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Introducing
Our New. Executive Chef
Michael D'Antoni

And The Award Goes To

IV

e're here to honor a
short Jew," said
"Seinfeld" star Jason
Alexander to open a gag-
filled evening with a serious purpose.
The vertically challenged honoree
was Hollywood star Billy Crystal, who,
surrounded by fellow Hollywood stars
and close to 900 fans, accepted the
National Scopus Award of the American
Friends of the Hebrew University.
The recent dinner at a Beverly Hills
hotel raised $1.5 million, most of it
earmarked for the Billy Crystal
Endowment for Peace Through
Performing Arts program at the
Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
The event also produced a cascade of
non-stop jokes and one-liners — mostly
on Jewish themes and most of them
unprintable — by the likes of stars
Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg,
Garry Shandling and Alexander.
The newly announced endowment
program will bring together Jewish and
Arab theater arts students at the Hebrew
University for a year of classes. The pro-
gram's graduates will go out and bring
together Israeli and Palestinian school-
children and teach them about coexis-
tence through theater, music and dance.
"These are just baby steps, and the
road will be difficult," said Crystal.
"But we're not going to talk about tol-
erance; we're just going to do it."
Earlier, Crystal told a reporter that
"starting with kids, that's your best
chance. If they're going to throw
rocks, it might as well be at critics."
There was no confirmation of
Robin Williams' deadpan announce-
ment that the first Israeli-Palestinian
co-production will be West Bank Story.
Crystal also announced that he is
sponsoring a scholarship for jazz stu-
dents at the Hebrew University in the
name of his late father, Jack, a pioneer
New York jazz promoter.

In a long, applause-filled evening, the
biggest hands went to three participants:
Helen Greenfield, Crystal's mother, who
gave the ha motzi, the blessing of bread,
over a giant-sized challah; boxing great
Muhammad Ali, Crystal's personal hero,
who served as honorary chairman of the
event; and Kirk Douglas, the veteran
actor and former Scopus recipient,
recently slowed by a stroke, who con-
ferred the Scopus Award on Crystal.
In an interview with the Los Angeles
Jewish Journal a few days before the
dinner, the 50-year old Crystal spoke
about his Jewish identity.
He and Janice, his wife of 28 years,
are longtime members of a Recoil-
structionist congregation, where their
two daughters became bat mitzvah.
"I'm not a religious man, [but] it's
in your gut, it's your heritage," he said.
In the interview, Crystal also
recalled his stint as master of cere-
monies at last year's Oscar awards. An
Orthodox rabbinical group had earlier
denounced the Reform and
Conservative streams of Judaism as
not Jewish, and in a throw-away line
most of the global TV audience prob-
ably missed, he declared, "I just found
out I'm a gentile."
Crystal said he does not regret the
remark or going public with his con-
cerns about developments in Israel
and world Jewry.
We should mind our own busi-
ness?" he asked. "If you go to the
Hebrew University, look at the names
you're going to see. People who have
donated their time and millions of dol-
lars: non-Jews and Jews. It's everybody's
business. When that happened last
year" with the Orthodox rabbinate, it
was "insulting to say we're not Jews. It
was insulting to deny our heritage, our
parents and how we were taught." I I

— Tom Tugend
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Come On In and Try
Our Authentic New Orleans Cuisine

or taste the perfected Old Favorites you loved.
You don't need New Orleans
for that Great Mardi Gras Cure.

NOW OPEN FOR LUNCH & DINNER MONDAY-FRIDAY

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thru 3/6/99

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30685 West 12 Mile Road

(East of Orchard Lake Road)

Farmington Hill

WHERE GOOD FRIENDS
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ompano's

TASTE OF PARADISE"

Seafood Grill

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Banquet C enter

Open Daily for Lunch and Dinner

FRIDAYS 4,

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1 lb. King Crab Legs

S omeone in the kitchen id thinking.

Trying new things-cbargrilleo N.Y.

strip steak on a beo of caramefizeb
1 onions
and roadteo pepperd 1 grilled fredb.

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A matt place id making a name

includes redskins garlic mashed
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Pompano's specialty salad

411

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Surf & Turf
10 oz. prime rib and 6 oz.

for itdelf" DANNY RASKIN

lobster tail includes redskins
garlic mashed potatoes,
vegetables and Pompano's
specialty salad

We serve a gooe roadteo Prime Rib
every Frioan SaturoaN night &
fredb Salmon all through the week.

V $19.95 •

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Io5 0

Bendtein RoaO, Walla Lake, Mi
Call for redervationd 2.48 - 669 - 2122.
Open for Lunch & Dinner

...1

Live Entertainment every
Friday and Saturday

Introducing

OVIJS
GEORGE
COL
"
"te jazz man

is here thru March 20th

Paul Vitti (Robert De Niro)
is one o f New York's most
power ul gangsters, and
Ben Sobol (Billy Crystal)
is a suburban New York
psychiatrist in "Analyze
This," co-written and
directed by Harold Ramis.

We have 4 separate banquet
rooms seating up to 300
We offer Hotel accommodations
and complimentary room
for the Bride and Groom

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All Catering by Pompano's

38123 W. 10 Mile Road

•••■■ •1

4 1k"")'". " ,". ".

etroit owishne

At the Holiday Inn
Farmington Hills

(248) 478-7780

Detroit Jewish News

3/5
1999

83