the role of Mary Clay, a teenage girl who is brutally raped and murdered in his socially conscious film about prejudice, corruption and media manipulation in the deep South, They Won't Forget.
LeRoy describes his first meeting with Turner in his informative autobiography Take One.
She was so nervous her hands were shaking. She wasn't wearing any makeup, and she was so shy she could hardly look me in the face. Yet there was something so endearing about her that I knew she was the right girl. She had tremendous appeal, which I knew the audience would feel.
Lana's small but unforgettable appearance in the LeRoy film rocketed the shy young girl to fame. Her 15 second walk down a street dressed in a well contoured-skirt, patent leather belt, tight sweater, high-heeled pumps and a perky tam, became a national sensation.
She was dubbed: The Sweater Girl, a label she hated.
Director Mervyn LeRoy and Lana Turner on
the set of They Won't Forget, 1937.
In her autobiography, The Lady, The Legend, The Truth, Turner describes her mortified reaction to seeing herself on screen for the first time:
When the lights went down, I slumped in my seat and grabbed my mother's hand. The sound track's jazzy, earthy beat magnified the image on the screen. It was a young girl—was it me?—but, my God, the way she walked!
The audience began to stir as the camera angle shifted. That walk was more than teasing—it was seductive. Her breasts and backside were not that full, but when she walked they bounced. From behind me came an audible growl, and a chorus of wolf whistles filled the hall.
“Who's the girl?” I heard someone ask, but I had tears in my eyes. I slipped down farther in my seat until I was resting on my spine. Only the brim of my new hat stopped me from sliding to the floor.
At the end of the reel, when the credits rolled up, my name was listed sixth. Lana Turner—the first time it had ever appeared on screen. “Let's get out of here,” I urged my mother, who seemed to be in a daze. A production assistant swept us out before the lights came on.
As we hurried to a waiting car, I clutched the young man's sleeve. “Listen,” I said. “Tell me. I don't really look like that...”
He cut me off with a slight smile. “Fortunately,” he said, “you do.”
LeRoy signed Turner to a personal contract. Soon, Leroy left Warner Bros. for a top position as a supervising Producer/Director at MGM, the most powerful and star-studded Hollywood studio. There, studio chief L.B. Mayer instructed his team of image-makers to reinvent the promising young starlet.
By 1943, Lana Turner's transformation into a sultry love goddess
was complete.
Sadly, behind the glamorous image, Turner's private life was a mess. She was married seven times—twice to the same man—and each marriage seemed worse than the last. Husband #1, band leader Artie Shaw, real name, Arthur Jacob Arshwasky, was physically and mentally abusive. That marriage lasted four miserable months. Turner lost her fortune to Henry Topping—husband #3—and got into trouble with the IRS over unpaid taxes. Actor Lex Barker—husband # 4—repeatedly molested and raped Turner's 12-year old daughter Cheryl.
Commenting about her numerous affairs and marriages, Lana said: “I like the boys and the boys like me.”
Turner was an alcoholic and prone to severe depressions. The most notorious chapter of her life was in 1958 when her daughter Cheryl, 14, stabbed to death Turner's abusive and violently jealous boyfriend, mobster Johnny Stompanato.
Lana Turner's best films are: The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1946, in which her portrayal of Cora Smith, the beautiful and murderous seductress, is one of the most enduring bad-girl, film noir performances in movie history.
Here's Lana's unforgettable entrance in Postman Always Rings Twice.
The all white outfit and queenly turban mitigate against the powerful
eroticism of the scene. The whiteness of Lana probably saved the scene
from an all out assault by the censors. Watch John Garfield's
(real name, Jacob Julius Garfinkle) reaction shot to Lana's entrance.
He's a surrogate for every man and woman in the audience
In 1952, Turner turned in the performance of her career in The Bad and the Beautiful, playing an alcoholic small time Hollywood actress who suddenly rises to fame. Here Turner's work is subtle and touching. When Turner's character offers to sleep with producer Jonathan Shields—Kirk Douglas, born Issur Danielovitch—in order to secure a role, you feel the harsh, world-weariness of Turner's character, a doomed actress who has resigned herself to a life of diminishing expectations—where bartering flesh for work is the norm. It's as if Lana Turner, the beautiful but broken Hollywood star, has finally reached so deep within her battered psyche that she's no longer acting but inhabiting the role. It's a magnificent film, from a great script, filled with brilliant performances.
Here's the scene: “You're very generous. Too generous.”
Every time I watch this clip, tears spring to my eyes. I've worked in Hollywood for over twenty years and this scene—emotionally overwhelming on so many levels—just rings with truth.
Lana Turner, Ronald Reagan, together again, 1957.
Lana Turner: Bad and Beautiful
Hollywood Goes to War
Lillian Gish: Dying for Her Audience
Ricardo Cortez: Hollywood's Latin Lover or The Kosher Butcher's Son
Hollywood's First Western Hero: Billy Broncho, A Jewish Kid Who Couldn't Ride a Horse
Sylvia Sidney Replaces Clara Bow
Douglas Sirk Directs Linda Darnell
Less Dialogue is More: Mervyn LeRoy, Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor and Waterloo Bridge.
Alla Nazimova: Desperately Exotic
Charlton Heston: A Moment of Silence
Lilyan Tashman.
Carmel Myers: The Rabbi's Beautiful Daughter
Colleen Moore: The Stars and Stripes
Colleen Moore's Wedding Night
One Hairstyle, Three Memoirs: Alma Rubens, Colleen Moore, Louise Brooks
Theda Bara: The Vamp Adopts the Troops
Movie Magazines: They Don't Print 'em Like They Used To
Alma Rubens: Dope Fiend, But Not a Jewess
Wallace Reid: Hollywood Shooting Star
Olive Thomas: Hollywood's First Suicide
Mary Pickford: The Greatest Movie Star
Seraphic Secret Chats with Actress Coleen Gray about John Wayne, Howard Hawks, and Stanley Kubrick
Susan Peters: The Great Unknown and Tragic Actress
The Blond Machine Gun: Jean Harlow
Peg Entwistle & The Hollywood Sign
Brigitte Bardot & Sean Connery in Shalako—Sorta
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:26 AM | Comments (8)
Haveil Havalim
Ruby Keeler says: “Let Haveil Havalim dance it's way
into your heart.”
The new Haveil Havalim is live, hosted this week by Frum Satire.
In his introduction, Frum Satire writes:
Haviel Havalim is a Jewish Blogger Carnival in which bloggers submit their posts and I put them up with links back to them. I also looked around at several recently updated blogs featured on my blogroll and plucked anything of interest. The whole point of this is to expose my readers to new blogs and give myself exposure to those I have linked who may not have ever been to frum satire. If you would like to host a Haviel Haleilm please contact JACK for information.
We'd like to thank Frum Satire for including two Seraphic Secret posts: Our Memorial Day photo essay on Hollywood's patriotic role in the war effort—World War II. Plus our Idiot's Guide to the Israeli-Syrian Peace Negotiations.
Frum Satire has done a great job, Yasher Koach!
Update: From our good friend Treppenwitz, comes this important story: Moshe Rusnak—A Hero of Israel. Don't miss it.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:51 AM | Comments (1)