Monthly Archives: December 2010

Jew of the Week: Scarlett Johansson

The Most Successful Actress of All Time

Scarlett Ingrid Johansson (b. 1984) The daughter of a Danish architect father and a Jewish producer mother from the Bronx, she was named ‘Sexiest Woman Alive’ in 2006. Actor, model, singer, a Global Ambassador for Oxfam and a critic of the media’s obsession with body image. Her most notable film role was alongside fellow Jewish actress Natalie Portman in The Other Boleyn Girl, and most recently in Iron Man 2, alongside fellow (half) Jewish actor Robert Downey Jr.

UPDATE [2018]: Since first writing about Scarlett Johansson nearly a decade ago (she was one of the very first Jews of the Week!), her fame and success has grown tremendously. She has become one of Hollywood’s highest-paid stars, and in 2017 officially became the highest-grossing actress of all time, with her movies having earned over $3.6 billion. Some of that is owed to her popular role as the Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Johansson is also an active and generous philanthropist, and a proud supporter of Israel. Among the many organizations she supports are Stand Up to Cancer, Too Many Women, Oxfam, and USA Harvest. In 2012, she was honoured with a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

Words of the Week

Life and death are in the hands of the tongue.
– King Solomon (Proverbs 18:21)

Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Jews of the Week: Berlin, Marks & Cahn

Christmas Music Legends

Berlin

Israel “Irving” Berlin (1888-1989): Considered the greatest song-writer in history, he composed 1,500 songs (!), including the famous “White Christmas”. He also wrote “God Bless America” – the second anthem of the United States.

Johnny Marks (1909-1985): Christmas-song-extraordinaire, this Jew wrote “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, “A Holly Jolly Christmas”, and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”.

Sammy Cahn (1913-1993): Winner of FOUR Oscars, he wrote most of Frank Sinatra’s hits, as well as the Christmas-great “Let It Snow”.

Cahn

Marks

Words of the Week

You think you’ve got time, but you don’t. You think you have an alternative solution, but you don’t. You think you’re stronger than the Palestinians, but you’re not.
– French President Nikolas Sarkozy, to Israeli PM Netanyahu in June 2009, as revealed by recent WikiLeaks cable.

Jew of the Week: Joseph Pulitzer

The Nobel of Literature

Joseph Pulitzer (1847-1911) Son of a very wealthy Hungarian-Jewish family, he immigrated to New York in 1864, immediately enlisting in the Lincoln Cavalry and fighting in the American Civil War for 8 months. Being dirt-poor after the war, living on the streets, he gave up all the money he had ($5) for a promise of a job at a plantation, but it turned out to be a scam. He wrote an article about this scam and gave it to a newspaper printer. It was written so amazingly that he was nicknamed “Shakespeare” (he was also later nicknamed “Joey the Jew”). He became the first ever investigative journalist. At age 22, he joined the Republican Party, quickly gained prominence, and won a seat in the state legislature – despite being legally too young! Long story short: he became super rich (and powerful), bought a bunch of newspaper companies and forever changed both politics and the media. He left much of his wealth to the renowned Pulitzer Prize – the “Nobel of literature”.

Words of the Week

Every Jew, no matter how insignificant, is engaged in some decisive and immediate pursuit of a goal… It is the most perpetual people of the earth…

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German dramatist, novelist and poet (1749 – 1832)