Category Archives: Jewish Holidays

Chanukah 2018: Same Enemies, Same Conflicts

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: December 3, 2018

Today is the first day of Chanukah. And here is a timeless message from Simon the Maccabee: “We have not taken a foreign land, nor did we take the property of others — for this is the inheritance of our fathers, which was for some time unjustly possessed by our enemies. But we, having the opportunity, […]

Also posted in America, Chanukah, Donald Trump, Holidays, Israel, Jerusalem, Jew-hatred | Tagged Antiochus IV, Chanukah, Israel, Jewish History, Maccabees, Menorah, Torah | 2 Responses

Succot 2018: Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: September 30, 2018

…On the fifteenth day of this seventh month is the Festival of Sukkot, seven days for the L-RD… on the eighth day, there shall be a holy convocation for you. -Leviticus 23:34 Tonight begins the last days of the Succot holiday, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. We will be offline until Wednesday. We wish all […]

Also posted in Art, Judaism, Painting, Shemini Atzeret, Simchat Torah, Succos, Torah | Tagged Shemini Atzeret, Simchat Torah, Succot, Torah | Leave a comment

Succot 2018

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: September 23, 2018

As Jews all over the world make last minute preparations for the holiday of Sukkot, which begins this evening, here are a few wonderfully evocative pictures of Jews celebrating this joyous holiday in Israel — and a rare photo of Jews in Samarkand. You will dwell in booths for seven days; all natives of Israel […]

Also posted in Jerusalem, Jewish Photography, Judaism, Succos | Tagged Judaism, Succah, Succot, Torah Judaism | 3 Responses

Yom Kippur 2018

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: September 18, 2018

…In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and you shall not do any work … For on that day he shall provide atonement for you to cleanse you from all your sins before the L-RD. —Leviticus 16:29-30

Also posted in Judaica, Judaism, Yom Kippur | Tagged Little Western Wall, Yom Kippur | Leave a comment

Rosh Hashanah 2018

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: September 9, 2018

Also posted in Judaism, Rosh Hashanah | Tagged Jewish Holidays, Judaism, Rosh Hashanah | Leave a comment

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: May 18, 2018

Also posted in Ann Miller, Art, Brigitte Bardot, Coleen Gray, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Hollywood Still Photography, Judaica, Judaism, Movie Posters, Movies, Myrna Loy, Painting, Photography, Rick McGinnis, Shavuot, Susan Hayward, True Hollywood Confessions | Tagged Ann Miller, Arthur Szyk, Brigitte Bardot, Coleen Gray, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Edward Hopper, Greta Garbo, Milton Avery, Myrna Loy, Norman Rockwell, Rick McGinnis, Susan Hayward, Vintage Cars | 7 Responses

Purim: The Deeply Anti-Progressive Jewish Holiday

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: March 1, 2018

Today is the holiday of Purim. It is no accident that in 2015, Benjamin Netanyahu referenced Purim when delivering his powerful address to the U.S. Senate in an unsuccessful bid to curb Obama’s legitimization of a nuclear Iran. Purim is an old ( 5th century B.C.E.) but painfully familiar story: A Jew-hater named Haman hatches […]

Also posted in Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran, Judaism, Purim, Second Amendment, Torah | Tagged Benjamin Netanyahu, Book of Esther, Esther, Haman, King Ahasuerus, King David, Liberal Jews, Mordechai, Obama, Persia, Purim, Saul, Second Amendment, Torah | Leave a comment

Hidden Hollywood: Seven Obscure Jewish Films

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: November 15, 2017

What’s a Jewish film? My definition is quite simple. It is a film that deals with Jewish subject matter. Thus, Woody Allen does not make Jewish films. In truth, Hollywood movies that do deal with Judaism are quite rare. Take a look at the subject headings in Netflix. There is no category for Jewish films. […]

Also posted in Hidden Hollywood, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Israel, Jewish Hollywood, Judaism, Kirk Douglas, Movie Posters, Movies | Tagged Al Jolson, Elissa Landy, Franchot Tone, Frank Capra, Hungry Hearts, Kirk Douglas, Straight is the Way, Symphony of Six Million, The Jazz Singer, The Juggler, The Yellow Ticket, The Younger Generation | 4 Responses

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: October 11, 2017

Once again Friday Photos appears on Wednesday due to the last days of Sukkot which begin tonight and then run into Shabbat. Enjoy!

Also posted in Alfred Hitchcock, Betty Grable, Friday Fotos, Hollywood, Hollywood Still Photography, Judaism, Movie Posters, Movies, Painting, Photography, Quotes, True Hollywood Confessions, Wisdom of Hollywood Screenwriters | Tagged Alfred Hitchcock, Allan Grant, Alternative Movie Posters, Bernard Picart, Betty Grable, Buster Keaton, Edward Hopper, Efrat, Eileen Gray, Eugene Robert Richee, Gail Patrick, Gene Kelly, Gerrit Dou, Hendrick Terbrugghen, Hoshana Rabbah, Louise Brooks, Morgan Auto, Picasso, Preston Sturges, Richard Avedon, Richard Burton, Rick McGinnis, Robert Doisneau, Simchat Torah, Sukkot, To Catch a Thief | 2 Responses

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: October 4, 2017

No, you have not fallen into a time warp. It is Wednesday. So: why Friday Photos today? The celebration of Succos starts tonight and continues into Shabbat. And because Orthodox Jews (that’s us) do not use electronics during these holidays you get Friday Photos early. We hope you enjoy this edition.

