Tag Archives: American Jews

Jew of the Week: Lawrence Kasdan

“I Am Your Father”

Larry Kasdan (Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore)

Lawrence Edward Kasdan (b. 1949) was born in Miami and raised in a small West Virginia town, where he was often picked on for being Jewish. He intended to become an English teacher, and graduated with a Master’s in Education from the University of Michigan (where he met his future wife of over 40 years). Kasdan couldn’t find a teaching job, however, instead winding up with a position as a copywriter. Despite finding success in the field, and winning the prestigious Clio Award for creative excellence in advertising, Kasdan didn’t like his job. He wanted to become a screenwriter and pitched his work in Hollywood, initially to no avail. One of his first scripts was The Bodyguard, which was rejected some 60 times! (It would eventually make it to the big screen in 1992, starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston.) Kasdan finally managed to sell a script – to Steven Spielberg. After this initial success, he was hired to write the screenplay for Raiders of the Lost Ark (the first of the Indiana Jones series). Just as he finished that script, George Lucas hired him to write The Empire Strikes Back, the second of the Star Wars films. This movie went on to become the most popular of the series, and transformed Star Wars into a timeless film franchise (now worth over $30 billion). The Library of Congress chose the film for preservation because of its cultural and historical significance, and its famous “I am your father” quote has been nominated for the list of greatest American quotes of all time. Kasdan also wrote the screenplay for Return of the Jedi (the final film in the first Star Wars trilogy), and has co-written the newest film in the franchise, The Force Awakens, soon to be released. All in all, Kasdan has written, directed, or produced 19 major films, and has been nominated for four Academy Awards. He is working on one more Star Wars movie, about the early years of Han Solo, which he said will be his last.

Words of the Week

Just as it is forbidden to slander a fellow, it is forbidden to slander oneself.
– Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch

Jew of the Week: Barney Dreyfuss

The World Series

Barney Dreyfuss, creator of the World Series

Bernhard Dreyfuss (1865-1932) was born in Germany to a Jewish-American family that had returned to Germany when the American Civil War broke out. When he was 16, Dreyfuss moved to the US to avoid being drafted into the German army, where conditions for Jews were not very good. Arriving in Kentucky, he lived with his distant relatives, the Bernheim family – famous for their ‘I.W. Harper’ bourbon whiskey – and soon played a key role in their family business. Meanwhile, Dreyfuss fell in love with baseball. He began organizing baseball tournaments for his co-workers, then moved on to organize baseball clubs in Kentucky. In 1889, he bought a stake in the Louisville Colonels, a pro team with the American Association. The following year, his team won the championship (against the Brooklyn team that became the LA Dodgers). After the American Association collapsed, the Colonels moved to the National League. By 1899, Dreyfuss had complete ownership of the Colonels, and also purchased a stake in the Pittsburgh Pirates, which went on to win three championships in a row. At the same time, the American League was becoming ever popular, igniting a “baseball war” between the two major leagues. In 1903, Dreyfuss put together a “peace treaty” between the leagues, and drafted a single set of rules to govern the sport. He also included a set of games that would determine the best baseball team of both leagues, and thus was born the World Series. Dreyfuss continued to play a key role in both the development of baseball, and in American business, until the very end of his life. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008, and a monument in his honour still stands at PNC Park, the current home of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Words of the Week

Your fellow is your mirror. If your own face is clean, the image you perceive will also be flawless. But should you look upon your fellow man and see a blemish, it is your own imperfection that you are encountering – you are being shown what it is that you must correct within yourself.
– Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov

Jew of the Week: Jamie Zimmerman

Jamie Zimmerman (Credit: jamiezmd.com)

Jamie Lauren Zimmerman (1983-2015) spoke her first words at just 4 months of age, read herself to sleep as a child, and learned how to ride a bike and play keyboards on her own. During her teen years, she appeared on popular TV shows like 7th Heaven, Boston Public, and The Practice. After completing her studies at UCLA, she journeyed to New York to earn her M.D. Soon after, she joined ABC News as a medical correspondent. She also wrote for the Huffington Post, Yahoo News, and others. Her main goal and passion was uniting “science and spirituality, meditation and medicine”. Zimmerman taught meditation to various groups, including her fellow staff at ABC News, children at the Hawn Foundation, and even at the U.S. Capitol. She also served as a UN Health Representative, and as a group leader for the American World Jewish Service, living and volunteering all over the world in places like Uganda, Peru, Thailand, Haiti, Burma, and Belize. During her time in Zambia she worked hard to assist Congolese refugees, and made a documentary film about their plight. She was a winner of the Charles E. Young Humanitarian Award, as well as the Physicians For Human Rights Emerging Leaders Award. Zimmerman planned to publish several books in the near future, and was ready to collaborate with Deepak Chopra on a new project. Sadly, she passed away last Monday while on a trip to Hawaii.

Words of the Week

People talk about “wasting time,” or even “killing time.” Neither term is accurate. Time does not belong to you that you can waste it. Yet neither does it have a life of its own that you can take away. Rather, time awaits you to give it life.
– Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe