The funny thing is, I discovered Miss Marcus through a rather unlikely source–namely, an etiquette blog written by one "Annabel Manners," a "displaced debutante" WASP in Los Angeles.  This southern belle from South Carolina (I think?) claims to be "learning all kinds of interesting things" in her current city of Los Angeles.  For example, Jews have their own New Year, which happens in Autumn. 

She explains that when she first saw the card, it really "threw her for a loop."  Despite a bit of confusion about the autumn leaves, apples, and honey, she thought the design might be a great choice for "clients who need non-denominational holiday cards."  Luckily, she made the Rosh HaShanah discovery before embarrassing herself. 

Good luck with the multicultural studies, Miss Manners, and might I add: You'd fit right in at my temple!

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I loved everything about this film: The characters were very real and well acted, the story was complex but relatable, and the whole thing was visually engaging. I especially appreciated the way that shivah rituals were portrayed without presenting them or the characters involved in them as clichés–often the case with religious themes in film. Tell me about how you accomplished this. Making this film was a very personal journey, in the sense that for the first time I relied and deeply trusted my intuition, making a big effort in rejecting everything that felt too rational, too stylish or that drifted away from naturalism. Being profoundly interested in human nature, I also rejected any scene or performance where emotions felt deduced because when emotions truly irrupt then you believe the characters and get engaged in their personal disasters and successes.

This film is about existence, about acquiring the tools to continue living and re-organizing the family after a loss. I wanted the audience to live a shivah and family kvetching, because it is in the bosom of the family where we learn how to feel and also where we can take the masks off and be exactly who we are. Nobody knows us better than our own families, and sitting shivah for seven days is a perfect setup to develop a whole range of emotions, the dark and the bright side of everyone.

Each character, major and minor, had a life of their own, and the arcs of each would continue developing even as the ends credits start to roll. To achieve this, the only tools I had were the actors, and even though it was not mandatory that they were Jewish, I was very keen in looking for Jewish actors to interpret the Jewish characters in the film, so I cast a mixture of professional and non professional actors, and rehearsed with them for 6 weeks because I didn’t want to keep on developing characters on the set, I wanted all the actors to come in with their characters already in the skin, incarnated. I only had little time to shoot this movie, and I needed all the time to create a life that was plausible, and get it on film.

It was a bit frustrating for the DP, Art Director, Costume Designer, etc., because I always told them that this film only relied on the actors and therefore their expertise had to be blended in a way that it didn’t call the attention or distract the obsessions and pulsations of the characters. Contrary to most films that want to show great production values–a Grand Guignol–we worked the other way around, where less is more, and the more simple the scenes looked, the deeper and complex the different readings.
The two "divine accountants" who attend the shivah–offering commentary as they attempt to calculate whether an angel of light or darkness will accompany Moishe’s soul on its journey–remind me of a Greek chorus. Meanwhile, the Chevreman reminds me of a Shakespearian fool. Tell me about the inspiration behind these and the other symbols you used. The two fascinating old Hassids are a metaphor of tradition. As you can see, our family in the film is not religious or observant, but tradition is always present. Galia, the beautiful young woman in the film, rejects religion. She is a modern woman, she doesn’t believe that a sacred world exists anymore, but eventually she is the only one who can see the "divine accountants" and realizes the wisdom behind rituals.

I love rituals, especially Jewish rituals, because even though they remit us to an archaic world where time has frozen, it is still very clear how efficient and effective they are. The film is full of subtle details, and I know that you cannot get them all on the first viewing, because even though the film looks very simple, it is very baroque, and a lot of things are in subtext or happening behind the scenes. There are details like Moishe’s book about his town, Vielun, which I chose because it was the first town bombarded the first day of WWII, and it was like a little memorial to the Shoah.