Also posted in Art, Brigitte Bardot, Cary Grant, Family, Friday Fotos, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Hollywood Still Photography, Judaism, Movie Posters, Movies, Myrna Loy, Photography, Quotes, Sandra Dee, Succos, True Hollywood Confessions, Wisdom of Hollywood Screenwriters | Tagged Alternative Movie Posters, Bernard Palissy, Cary Grant, Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Le Brun, Follow the Fleet, Ginger Rogers, Horst P. Horst, Marilyn Monroe, Myrna Loy, Sandra Dee, Shabbat, Succos | 6 Responses

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: May 26, 2017

Also posted in Automobiles, Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr, Dorothy Lamour, Fashion, Friday Fotos, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Hollywood Still Photography, Judaica, Judaism, Movies, Myrna Loy, Photography, True Hollywood Confessions | Tagged Dorothy Lamour, Dovima, Erwin Blumenfeld, Irving Penn, John Holland Fountain Pen, Milton Green, Myrna Loy, Omer counter, Quirijn van Brekelenkam, Rick McGinnis, Rufus Hathaway, Vincent van Gogh, Vintage Cars | 8 Responses

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: May 19, 2017

Also posted in Art, Automobiles, Billy Wilder, Brigitte Bardot, Carole Lombard, Clark Gable, Fashion, Friday Fotos, Glamour, Hollywood, Hollywood Cars, Hollywood Stars, Hollywood Still Photography, Judaica, Judaism, Lizabeth Scott, Marilyn Monroe, Painting, Sidney Lumet, True Hollywood Confessions | Tagged Bathing Suits, Bikini, Brigitte Bardot, Charles Demuth, Classic Cars, Diana Dors, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Filippo Lippi, Georges Dambier, Howard Hodgkin, Ivy Nicholson, John Singer Sargent, Lizabeth Scott, Louis Réard, Marc Riboud, Marilyn Monroe | 3 Responses

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: May 12, 2017

Also posted in Art, Design, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Hollywood Still Photography, Joan Bennett, Judaica, Judaism, Painting, Photography, True Hollywood Confessions | Tagged Bert Hardy, Bugatti, Charles Bobinet, Cornelis Norbertus Gysbrechts, Fra Filippo Lippi, Gustave Serrurier-Bovy, Horology, Itzhak Luvaton, Jacob Ochtervelt, Joan Bennett, Lucille Ball, Morris Louis, Peter Keetman, Randall Knives, Rick McGinnis, Roman Art, Sabrina, Shirley Jones, Southworth and Hawes | 4 Responses

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: May 5, 2017

Also posted in Art, Bette Davis, Cary Grant, Family, Hollywood, Hollywood Cars, Hollywood Stars, Hollywood Still Photography, Judaica, Judaism, Kirk Douglas, Movie Posters, Painting, Photography, Photography, Los Angeles, Pico-Robertson, Photography, Signs, Quotes, Shirley Temple, True Hollywood Confessions | Tagged Antonio Leonelli, Arthur Dove, Bette Davis, Birger Sandzén, Charles Gates Sheldon, Clark Gable, Colt's Revolver, Counting the Omer, Jackie Chan, James Garner, Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen, Maerten van Heemskerck, Natalie Wood, Randall Knives, Rick McGinnis, Robert Doisneau, Robert Mangold, Rockwell Kent, Senta Berger, Shirley Jones | 8 Responses

Friday Photos: True Passover

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: April 13, 2017

Also posted in Eleanor Parker, Friday Fotos, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Israel, Jerusalem, Judaism, Passover | Tagged art, Judaica, Passover | 7 Responses

Passover 2017, The Problem of Freedom

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: April 10, 2017

Tonight begins the holiday of Passover in which Jews celebrate deliverance from Egyptian bondage. In order to escape the shackles of slavery, the vast machinery of the mighty Egyptian state had to be crushed. Those who wielded absolute power were reduced to nothingness. G-d did this not only to diminish the physical power of a […]

Also posted in America, Islam Denial, Islamic State, Islamic Terror, IslamoNazis, Israel, Judaism, Passover | Tagged Democrat Fascists, Hagaddah, Holocaust, J Street, Jewish Voices for Peace, Passover, Slavery | 1 Response

The Westworld Haggadah

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: April 6, 2017

by Jake Novak There’s a key moment in the Seder when the Haggadah informs us that all Jews must think of themselves as if they personally came out of bondage in Egypt. Talk about a tall order. Thank goodness, most of us live decidedly comfortable middle or upper middle class lives. Getting our heads and […]

