This Week

For Openers

2

Young Man On The Move

cha
t Know

hen Michael Chait heard that Billy Crystal was coming to
© 2001
town to shoot his film 61', he went to the open casting call
By Goldfein
at Tiger Stadium with hundreds of others. Chait landed one
11lir of the few jobs as a paid extra. Not bad for a Bloomfield
hick extremely valuable U.S.
Hills Andover High School student who had never acted in his life.
coin was designed by a Jewish
"I always loved the movies," says Chair, whose family belongs to
American?
Congregation Beth Ahm and lives in West Bloomfield.
Several months later, when stars Keanu Reeves and John Hawkes came to
Detroit to film Hardball, he got a call to be an extra once again.
u i SUIOJ DJEJ Isom atp Jo Quo Si c(oospuE.11
The line at Cobo Arena was so
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long, he played a little hard ball
AC 1 PDU2 1S P ' gCLA- S 6061
himself
He saw production assistants
from the Billy Crystal film and
asked for a quicker way in. "I was
There once was a gander named Clyde
kidding," he says, but they direct-
Who'd bully the ducks far and wide.
ed him to "the lady with the head-
Just one stood defiant
phones."
And challenged the tyrant.
"You here for the part?" she
"Gay strasheh de gene< he replied.
asked him.
"Of course," he said.
"You're 18?" she asked.
— Martha Jo Fleischmann
"Of course," said the 17-year
old.
(literal) Go threaten the geese!
After several other encounters,
(figurative) You don't scare me!
Chair was offered his first speaking
part, albeit a small one, as the
,
"straight-laced kid." This time, he
, .
got
paid enough "to eat out for the
Andover High School student
"I thought it would be a nice thing to show Jews
next
six months."
Michael Chait at work on his film
in a positive light. A lot of people think Jews can't
At first, fellow students didn't
"Torque."
be athletes. Here's a person dealing with this bat-
believe he was in a film. But after
tle."
Hardball was released, everyone
— Gil Fried, a Connecticut-based sports manage-
wanted to know how he got a part.
ment professor, who convinced the writer of the syn-
He also was accepted into the Screen Actors Guild, no easy feat for a new-
dicated comic strip "Gil Thorp" to feature a story
comer with so little experience.
line about a Sabbath-observant teen who joins the
Chair, who's been making films for four years, hopes to finish his latest by
high school football team.
January. Called Torque, it's a '70s-type action film. He faced one obstacle
while shooting a stunt man on the metal cage above. a Waterford bridge. A
"What's interesting to me is to be able to make
police spotlight ruined a great shot. "The policeman wouldn't let me finish," the translation from a private, internal Jewish lan-
-
Chait says.
guage into a public language of Jewishness, so
Somehow, you don't think this will hold him back. Stay tuned for more
that Jewish ideas can actually play in the market-
on Michael Chait. ❑
place of ideas.
— Sharon Zuckerman, sta writer
— Rabbi Irwin Kula, head of CLAL-The
National Jewish Center for Learning and
Leadership in New York City and one of the
"Forward Fifty" for 5762, as chosen by the
Forward national Jewish newspaper.

) Bom ing .

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-

Testimony in the trial of 2Q people
accusedQflialping to bomb Buenos
Aires' main fe'sivi'll-co„mmunity center'—`
i s focusing on the„ '' ,,„ at carrie& - "e---
exfilbsiv
www.detrokjewis..,

-

Yiddish Limericks

()tables

Despite bull.r.: and recrl i4ations,
mixed Arab-Jewish ,scho!.1.' press on
A look at the YMCA ini:rusalem
home of the Peace Kindergarten
en, attended
the Integrated Kindergarten,
and •
by both Arab and Jewish students.
wvvw.detroitjewishnews.com/news.

) Ethiopian Welcome

There are virtually no Ethiopians in
Israeli science and technology, but the
Weizmann Institute has begun a four-
year, after-school course in science
and technology to ensure that will no
longer be the case a decade from now.
wwvv.detroitjewishnews.com/news

"

011,APEJEWZ BY Mendel

WE MST FACE FACTS,
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ComPeTITIVE AND
(HOSTILE tuf-iicN IS
ck.4-1, LIFE MOST BE
NASM AND BRUT51-i
AND–
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ARE THE MARKS OF
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11-1.5

Course participant carries
out sticky experiment.

) What's Eating Harry
Kirsbaum?

The war is not over until Geraldo is
there.
www.detroitjewishnews.com/opinion

— Joshua Paul Cane,
JN Online Web producer

'`

11/23
2001

11

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