Finally, all of our characters are living an extraordinary moment except for the Chevreman, whose job is to organize shivahs, so that character is different because that is his ordinary world. At one point, when the Catholic housekeeper is preparing a platter of hors d’oeuvres, she unknowingly puts meat and cheese on the same plate. Esther, Moishe’s bereaved daughter, throws the plate of food in the garbage, angrily explaining that it’s a sin to mix milk and meat. The housekeeper’s retort is that it’s also a sin to waste food, to which Esther replies, "I guess everything ends up being a sin." It’s a striking, disquieting moment, and it lingered with me. What are we to take from this statement? To me that moment raises a theological question, in the sense that there are so many rules and contradictions that it is practically impossible to comply with them and please G-d. Another moment like that is when Rubinstein will not be part of the minyan and therefore prayer cannot be said, and the Chevreman asks the men in the room: What’s worse, add a gentile to complete the minyan, pray with nine, or not pray at all? Some of the characters are very concerned about the impact their shivah will have on Moishe’s soul, but ultimately it’s their own souls that they’re confronting and wrestling with. It’s almost as though Moishe’s death offers an opportunity of renaissance for those he’s left behind. Absolutely, the film is about the living and the impact the life of the deceased had on them and their personal structures. Also, the shivah is a perfect setting to cry for everything you’ve lost inside you, what is dying about you. There’s a quote from a very good Mexican Jewish painter that I wrote on a large billboard and had on the set for everyone to see every day: "As time passes, we’re more our dead than our living. Something dies in us when our beloved pass away, that’s true; but it’s also true that they start living inside us in a way they never did in life. Maybe it’s because we can’t avoid them in their absence in the way we could when they were present." – Eduardo Cohen Did you learn anything about shivah rituals through the making of this movie that you hadn’t known before? Oh, yes, I had rabbinical counsel all the time. This movie is also about the wisdom of sitting shivah and its purifying effect, and even though I’ve been in many shivahs, I am no expert, so I did my homework and learned every aspect and precept.

I told the entire team that we are doing the Barry Lyndon of shivahs and that we had to follow everything by the book. On the set I had a huge library next to my chair that included Maimonides, the Shulchan Aruch, etc. The tough side was to choose the minimum information needed to provide the audience so they could follow the story and the ritual. Also, I made the film for all audiences and had to be as universal as possible knowing that according to their backgrounds, audiences would get different things and understand humor in different ways. For example, if you are a Mexican Jew from Ashkenazi origin, you would get certain subtleties, if you are a Mexican Jew, you’d get other things, if you’re Mexican, some other things, if you’re Jewish but not Mexican some other things, if you’re not Jewish nor Mexican you still had to understand, laugh and enjoy this dramatic comedy… I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen images–even fictitious–of the rituals of rechitsa and tahara (bathing and purifying a corpse before burial). Tell me about the cracked egg. The head of the Chevra Kaddisha is a good friend and I asked him to allow to me be present in several taharas so I could learn the entire process and be faithful to the ritual on the screen. I helped wash 3 bodies, and that’s where I learned that the egg has a very mystical symbolism. It is used because on the one hand, the egg is round and represents the cycle of life, but on the other hand, egg is one the substances that lasts longer throughout centuries, so covering the body with egg will allow the egg to get impregnated with the cells of the body and when the Messiah comes, he’ll be able to identify you when the dead rise. There are many other things that are done and I didn’t show, such as the tweeds you put next to the hands of the corpse to symbolize "crutches" you’ll need when you rise from the dead. Which angels do you think will accompany your soul when you die? I think the battle will last forever, but I certainly think that the only one who can judge a person’s life without mistake is G-d, that’s why I was careful at the end not judge Moishe’s life, because each viewer creates a different Moishe in their heads and hearts according to their own set of values. Where and when will Jewcy readers be able to see My Mexican Shivah? My Mexican Shivah opens on Friday, August 29 at the Quad Cinema in New York (13 street b/5th and 6th ave), and also can be seen on Video On Demand from your local cable provider starting August 29, 2008. What’s next for you? I am preparing a romantic black comedy set in Mexico City to be shot in the winter. I’m also finishing a script in English–a story for kids where the hero is an 8-year-old girl who saves the constellations and the Zodiac signs from a witch who’s stealing them.

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This morning, a Jewcy friend e-mailed: "Dude, I felt like a piece of meat at this event! Never seen so many JAPs with a look of 'Desperately seeking husband ASAP' in their eyes!" He's 6'4", well-built, well-groomed, and Jewish. In other words, he got laid last night! Luke Ford, the world's most infamous porn-documentarian-turned-Orthodox-Jew, was also at the Lovefest, and causing trouble as usual. Luke has excellent taste and fine judgment, so he spent much of the night hanging with us at the Jewcy booth. You might think that Luke was kicking it with us because he was so enamored of Joey's ability to speak volubly and interminably on just about any topic, but it turns out he's just hot for Jewcy ladies.

