If you follow such things, you know that a small army of celebrity Kabbalists have arrived in Israel for the High Holidays: Madonna (now formerly known as Esther), her rabbi-roughing spouse Guy Ritchie, Hugh Jackman, Donna Karan, Demi, Ashton, their famlies and entourages…oy. The trip has been made out to be a pilgrimage for these newly faithful stars, who in a few short years have brought an ancient sect of Jewish mysticism to the front page of the fashion section. We were thinking their little celebrity junket sounded like a fine idea– promote Israel’s tourism p.r., pump a little cash into the economy– but now a darker, more serious reason for the trip has been divulged:
THEY ARE GOING TO BRING PEACE TO THE MIDDLE EAST.
Israeli blogger Harry at The View From Here has posted a press release from the Kabbalah center promoting a sort of “peace-in” Sunday, hosted by Michael Berg with said celebrities making speeches and such while Israeli and Palestinian children hold hands and sing along.
“September 19, 2004 will be an historic day for peace and unity. For the first time in history Palestinian and Israeli children, who have spent years separated by hate, prejudice, and fear, are coming together in Israel to say, “STOP, we’ve had enough, now it is OUR turn to be HEARD!'”
We love the thought, truly, but is this really how these celebrity Kabbalists believe they can make the most difference in the world? By using their hubris to stage sensationalist events that accomplish nothing but keep them in the news? Being arrogant enough to think the evil people responsible for the terror and violence of the Holy Land give two craps about what Madonna thinks?
We’d love to see peace in Israel, too, but gosh, no one listens to us. It’s just going to take a bit more than pop stars dancing under rainbows for it to happen. Then again, maybe we’re too jaded. Maybe Madonna and the Bergs and even doofy Ashton Kutcher have special Kabbalah powers that will brainwash all the suffering, angry, violent souls out there and the Messiah will come and it will be the best Rosh Hashanah ever, dude.
(Did you see Madonna at the Wall in ’04? Yo, she did her tefillin dance and everyone, like, hugged. It was awesome.
*sigh*.

BBC News reports that Phiona Davis of North London will not be held responsible for stabbing her 80 year-old great-grandmother 130 times or for similarly attacking her former boyfriend, since she is quite obviously insane. Davis was apprehended last October after setting multiple fires and chanting “I am the Messiah” on the front porch and was a devout fixture at London’s Kabbalah Centre. Davis claims center members tried to control her and were sneaking around her flat, which might be true; you know it is a cult and all.
Aww, the poor souls in the Kabbalah Center spin room must be doing their own psychotic dance right now, just when they thought the press would stop dissing them and JTA gave them some legit coverage.

Please forgive us for today’s late start. We stayed up waaay too late last night torturing ouselves with the film version of Exodus, based on Leon Uris’ classic novel about the birth of modern Israel. We figured this story, fraught with romance, intrigue and Jewish history, would translate into a hugely entertaining evening in front of the tube, but alas, the three hour-plus epic was so g.d. boring we fell asleep three times. Our sofa partner kept moaning “Let my people go, already!”
Let’s examine how a movie starring a young, handsome Paul Newman as freedom fighter Ari Ben Canaan, set in the Old City with breathtaking views, could have more of a narcotic effect than a vat of Oxycontin: Eva St. Marie, as the strong-willed shixsa nurse Kitty Fremont, comes across onscreen as more of a skeletal June Cleaver with the sexual chemistry of a napkin. Tough ghetto survivor Dov Landau is played by Sal Mineo, best known for his homoerotic tragic hero, Plato, opposite James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause, but he just seems like he should be singing show tunes rather than carrying a machine gun. Even Newman’s performance seems wooden. The fact that the scriptwriters only glanced upon the most exciting moments in the book, like the suspenseful chapter where the United Nations votes on Israel, and completely deleted the scene where Kitty performs surgery without anesthesia on Ari, only confirms one of our holiest personal truths: The book is ALWAYS better than the movie.
So we’re sticking to literature this New Year. On our nightstand now: Jewish author Marge Piercy‘s latest novel, The Third Child. God willing, Hollywood will never get its hands on it.

Any time someone mentions the number “six million,” we get the creeps. But what could be as innocuous as six million paperclips? That’s how many of the shiny, tiny office supply a Tennesee school collected to demonstrate what that scary number actually looks like. It started as a way to help these white, Christian, American children get a handle on the Holocaust; what ensued was a triumph for Jewish history and the assurance that no one, at least in one small town in the South, will forget what Hitler did. Maybe we’d all prefer to, except that we can’t. Their project is the subject of a documentary soon to be released from Miramax, aptly titled Paperclips.

The fattest, most treacherous hurricane ever to hit the Atlantic (gosh, we love superlatives) should be decimating Cuba just about now, with warnings for Florida and Louisiana later in the week. For those observant Jmericans concerned that evacuation warnings may throw their Rosh Hashanah observances for a loop, it’s worthy to know that Jewish law grants permission to miss synagogue if disaster looms. In other words, if Ivan starts stomping towards you, leave the apples and honey at the table and get the hell outta Dodge.

Yes, it’s that guy, the one whose face you always see in the movies. Not as the star, but usually as the hero’s affable sidekick or some other secondary character. You might remember him as the sweaty, Neidermeier-inspired Dean Pritchard in Old School, or perhaps you caught his short-lived time as a lead actor in ABC’s Cupid In our humble opinion, Jeremy Piven steals the show whenever he gets any lines, like in HBO’s Entourage as lead character Vince’s snarky L.A. agent. Sure, he might be encouraging some Jewish stereotype of lecherous ambition, but Jer’s a true M.O.T., so he’s just playing it genuine, yo.

We’re too famisht this week to think a single clever thing to say about tomorrow’s 9/11 anniversary or the upcoming New Year. Could it be that we actually take this stuff seriously?
Nah.
Shabbat Shalom, homies.

Beersheba-born Adi Neumann puts her emcee skills to the test tonight as host of the behind-the-scenes look at Teenager of the Year Modeling Competition on Israel’s E! channel. They did it just for you, really.

Our favorite old-time actress Lauren Bacall is back onscreen with Nicole Kidman in “Birth”, a film with the disturbing premise of Kidman becoming obsessed with a 10 year-old boy. We’ll probably see it anyway just for Bacall, since we read her autobiography By Myself twenty years ago and always felt a kinship for the Jewish girl who seduced Hollywood with her sultry voice. At 19, she possessed a sexy, regal presence than any anorexic skankwhore actress could ever hope to match (she married Humphrey Bogart at 19. He was 46. Can you blame him?)
Now Betty (we know from her book she hates her stage name) is almost 80 and still exudes just so much moxie! She even put Kidman in her place after a reporter mistakenly called both of them “film legends” at a press conference. “She can’t be a legend,” scoffed Betty. “You have to be older.”