MY URBAN KVETCH

"The Office" Goes to Israel - Will Hilarity Ensue?

With a British original version, and a hit US version (as well as popular versions in Russia and France), "The Office" is being franchised again, to the Holy Land. Although this latest franchise was originally reported in the Guardian last year, the show is readying for launch soon, so additional details about characters, casting, etc have surfaced in Ha'aretz, via Tablet, and on tv.MSN.uk. As the awkward boss, the Israeli version has Dvir Benedek, last seen in Israel's critically acclaimed sumo-themed movie, "A Matter of Size."

The Tablet story by Liel Lebovitz notes that the Israeli version is likely to be more political, because one of the lead writers is reportedly Uzi Weill, "the creator of some of Israel’s fiercest political satires—his hit 1990s show Ha’hamishiya Ha’kamerit, frequently poked fun at such sensitive topics as the Holocaust, Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, and the Israel Defense Force." 

MSN reports several other characters due at the Super Office. "Another new office worker is Karol, an older and very cynical accountant. Leah, a highly Orthodox Jewish woman who is "constantly pregnant", is another new addition."  

A comparative cheat sheet for British and US fans :

TITLE

"The Office" (British) => "The Office" (US) => "Super Office" (Israel)

CHARACTERS

David Brent (British) => Michael Scott (US) => Avi Meshulam (Israel)

Gareth (British) => Dwight (US) => Yariv (Israel)

Tim (British) => Jim (US) => Yossi (Israel)

Dawn (British) => Pam (US) => Dana (Israel)

SETTING

Slough (British) => Scranton (US) => Yahud, near Tel Aviv (Israel)

According to the Ha'aretz story, the show "also includes a character named Abed, described as 'an intellectual Arab with a gentle soul,' and Abba, who is Ethiopian." Sounds like we can still expect some uncomfortable silences as racist comments are uttered by awkward branch managers (and assistant to the regional managers), but this time in Hebrew. 

Will awkward, uncomfortable, gut-busting laughter ensue? Time will tell - and if it's still on this summer when I'm in Israel, I'll tell you too.

People of the (Face)Book Videos Online

Last week, Leah Jones, Frume Sarah and I were panelists at a Los Angeles community event called "People of the (Face)Book," which examined Jewish community and social media. 

The breakfast was sponsored by the ROI Community, the Jewish Federation's Next Generation Initiative, the Jewish Communal Professionals of Southern California, and Jumpstart. Several clips are now available online, including the one below, in which Leah and I address a question about whether Facebook and Twitter are a fad or here to stay. Check them out, favorite them, add comments, retweet them, share with colleagues and friends...it's the next best thing to having been able to attend in person!

 

Thursday Morning in L.A.: "People of the (Face)Book," with @leahjones and @frumesarah

Thursday, February 18, 8:30am - People of the (Face)Book: Tweeting, Blogging and Facebooking Our Way to a Stronger Jewish Community, Online and Off - featuring Leah Jones, Esther Kustanowitz and Rabbi Rebecca Einstein Schorr

The complete details are below. And hey, we've been listed in the Blueprint, too! RSVPs helpful, click here to ensure the purchase of your bagel.

Event description

Leah Jones, Esther Kustanowitz and Rabbi Rebecca Einstein Schorr are from different cities and diverse backgrounds. But the internet brought them together and social media strengthened their bonds with Jewish life, identity and community. Join us for a breakfast conversation about building stronger Jewish community through online media. Light breakfast and coffee will be served. RSVPs helpful, click here to ensure the purchase of your bagel.

Thanks to our location host, Congregation Beth Chayim Chadashim 6000 Pico Boulevard (one block east of Crescent Heights, at the corner of Pico and Stearns). 

Sponsored by: ROI Community, NextGeneration Engagement Initiative of the Los Angeles Jewish Federation, Jumpstart and the Jewish Communal Professionals of Southern California. 

