Category Archives: Arts & Entertainment

Jews in the World of Art & Entertainment

Jew of the Week: Rube Goldberg

Rube Goldberg

Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg (1883-1970) was born in San Francisco and began drawing at age 4. He was obsessed with the art, but discouraged by his parents who sent him to study engineering. After earning $100 per month designing sewer systems, Goldberg realized it wasn’t what he wanted to do in life, so he quit to pursue his dream. He earned $8 per week drawing for the San Francisco Chronicle, most of which was thrown out and never used. Mainly, his job was sweeping floors and filing morgue photos. But Goldberg persisted, and was soon discovered when editors found that issues with his drawings sold more copies. Shortly after, Goldberg became a household name with his nationally syndicated comics like Mike & Ike, Lala Palooza and Sideshow. He was now earning $100,000 per year! During World War II, Goldberg drew infamous and controversial political cartoons. Though such cartoons would later earn him the Pulitzer Prize, he was forced to change his children’s last names. Inspired by the tech boom, Goldberg started designing various contraptions and inventions. He realized that people always do things the hard way, and to spoof this, drew cartoons of incredibly complex machines performing the simplest tasks, “a symbol of man’s capacity for exerting maximum effort to achieve minimal results.” These beloved, world-famous contraptions would be known as ‘Rube Goldberg Machines’. Goldberg was also a sculptor, author and screenwriter, and the first cartoonist whose work was featured at the Smithsonian Institute. The international Reuben Award for best cartoonists is named after him.

Words of the Week

The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
– Plato

Jew of the Week: Gertrude Berg

America’s Jewish Mother

Gertrude Berg as “America’s Jewish mother” Molly Goldberg

Tilly Edelstein (1898-1966) was born in Harlem, a grandaughter of Jewish-Russian immigrants from Poland. Her parents ran a boarding house, where Tilly grew up entertaining the guests on a regular basis (and where she met her husband Lewis Berg). In 1929, Tilly wrote a short and humourous radio skit about a Jewish family in New York (based loosely on her own family). NBC considered her manuscript, but the radio executive couldn’t understand her writing, so Berg acted it out for him. Not only did NBC pick up her show, but they made an agreement that she would be its lead actress. Thus was born The Rise of the Goldbergs, an instant hit that ran over 5000 episodes, all of which were hand-written by Berg herself. In 1948, it was adapted as a Broadway musical, and in 1949 to a television show called The Goldbergs, which many consider to be America’s first sit-com. It is also credited with stemming the tide of anti-Semitism in the U.S., and bridging the gap between Jews and Gentiles. Starting out with a salary of $75 per week, Gertrude was earning $2000 a week just two years later – at the height of the Great Depression! Berg was beloved across America, and would later star in many other movies and television shows, winning Emmy and Tony Awards along the way. She was also a noted songwriter and Hollywood screenwriter. Sadly, she passed away of a heart attack in the midst of filming her latest movie. The New York Times reported: “Gertrude Berg was a writer and actress who brought out the humanity, love and respect that people should have toward each other. Her contributions to American radio, television, films and stage will always be remembered…”

Words of the Week

Every Jew, man or woman, possesses enough moral and spiritual strength to influence friends and acquaintances, and bring them into the light.
– Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, The Lubavitcher Rebbe (Hayom Yom, Cheshvan 5)

Jew of the Week: David Copperfield

Most Successful Entertainer in History

‘Magician of the Century’ David Copperfield

David Seth Kotkin was born in New Jersey to a Ukrainian-Jewish father and Israeli mother. At age 10 David started putting on magic shows in his neighbourhood. He was so amazing that by age 12 he was already admitted into the Society of American Magicians, the youngest person ever to do so. At 16, he taught magic at New York University. At 18, he was cast in the musical The Magic Man and there adopted his stage name ‘David Copperfield’ – taken from the Charles Dickens novel. At 21 he starred in his first TV special for ABC. Copperfield went on to make 19 more incredible TV specials, as well as several movies and Broadway performances, winning a total of 21 Emmy Awards during that time (with 38 nominations), and setting 11 Guinness World Records. He has sold over 40 million tickets to his shows, grossing more than $3 billion – making him the most successful solo entertainer of all time. This wealth allowed him to purchase a chain of islands in the Bahamas, known as the Islands of Copperfield Bay, where people can vacation with magical thrills (and where Google founder Sergey Brin got married). He has also built the International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts. Though not open to the public, it contains the world’s largest collection of magical texts and artifacts. Since 1982, Copperfield has been running ‘Project Magic’, a charitable organization that helps disabled people regain dexterity through practicing fun magic techniques. The program quickly became popular and now runs in over 1100 hospitals in 30 countries around the world. Copperfield has been knighted by the French government, and the Library of Congress has titled him a ‘Living Legend’. His shows continue to amaze people worldwide.

Words of the Week

The frog said to King David: “I have a mitzvah greater than any of yours, for there is a bird that lives by the swamp and hungers, and I sacrifice my life to feed it.”
– Perek Shira