arts&life
KNOWLEDGE
MOVES
celebrity jews
Wolff
Pink
NATE BLOOM
COLUMNIST
AT THE MOVIES
Leap!, an animated film, opens on Friday,
Aug. 25. Félicie (Elle Fanning) leaves an
orphanage for Paris hoping to become a
dancer. She’s joined by her best friend,
Victor (Nat Wolff, 22), an orphan who
wants to be a famous inventor. Félicie
has to pretend to come from a rich fam-
ily to get into a top ballet school and is
helped by a mysterious mentor (singer
Carly Rae Jepson). Mel Brooks, 91,
voices the head of the orphanage.
ON CHARLOTTESVILLE AND MORE
US
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theory into practice, and research into
cures. Since 1925, American Friends of
the Hebrew University has connected the
passions of Americans with innovation
at the Hebrew University. Powered by
your support, we will continue to advance
our understanding of the world. Because
Knowledge Moves Us.
www.afhu.org
48
August 24 • 2017
jn
Musicians Regina Spektor and Pink
(AKA Alecia Moore), both 37, issued
moving statements right after the
Charlottesville riot and the death of
Heather Heyer last Saturday. Both hap-
pened to be playing Berlin. Pink, whose
mother is Jewish, said, “It’s incredible to
watch Neo-Nazis march in 2017, while
I, a Jewish woman, headline a show in
Berlin where tunnels [to my auditorium’s
stage] were built by him [Hitler] … My
heart aches for the amount of hatred in
the world.” Spektor, a child refugee from
the Soviet Union, said on Facebook, “I
am in Berlin where after a dark history, it
is illegal to be a Nazi or say hate speech.
I never dreamed [when I became a U.S.
citizen that] the hate speeches and the
normalizing of institutionalized prejudice
would be falling over the land in such a
short time. The haters coming out of the
shadows and being empowered.” Also,
the day after the riot, Charlottesville’s
mayor Michael Signer, 44, was widely
quoted when he said on Meet the Press:
“When you dance with the devil, the
devil changes you. And I think they made
a choice in that [Trump] campaign, a
very regrettable one, to really go to
people’s prejudices, to go to the gutter.”
He was deluged with anti-Semitic hate
mail right after this statement.
The “Twittersphere” exploded after
President Trump’s news conference on
Monday, Aug.13, in which he said, again,
“both sides” were at fault: Neo-Nazis
and their ilk and anti-bigotry protest-
ers. Here are some tweets from Jewish
celebs: Albert Brooks, 70: “Don’t blame
Donald Trump. He just found out yes-
terday the Nazis lost World War II”; B.J.
Novak: “I guess I’m a genius because
I actually had a bad feeling about this
Albert Brooks
guy quite a while ago”; Josh Gad, 36:
“Sound the alarm. This country is on
fire. And the arsonist is the President”;
Chelsea Handler, 42: “It is time for all
the generals that Trump has appointed
to declare him unfit for office. He is unfit
and unstable. This is madness”; Judd
Apatow, 49: “He has such passion for all
of the evil corrupt people on this planet.
Never any rage at the murderers. No
compassion”; Emmy Rossum, 30: “Who
exactly are you condemning? Call it what
it is. Nazi. KKK”; Barbra Streisand, 75:
“W/o a prepared statement, this Pres
says what he really believes: Equating
neo-Nazis to those protecting civil rights
is disgraceful & crazy”; and Danny
Zuker, 53: “Yes Hitler was bad but
those Jews did some stuff, too. Blame
to go around on both sides. I’m sorry
how many sides are there? There’s only
ONE side that is full of hate, bigotry and
fear. Horrible speech, who r u trying to
protect?” Also, on Tuesday, Aug. 14, four
members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
issued statements condemning racism,
including Gen. David Goldfine, 57, the
head of the Air Force and a decorated
combat pilot.
THE MOST IMPORTANT ECLIPSE
While we are still in the “grip” of the
Aug. 21 “eclipse fever,” I thought I’d
mention the 2008 HBO film Einstein and
Eddington. The film, despite many his-
torical inaccuracies, really captures the
importance of Arthur Eddington’s eclipse
photographs. The film begins in 1919,
but quickly flashes back to 1914 as WWI
has begun. That year, Albert Einstein
moved from Zurich to Berlin to take a
highly prestigious professorship. Almost
at the same time, Eddington, an English
Quaker and an astronomer, was named
the director of Cambridge University’s
Observatory. As the film (correctly)
depicts, both Einstein and Eddington
resisted the rampant nationalism that
engulfed Europe during WWI. In 1919, a
total eclipse in Africa provided Eddington
with the special conditions he needed
to photograph the bending of starlight
by the gravitational pull of the sun, as
Einstein’s general theory of relativity
predicted. Eddington’s photos made
Einstein instantly famous worldwide.
See it on HBO or on YouTube (search:
Einstein and Eddington English subtitles.
Ignore other YouTube videos of similar
name). •