Billy Rose Was Showman, Patriot — and Zionist Hero

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

On August 3, 1964, Billy Rose suspected that Teddy Kollek, the future mayor of Jerusalem then working in the Israeli prime minister’s office, was harming his shot at immortality. Rose was furious. His plan for a sculpture garden at the Israel Museum, which turned 50 on May 11, was not just another chance for fame.

Rose knew about fame. Over the past 35 years three movie studios had paid for the rights to his name and life story, and three publishers tried to produce his biography. He had starred on his own television show, written a best-selling memoir, produced a syndicated column that ran in 300 newspapers in 38 countries, attached his name to some of the most popular entertainments of the mid-20th century, married first one of the most famous women in America and next one of the most beautiful, and was steady copy for the scores of columnists, newspapers and magazines that wrote about Rose the songwriter, nightclub owner, theatrical producer, impresario of spectaculars, art collector, stock market investor and multimillionaire.

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Tisha B’Av 2015

Everything you need to know about Tisha B'Av 2015.

By MJL Staff

Tisha B’Av observance* (the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av) begins at sunset on Saturday, July 25, 2015, and continues till the evening of July 26th.

What is Tisha B’Av?
Tisha B’Av is the major day of communal mourning.First and foremost Tisha B’Av commemorates the destruction of both the first and second temples in Jerusalem (586 B.C.E, and 70 C.E respectively), but many other travesties have occured on the same date.

How is Tisha B’Av observed?
On Tisha B’av Eicha (the book of Lamentations) is read with a unique nusah, a special melody.

As a sign of mourning it is customary to fast, refrain from bathing, wearing leather shoes, and having sexual relations.

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For more information about The Three Weeks and Tisha B’Av, check out our Shavuot & Summer Holiday Kit

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*Since Tisha B'Av falls on Shabbat, the fast is observed on Sunday.

The Legacy of the Three Boys

Another story appropriate during The Three Weeks

When Jews from all over the world came together for what really mattered.

by Menachem Joel Spiegel for aish.com

The Jewish nation is one big question mark in history. Having been persecuted throughout the generations, in the natural course of events we should have been gone as a people many years ago. Yet, defying all the odds, the Jewish nation lives and thrives.

This has become known as the “Jewish question.”

Historians have come and gone, each grappling with their own unique theory, but coming to no conclusive answer. Mark Twain, in a particularly famous essay titled “Concerning the Jews,” ended off with a question mark.

“What is the secret of his [the Jew’s] immortality?” were his words. No one since has been able to answer.

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For more information about The Three Weeks and Tisha B'Av, check out our Shavuot & Summer Holiday Kit

Kaddish with Oprah

An uplifting story to start the Three Weeks

Need a minyan? Nothing is too complicated for the Oprah show.

by Simcha Jacobovici

The phone rang in my New York hotel room. It was 1995, and I was saying Kaddish for my late father, of blessed memory, Joseph Jacobovici. I live in Toronto, but I'm a filmmaker, so I move around.

During my eleven months of saying Kaddish, I ended up in various minyans from San Francisco to Halifax. Once I extended a stopover in Detroit and rushed to the basement of an old shul, where I was greeted by nine octogenarians as if I were the Messiah himself. But the phone call in New York was the start of what turned out to be perhaps the most interesting Kaddish experience of them all.

I had just finished a documentary film called "The Selling of Innocents." The film won an Emmy, attracting the attention of Oprah Winfrey, the American icon and celebrated TV host. The producer at the other end of the telephone line asked if I could fly to Chicago and appear with my fellow producers on the Oprah show the day after next.

I was taken aback. This was the Oprah show. The big time. Great publicity for the film, and great promotion for me and my company.
"I'd love to do it," I said, "but I don't think I can."

"Why not?" the producer asked, her voice betraying her surprise. Nobody says "too busy" to the Oprah show.

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For more information about The Three Weeks and Tisha B'Av, check out our Shavuot & Summer Holiday Kit