Peter Ephross

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Nice Jewish Guys Are Pinups in New Calendar

By Peter Ephross

A producer of the hit reality TV show “The Simple Life,” which stars Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, is now trying to boost the image of nice Jewish guys — one month at a time.Read More

Nine Tenths of the Law

By Peter Ephross

The search for the absent father — whether he’s literally or emotionally absent — is a pervasive theme in theater, books and film. Rarely, however, does an author inject this theme into a work of scholarship, as Beryl Satter has in “Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America.” Satter’s approach makes a lot of sense. She began to explore racist real estate practices in Chicago after she read her father’s papers detailing his efforts to defeat these practices in the 1950s and ’60s. This never-resolved creative tension between the personal and the academic animates Satter’s book.Read More

Dreams of the Displaced

By Peter Ephross

In the aftermath of World War II, roughly 250,000 Jews — most of them Holocaust survivors — lived in displaced persons camps in Europe. Many of these people were attracted to Zionism, and about two-thirds of them eventually would move to British Mandate Palestine or to Israel. In his new book, “Finding Home and Homeland: Jewish Youth and Zionism in the Aftermath of the Holocaust” (Wayne State University Press), Avinoam J. Patt, who holds the Philip D. Feltman Chair in Modern Jewish History at the University of Hartford, explores the role that Zionism played in the lives of the refugees, particularly among the younger generation. Peter Ephross spoke with Patt recently about Zionism’s appeal to displaced persons, and the controversy stoked by Israeli historians on the topic.Read More

The Best in Baseball

By Peter Ephross

For Jewish fans, searching for Jewish players in Major League Baseball is one of the rites of spring and summer. Discoveries bolster ethnic pride — think of the news that Boston Red Sox infielder Kevin Youkilis, nicknamed “The Greek God of Walks,” is Jewish — but mistakes can lead to embarrassing situations, even for the teams themselves. During the Florida Marlins’ 2006 Jewish Heritage Day, the team mistakenly honored first baseman Mike Jacobs, who falls into the his-name-sounds-Jewish-but-isn’t category, by giving away T-shirts with Jacobs’s name and number.Read More

Laugh Out Loud

By Peter Ephross

The recipe for a documentary on the history of 20th-century American humor is simple. Begin with such Jewish pioneers as the Marx Brothers, Gertrude Berg and Lenny Bruce. Mix in the Three Stooges, Jerry Lewis and Jon Stewart. Add a dollop of Billy Crystal as the host. Then sprinkle in a few non-Jewish greats: Charlie Chaplin, Bob Hope, Johnny Carson, Richard Pryor.Read More


 

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