“I walked on the “Philadelphia Story” (’40) set just as they were shooting the last love scene between Katie Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart. I must say they were both in the mood–especially Jimmy, who had suggestions for improvement until they’d taken five takes. After each he sheepishly exclaimed, “And I’m getting paid for this!” I congratulated him on the improvement of his love technique and asked him to light my cigarette. His hand shook so much he could hardly manage it.”
—Hedda Hopper (1940)
Theda Bara, (1885 – 1955) born Theodosia Goodman, was a nice Jewish girl from Cincinnati who transformed herself into cinema’s first femme fatale, the man-destroying vamp. Tragically, most of her legendary films were destroyed in a fire.
There was a time when wearing a hat was de rigueur. Fine millinery was considered a sign of good taste, good breeding, and good fashion.
Hollywood actresses were rarely seen in public without hat, gloves and a designer outfit. Those were the days when Hollywood insisted on projecting style and glamour. Of course, with the destruction of the studio system by the federal government and the advent of television, stars abandoned style and rapidly devolved into vulgar celebrity.
Here’s a reminder of classic Hollywood glamour featuring stars in their hats.
Why don’t the Palestinians have their own country? Is it the fault of Israel? Of the Palestinians? Of both parties? David Brog, Executive Director of the Maccabee Task Force, shares the surprising answers.
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Ariel’s high school graduation picture from Yeshiva Gedolah, Los Angeles, June 1998.
You are all invited to the Fourteenth Annual Ariel Avrech ZT’L Memorial Lecture that will take place Sunday, June 11, 2017, at 10 AM, followed by brunch.
Location: YULA Girls High School Auditorium
1619 South Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90035
For those unable to attend the lecture will be posted here at Seraphic Secret.
Karen and I are delighted to announce that our good friend Daniel Greenfield will deliver this year’s lecture:
“Fighting Anti-Semitism and Defending Israel in the Age of Obama, Trump and BDS”
Why does pro-Israel activism continue to be an uphill battle despite the enormous resources dedicated to it. Are we losing the war against anti-Semitism or are we failing to fight it? In a talk that applies the lessons of Jewish history in Tanach to the politics of today, we will discover that fighting anti-Semitism and defending Israel doesn’t require changing “them”, but changing how we see the world and ourselves.
Elsa Lanchester on the set of Bride of Frankenstein, 1935
On her maternal instincts:
“I held a baby once. It felt like a bag of hot snakes.”
Terror in London: IslamoNazis first used car rammings and knifings against Jews in Israel. Now they are using the same tactics against Europeans. What starts against Jews never ends with the Jews.
When IslamoNazis and their allies on the Left were hijacking airlines and killing Jews during the 1960s, most European countries shrugged and yawned because the victims were only Jews, after all.
But the IslamoNazis hijacked European airlines soon enough — and air travel, once an enjoyable and even glamorous enterprise, has become a circle of hell ever since.
When IslamoNazis started blowing themselves up in Israel in order to slaughter as many Jews as possible, Europe shrugged and yawned once more — because it was just those pesky Jews causing unpleasantness yet again. The Europeans figured that if the Jews would, y’know, just give the IslamoNazis what they wanted, everything would be just fab-u-lous.
Typical children’s programming on Palestinian television.
The IslamoNazis who call themselves Palestinians—a nationality invented by the KGB—have zero interest in building a functioning state. Their mission is to destroy the only successful state in the Middle East, Israel, the Jewish state. So obsessive is their Jew-hatred and jealousy—how did the Jews build a thriving country where Islam builds only failed states?—that they pay generous bounties for every Jew who is murdered, maimed, and tortured.
The Europeans tried to rid the world of Jews during World War II. For a few post-war years Europeans feigned remorse, and even rewrote history to cast themselves as heroic resistance fighters instead of collaborators. But in truth, Europeans who risked their lives to rescue Jews were few and far between.
With the rise of the European left, the newly founded state of Israel presented a new and juicy target for their latent Jew-hatred. “Hey, we don’t hate Jews, we’re just against Zionism.”