Panelist bios 

Leah Jones (@leahjones) is the founder of Natiiv Arts & Media where she is a social media coach for artists, writers and musicians. Leah focuses on teaching individuals and groups the skills they need to be successful at online marketing and personal branding. She believes it is up to the artist, and not the label, to build relationships and manage their online persona. Prior to launching Natiiv Arts & Media, Leah worked at Edelman PR as the Digital-Culture Evangelist. She served on the Strategic Services team and guided research on behalf of brands to understand what is being said online and developed digital strategy based on the findings. Previously, she was the Conversation Analyst in the me2revolution—focusing on research and global internal communications and trying to help each Edelman employee become more digitally savvy. With a degree in Chemistry from Millikin University and a career that has included study abroad administration, non-profit volunteer management and scooping ice cream, Leah shows that you don’t have to study communications to learn how to use social media. Esther D. Kustanowitz (@estherk) is a Los Angeles-based writer and consultant specializing in social media, Jewish community and innovation; she also runs social media training workshops on Twitter, Facebook and blogging. Esther blogs at My Urban Kvetch, JDaters Anonymous, and Beliefnet’s Idol Chatter, a blog about the intersection of spirituality and popular culture. She has been involved in staffing, content creation, and online media for the ROI Community since its founding in 2006, and served as founding senior editor for PresenTense Magazine. Esther was a featured plenary speaker on “Next Generation Jews”at the UJC General Assembly in 2007, and in 2009, was named #10 to JTA’s list of most influential Jewish Twitterers. Most recently, she taught the Next Generation Engagement Initiative about social media culture and tools, and is slated to do a series of webinars for the Jewish Communal Professionals of Southern California. Her ever-expanding list of freelance writing and social media clients includes The Berman Jewish Policy Archive, IKAR-LA, Bikkurim, JewishTVNetwork.com, Birthright Israel-NEXT and MTV Networks. Rebecca Yaël Schorr’s (@frumesarah) claim to fame is that she is the first female rabbi to share the pulpit with her father. (Talk about baggage.) Serving her childhood congregation is a wonderful, and challenging, experience as Rebecca recently shared with Dick Gordon on NPR’s The Story. She feels like the luckiest rabbi in the world because she has been able to integrate her passions in a way that strengthens the People Israel. Her rabbinate focuses on music, program development, and membership retention and integration..with time left over for reading, writing, and daydreaming. She has discovered that Twitter and Facebook have intrinsic positive values in creating and maintaining community. Keep up with Rebecca on Twitter, Facebook, or at her other pulpit, Frume Sarah’s World (www.frumesarah.com)- the blog musings of a Reform Jewish rabbi and mother. She is also the Modern Jewish Rabbi Mom at www.modernjewishmom.com

The Shushan Channel Strikes Back With "Wolfman, DDS"

Gerry Wolfman's a bit different from other dentists lately. Check out the surreal, faux-horror story of a man gone moon-mental complete with fine supporting turns by Faith Salie (Significant Others will always rock) and Will Forte, and penned by Sheryl Zohn (Penn & Teller) and Rob Kutner, former writer for both The Daily Show and The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien. Well-produced, as usual, by Stephen Levinson. 

So if you're in NY, make sure to get your tickets for the 92Y Tribeca Purim spiel run by the fine folks at the Shushan Channel. Why should you buy tickets for this spiel? I asked Rob to pitch you, the readers, directly: 

"I left the Daily Show and moved to LA to write for 'The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien.' And then suddenly, I had an awful lot of free time. And unresolved issues. So I wrote a sketch about 'Mordecoco' being displaced by 'Jayman,' and wrangled a star from the actual Tonight Show to weigh in on it by video. My therapy, or your entertainment? Come and find out."

Still not enough? The show features Lizz Winstead, the awesome original creator of The Daily Show, a video from Joel McHale, and a surprise message from a star of the gone-but-not-forgotten Conan show. Plus, the 10pm show features Scott Adsit (from 30 Rock).

Come on. You know you want to.

LimmudLA This Weekend: My Sessions

Here are the sessions I'll be involved with over the course of the LimmudLA weekend. I'll also be featured in the Friday night "Talk Show" program, which sounds like it's going to be great, except because it's happening Friday night, it won't be recorded. But if it goes well, maybe I'll just find a couch and start interviewing people willy-nilly. Oh, that's right - I said "willy-nilly." You never know what's going to happen at LimmudLA...check out the full list of presenters here.