[Luke, call me! I still have more to say about Shlomo Carlebach!–Joey] You know, there's nothing wrong with young Jews trying to hook up with other young Jews. Sure, the Jewish Federation supports it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad for you. Perhaps young Jews could even get Jewish orgs to directly "sponsor" our dates. Perhaps pay for an occasional motel room. Now THAT'S a way for Organized Jewry to make itself useful.

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DNA dating comes to us courtesy of Gene Partner, a genetic research services company based in Switzerland. Their tag line happens to be "love is no coincidence", and the Gene Partner website actually explains that "sensing and classifying the HLA genes is something our bodies do automatically and subconsciously," which raises a question for me. Namely, if our bodies are already doing this "automatically and subconsciously," why should I pay $199 ($299 after the launch offer expires in December) to have Gene Partner do it for me?

Of course, Dr. Tamara Brown, Gene Partner co-founder and expert in molecular biology, is one step ahead: the service is being marketed as an accessory to online dating. The idea is that DNA matching can help internet daters avoid wasting their time meeting people with whom they might seem to have lots in common, but won't have good old chemistry. All that daters have to do is provide a DNA sample, with which the company creates a "GenePartner ID."

When GenePartner members meet, for example on a dating website, they can exchange their GenePartnerIDs and then log on to their own personal accounts on www.GenePartner.com. There they enter the other person's GenePartnerID to run a compatibility match and immediately receive the analysis results of the mutual genetic compatibility test while still online.

It sounds sensible, but also a bit presumptuous. After all, a huge number of people are going to have to sign up for the service to make it even close to worthwhile. Besides, only going out with your DNA "matches" could arguably limit your possibilities. What about the happy accidents that the universe is so good at orchestrating? The friends you make along the way that you might otherwise miss? The chance that while you might not vibe with one suitor, he or she might know someone else you'd dig. And what about the people you might have fantastic chemistry with, but absolutely nothing to talk about?

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What is it about Pausch's parting words that has proved so affecting for so many people? Most of his hour and fifteen minute lecture is spent describing his childhood dreams, how he achieved and didn't achieve them, and the lessons he learned along the way. Pausch's dreams were both ambitious and relatable. He cites goals such as experiencing zero gravity, playing in the NFL, working as an Imagineer with Disney, and becoming "one of the guys who won the big stuffed animals in the amusement park." He even finds the strength to laugh in the face of his own death, deadpanning that he has experienced a "deathbed conversion" and then offering the punchline, "I just bought a Macintosh."

Along the way Pausch offers a handful of easy-to-digest truisms such as "we cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand," and he declares early on that he's not going to address spirituality and religion. He upholds that promise, although he does make a biblical reference around midway through. "I, like Moses, get to see the promised land," he says. "But I won't get to set foot in it. And that's okay, because I can see it, and the vision is clear." He makes this allusion in regard to what he sees as his legacy in computer science, but it's a concept that anyone from a computer programmer to a bean farmer can wrap their head around. The questions he poses are quietly implied: What will your legacy be? Will you leave the world a better place? Will your vision be clear enough that, even if you don't make it to the promised land, you'll know peace at the end?

It is, for the most part, a personal lecture, not given by a prophet or a saint, but instead by a regular guy–and this is what seems to make it resonate so deeply. Sure, he was bright and successful, but he could easily have been your friend, your neighbor, or your professor. Work to achieve your dreams, he urges, and do what you can to help others achieve theirs along the way. Do it because it's fun, do it even though it's hard, and do it until the day that you die. Served with a mix of confidence and modesty, and peppered with both tough love and encouragement, Pausch wraps up with a list of principles that most of us mean to practice more often than we do. Show gratitude and work hard, he reminds us. Find the best in everybody, he instructs. Be prepared, he advises, because luck is truly where preparation meets opportunity.

And finally, "It’s not about how to achieve your dreams. It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you."

In the end, Pausch admits that the lecture actually wasn't prepared for us at all. Instead, it was "old school advice" that he humbly put together for the three children he was leaving behind. We internet masses were just the accidental recipients of a dying man's final offering to his young family.

Haven't seen it, or need a refresher course? Here's the vid:

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In this interview, Adam Neiman of No Sweat submitted eight questions to Lubetzky, Helen Jupiter submitted four, and Joey Kurtzman tacked one on at the end.

