Several Jewish actors are slated to appear on the new season of Sesame Street. Set to star alongside Big Bird and Elmo: Mila Kunis, Seth Rogen, Liev Schreiber and Jason Schwartzman. And don’t forget New York Knicks superstar Amar’e Stoudemire, who is exploring his Jewish roots. Jake Gyllenhaal is still a better person than you. This week, Gyllenhaal actually helped inner-city kids in the Bay Area and taught them about sustainable farming and healthy eating. After having to sack John Gallianoover an anti-Semitic rant, Christian Dior appears to be taking no chances on establishing their philo-Semitism -- the Parisian fashion house is reportedly in talks with Jewish designer Marc Jacobs to be its new top tailor. The young Mortimer H. Fox was a svelte 16-year-old according to the caption of a 1934 photo that pronounced him the "healthiest boy in the U.S." Then the Chicago city boy fell off the radar. Whatever happened to America's healthiest Jewish boy? JTA Archive blogger and rookie genealogist Adam Soclof explores. Milwaukee Brewers leftfielder Ryan Braun (above), nicknamed "The Hebrew Hammer," is having a banner season. The man who last year told USA Today that he is “extremely proud to be a role model for young Jewish kids" is helping the Brewers get to their first division title in almost 30 years. Batting .328 with 25 homeruns and 85 RBI, Braun made this week’s cover of Sports Illustrated along with two teammates. Love him or hate him, it was hard to ignore cable TV talk show host Glenn Beck (right) this week when he took to Israel for a series of rallies he dubbed “Restoring Courage.” Pounded by the Israeli left and cheered by segments of the Jewish religious right, his rallies brought together evangelical Christians, Israeli Jewish fans and disparaging journalists. The climax came Wednesday night in Jerusalem, with a rally at the Old City that saw Beck enter to the sound of the shofar and exit to a tune from “Fiddler on the Roof.” After 30 years, New York’s famed Jewish Museum is getting a new director: Claudia Gould, currently director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute of Contemporary Art. Gould, a product of an interfaith home whose expertise is in contemporary art rather than Judaica, told The New York Times she’s eager to explore what it means “to be a Jewish museum today.” An ordinary Jewish 17-year-old might use a $16,000 college scholarship award to buy a flashy new laptop. But freshman Caren Irgang of Grand View, N.Y. took the money she was given by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and donated it to her alma mater, the Reuben Gittelman Hebrew Day School in New City, N.Y. Some students had donated their bar mitzvah money to the school, but never had an alumna in her teens ever given a gift of that size, head of school Rabbi Scott Bolton told LoHud.com. A year and a half after a Washington Post exposé on Rabbi Menachem Youlus, the self-proclaimed “Jewish Indiana Jones” has been arrested and charged with fraud. Among other things, federal prosecutors accuse Youlus of fabricating his tales of rescuing Torahs lost during the Holocaust and embezzling money donated to the charity he co-founded, Save a Torah. Thanks to Christine Sierocki Lupella, who nominated Braun via our Facebook page. "Like" us to weigh in on this week's list and nominate someone next week! Or send an e-mail to TheFridayFive@jta.org.
Photo credits: Braun (Steve Paluch), Beck (Ossi Zamir/Flash 90) MINORITY OF ONE: The New York Jewish Week looks at the lives of the small numbers of Jewish students enrolled at historically black colleges. “I create my own Jewish life,” says Abraham Mercado, a football place kicker for Baltimore’s Morgan State University, where he may (or may not) be the only Jewish student. A MUSEUM TOO FAR?: Andrew Silow-Carroll of the New Jersey Jewish News questions the wisdom of the effort to build a “National Museum of the Jewish People” in Washington. Instead he suggests creating a “Wandering Jewish Museum” as a better way of telling the Jewish story. WAX FUHRER FUROR: Britain’s Jewish Chronicle reports an Israeli woman complained after seeing fellow visitors to the London branch of Madame Tussauds posing for pictures with a wax statue of Hitler, some even extending their arms in Nazi salutes.
Ryan Braun Takes Cover
Glenn Beck Cries in Israel
Claudia Gould Gets Big Job
Caren Irgang Stays True to Her School
Menachem Youlus and the Trial of Doom
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Friday, 26 August 2011
@TheDailyShow - @GlennBeck holds Restoring Courage rally in Jerusalem. Who better to restore courage to a land of soldiers than a man who cries at chalk?
@BorowitzReport - I don't want to believe that someone as horrible as Gaddafi could have a comeback, but look at the Smurfs. #Libya
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