Arts & 1-4,ntertainment

&Ab o ut

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tiously mimics the real-life Larry David.

O

Just For Laughs

Joel Chasnoff has demonstrated his
innovative experience-based, positive
Jewish humor on stage in seven countries
around the globe at some of the world's
premier comedy clubs. On tour, he has
opened for such top-name acts as Jon
Stewart and Lewis Black of The Daily
Show and Gilbert Gottfried. He recently
made his Israeli television debut when
he performed a five-minute comedy set
— in Hebrew — on the late-night show
Tonight With Assaf Har-El.
At the University of Pennsylvania,
Chasnoff was the director and head
writer of the Mask and Wig Comedy Club,
America's oldest all-male comedy troupe.
After graduating with honors from Penn,
he went to Israel, where he served in a
combat unit in the Israel Defense Forces.

Joel Chasnoff

At the end of his service, he performed
stand-up comedy for soldiers on bases
throughout Israel.
Chasnoff comes to Michigan 7:30 p.m.
Monday, Jan. 29, when he performs at
Temple Israel in West Bloomfield. Tickets
are complimentary but required. To
reserve your spot, call Temple Israel at
(248) 661-5700.

Sarah-Colored Glasses

If you're missing new episodes of Curb
Your Enthusiasm about now, take heart.
Premiering at 10:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 1, on
the Comedy Central cable network will be
The Sarah Silverman Program, a sitcom
that will follow a fictionalized version of the
actress-comedian, much like Curb face-

Silverman plays a character named
Sarah Silverman whose absurd daily life
is told through an array of scripted scenes
and song. Joining Sarah on the new sitcom
will be Laura Silverman, her real-life sister
who plays herself, and Brian Posehn and
Steve Agee as Sarah's gay neighbors.
In the premiere episode ("Batteries"),
Sarah struggles when the batteries die in
her television's remote control and she
embarks on an odyssey to buy new ones.
The second episode ("Officer Jay") finds
Sarah on the wrong end of the law when
she receives a DUI for drinking too much
cough syrup and driving her car onto a
playground. A future episode finds Sarah
citing Anne Frank's diary during the talent
portion of a kids' beauty pageant.
In 2005, Silverman's stand-up comedy
act — peppered with outrageously ironic
racist statements delivered in a convinc-
ingly serious manner — was released as
a feature film, Sarah Silverman: Jesus
Is Magic. The Los Angeles Times called
Jesus "savagely effective, as ruthlessly pro-
vocative as anything since the heyday of
Lenny Bruce."
Often performing from a caricatured
Jewish-American Princess perspective,
she has famously joked: "I was raped by a
doctor, which is so bittersweet for a Jewish
girl." Her innocent outward appearance

Jews

Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News

A Bit Kosher

David Beckham, the English soccer
player, is arguably the most famous
athlete in the
world. He's an
incredible pack-
age of great
talent and movie-
star good looks
– and he's mar-
ried to the glam-
orous Victoria
David Beckham
Adams, aka "Posh
Spice," of the singing group the
Spice Girls.
Beckham, 31, just signed a five-
year, $250 million deal with Major
League Soccer's Los Angeles Galaxy
team. He'll start playing for the
Galaxy this August.
In 1999, Beckham told the
press his maternal grandfather was
Jewish. He said he was close to

50

January 25 • 2007

this grandfather and "wore skull-
caps" when, as a boy, he went to
a Jewish wedding or two with his
grandpa. Becks, as he is called,
added that this little contact with
Judaism was the only exposure he
had to any religion while growing up.
Well, English Jewish soccer fans
went ga-ga over this news, and
Beckham's Jewish ties often are
noted in the British Jewish press.
The Beckhams are celebrity
"eclectic religious": They have
matching tattoos, written in Hebrew,
of a verse from The Song of Songs;
they had an Anglican wedding cer-
emony, although they aren't exactly
churchgoers; and on their estate,
there's a faux Gothic chapel with
a Buddhist shrine near the chapel
door.
No, I wouldn't "claim" Beckham
as Jewish. But I do give him credit
for disclosing his Jewish roots and
being proud of them. The European
soccer world is marred by racist

fans who shout vile words at black,
Arab and Jewish players. In some
way, Becks' pride is a slap in their
face.

Piven Plays
Jeremy Piven (Entourage) stars in
the film Smokin' Aces, which opens

Friday, Jan. 26. He
plays Buddy
"Aces" Israel,
a comic and card
trick expert who is
going to inform on
the mob.
But before he
talks
and goes into
Jeremy Piven
protective custo-
dy, Buddy decides to have one more
blast at Nevada's Lake Tahoe casi-
nos. Ben Affleck plays an FBI agent
who protects Buddy, and singer
Alicia Keyes makes her screen debut
as a mob hit-woman who pretends
to be a prostitute to get close to
Buddy.

Jewish actors Peter Berg (Chicago
Hope) and David Proval have sup-

porting parts. Proval is best known
for playing gangster Richie Aprile Sr.
on The Sopranos. (Proval's episodes
will start running in March on reruns
being broadcast on cable station
A&E.)
Piven, 41, said on CNN that he
knew nothing about card tricks when
he was cast in the role of Buddy
Israel: "I couldn't even entertain at a
bat mitzvah." He got the tricks down,
he said, after months of practice.

Spears' New Man

In the category of 15 minutes of
fame: Isaac Cohen, a previously
almost unknown male model from
Los Angeles who has been romanti-
cally linked to singer Britney Spears.
On his My Space Web site, which
was taken down shortly after he was
linked to Spears, Cohen wrote that
he is Jewish. Except for his religious
orientation, Cohen seems perfectly