ADAM NEIMAN: Your father was a holocaust survivor. How has this informed your engagement with the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and the occupation? DANIEL LUBETZKY: I think everything I do is through the prism of the son of a Holocaust survivor, for both good and bad; the positive way to explain it is that I made myself a promise to do whatever is in my power not to allow what happened to my father to ever happen again to anyone else; the more neurotic explanation is that I live under a shadow of persecution and feel an enormous drive to build bridges and create better bonds on a personal basis as well as between cultures, religions, nations, and peoples. Specifically as it regards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I first approached this as a progressive Zionist who felt very strongly that Israel has to be the homeland for the Jewish people, a haven for those escaping the type of persecution that my Dad was not able to avoid when he was taken to Dachau as a little kid; as I began working deeply on the issue, I also felt a strong affinity with Palestinians who were deprived of freedom and dignity in ways that did painfully remind me of stories my Dad would share about his experiences at the Kovno Ghetto (NOT AT ALL like the dehumanization and death faced in a concentration camp, but with restrictions of movement and denigrations that serve nobody but extremists who prey on despair).

Israelis and Palestinians are destined to share a future – each needs the other to achieve the full potential of freedom and security for their offspring; they can either get their act together and make the difficult but necessary historic compromises to achieve a comprehensive peace, or they can be deluded by absolutist visions that will eventually drag them to a truly intractable and eternal war. AN: I read that you wrote your master’s thesis on economic cooperation between Israelis & Palestinians. This issue seems to have called you for many years. What’s the Daniel Lubetzky genesis story that brings you to this intensely charged place and time in Jewish history? DL: It was a Senior College thesis, not a masters, but it was 268-pages, the first time I was intellectually stimulated to become a real nerd, in 1989-90; the son-of-a-holocaust-survivor experience and education certainly got me committed to forging peace between Israel and its neighbors; the concept of economic cooperation as a means for fostering peaceful relations came from combining my passions for the Middle East peace and for entrepreneurship; since childhood I had run a few businesses, from being “Houdani” (instead of Houdini) the Magician during middle school, to setting up “Da’Leky Times” and “Watch-U-Want” kiosks at shopping malls selling watches and clocks while in high school and college; when I went to Israel for my year abroad and was studying at Hebrew University and searching for a thesis topic, the idea hit me that market forces could be powerfully channeled to advance peaceful relations.

AN: You started with a for-profit venture, PeaceWorks, marketing food products created by Israeli and Palestinian partners back in the 1990s during Oslo. Now your focus seems to be largely political, with OneVoice calling for negotiations leading to a two-state solution. How did that evolution come about? DL: PeaceWorks was my effort to turn theory into practice. It evolved from my college thesis, and subsequent work in law school on how to create incentives to encourage joint ventures among neighbors striving to co-exist. When I realized the theory was making people fall asleep and going nowhere, I decided to give it a shot. Around the time that I was finalizing my research, I came across this obscure little jar of sundried tomato spread that was delicious, and when I found out the Israeli company that made it had gone out of business because they were sourcing their glass jars from Portugal and their sundried tomatoes for Italy, I realized there could be a way to prove the theory by sourcing glass jars from Egypt, sundried tomatoes from Turkey, and olives and olive oil from Palestine, etc. That is how MEDITALIA and Moshe & Ali’s started – and it is still goes on 15 years later, with relations that have withstood the test of time and the vicissitudes of the conflict.

Eventually my company PeaceWorks, expanded to include a venture in partnership with a women’s cooperative in Indonesia – Bali Spice – bringing Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist women together to make a line of Asian sauces. We also created a new division to market healthy snacks not made in conflict regions, but donating 5% of their profits to the PeaceWorks Foundation, which is how KIND Fruit and Nut Bars were born.

The evolution into creating the PeaceWorks Foundation’s OneVoice Movement came about as I realized that economic cooperation is a positive but not sufficient ingredient in the equation for ending the conflict. After the breakdown of the Camp David negotiations and the breakout of the second intifadah and the cycle of violence in 2000-2002, I was enormously depressed and initially did not understand where all my Palestinian business partners and all those Palestinian moderates I knew had gone. Why weren't they raising their voices? They were shocked when I confronted them with this question, and showed me that from what they saw in the Arab media, it appeared that the missing moderate voices were those of the Israelis.

