arts & life

b oo k f ai r

For The Love W
Of Spock

Leonard Nimoy’s son honors the
Spock legacy with a film, to be
screened at Book Fair.

Michael Fox | Special to the Jewish News

Leonard and Adam Nimoy

hen Leonard Nimoy
announced in 1949
that he wanted to be
an actor and was leaving Boston
for Hollywood, his Russian Jewish
parents were stunned.
“My grandfather said that he
should take up the accordion,”
says Adam Nimoy, Leonard’s son
and the director of the new docu-
mentary For the Love of Spock.
“You could always make money
with the accordion. Those were
Max Nimoy’s words of wisdom to
my dad, if the actor thing didn’t
work out.”
He needn’t have worried. Not
because Leonard eventually made
it after 15 years of bit parts in
movies and TV shows, thanks to
Star Trek. Or because his talent
and curiosity propelled him into
singing, photography, poetry and
film directing.
Nimoy had a deeply ingrained
work ethic, independent of the
arts, that perpetually drove him.
From folding chairs at the Boston
Pops and selling vacuum clean-
ers in his hometown to installing
aquariums in Los Angeles, Nimoy
was determined to support him-
self and his family.
But his ambitions assuredly lay
elsewhere.
“He had a tremendous hunger

to achieve, which was the dream
of his parents coming over here,
to achieve something in American
society,” Adam explains. “This
is why he was so able to relate
to Spock. My dad felt like an
outsider, of a minority, of an
immigrant background in a very
defined neighborhood of Boston
with other immigrants, and with
a desire to assimilate himself into
the greater culture.”
Nimoy, who died last year at
the age of 83, is front and center
in For the Love of Spock, which
will screen Saturday, Nov. 12, as
part of An Evening of Star Trek at
the JCC Book Fair.
The public often conflates an
actor with a role. The documen-
tary is willfully guilty of that, too,
delving into Leonard’s personal
life only so far as it relates to
Spock or to Adam’s relationship
with his dad.
But it does include the story
of how Nimoy took a childhood
memory of seeing elders in syna-
gogue making the “shin” gesture
and adopted it as a Vulcan greet-
ing.
“He was very connected to his
Jewish roots and very proud of
his Jewish roots,” Adam says. “He
repeated the story of the Spock
salute hundreds of times, literally,

with great pride about where he
got it — that Spock is an embodi-
ment of some of Judaism.”
Nimoy notes, “It’s become
a universal symbol. My dad,
through Spock, has spread this
tradition of Judaism to the world.
The magnitude of that fact alone,
that so many people all over the
planet salute my father with a
‘shin,’ is just mind-boggling to
me.”
Of course, not everything
Leonard did endeared him to his
son. Driven to make the most of
what might be a short-lived gig
on Star Trek — NBC canceled the
show after three seasons, in fact,
although it found greater success
in syndication — Leonard accept-
ed every personal appearance he
was offered.
“It took a toll on us, we had
challenges we had to deal with
without him around, without
his involvement in the family,”
Adam explains. “His career was
No. 1. This is what caused a lot
of friction between the two of
us because I just didn’t feel like
I had that much of his attention
early on. He had a great love and
respect for the fans, but trying to
get him to look at me was very
challenging for me.”
Alas, that experience continued

NONFICTION

continued from page 47

After exploring how the definition of
the term has evolved throughout history,
Kenneth Marcus, president and general
counsel of the Louis. D. Brandeis Center for
Human Rights Under Law, considers a legal
analysis of the meaning of the word, current
debate about “anti-Semitism” and what, if
anything, separates anti-Zionism from anti-
Semitism.

8 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 6
Chanan Tigay: The Lost Book of Moses:
The Hunt for the World’s Oldest Bible
$12 ($10 for JCC members)
In 1883, a man appeared at the British
Museum and made a strange announcement.
Moses Shapira, a convert to Christianity
and antiquities dealer from Jerusalem, said
that he owned the world’s oldest copy of the
Bible, and he was willing to sell it for 1 mil-
lion pounds.
So begins a true tale that reads like a clas-
sic detective story. At its heart is a curious
and tragic figure who met a terrible fate —
and may have been one of history’s biggest
con men, or perhaps the owner of one of his-
tory’s greatest treasures.

48 October 20 • 2016

from entertainment to philosophy.

11 a.m. Monday, Nov. 7
Claudia Kalb: Andy Warhol Was a
Hoarder: Inside the Minds of History’s
Great Personalities
Marilyn Monroe was always late to work,
preferred going nude and rarely went any-
where without her acting coach.
After walks around the neighborhood,
Albert Einstein often had difficulty finding
his own home.
Were these simply quirks, the little oddi-
ties one could find in just about anyone?
Or did many of the world’s most interesting
figures suffer from anxiety and personality
disorders?
Health and science journalist Claudia Kalb
looks through a lens of modern psychology
to consider the lives of 12 leading figures

1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8
Betsy Lerner: The Bridge Ladies: A
Memoir
Every Monday, without fail, the “Bridge
Ladies” came to the Lerner house for lunch
and a game. They were all Jewish. They all
dressed in smart sweater sets, and they all
were full-time homemakers.
Young Betsy Lerner had no interest what-
soever in the women she was certain were
stodgy and boring. Then many years later,
in an effort to better understand her own
mother, Lerner returned to her childhood
home — where the women still play bridge.
What she discovered was not what she
expected, and it changed everything.
Readers of all ages (bridge players or not)

will be drawn into this touching, true story
about mothers and daughters, friendship,
growing old and the need to be loved.

Noon, Sunday, Nov. 13
Steven Gaines: One of These Things Firsts:
A Memoir
When Steven Gaines was 15, he attempted
suicide and landed in a mental institution.
He was fine with going — so long as it was a
really nice institution.
There, he met a collection of characters
including a fashion editor who swore she
had an affair with JFK, a physician who tried
to “cure” him of his homosexuality and a
Broadway producer who told him: “Write it
all down.”
So he did.
One of These Things First is Gaines’ hon-

