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Editorial

Mrs. Goldberg: 'The Oprah of Her Day.'

By Masha Leon

Award-winning filmmaker Aviva Kempner told the 92nd Street Y audience at the June 25 screening of her latest documentary, “Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Goldberg,” that when she mentioned Gertrude Berg to Fran Drescher, the response of “The Nanny” was, “Who was Gertrude Berg?” There was a communal gasp.Read More

A Mother-Daughter Moment

By Masha Leon

“Imagine what it must have been like to come here as an immigrant.” said Candice Bergen, host of the 2009 Ellis Island Family Heritage Awards ceremony, held May 19 and honoring Joe Namath, Jerry Seinfeld, Dr. Eric Kandel, and Gloria and Emilio Estefan. “The fear of the unknown, many coming alone… as small children, full of hope for a new promised land called America…Read More

Hats Off to the Einstein Grads

By Masha Leon

On June 2, my granddaughter, Michelle Cohen, was one of the graduates of the Class of 2009 of Albert Einstein College of Medicine — a personal simkha (joy) that was part of a global celebration. The 200 new medical doctors “hooded” on the stage of Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall included 40 individuals from 19 countries, and 23 students who, it was noted, “belong to groups considered underrepresented in medicine.” But why so many wailing, kvetching babies in the audience? By the ceremony’s end, annoyance turned to laughter and applause as, one by one, doctoral candidates mounted the stage with babies in arms or with little girls in bouffant dresses and toddlers with teeny yarmulkes in tow.Read More

Isaac Mizrahi’s ‘Green’ Dress

By Masha Leon

“Barbra Streisand was very good to me,” Tovah Feldshuh told me recently backstage at the Walter Kerr Theatre, where she stars in “Irena’s Vow.” It was my fourth viewing and her 101st Broadway tour de force performance in the role of Irena Gut Opdyke, a young Polish woman who saved 12 Jews by hiding them in the cellar of the residence of Tarnopol’s leading Nazi, a major by the name of Rugemer. Post-performance I brought my granddaughter, Rachel, backstage to meet Tovah. With us, waiting to see her, was Sheldon Streisand, Barbra’s brother, with mishpokhe in tow. “Shelly!” Tovah exclaimed as she hugged him. Seems Brother Streisand had been represented by Tovah’s father, Sidney Feldshuh, Esq., who, she declared emotionally, “at 83 had his second bar mitzvah.”Read More

Celebrating‘An American Experience’

By Masha Leon

“This is a real night for American Jewish Southern history,” said Eli Evans at the May 5 book launch of “An American Experience: Adeline Moses Loeb and Her Early American Jewish Ancestors,” held at the Metropolitan Club and hosted by Loeb’s grandson, John L. Loeb Jr., a former ambassador to Denmark. “Tonight we celebrate a kind of miracle,” said Evans, author of “The Provincials: A Personal History of the Jews in the South” and “Judah P. Benjamin: The Jewish Confederate.” Evans, who penned the introduction to “An American Experience,” added: “This is about seven generations going back to the 1690s.Read More

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