We then realized the huge problem society faces: that it is in the nature of the overwhelming majority of moderates to be passive, and uninteresting, while a passionate minority of extremists – including violent extremists with absolutist visions that deny the humanity of the other side – will stop at nothing to spread their message. We also realized that traditional media magnifies the influence of this extremist minority because it’s what makes for “compelling” TV and news coverage. So we recognized that we needed to build a human infrastructure of moderates across Israel and Palestine, and to create tools that would amplify the voice of moderates to help them seize back the agenda for conflict resolution.

Today OneVoice has offices in Ramallah, Gaza City, and Tel Aviv; it has chapters in pretty much every Palestinian and Israeli University, as well as across most refugee camps, villages, and cities; over 640,000 citizens have signed on to the OneVoice Principles or OneVoice Mandate, and over 3,000 Israeli and Palestinian youth leaders have participated in OneVoice programs to organize themselves and their communities at the grassroots level to propel their elected representatives towards a two-state solution. AN: What are your thoughts about the recent economic initiatives and the Palestinian Investors Conference? DL: The day the investor conference took place coincided with our 6th Annual Board Meeting in Jerusalem, so I regretted I was not able to attend. A few of our Palestinian and International Board members attended, as did our Israeli Honorary Board member MK Ephraim Sneh. I heard good things about it, but don’t have first hand info. It's easy to be skeptical about it and paint it as a PR stunt, but it seems to me that it generated hope and interest in Palestinian economic development, both of which are very important. I was also told by several Palestinian friends that this was the first time they saw enormous effort on the part of the Israeli government to truly create a very comfortable environment for the conference attendees and the people of the region, with far less checkpoints and very courteous relations. The week to me seemed filled with energy and buzz.

I am extremely supportive of economic development at this stage, and consider it critical to building a vibrant Palestinian civic society and Palestinian State. It has to occur in tandem with political progress, but it is certainly vital. Tony Blair and Prime Minister Fayyad both seem very committed to achieving progress on the ground, which is also important to contrast this approach in the West Bank to Hamas’s apocalyptic and totalitarian governance in Gaza. AN: Recent polls say that a significant majority of Palestinians consider peace talks futile or counterproductive. Most Palestinians I know think talks are just window dressing for the occupation and that Israeli deeds–expanding settlements, checkpoints, and constraints on movement of goods and services–are all that matters. And many Israelis also believe that Palestinian talk of peace during the Oslo period was just a smokescreen for expanding “security” forces that turned into terrorists when push came to shove. Has the very word “peace” become degraded in this context? Has language lost all currency? DL: Yes, most Palestinians and Israelis have lost the ability to visualize that peace can be achieved, and the word “peace” has indeed been devalued. Everyone says they want “peace,” but they hang on to this word while hanging on to absolutist or unrealistic positions that are not consistent with peace. That's why OneVoice launched the Imagine 2018 Campaign this year: To compel people to dare to visualize what their lives could look like in 2018 if a framework agreement was achieved this year (as the Heads of State committed to) and implemented over the next year, and to deal with the problem of restoring some meaning to the word "peace." We also instituted a “Breaking the Taboos” series of Town Hall Meetings.

AN: Last year, OneVoice had to cancel long-planned simultaneous concerts in Jericho and Tel Aviv because of security threats on the West Bank. OneVoice’s current focus is on the latest round of peace talks, with a clock on the OneVoice site ticking down to 12/12/08–my 52nd birthday, by the way. These talks were initiated by three very weak leaders, with an outcome that at the very best cannot be implemented before the next Palestinian elections–again assuming a Fatah candidate can run and win in Gaza. Does this strategy carry a huge risk of increasing people’s cynicism and despair? Have you created a large target and sent an invitation to the extremists to blow it up? DL: The reasons for postponing the OneVoice Summit are thoroughly (and painfully but earnestly) discussed on my blog, in the entries between September and November 2007. The "clock" started ticking on 12/12/07, your 51st birthday, which coincided with the date when the Israeli and Palestinian Heads of State started their negotiations. In our OneVoice Mandate, signed by hundreds of thousands of people over the course of 18 months, we demanded that the elected representatives immediately restart negotiations, which should remain uninterrupted until the achievement of a comprehensive agreement, within a framework of no more than one year.

When we made this demand, even our Board members thought we were taking too big a risk, as negotiations had not been conducted for 7 years, and the conflict hadn’t been solved for decades. We explained that it is the role and duty of citizens to push and propel their leaders to do this, without us worrying about political repercussions, and that we would rather try and fail than not try at all. In fact, we succeeded: At Annapolis, Bush, Olmert, and Abbas all agreed not only to rekindle negotiations, but to our surprise, they even committed to a framework agreement within a year. So the Clock is an effort to hold them accountable.