Esther D. Kustanowitz, a recent NYC transplant to LA, writes, edits and consults on matters relating to dating and relationships, Jewish life, pop culture and online social media. Esther wrote "First Person Singular," a singles column in the New York Jewish Week, and she currently blogs at My Urban Kvetch and J-daters Anonymous. She also consults for the ROI Community, an international network of young Jewish innovators, and has been known to teach improv and host karaoke parties.

The Innovation Ecosystem: A 21st Century Organic Jewish Community

Joshua Avedon, Yoni Gordis, Esther Kustanowitz, Naomi Less, Scott Perlo

• Saturday 12:30 PM–1:45 PM Catalina Ballroom 1

Identity and Responsibility, Teen Approved

Over the past decade or so, the Jewish world has witnessed the emergence of a new landscape of innovative startups. These enterprises have created new entry points to Jewish life, and new ways of building Jewish community. This diverse and vibrant collective of new Jewish initiatives is evolving into an organic communal infrastructure for the Jewish community in the 21st century. This session is a tour though the diverse and vibrant ecosystem driving Jewish innovation across the globe. Meet some of the innovators and find out how their work is changing the Jewish world.

Jews' Line Is It Anyway?

• Saturday 2:00 PM–3:15 PM Balboa Bay 1

Arts and Performance, Teen Approved

What's so Jewish about basic improv comedy? This informal, participatory workshop introduces the basics of both improv comedy and Jewish community to Jews and Judeophiles of all ages.

Finding Your Inner Megillah

• Monday 11:30 AM–12:45 PM Newport Beach 3

Identity and Responsibility, Teen Approved

There's a megillah inside every Jew, not just those named Ruth and Esther. Jews are natural storytellers because our faith is based in oral and then written history. But what makes a story worth telling and retelling, generation after generation? In this experimental writing workshop, visit some noteworthy texts from Jewish tradition and engage in free-writing exercises based on and inspired by those texts.

Rabbi Haskel Besser, z"l

Today, I learned from my friend Rabbi Yonah - now in the rush of the final days of planning for the 6th Jewlicious Festival - of the passing of Haskel Besser, whose amazing tale of survival was chronicled in the book The Rabbi of 84th Street: The Extraordinary Life of Haskel Besser, by Warren Kozak (as well as in the video below). In addition to the numbers of Hasidic and non-Hasidic Jews he influenced, Rabbi Besser was an Upper West Side fixture who also co-founded the Daf Yomi initiative. 

Rabbi Yonah was very close with Rabbi Besser and considered him a great mentor. A few years ago, Rabbi Yonah gave me a copy of Kozak's book to read. His joy of being able to share a piece of his rebbe with other people was infectious - I read the book with great interest and found it very inspiring. 

As a tribute to the late rabbi and in honor and respect for Rabbi Yonah, I am posting this YouTube clip - I urge readers to watch it and learn more about Rabbi Besser and the love of Jewish everything that he brought to New Yorkers and to the world for so many years. 

May his memory be for a blessing for everyone, but in particular to Rabbi Yonah (whose Gchat status, "in the office - holding back the tears" says so much). I know that you feel his influence at Jewlicious Festival, at JConnectLA events, and in everything else you do. May Rabbi Besser's messages and teachings continue to inspire you in your work on behalf of Jewish communal life and young Jewish identity, every day.

(The narration is by Tovah Feldshuh, I believe.)

Social Media Manifesto, Wordled

Weird Science Brings Surgery-Free Facelift to L.A. Writer

Before I start, a note to my parents: Ema, Aba, this post isn't about me. (I have only had a makeover on national TV, which you already knew about.) Now we can continue.

L.A. writer and former Jewish Journal editor Amy Klein was on Facebook when she saw her friend had posted a note seeking someone who "had bad bags" - his cousin was a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills who was innovating a "surgery-free" facelift, and was looking for a guinea pig who would be willing to have the (normally $10,000) procedure (and recovery process) filmed for TV broadcast. That's right, kids: this non-surgery was brought to you via social media, making it - say it with me - "a face(book)lift." 

At a transitional moment in her life and career, Amy thought it would be a good article for her, and volunteered - she was chosen from a pool of 50 other people, and underwent the "Stem Cell Face Sculpting" procedure, which utilizes injections of "stem cells from your own body fat, known as autologous adult adipose derived mesenchymal stem cells."  (Yum.) The doctor (Nathan Newman, see above link for details) also uses stem cells for hand and vaginal rejuvenation procedures (in case the MyUrbanKvetch readers are interested).

