Celebrit Jews

Surprising Answer

agent. His mother, Marcia Gresham, is a
casting agent.
Also, I should explain that, unlike
America, it is still common in Britain to

Well, here's big Jewish celeb news that
has made Internet message boards but
hasn't yet appeared in the press. Daniel
Radcliffe, 17, best known for playing the
title role in the Harry
Potter film series, just
disclosed, for the first
time, that his mother
is Jewish.
The English actor
appeared earlier this
Daniel
month on Today,
Radcliffe
an Australian news -
program that is very similar to the
American show of the same name.
The Australian Today show interview-
er said to Radcliffe, "You spend so much
time as Harry Potter messing with the
dark side. Are you a religious person?"
Daniel replied: "No, urn, I'm not at
all. I've grown up [pauses] my mum
was of Jewish blood and my dad was
a Protestant, so I grew up in a very
[pauses] I am very interested in religion
as something to study, but I am not a
religious person in the slightest."
The entire five-minute interview can
be seen on YouTube:
www.youtube.comiwatch?v=qp711vZuG
dU&mode=related&search.
Despite Radcliffe using the past tense
when he referred to his parents, they
are very much alive. He is an only child.
His father, Alan Radcliffe, is a literary

Better Late Than Never
The New York Film Critics' award for
Best Foreign Film of 2006 just went
to Army of Shadows, the English title
of a 1969 French film about the French
Resistance that wasn't released in
America until this year. Critic Roger
Ebert also called it
"this year's best for-
eign film."
Army, from a novel
by French Jewish writ-
er Joseph Kessel, was
Jean-Pierre
written and directed by
Melville
Jean-Pierre Melville
(1917-73), a great French Jewish film
director who is called the "godfather
of French New Wave cinema."
Melville was in the French military
when World War II broke out, and he
fled to England with France's surren-
der in 1940. In 1943, he dropped his
given last name — Grumbacher — in
favor of the nom de guerre "Melville,"
went back to France and joined several
Resistance networks.
Army, which is both an epic and
a sublime thriller, is not a romantic
view of the Resistance. As Melville
once noted, most French did not join
the Resistance. As a matter of fact,

Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News

Sk)riee b'

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ewish

Cuisine

while Jews numbered 1 percent of the
French population, they made up some
15-20 percent of the French Resistance

fighters.
Army is not yet out on an English-
language DVD, but the New York Film
Critics award should hasten its release.

describe someone as being of English,
Welsh, Irish or Jewish "blood."

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N

Garfunkel Croons
There's still a huge market for what
is referred to as the Great American
Songbook — the classic non-rock stan-
dards mostly written by Jewish song-
writers like George Gershwin, Richard
Rodgers and Irving Berlin.
So, it isn't that surprising that
Art Garfunkel has just completed
his first CD of such
standards, titled Some
Enchanted Evening. His
lovely voice has always
sounded more cantorial
than rock, even though
he sang folk-rock with
Paul
Art Garfunkel longtime partner
Simon.
He says of his first singing experi-
ence, "I could really make them cry in
the synagogue aisles. I guess there's a
bit of the Yiddish cry still to my sing-
ing — a purple edge, the goose bumps
after the rain has stopped. In syna-
gogue, they never told you what you're
singing. I memorized it by the syllable
and figured out where to grab gasps of
air when nobody's looking. Crescendo
takes a lot of breath."
The songs on Garfunkel's new CD

play to his vocal strength; they are
tender ballads that include Rodgers'
"Some Enchanted Evening," Gershwin's
"Someone to Watch Over Me" and

Berlin's "What'll I Do."
The CD will be released next month,
and Garfunkel will tour behind it. His

only current Michigan date is Jan. 23
at the Forest Hills Fine Arts Center in
Grand Rapids.

Duly Honored
Do watch the CBS broadcast of The
Kennedy Center Honors on Wednesday,
Dec. 27, at 9 p.m. Film director Steven
Spielberg, who needs no biography here,
will be honored.
Classical music conductor Zubin
Mehta will be among the other honor-
ees. Few persons have been as support-
ive of the State of Israel
as Zubin Mehta.
The Israel
Philharmonic Orchestra
appointed Mehta music
adviser in 1969, music
director in 1977 and
made him its music
director for life in 1981.
Zubin Mehta
Mehta, who was
born and raised in India, comes from
a Zoroastrian family. Zoroastrianism
is an ancient monotheistic faith. Most
members fled Persia for India with the
Muslim conquest of Persia.

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December 21 . 2006

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