That said, I sadly feel that you may be correct, as given all the internal problems Prime Minister Olmert is facing, not to mention the challenges Abbas faces in Palestine and the fact that Hamas controls Gaza, most observers feel there is no chance an agreement will come through in 2008.

We are indeed evaluating whether we should change our call to action. That said: 1) We should also take into consideration that part of the reason why “Leaders are Weak” is because we as citizens make too many excuses not to act to strengthen leaders with moderate agendas; and so instead of making excuses for why it is futile to act, if we are able to again galvanize public support, it is at least more likely that progress will be made.

2) We should bear in mind that some progress in the negotiations and political environment is critical, as we are not just at risk of giving up the upside of an agreement, but also of seeing Hamas spread its reign into the West Bank if the political track does not show that diplomacy and a two-state-solution are a better alternative to nihilistic absolutism. AN: I spent a couple of weeks in the holy land at the beginning of the 2006 war with Hezbollah, half on each side of the green line. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians were absolutely convinced that the Western media was hopelessly biased against them. Are they both right, or both wrong? How is US and European reportage informed by anti-Semitism and/or racism? Is there a feedback loop between the conflict and what could be described as the world’s longest running reality horror show? DL: The media is biased towards news that sells, and news that sells tends to be news that exacerbates conflicts, reinforces stereotypes, and plays into our primal defensive instincts. So, in a sense they are both right and they are both wrong: They are right that the media is biased, but it is not biased in the favor of the other–it is biased in the bent towards extremist views. The only way to change that is for citizens to vote with their feet and demand deeper and more nuanced coverage, which is unlikely to happen, or to generate newsworthy events about the otherwise “boring” mainstream citizenry that cherishes a resolution of the conflict. Yes, there is a dangerous feedback loop between the conflict and the “reality horror show” of this conflict. The more negative things one sees about the other, the more we adopt bad opinions about them and assume they are all “the enemy,” which leads to false polarization. We then become entrenched in a garrison mentality of Us Vs Them. The only way out of it is by forcing ourselves to think for ourselves, and to meet the other at a human level. AN: One Voice appears to be resolutely secular. Your list of “partners” doesn’t include any representatives or affiliates of the denominations of any of the Abrahamic faiths. Is this by accident or design? It has been noted that the real conflict here may be internal: Between secular elites in Israel and Palestine and a multitude of people with little education or income but a boatload of belief. Considering that religion is an enormous part of the problem in the holy land, is it realistic to think a solution can be found that doesn’t include the voice of the faithful? Do you see any positive role for people of faith in resolving this conflict? DL: Our Honorary Board actually incudes foremost religious leaders of all the Abrahamic Faiths, from Imam Feisal Abdel Rauf, to Rabbi David Rosen, to Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, to Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, and on and on. Progressive Religious leaders such as the above are very much part of the solution, but they face the same problem discussed earlier: The media find it less sexy to interview sensible people than big screaming extremists. HELEN JUPITER: Through OneVoice and the Imagine: 2018 contest, you are working to engage and amplify the moderate voices on the subject of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict–voices we rarely hear. How have you inspired moderates to take effective action? DL: First, we asked Israeli and Palestinian kids ages 13-17 to share their vision for what 2018 could look like if a framework peace agreement were to be achieved. The Palestinian Ministry of Education imparted this essay campaign across the West Bank. We imparted it through our staff in Gaza. And in Israel our staff imparted it with the cooperation of the Israeli Ministry of Education and other youth movements and kids’ websites (Tapuz). Tens of thousands were exposed and participated; thousands were finalists. We will soon announce the 100 winners and publicize some of the essays in Israeli and Palestinian newspapers and on the web.

The next phase, which we've just started on, is to work with foremost filmmakers (from Hollywood as well as from Israel and Palestine) and ask them to select one essay that speaks to them and turn it into a 1-5 minute short film. We also have two more phases that are big surprises to be shared later in the year. HJ: Is it possible to spark galvanizing passion in moderate thinkers? DL: It is possible, but it is very difficult. It is in the nature of moderates to be less assertive, and if we are to tackle the challenges our world will face this century, it is imperative that we re-educate ourselves to understand activism is necessary.