The segment airs tonight on NBC's Extra TV news magazine show at 7pm (your local time) - but if you can't wait, check it out below, as well as Amy's "before and after" shots after the jump.

'The Future Begins Today': JFedLA CEO Opens Online Dialogue with Community

Technically speaking, the titular 'today' was January 27, when new CEO of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles Jay Sanderson first posed a series of questions to the members of the L.A. Jewish community on The Wire (the Federation's blog), asking for feedback and questions from the audience reading the post at their respective computers. 

His goal, he stated, was to "create a dynamic new vision for Los Angeles;by linking arms with you and beginning a communal conversation. If we’re to create a rich and meaningful Jewish future, we have to be willing to take risks and learn from our failures; to study our past, but not be stuck in it." 

To kick things off, Sanderson asked eight questions:

1. What should our priorities be and where should we be investing our resources?
2. How can we reach out to the tens of thousands of Jews who aren’t engaged in any community?
3. How can we combat the increasingly high cost of synagogue affiliation and formal education?
4. How can we ensure that future generations will share our love and commitment for Israel?
5. Are we doing everything we can to assure that our children and grandchildren remember the Holocaust?
6. After this recent and devastating economic downfall, what are our most pressing social service needs?
7. How should we be addressing the needs of Jews around the world?
8. How do we support the State of Israel as its needs change?

So far, 21 people have answered Jay's call to action in the comments section, leaving responses ranging from general approval to specific suggestions for moving forward with many Jewish communal priorities - from social life to education to literacy to remembering the Holocaust and trying to increase Jewish jobs.

I left a generic comment lauding Jay and the Federation for opening up this conversation online and using social media, and expressed a hope that we'd all use the forum to move forward in positive directions. Jay responded: "Esther, couldn’t agree with you more — we have just initiated a dynamic new web initiative that will launch in May — stay tuned!"

This was a continuation of his promise to the community that the Federation would prioritize outreach to different segments of the community (see video below).

So there you have it. The future begins now. Or perhaps, in May. But the point is, soon. And we have questions and concerns to guide us. Plus, it looks like we'll be tracking the progress publicly and online. Should be interesting to see how this develops.

Best Pieces in Anticipation of "Lost" Season 6 - No Spoilers!

It's 5:30 pm, Eastern Standard time. If you're on the east coast, you're probably rushing home, grabbing dinner and reporting to your favorite sofa. If you're on the west coast, you're probably watching the clock tick, waiting for the hours to pass, listening to the soundtrack online and swearing to avoid Twitter and Facebook status updates from 5pm until after 10pm when all your friends start posting spoilers. Because, in case you didn't know, "Lost" returns tonight on ABC. 

(Do NOT check ABC.com's page for showtimes, because the first few minutes of the new episode is posted online - so if you don't want to know who survives Jughead, STAY AWAY.) And if for some reason you miss it tonight, or want to watch it again, Twitter circulated the news that it's going up on Hulu.com by 5am.

How to get ready? Bake your own Dharma fish biscuits. Check out GoogleMaps' Lost locations. Go to Fake Lost Spoilers to read non-spoilers like "Women can't get pregnant on the island because it's the man's fault. It's always the man's fault." Use it as a chance to spread a green message. 

Ride the Twitter enthusiasm by opening a search for #Lost (ex: "The smoke monster saw its shadow this morning. Six more weeks of winter"). Book a flight from Sydney to LAX on Oceanic Air (on Kayak). Do the Jewy thing and wonder "What if it had been an El Al plane that crashed on Lost?" (includes the most obvious one: "Jack would not have been the only doctor"). Check out 5-Second Films spoof of the writing process (very short, with an F-word).

Ever wondered "How to Survive While Lost on a Mysterious Island"? Well, here's an instructive and entertaining animated video that gives you some helpful hints. (Hat tip for this one goes to Al at Jewish Humor Central.)

We'll catch up with all of you tomorrow - leave your "Lost" reactions here! See you in another life, brother...

How To Survive While Lost on a Mysterious Island on Howcast