Also posted in Bible, Israel, Judaism, Passover | Tagged Exodux, Haggadah, Jacob, Job, Moses, Seder, Slavery, Talmud, Westworld | 1 Response

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: March 31, 2017

Also posted in Friday Fotos, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Hollywood Still Photography, Judaica, Judaism, Leonardo da Vinci, Movie Posters, Movies, Painting, Passover, Photography, Quotes, Screenwriting, Touch of Evil, True Hollywood Confessions | Tagged Barnett Newman, Carl Dreyer, Classic Cars, Day of Wrath, Francesca Woodman, Gertrude Käsebier, Harpo Marx, Kazuo Hasegawa, Kyôko Kagawa, Leonardo Da Vinci, Ludwig Yehuda Wolpert, Mina Avrech, Picasso, Randall Knives, Sean Scully, The Crucified Lovers, Touch of Evil, Vincent van Gogh | 10 Responses

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: March 24, 2017

Also posted in Art, Fashion, Friday Fotos, Judaica, Judaism, Movie Posters, Movies, Painting, Photography, Quotes | Tagged Ava Gardner, Cadillac, Classic Cars, David Niven, Elsa Lanchester, Frank Horvat, Helen Frankenthaler, Night of the Hunter, Packard Motor Car Company, Randall Knives, Rick McGinnis | 7 Responses

Purim: The Deeply Anti-Progressive Jewish Holiday

By Robert J. Avrech | Published: March 13, 2017

Yesterday was the holiday of Purim. And it was no accident that in 2015, Benjamin Netanyahu referenced Purim when delivering his powerful address to the U.S. Senate in an unsuccessful bid to curb Obama’s legitimization of a nuclear Iran. Purim is an old ( 5th century B.C.E.) but painfully familiar story: A Jew-hater named Haman […]

Also posted in Art, Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran, Islamic Terror, IslamoNazis, Israel, Jew-haters, Jew-hatred, Politics, Purim | Tagged Esther, Haman, Mordechai, Purim | Leave a comment

How I Married Karen

The new book
by Robert J. Avrech

Available in All Major Book Stores

Adobe Digital Edition's version is available through the Lulu store!
About Me
Robert J. Avrech
Los Angeles, California
I'm an Emmy Award winning screenwriter. I'm also an observant Jew, a religious Zionist, a conservative Republican, and a member of the NRA. I've been writing and producing in Hollywood for over twenty-five years. But the focus of my life is my family: my radiant wife, Karen—with whom I have been in love with since I was nine years-old—and my two daughters, who, thankfully, look like Karen. Not too long ago, we had three children. But our son, Ariel, died at the age of twenty-two from cancer. We miss him terribly. We think about him practically every minute of every day. People tell us that time heals, but Karen and I know this is not true. Time grinds away doing its terrible work. Ariel is gone. Yet absence becomes presence.

Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
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Annual Ariel Avrech
Memorial Lectures
Young Israel of Century City
NOTE: Click on video titles inside the thumbnail images, below, to open that video in YouTube

Fifteenth: June 10, 2018
Jackie Danicki: “Confessions of a Convert: A Humbling, Joyful Journey to Judaism.”

Blog Post | Audio: (94 MB)

Fourteenth: June 11, 2017
Daniel Greenfield: “Fighting Anti-Semitism and Defending Israel in the Age of BDS.”

Blog Post | Audio: (100 MB)

Thirteenth: May 22, 2016Ben Shapiro: “How You Can Save Israel”

Blog Post | Audio: (70 MB)

Twelfth: June 7, 2015
Larry Elder: “The New Black Anti-Semitism”

Blog Post | Audio: (100 MB)

Eleventh: June 8, 2014
Michael Medved: “Shifting Alliances: Why Liberals No Longer Reliably Support Israel — And Conservatives Do.”

Blog Post | Audio: (97MB)

Tenth: June 9, 2013
David Horowitz: “The War Against Judaism on the University Campus.”

Blog Post | Audio: (16MB)

Ninth: June 3, 2012
Joel B. Pollak: “The Mainstream Media’s Betrayal of Israel.”

Blog Post | Audio: (15MB)

Eighth: June 5, 2011
Yossi Klein Halevi: “What is Expected of a Survivor People: Lessons My Father Taught Me.”

Blog Post | Audio: (18MB)

Seventh: June 13, 2010
Dennis Prager: “Happiness is a Mitzvah, Not an Emotion.”

Blog Post | Audio: (80MB)

Sixth: June 21, 2009
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky: “Conformity in Jewish Life: Vice, Virtue or Affectation?”

Blog Post | Audio: (64MB)

Fifth: June 15, 2008
Rabbi Dr. Gil S. Perl: “What Was the Rosh Yeshiva Reading: Intellectual Openness in 19th Century Lithuania.”

Blog Post | Audio: (70MB)
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