HJ: What can Jewcy readers–largely based in the US–realistically do to have an impact? DL: The OneVoice site has a section with a list of very specific and concrete ways in which people can get involved, starting with something as simple as joining the movement, signing up to receive our updates so people hear the deeper news and not just the alarmist partisan news, forwarding the news updates to their friends and encouraging them to join, making donations in cash or in-kind, volunteering in their communities, hosting presentations about OneVoice, and/or writing to media and policy makers with this message. HJ: It seems to me that there are three major branches in your thoughts on ending the Israeli/Palestinian conflict: economic, grassroots activist, and political. With PeaceWorks, you've developed a business model that manages mutually-beneficial relationships between Israeli, Egyptian, Palestinian, and Turkish companies. With OneVoice, you've brought together over 645,000 citizens in support of a two-state agreement. Market forces and grassroots peoples' movements are important and can be effective, especially in conjunction with one another, but are they powerful enough to influence political policy-making? What progress have you seen through your campaign thus far? DL: I think that the two greatest accomplishments are: 1) Helping re-frame the conflict, from the view circa 2001 that this conflict is one of Israelis vs. Palestinians or Jews vs. Muslims, to a more nuanced understanding that the conflict is not about “us” vs. “them,” but about empowering moderate voices on both sides to help overcome absolutism and nihilism.

2) Injecting into the political arena the concept about the possibility of achieving a two-state agreement within a one-year framework – what is still missing a commitment to uninterrupted negotiations, which is the only way to guarantee getting there: You get in the negotiations room and don’t come out till you conclude an agreement. JOEY KURTZMAN: Palestinians sometimes protest that when Jewish-Americans call for “peace” in Israel/Palestine, they are actually calling for Palestinians to surrender their right to struggle. Does Peaceworks believe that Palestinians have the right to select the means by which they pursue their own national liberation? DL: PeaceWorks actually does not deal at all with these political issues – it just fosters economic cooperation; the OneVoice Movement does not deny people their “narrative,” but it focuses on bringing about working solutions that can truly pull the Israeli and Palestinian people out of the “intractable” conflict; the conflict is only “intractable” if you insist you want “peace” but you deny that peace entails some painful compromises. If either Israelis or Palestinians hang on to absolutist positions, they should at least recognize theirs are not consistent with the pursuit of “peace.” While OneVoice does not pass moral judgments, the OneVoice Principles for Engagement require a) mutual recognition (of the humanity and rights of both peoples), b) a recognition of the need for personal civic action to wrest back the agenda, and c) a recognition that civic action must be non-violent to achieve its goals.

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Considering that approximately 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, collaborations like these could—and hopefully will—wind up being beneficial across the globe. Necessity is the mother of invention, and Israel has long had a great necessity for more water, which the country has chronically lacked for many years, and which is the source of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

It's a fantastic start, but perhaps we need more than water tech and politics. Perhaps we need a totally new mythology. Case in point: There's nary an American Jew who isn't familiar with the Jewish National Fund, famous for planting over 240 million trees (probably a few in your name) in Israel over the last century. The symbolism is simple and deep: Together with JNF, Jews around the world are laying down roots and making the homeland bloom. Fair enough, but I've heard firsthand accounts from friends who have worked as Ulpan counselors describing JNF-sponsored activities that included the planting…and immediate uprooting of trees. According to the JNF website, "Israel was the only nation in the world to end the 20th century with more trees than it had at the beginning." So many trees, in fact, that the they've run out of room, but are still utilizing the activity of tree planting to help kids establish a connection to the land.

In response to the Israeli water crisis that began in the late 80s, JNF has also built over 180 dams and reservoirs. What if, instead of an empty, useless tree planting activity, JNF found a way to create a new set of meaningful, spiritual rituals around reservoir and dam construction, water conservation and tech, river rehabilitation, and water recycling? What if they found a creative way to teach the kids and adults who participate in their programs that Israel's water challenges are actually the world's water challenges, and that by investing in and learning about this precious Israeli resource, they might ultimately be able to make the entire world a healthier, happier place?

It's time to step out of the shade cast by 240 million trees and start walking on water.

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Despite his legendary good looks (see Adam Sandler's "Chanukah Song" lyrics) and enviably successful Hollywood career, Newman opted for a private life defined by principled conviction and genuine humility. He's been married to his second wife, actress Joanne Woodward, for 50 years, and is said to have described his commitment to monogamy with, "Why go out for a hamburger when you have steak at home?"

