Stars of David
December 18, 2008 - Michael Elkin, Arts & Entertainment Editor |
| Linda Levy |
If "Stars" is to lay a bet for Chanukah -- go, dreidel, land on the aleph! -- he's putting his gelt on
Linda Levy of Lawrenceville, N.J. The former Elkins Parker has parked her talents as a writer with YouTube, creating the much-downloaded "I Want a Menorah for Christmas"
(www.youtube.com/watch? v=AxnYS_Tiejw), an ecumenical excuse for giving the world a good laugh, she says. A video about menorah-envy? Could happen. After all, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs are the in-thing outside the Jewish world, where many boys and girls are requesting them of parents -- even if they're not Jewish. And while the kid on the video requests a menorah as a gift to be put under his tree, that's not "fir" Linda, who is Jewish: Her menorah, from Israel, has its place on the table. An author, columnist and now -- songwriter -- Linda? Startled herself, she says, "Apparently."
Apparently, Scott Mintzer, M.D., assistant prof/department of neurology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, as well as director of the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit at the Jefferson Comprehensive Epilepsy Center of Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience, knows his way around a Sherlock Holmes hospital unit or two. He's just been named recipient of a junior investigator grant from the National Institutes of Health to "study the adverse metabolic effects of antiepileptic seizure medications."
Philly philanthropist Jack L. Wolgin -- now a Palm Beach mainstay -- has got the art of gift-giving down to an ... art. The prominent humanitarian -- whose endowment of the Wolgin Prize for the Jerusalem Film Festival has made the fest a major player on the screen scene -- has just endowed the Temple U. Tyler School of Art with its largest gift yet. And it all goes to benefit an artist with a true brush with greatness: The $3.7 mil contrib will set up the Wolgin International Prize in the Fine Arts at the school, with $150 Gs given annually. (That buys a lot of fingerpaints.) It puts the school on even a more prominent global canvas. Color Temple very, very happy.
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| David Blacker |
What's the big idea? David Blacker, formerly of Bensalem, should know: He took home the "Creative of the Year Award" for his efforts at Deutch Advertising in Los Angeles, Calif., where he applies his ideas to paper as a senior copywriter.
These are a few of my favorite things? A special lighting of the Chanukah candle for CBS3, which has been airing the network's CBScares.com PSAs that feature a woman talking directly to the camera about the best holiday gift to give your man: Coax him, she says warmly and so affectionately, into getting tested for prostate cancer as your Chanukah gift; he won't forget it. Or is that CB Scares?
A "Spin the Dreidel Party"? What would Bill O'Reilly say? The host/star of Fox's "No Spin Zone" would probably say it's a great factor in holiday thinking, because this party is spinning its heart out for top causes. Larry Kaplan, youth director at Har Zion Temple -- among a myriad of communal responsibilities and accomplishments as well as being the biceps behind Variety Fitness -- is one smart dreidel-kup: He, in conjunction with g -- the Center City lounge and site for the gathering -- put together the party (www.spinthedreidel.eventbrite.com) for all Jewish and gentile elves on Dec. 24, at 7 p.m., as a benefit for Alex's Lemonade Stand; the Michael Levin Memorial Fund -- honoring the Philadelphian who died while serving in the Israeli army; ALS; and the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation. It's all spinning within control starting at 7 p.m. And speaking of O'Reilly, the controversial host, after hearing his guest Marina, the Russian "vocab vixen," explain the German derivation of the game dreidel -- drehen (to spin) -- tongue-in-chicly kibitzed that he's changing his show's mantra to the "no drehen zone." Now that's a talking point!
What better way to welcome the Festival of Lights than with a lighthearted contribution from reader Eugene Sterling, whose enlightened sense of humor merits a "Star" -- and maybe a latke: "Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Ronald Klain, Larry Summers, Paul Volcker, Tim Geithner and Peter Orszag. Maybe it's just because I'm Jewish, but am I the only one noticing that Obama and Biden are not so much assembling staff, as gathering a minyan?"