Natalie’s Alef
Filed under: Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture, tv
Mazal tov to Israeli-born actress Natalie Portman who appears to have named her first child, a son, Alef, the name for the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet (known as the alef-bet, bet being the name of the second letter).
The report on her son’s name — which might not have merited a report if she hadn’t named him Alef — came from Israeli talk show “Good Evening with Guy Pines“, who reported on the birth about a week after it took place. Word has it that his show may have gotten the news about the baby’s name from Natalie’s Israeli cousin.
Alef’s parents, Portman and French ballet dancer Benjamin Millepied, seem to have used the naming trend of other celebrities, who tend toward the unusual when naming their offspring. In this case, his name could be Alef Millepied, or, perhaps he’ll use Natalie’s real last name, Hershlag, rather than her adopted last name of Portman, her grandmother’s maiden name. But back to Alef, which also means ‘leader’, given its status as the first letter of the alef-bet. The letter Aleph is the subject of a midrash, a Jewish folktale, which praises its humility in not demanding to start the Bible. (In Hebrew, the Bible begins with the second letter of the alphabet, Bet.) As a reward, ‘Aleph is allowed to start the Ten Commandments. (In Hebrew, the first word of the ten commandments is אָנֹכִי, which starts with an aleph.)
So Alef can have a lot of meaning. Question is whether our Israeli actress is going through with it, or using it as a decoy. Only time will tell. In the meantime, welcome to the world, little baby Alef.
Israel celebrates Oscar wins
Filed under: A New Reality, Entertainment, General, Movies, Pop Culture, Social Justice
Students at the Bialik-Rogozin School in Tel Aviv.
Of course, Jerusalem’s native daughter Natalie Portman walked away with the Best Actress award for her role in Black Swan. Portman, who was born here in 1981 and returned to study at Hebrew University in 2004, was congratulated by Culture Minister Limor Livnat, who said that Portman “brought pride to Israel.”
And while, not as high-profile as that award, but no less satisfying, was the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short going to US filmmakers Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon for Strangers No More, about the children of foreign workers and refugees at Tel Aviv’s Bialik-Rogozin school.
Goodman told The Jerusalem Post she hopes that following the Oscar win, “the spotlight will shine on the school and the world will see it as an example of hope and tolerance.”
The 40-minute film tells the story of the school’s educators, in particular principal Keren Tal and teacher Smadar Moeres, and shows the day-to-day lives of three students; Johannes from Ethiopia, Esther from South Africa, and Mohammed from Darfur. The film was shot over the course of a school year and depicts the turmoil and heartbreak faced by the children en route to Israel, and how the school has become a sort of safe haven for them in Israel.
Located in south Tel Aviv, Bialik-Rogozin teaches more than 800 students from 48 countries around the world, all of them learning in classes taught in Hebrew, which serves as a sort of unifier for the children from scattered backgrounds. While the issue isn’t covered in the movie, the school has become very famous in Israel over the past year, because 120 of its students face possible deportation in the wake of a cabinet decision last July. Bialik-Rogozin’s 120 students are among the around 400 students nationwide who are slated to be deported.
The school put that aside on Monday morning, hosting a celebration for teachers, students, and Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai. Following his visit to the school Monday, Huldai issued a statement on Monday praising the film, saying “in a world of cynicism, alienation, and hatred, this movie proves in the most direct and convincing way that there is the chance for a better world.”
And President Shimon Peres called filmmaker Tal to tell her that Strangers No More had cast a beam of light on Israel’s humanity.
Not bad for a night on the red carpet.
Yoram, more wine please…
Filed under: A New Reality, Food, General, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture, Religion
Karen Berg, and her husband Rabbi Philip Berg
On the day after the superstar’s second sold out show in Tel Aviv last week, I was offered a chance to interview Karen Berg, the Los Angeles-based co-founder of the Kabbalah Center, and the person most identified hooking Madonna up with the ancient Jewish mysticsm.
At first, the meeting was supposed to take place at the Kabbalah Center in downtown Tel Aviv, but the night before, one of Berg’s assistants called and asked if I would be willing to drive a little farther north to a private villa in a small, exclusive community north of Netanya, where Berg would be spending the afternoon. Sure, I answered, with visions of entering the home and finding Madonna reclining on a chaise lounge poolside, chatting with Justin Timberlake.
Well, it wasn’t quite that heady. But the house was magnificent, there was a beautiful pool, and there were people lounging around outside. It turns out the home belonged to a young couple who were students at the Tel Aviv center, and had invited a few people to lunch, with Berg as the guest of honor.