Newman's life hasn't been totally charmed; his first marriage ended in divorce, and his only son died of a drug overdose in 1978. Two years after his son Scott passed away, Newman found a way to create something good from an otherwise life-shattering experience. In 1980, he founded The Scott Newman Center, which works to prevent substance abuse through education, and runs a camp for children and families whose lives have been affected by drugs, alcohol abuse, or domestic violence.

Beyond that, he's all but redefined the concept of corporate philanthropy, achieving the seemingly-impossible by donating 100% of the proceeds from his wonderful company, Newman's Own, to various charitable organizations. Together with business partner and friend A.E. Hotchner, with whom he founded the company in 1982, Newman has earned and donated over $200 million.

It doesn't stop there. Newman's Own is much more than just another "celebrity brand," as chronicled in Newman and Hotchner's book, Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good. Unlike "Rocky Graziano's spaghetti sauce, Mickey Mantle's barbecue sauce, Nolan Ryan's All-Star Fruit Snacks, [or] Gloria Vanderbilt's salad dressing," Newman's Own had a mission from the beginning: Newman was intent upon creating a product made with all natural ingredients. He was ahead of his time: As explained in Shameless Exploitation, "at that time, almost all salad dressings, especially the mass-market ones, contained sugar, artificial coloring, chemical preservatives, gums, and God knows what."

His first product, a simple oil and vinegar salad dressing, paved the way for a product line that now includes all-natural pasta sauce, salsa, lemonade, steak sauce, cereal, and popcorn, not to mention an organic line founded with his daughter in 1993, which includes pretzels, cookies, popcorn, chocolate bars, peppermint cups, peanut butter cups, olive oil and vinegar, dried fruit, fair trade coffee, and pet food.

Newman dedicated himself to creating healthier products and giving all of the proceeds away but, of course, he didn't stop there. Through Newman's Own, he initiated and funds the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, which "provides children with cancer and other serious illnesses and conditions a [free] camping experience of the highest quality, while extending year-round support to their families and health care providers."

He also helped to start the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy, which is the "only international forum of business CEOs and chairpersons pursuing a mission focused exclusively on corporate philanthropy."

Amazingly, this is just an incomplete, hazy snapshot of what Newman has accomplished in his 83 years. Altruistic, creative, entrepreneurial, and dedicated to the common good, Paul Newman is a great symbol of what each of us can achieve when we allow ourselves to be fearlessly—but thoughtfully—guided by our hearts.

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If you're in search of a last minute gift for your own mother this Sunday, here are a couple of foolproof ideas:

Jewcers in New York, Boston, Chicago, New Jersey, Toronto, or Montreal should seriously consider making a visit to Sabon, an amazing bath and body company that was founded in Israel in 1997. Their lotions, massage oils, soaps, cleansers, and serums combine aromatherapy oils, Dead Sea extracts, herbs, and flowers from the Israeli countryside. In addition to delicious products that are stylishly packaged, Sabon's soaps are made on an agricultural co-operative Moshav in Northern Israel, they use boxes made from recycled materials and fully biodegradable packing material, they never test on animals, and they support Dead Sea conservation via Friends of The Earth. US and Canada locations can be found here. Sabon also has an Israeli site.

For those who can't get to a Sabon storefront, Ahava is another good bet for Mother's Day. Described as the "only cosmetics enterprise indigenous to the Dead Sea region," their rich, mineral-based products are available all over the world. Any number of their cleansing, exfoliating, hydrating, and nourishing solutions would be a welcome offering. For more traditional moms, try something along the lines of the Mineral Body Lotion or hand and foot creams. For more adventurous mamas, pick up a tube of the Energizing Body Mud Mask with fresh essences of mandarin & cedarwood.

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I took his anti-vegetarian and vegan rantings with a big grain of kosher salt. In his book Kitchen Confidential, he writes:

"Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn…Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. The body, these waterheads imagine, is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. It’s healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I’ve worked with is brought down by any rumor of a cold."

Sticks and stones, right? Wrong. Though it had never occurred to me before, today everything became kristallnacht clear: Who else stereotyped minority groups as "persistent irritants" and "the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit"? Who else saw minority groups as "an affront to all he stood for" and typecast them as physically weaker? Hint:

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