Ismail Elshikh, a native of Egypt, leads a Muslim Brotherhood-tied mosque in Honolulu, Hawaii, and claims he is suffering ‘irreparable harm’ by President Trump’s temporary travel ban.
During the Cold War the left, which is to say the Democrat Party, was soft on Communism. After Reagan and the Republican Party defeated the Soviet Union, the Democrats sought a replacement anti-American ideology with whom to partner, and settled on radical Islam.
Thus, it’s no surprise that the Muslim Brotherhood and Derrick Watson, a radical left Obama appointed judge, are central to overturning Trump’s temporary ban of immigrants from failed states that do not cooperate with American authorities in the vetting process.
It is time for the Trump administration to declare the Muslim Brotherhood for what it is: a terrorist gang.
“I was so tired of the parts I had to play. There seems little for me in Hollywood, because, rather than real Chinese, producers prefer Hungarians, Mexicans, American Indians for Chinese roles.”
—Anna May Wong
This is an older Prager University talk, but it is more relevant then ever now that the left has gone full crazy with their white privilege obsession — in reality, just another anti-American screed.
Cary Grant receiving an Academy Honorary Award in 1970.
“Years ago, when Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon were getting divorced, a perhaps apocryphal story appeared in the scandal sheets: As an example of Grant’s supposed irrationality, Cannon cited to the judge Cary’s yearly habit of sitting in front of his television and sardonically abusing all the participants. This item, true or not, must have amused nearly everyone in Hollywood, since nearly everyone in Hollywood does pretty much the same thing.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of Congress, Washington, D.C., March 3, 2015. He has criticized the Iranian nuclear deal, warning that it will not prevent Tehran from gaining nuclear weapons capability, which poses an existential threat to Israel.
The leftist media is determined to delegitimize President Donald Trump through a constant drumbeat of innuendo and fake news bulletins. At some point in the future you can be sure the Democrats will move to impeach Donald Trump.
In the meantime, more than 300,000 new jobs have been added to the American economy in Trump’s first month in office. This explosion of jobs is happening because there is confidence that the Trump administration is friendly to free enterprise. Instead of expanding the number of government bureaucrats Trump is contracting government—the opposite of fascism—and letting a free market be, um, free.
Meanwhile, the IslamoNazis of Iran are, thanks to Barack Obama and the Democrat party, going nuclear.
“The Banquet of Esther and Ahasuerus” by Jan Victors, 1640s.
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 hatches a plan to annihilate the Jewish people in the ancient kingdom of Persia.
My father, Rabbi Abraham Avrech. An Army Chaplain in the 42nd Rainbow Division, my father served this great nation through World War II, The Korean War and Vietnam. Retired as a full Colonel, my father often spoke of his Chaplaincy as the most important and fulfilling of his long and distinguished Rabbinic career.
My father, Rabbi Chaplain Abraham Avrech, z’l, passed away on March 15, 2014, which the Jewish calendar translates into the 13th of Adar. Thus, tonight — Jewish holidays begin after sundown — is the third Yahrzeit, memorial, without my father’s physical presence in this world. My father was 94 years old.
He is gone, but he is certainly not forgotten.
I ponder the astonishing trajectory of my father’s life. Born in a tiny impoverished Polish town, my father and his family emigrated to America where they found the liberty to live as Jews and Americans.
Another suave and savage commentary from Pat Condell.
An Islamist culture of rape is spreading like cancer across Europe. It can and will happen here unless we take some common sense steps regarding immigration.
One of the organizers of today’s women’s march is none other than Rasmieh Yousef Odeh.
She is an IslamoNazi.
A convicted terrorist.
A Jew-killer.
Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne
“Sometimes I’ll watch an old movie on television and, once in a while, one of mine, such as April Showers (’48) will come on and I’ll watch it. And you know something? I’m always amazed at what a lousy actress I was. I guess in the old days we just got by on glamour.”
—Ann Sothern
The new book
by Robert J. Avrech
Available in All Major Book Stores
Adobe Digital Edition's version is available through the Lulu store!
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