As I was sitting in the gigantic living room interviewing Berg, a hired chef in a white apron and chef’s hat was stoking the grill and flipping thick steaks and skewered chicken (all kosher of course). Guests began arriving including Madonna’s longtime Kabbalah teacher Eitan Yardeni, Berg’s son Michael, and a young couple who greeted Berg – and then she whispered to me ‘That’s Gwyneth Paltrow’s sister.’
As I was getting ready to leave and the guests were sitting down for lunch, the husband host came up to me and said, ‘won’t you join us?’
It would have been rude to refuse, so for an hour, I ate, drank, and talked about Israeli politics, the differences between raising children in Israel and the US, Madonna’s after-party the night before (attended by Natalie Portman, Sasha Baron Cohen and Bar Refaeli), and, it turned out, very little Kabbalah. One of the Kabbalah Center people whispered in my ear that the rule was that everything said was off the record, and I nodded affirmatively, because I was too busy eating to think about taking notes or remembering anything for later,
I could have stayed for hours, but I remembered I had a job, profusely thanked my hosts, and started the long drive back to Jerusalem. Thanks Madonna, I owe you one.
Zach Braff hearts Tel Aviv.
‘Scrubs’ star Zach Braff recently visited Tel Aviv and like many visitors fell in love with the city. Braff was not here for publicity reasons or to promote a new television show or movie but rather came on vacation. He gave a pretty cool interview to Ha’aretz, talking about his career as JD on Scrubs and what influences him as an actor. More interesting to me was that he spoke quite frankly about his previous experiences in Israel and his Jewish identity – a topic that many American Jews in Hollywood avoid (except our beloved Natalie of course).
As an American Jew it’s an amazing feeling to come to a place where you feel you belong. You know we’re such a minority in the U.S. Even though I grew up in New Jersey, which was very Jewish, and then I went to school in Chicago, which was Jewish, and then I moved to New York, which is very Jewish, and then I went to Hollywood, which is very Jewish. But they say we’re only 2 percent of the population and shrinking because of intermarriage.”Braff says that when you come here, “you just feel this amazing sense of community. We hear so much about Israel and politics with the Palestinians and you feel so separate from it. So I really wanted to see for myself.” He says he was “lucky” to be able to come and see things firsthand and to talk to Israelis. “As a Jew I think it’s really important to come to this place. There is such a tremendous sense of community, tremendous bond for obvious reasons. I don’t know if Israelis have a sense of it because they live here, but I love it.”
His experiences reflect exactly what many American Jews feel when visiting Israel – myself included. Except I don’t have the power to make a movie about the experience.
The Israeli experience made such an impression on him, he says, he is thinking of his next film touching on a story about an American Jew who visits Israel. Braff, who wrote and directed the successful “Garden State,” which also starred Natalie Portman, says a story like what he has in mind is something he’s never seen in a movie and thinks it will be really interesting.
I question whether Braff would get the funding for a movie about an American Jew in Israel, but he pulled off funding Garden State on his own and we all know how successful that movie was… His co-star from Garden State, Natalie Portman will be making her directorial debut later this year with A Tale of Love and Darkness, based on the novel on Amos Oz, so perhaps she’ll help with getting Braff acclimated to the film scene here. Hey, maybe we’ll even see the two of them reunite on screen – that would be a surefire success. And mandatory viewing for all birthright participants.
Portman’s directorial debut taking shape
Variety is reporting that Natalie Portman’s directorial debut, an adaptation of Amos Oz’s memoir “A Tale of Love and Darkness” is in the works. Now, this in itself is not new news as it has been reported elsewhere many months ago. What is news however is the revelation that the movie will be in Hebrew:
While admitting that the next step into directing her first feature is daunting, the 27-year-old Portman is relishing the chance to tell the story of venerated author Oz’s childhood in his native tongue.“Someone made a good point once about how would you feel if Mexicans came and made a movie about George Washington in Spanish? It would be absurd but we do it all the time,” she tells Variety. “I think people are much more open to reading subtitles now and prefer the authenticity of seeing the true language of that culture. It’s becoming unacceptable to make films in places and in a language they’re not supposed to be in.
“It’s always best to make things as cheaply as possible because then you can take a lot more risk, like doing something in an original language that is not widely spoken,” Portman said moments before receiving the San Pellegrino Movie for Humanity Award at the recent Venice film fest, feting her humanitarian works with children in Africa.
So intelligent that Natalie and so, so, so….pretty.
Natalie shouldn’t have a problem with the language since we already know she is pretty fluent.
Hat tip: Cinemascopian
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