When He Said

With no Jewish holidays coming up immediately, we bring you profiles of some well known and some not so well known Jews. Enjoy.

Philippe Halsman defied gravitas.

By Owen Edwards for Smithsonian Magazine

The freezing of motion has a long and fascinating history in photography, whether of sports, fashion or war. But rarely has stop-action been used in the unlikely, whimsical and often mischievous ways that Philippe Halsman employed it.

Halsman, born 100 years ago last May, in Latvia, arrived in the United States via Paris in 1940; he became one of America's premier portraitists in a time when magazines were as important as movies among visual media.

Halsman's pictures of politicians, celebrities, scientists and other luminaries appeared on the cover of Life magazine a record 101 times, and he made hundreds of other covers and photo essays for such magazines as Look, Paris Match and Stern. Because of his vision and vigor, our collective visual memory includes iconic images of Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Robert Oppenheimer, Winston Churchill and other newsmakers of the 20th century.
And because of Halsman’s sense of play, we have the jump pictures—portraits of the well known, well launched.

This odd idiom was born in 1952, Halsman said, after an arduous session photographing the Ford automobile family to celebrate the company's 50th anniversary. As he relaxed with a drink offered by Mrs. Edsel Ford, the photographer was shocked to hear himself asking one of the grandest of Grosse Pointe's grande dames if she would jump for his camera. "With my high heels?" she asked. But she gave it a try, unshod—after which her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Henry Ford II, wanted to jump too.

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Fabulous, Formidable Lauren Bacall

With no Jewish holidays coming up immediately, we bring you profiles of some well known and some not so well known Jews. Enjoy.

The captivating queen of Old Hollywood was a Jewish girl from Brooklyn

By Rachel Shukert for Tablet Magazine

Okay, when I wrote yesterday how I feel like all I ever write anymore is obituaries, I was kidding. Apparently, someone didn’t get the joke, because less than an hour after those very words were published, it was announced that the legendary actress Lauren Bacall passed away at the (blessedly) ripe old age of 89. I was devastated, naturally, and immediately called my friend Michael.

“Oh my God,” I shrieked, before he had even said as much as hello. “Do you remember that time we went to Joel Grey’s book party and Lauren Bacall was there and that publicist came up to us and was like, look, whatever you do, do not attempt to speak to, or touch, Miss Bacall.”

“Of course,” he said, “and I really hope you still have that picture on your phone that you took from all the way across the room.” He sighed sadly. “All the fabulous old ladies are gone now.”

Lauren Bacall was not always old, but from the moment she sauntered across the nation’s screen in To Have and Have Not, playing opposite Humphrey Bogart, her future husband and the man with whom she would be forever identified, she was fabulous. All of 19 years old and what my grandfather always called, “a mean 19,” she appeared to us fully formed, a gloriously youthful creature who was already entirely herself.

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Comedian Irwin Corey Celebrates Star-Studded Centennial

With no Jewish holidays coming up immediately, we bring you profiles of some well known and some not so well known Jews. Enjoy.

By Jon Kalish for The Jewish Daily Forward

I suppose that if a man lives to be 100, he has the right to recite a limerick about farting at his birthday party, even if it’s inside a synagogue. Which is exactly what happened Tuesday night when Irwin Corey was greeted by scores of well-wishers at the Actor’s Temple in Manhattan. That is, after all, the shul where Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Henny Youngman and two of the Three Stooges davened.

Because the Forward has a long, proud commitment to verse, we present the limerick here in its entirety:

There was a young girl from Sparta
Who was a magnificent farter
She could fart anything
From God Save the King
To Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.

The Professor, as he has come to be known during a decades-long showbiz career, wore his signature black tails, string tie and high-top black basketball sneakers. Fans and friends, many of them north of 90 themselves, snapped photos with their cell phones as he struggled to unwrap gifts. At first he wore a baseball cap bearing such slogans as “9/11 was a psy-op” and “Uncle Sam is a big bully.” But replaced it when given a black baseball cap with the word “however” embroidered on it. “However” has been a catchword in Corey’s act, which was summed up as “double talk and nonsensical observations” in a proclamation issued by Manhattan Borough President Gail Brewer.

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What happened on the Ninth of Av?

Tisha B'av begins at sundown tonight, August 4, 2014

A Historical Overview

From Chabad.org

The 9th of Av, Tisha b'Av, commemorates a list of catastrophes so severe it's clearly a day specially cursed by G‑d.

Picture this: The year is 1313 BCE. The Israelites are in the desert, recently having experienced the miraculous Exodus, and are now poised to enter the Promised Land. But first they dispatch a reconnaissance mission to assist in formulating a prudent battle strategy. The spies return on the eighth day of Av and report that the land is unconquerable. That night, the 9th of Av, the people cry. They insist that they'd rather go back to Egypt than be slaughtered by the Canaanites. G‑d is highly displeased by this public demonstration of distrust in His power, and consequently that generation of Israelites never enters the Holy Land. Only their children have that privilege, after wandering in the desert for another 38 years.

The First Temple was also destroyed on the 9th of Av (423 BCE). Five centuries later (in 69 CE), as the Romans drew closer to the Second Temple, ready to torch it, the Jews were shocked to realize that their Second Temple was destroyed the same day as the first.

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