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LTV Ziņu dienests, CC BY 3.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), via Wikimedia Commons
Eurovision Song Contest Winners Made Their Intro Video in Israel
This year’s Eurovision Song
Contest did not go Israel’s way
— but even though the coun-
try didn’t make it to the final for
the first time in six years, it did have
some representation in Turin, Italy.

That’s because Ukraine, which
won the competition with Kalush
Orchestra’s “Stefania” rap song,
filmed its introductory video in Israel.

The intro, known in Eurovision
jargon as the “postcard,” features
contestants who typically are filmed
in a place of their choosing in the
country that hosts that year’s contest
(normally, the country that won the
previous year).

But the war has complicated trav-
eling out of Ukraine, where civilian
flights have basically stopped since
Russia invaded Feb. 24. And filming in
the war-torn country has also become
difficult and potentially dangerous.

So Ukraine’s Suspilne public broad-
Members of Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra at the opening ceremony of the
Eurovision Song Contest 2022 in Turin, Italy
caster last month arranged for Kalush
Orchestra to travel to Israel and
record there their “postcard” video,
which was shown in the grand final
ahead of the contestants’ live perfor-
mance. The Ukrainian band in Israel took
place at the headquarters of the
Jewish Agency in Jerusalem, in the
very room where Chaim Weizmann
was sworn in as Israel’s first pres-
ident, according to the Times of
Israel. The final video does not feature
Israel in any way. It shows the band
members, who were filmed against a
green screen, against drone footage
of several monuments in Italy.

At a facility in Israel of the Jewish
Agency, which helped bring Kalush
Orchestra and 23 other contestants
for an annual Israeli pre-Eurovision
event called “Israel Calling,” the
Ukrainian band also performed for
Jewish refugees from Ukraine. About
50 of the refugees enjoyed a live,
unplugged rendition of “Stefania,”
a rap number featuring traditional
Ukrainian instruments and motifs.

— Cnaan Liphshiz
Bruce Glikas/WireImage via JTA
‘Funny Girl’ Snubbed, But ‘Lehman’ Stock Rises in Tony Nominations
Some of the biggest Jewish names on Broadway
weren’t shining so bright in this year’s Tony nom-
inations. The much-anticipated revival of “Funny Girl,” with
Beanie Feldstein in the Barbra Streisand role as pio-
neering Jewish comedienne Fanny Brice, came up
almost empty-handed. The show received only one
nomination in total, for featured actor Jared Grimes.

Also snubbed: “Plaza Suite,” a revival of the Neil
Simon play starring real-life Jew-ish couple Sarah
Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, only gar-
nered one nomination, for costume design.

Jews and Jewish-themed shows were more suc-
cessful elsewhere, however. “The Lehman Trilogy,”
a multigenerational history of the infamous Jewish
family of financiers, received eight nominations,
including best play; all three lead actors were also
nominated, including Adam Godley, who is Jewish.

“Girl from the North Country,” a jukebox-style
production built around Bob Dylan’s songbook,
received seven nominations, including Best Musical
and Best Book of a Musical; the Great Depression-
era orchestrations of Dylan’s tunes were also rec-
ognized. “North Country” star Mare Winningham
was nominated for lead actress. Winningham was
4 MAY 19, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
Beanie Feldstein as “Fanny Brice” during the opening
night curtain call for the musical “Funny Girl” on
Broadway at The August Wilson Theatre in New York
City on April 24
raised Catholic, but converted to Judaism in her
40s. “Mr. Saturday Night,” Billy Crystal’s musical
comedy based on his 1992 film about a fading
TV comic, received five nominations, including
best musical and best actor for Crystal. He also
co-wrote the nominated book with Jewish writing
duo Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. Featured
actress Shoshana Bean, who is Jewish, was also
nominated, as were the Jewish writers of the
show’s music, composer Jason Robert Brown and
lyricist Amanda Green.

“Company,” a gender-swapped restaging of the
Stephen Sondheim classic, scored nine nomina-
tions. “Caroline, or Change,” Tony Kushner’s Civil Rights
Era-set musical about a Black maid who works for
a Southern Jewish family in 1963, received three
nominations. And “American Buffalo,” a revival of caustic
Jewish playwright David Mamet’s 1975 play about
a junk shop, was nominated for four Tonys, as was
“Take Me Out,” about a professional baseball player
coming out as gay, by Jewish playwright Richard
Greenberg. “How I Learned to Drive,” a revival of the Pulitzer-
winning 1997 play dealing with taboo topics such
as pedophilia and incest, was nominated for three
Tonys, including best revival. Its author, Paula
Vogel, had a Jewish father and has also written
other Jewish-themed plays.

