Esther Kustanowitz: July 2009 Archives

Madonna's been published in Yediot Ahronot, as their "international correspondent." Is it any good? I love Madonna as much as the next child of the 80s, but let's just say I don't feel like she and I are competing for the same columnist jobs. Forget the Random Acts of Capitalization that make the piece resemble a JDate profile--is what she's saying interesting and relevant to the average person who reads the piece?

All the puzzle pieces started falling into place.

Life no longer seemed like a series of Random events. I started to see patterns in life. I woke up. I began to be conscious of my words and my actions and to really see the results of them.

I also began to see that being Rich and Famous wasn't going to bring me lasting fulfillment and that it was not the end of the journey; that it was the beginning of the journey.

I'm thrilled for Madonna that she's found more meaning to life than being "Rich and Famous." But isn't it easier to delve into one's spirituality when the "Rich and Famous" is already set and reliable?

Oh, Madonna. Is there any day that does not bring news of your efforts to adopt children or Kabbalah, news of your concerts' set constructors being injured on the job, photos of your incredibly thin arms that prove you might or might not be anorexic, etc? Today's news is a little less shocking than purported anorexia or on-set injuries or African adoptions: Madonna's taking her writing career--previously manifested in a series of Kabbalah-inspired children's books--andbranching out into journalism.

"How My Life Changed," Madonna's article for Israeli daily Yediot Achronot will premiere Friday (check back with us then for an excerpt/translation) and will focus on her religious awakening 14 years ago, when she "realized fame and fortune were not the end but only the beginning."

Madonna isn't Jewish but during her study of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, she famously changed her name to mine Esther. Now that Madonna's a journalist, are you confused about how to tell me and Madonna apart? Let me break it down: while we are both writers named Esther and have been to Israel before, only one of us has concerts planned there for September and has managed to land a piece in an Israeli newspaper. Oh yeah, and I'm the one without adopted children and a front-row seat at the Kabbalah Center.

Stay tuned for an excerpt from Madonna's essay, coming Friday.

Everyone knows Jon Stewart is Jewish. Most of his writers are Jewish. Rarely does a show go by in which Stewart doesn't refer to a Jewish holiday, use Yiddish, or use his "old Jewish man" voice. But his name? Jon Stewart was born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz, and changed it-- as have so many other Jewish entertainers before him.

But in a letter to the late-night show host and comedian, Slate writer Ron Rosenbaum (who clearly did not change his name) suggests that now's the time for Stewart to change it back. Moreover, he opines, Stewart, who has built his persona on his "Jewiness," should be the perfect person to launch the trend of changing Hollywood names back to their full Jewish glory. Why Stewart?

I think it has something to do with what I like most about your show, which is that you, like the best satirists, focus on making fun of those who put up a false front. Not that Stewart is false in any malign sense of the word. (It was your middle name--well, Stuart was!) But that it's a kind of mask, and you spend most of your time making fun of the pretentious masks that politicians, celebrities, and big shots adopt.

You're all three now--a politician, a celebrity, and a big shot--in the sense that you have remarkable influence politically. In fact, pols and political writers often establish their identities in their appearances on your show because you have a way of exposing their authentic selves however inauthentic the "authenticity" is. They either pass or fail the Jon Stewart authenticity test.

When you do a Google search in your brain for "Jewish Theater" and "New York," you probably get "search results" that include "Fiddler on the Roof," maybe a Yiddish play or two, a revival of "The Dybbuk." But you probably didn't get the words "Kosher Jewish Girls in Krakow."

"Press #93 for Kosher Jewish Girls in Krakow" is opening in October at the Jewish Theater of New York, and, according to the Theater's website, is "a comedy about the Kosher phone industry, the repression of basic human desires, the use of hi-tech to monitor followers around the clock, the invention of new prohibitions on a daily basis and the making-up of historical facts in support of such actions."

Page Six in the New York Post adds a note from Theater founder Tuvia Tenenbaum, who says the comedy "takes a hard look at ultra-Orthodoxy in the age of Twitter and iPhone, revealing for the first time how rabbis use high-tech to control followers and rewrite history through a wireless net of 'Kosher Phones' that adherents must carry."

The Theater's slogan is "Daring to Think Different." How different? Other shows have included "Mountain Jews" (with a logo spoofing on beverage Mountain Dew).

Most people remember Mayim Bialik as the precocious heroine of the show "Blossom," itself famous for another character named "Six," and which provided a TV home for Joey Lawrence and his signature exclamation, "Whoaaa." Others may remember even further back, when Mayim played the exuberant kid version of Bette Midler's character in the weepy movie "Beaches." Since then, Mayim has gone on to earn a Ph.D in neuroscience and is the mother of two sons; now she returns to TV, as a Hasidic character on the TNT show "Saving Grace" and then in a recurring role this fall on "The Secret Life of an American Teenager."

Mayim has a personal stake in both roles. While being on a show about teenagers, written by someone who used to write for "Blossom," was of great interest, the Hasidic role is also a particular draw. In the years since Blossom, she has become more religiously observant, and she also has religious Jews in her family. (True story: I saw her with her baby last October at a Simchat Torah service in Los Angeles.)

Her character, she reveals, is: "supposed to be kind of a rebel who sort of left the fold and then comes back. They actually used the phrase in the script that she's 'baal teshuva' which means she's returned to observant Judaism after leaving, which actually, since I wasn't raised religious and now I'm more observant, that term has been applied to me as well."

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