— Andrew Lapin



local
Synagogue To Unveil,
Dedicate Czech Torah
Scrolls from Holocaust
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
Courtesy of Carol and Barry Stein
O ld York Road Temple-Beth
Am will display and rededi-
cate its three Torah scrolls sal-
vaged from Czechoslovakia during the
Holocaust on June 3, coinciding with the
Abington synagogue’s 75th-year jubilee.

Th e event also marks the 50th anni-
versary of the scrolls’ recovery and res-
toration and the 80th anniversary of the
deportation of Jews in the area.

Th e synagogue will unveil a perma-
nent exhibit in the main lobby of the syn-
agogue featuring a three-dimensional,
multimedia mural by local artist Murrie
Gayman, which will house replicas of
two scrolls. Th e third, smallest scroll will
be displayed in the center of the mural.

Th e scrolls are on permanent loan from
the Memorial Scrolls Trust in London,
where they, along with 1,561 other
Torah scrolls were rescued from Nazi
possession and restored at Westminster
Synagogue in London. All of the 1,564
scrolls salvaged by the Memorial Scrolls
Trust is marked with a little metal tag,
each with its own number.

“Th e whole idea, symbolically, phil-
osophically, is to breathe new life into
these Torah scrolls that, God forbid,
would have been destroyed,” Old York
Road Temple-Beth Am Rabbi Robert
Lieb said.

Th e synagogue acquired the scrolls in
1982 and 2004, though the scrolls are
likely 150 years old. Th e synagogue’s for-
mer Rabbi Harold Waintrup secured two
of the scrolls from the Memorial Scrolls
Trust, and the third was acquired when
Reform congregation Temple Beth Torah,
the scroll’s previous owner, merged with
Old York Road Temple-Beth Am in 2004.

Th e scrolls are originally from the
Czech towns of Louny, Svetla nad
Sazavou and Tabor, which were, during
World War II, part of Moravia and
Bohemia, Czech protectorates partially
annexed by Nazis.

Before the war, the Jewish presence
in the area was “precarious,” according
to the Memorial Scrolls Trust. Various
restrictions and expulsions meant the
Jewish population fl uctuated over the
centuries, but by the mid-1800s, Jews
lived comfortably in the area.

Aft er the Munich Agreement on Sept.

29, 1938, Sudetenland, which included
Moravia and Bohemia, was absorbed
into Germany. By the end of the year,
many synagogues and Jewish spaces
were destroyed in pogroms. Jewish busi-
nesses and homes that were spared were
destroyed in Nazi pillages in March 1939.

Th e initial survival of Jewish religious
objects was a result of irony: In 1942,
Czech Jews — by Nazi order — cataloged
salvaged scrolls and objects to be sent to
the Jewish Museum in Prague, which was
founded in 1906. Th e museum’s inventory
increased 14-fold as a result of the infl ux
of objects during the war, the Memorial
Scrolls Trust wrote on its website.

Nazis tasked Jews with cataloging the
materials until they fi nished the work,
at which point they were sent to die in
concentration camps. Th ough there is no
evidence to prove it, some speculate that
Nazis were planning to keep these mate-
rials to create “a museum of an extinct
race” following the Holocaust.

In 1948, the objects were transferred
to a diff erent warehouse following a
Communist coup in Czechoslovakia.

During the war, more than 60 Czech
synagogues were destroyed. Seventy-
eight thousand of the area’s 117,000 Jews
were murdered.

Old York Road Temple-Beth Am mem-
bers were able to see fi rsthand the mod-
ern eff orts to honor the Czech Jewish
community when they sent synagogue
delegations to Louny and Svetla in 2013
and 2016, respectively.

“When we visited ... they were so taken
by the fact that we had brought back a
Jewish presence to their town,” syna-
gogue member Carol Stein said of her
time in Louny.

In 2016, the Svetla mayor unveiled a
plaque honoring the Jewish victims of
the town that the synagogue had helped
to fund. Other towns honored the syn-
agogue and Jewish pop-
ulation of the area with
similar plaques and cere-
monies. “Th ey were so moved
Rabbi Robert Lieb holds the Svetla Torah rescued
and restored by the Memorial Scrolls Trust in
that they surprised us
London. with ‘Hatikvah’ [sung by
a choir],” congregant Jane
Th e mural shows a congregation cel-
Hurwitz said of the trip to Svetla.

Old York Road Temple-Beth Am ebrating Simchat Torah with the small
will similarly honor its Torahs, though center Torah. It also depicts a represen-
instead of an onyx plaque inscribed in tation of the townspeople lost to Nazi
English, Hebrew and Czech, they will pillages during the war.

“It has a very emotional background,”
display the mural by Gayman, who is
also Stein’s brother. Th e synagogue had a Gayman said. “Th e story of the Sefer
Torahs is very moving.” JE
similar dedication event in 2014.

Th e commissioned work took 500
hours to make over three months.

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