Jackie Mason, ex-rabbi and comedian, dies at 93 and A Classic Work Of Early Publishing In Eretz Yisrael By Israel Mizrahi and Trump must be extremely clean if this is all the NY prosecutors came up with and What's My Line? - James Cagney; Gore Vidal [panel] (May 15, 1960) and Picasso kept in Maine house closet for 50 years is sold
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
In this Wednesday, Aug 28, 2002, file photo, comic Jackie Mason addresses the media at Zanie's comedy club in Chicago about the club's decision to cancel comic Ray Hanania's appearance. Mason, a rabbi-turned-jokester whose feisty brand of standup comedy got laughs from nightclubs in the Catskills to West Coast talk shows and Broadway stages, has died. He was 93. Mason died Saturday, July 24, 2021, in Manhattan, the celebrity lawyer Raoul Felder told The Associated Press. (AP Photo/Stephen J. Carrera, File)
Jackie Mason, a rabbi-turned-comedian whose feisty brand of standup comedy led him to Catskills nightclubs, West Coast talk shows and Broadway stages, has died. He was 93.
Mason died Saturday at 6 p.m. ET at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan after being hospitalized for over two weeks, the celebrity lawyer Raoul Felder told The Associated Press.
The irascible Mason was known for his sharp wit and piercing social commentary, often about being Jewish, men and women and his own inadequacies. His typical style was amused outrage.
"Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe," he once joked. Another Mason line was: "Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does." About himself, he once said: "I was so self-conscious, every time football players went into a huddle; I thought they were talking about me."
His death was mourned far and wide, from fellow comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who called him "one of the best," to Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity, who hailed Mason as "irreverent, iconoclastic, funny, smart and a great American patriot." Henry Winkler tweeted: "Now you get to make heaven laugh."
Mason was born Jacob Maza, the son of a rabbi. His three brothers became rabbis. So did Mason, who at one time had congregations in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Comedy eventually proved to be a more persistent calling than God.
"A person has to feel emotionally barren or empty or frustrated in order to become a comedian," he told The Associated Press in 1987. "I don't think people who feel comfortable or happy are motivated to become comedians. You're searching for something and you're willing to pay a high price to get that attention."
Mason started in show business as a social director at a resort in the Catskills. He was the guy who got everybody up to play Simon Says, quiz games or shuffleboard. He told jokes, too. After one season, he was playing clubs throughout the Catskills for better money.
"Nobody else knew me, but in the mountains, I was a hit," Mason recalled.
In 1961, the pint-sized comic got a big break, an appearance on Steve Allen's weekly television variety show. His success brought him to "The Ed Sullivan Show" and other programs.
He was banned for two years from the "Sullivan" show when he allegedly gave the host the finger when Sullivan signaled to him to wrap up his act during an appearance on Oct. 18, 1964.
Mason's act even carried him to Broadway, where he put on several one-man shows, including "Freshly Squeezed" in 2005, "Love Thy Neighbor" in 1996 and "The World According to Me" in 1988, for which he received a special Tony Award.
"I feel like Ronald Reagan tonight," Mason joked on Tony night. "He was an actor all his life, knew nothing about politics and became president of the United States. I'm an ex-rabbi who knew nothing about acting and I'm getting a Tony Award."
Mason called himself an observer who watched people and learned. From those observations he said he got his jokes and then tried them out on friends. "I'd rather make a fool of myself in front of two people for nothing than a thousand people who paid for a ticket," he told the AP.
His humor could leap from computers and designer coffee to then-Sen. John Kerry, former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Donald Trump. He was able to articulate the average Joe's anger, making the indignities of life seem funny and maybe just a little bit more bearable.
"I very rarely write anything down. I just think about life a lot and try to put it into phrases that will get a joke," he said. "I never do a joke that has a point that I don't believe in. To me, the message and the joke is the same."
On TV, Mason was a reliable presence, usually with a cameo on such shows as "30 Rock" or "The Simpsons" or as a reliable guest on late night chat shows. He performed in front of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and his show "Fearless" played London's West End in 2012.
He portrayed a Jewish ex-pajama salesman in love with an Irish-Catholic widow portrayed by Lynn Redgrave in a series called "Chicken Soup" in 1989 but it didn't last. During the O.J. Simpson murder trial, the British Broadcasting Corp.'s Scottish service hired Mason as a weekly commentator. He was in "Caddyshack II," a notorious flop.
Mason's humor sometimes went too far, as when he touched off a controversy in New York while campaigning for GOP mayoral candidate Rudolph Giuliani against Democrat David Dinkins, who was Black. Mason had to apologize after saying, among other things, that Jews would vote for Dinkins out of guilt.
Felder, his longtime friend, told the AP that Mason had a Talmudic outlook on life: "That whatever you would say to him, he would start an argument with you."
He is survived by his wife, producer Jyll Rosenfeld, and a daughter, Sheba.
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
What's My Line? - James Cagney; Gore Vidal [panel] (May 15, 1960)
MYSTERY GUEST: James Cagney
PANEL: Arlene Francis, Gore Vidal, Dorothy Kilgallen, Bennett Cerf
Trump must be extremely clean if this is all the NY prosecutors came up with
After years of prosecutors targeting Trump in search of a crime, Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg "surrendered early Thursday to New York authorities for arraignment in the first criminal indictment arising from a two-year investigation into the former president's company," according to the AP.
The charges relate to paying perks for executives without showing those perks on their W-2 forms and paying income taxes and payroll taxes on those perks.
I bet the WaPo, NYT, and other media outlets will have trouble finding those charges against other corporations, so I am sure they will advocate for going after all corporations and entities for this crime because they always want equal treatment under the law, don't they?
All corporations, including the WaPo and the NYT, should now be investigated to make sure that no executives ever get free stuff, like country club dues or special transportation, without paying income and payroll taxes.
Since the Trump organization got in trouble for paying private tuition, every university that gives free or subsidized tuition to its administrators and professors will now be charged with a crime, and the perk will be cut off. Does anyone think that will happen? T
Every airline that gives free flights to its employees and family members will have to stop giving that perk, won't it, since there is no legitimate business purpose for that expense?
Pelosi and other members of Congress will now have to pay full freight every time a family member goes on a flight on a government-owned plane. Why do taxpayers have to pay for this largesse in the first place?
The bill to Joe Biden and the government will be massive for all the flights Hunter took on Air Force 2 as he was going overseas to line up as many kickbacks as he could from foreign countries and companies. After all, Joe said he never talked with Hunter about anything concerning his business dealings, so there is no way his presence on all those flights could have had any legitimate business purpose.
Donald Trump must be extremely clean because, after years of targeted investigations by the IRS, the FBI, the media, Congress, and N.Y. prosecutors, this is all they could come up with. That is clearly evidence that this was a witch hunt in search of a crime instead of an investigation because there was evidence of a crime.
The DNC and Hillary campaign committees were having so much trouble finding dirt on Trump that they had to pay a foreign national over $10 million to create a fictional dossier to destroy him. The media and other Democrats even had to create the lies about Russian collusion in their efforts to take Trump out. There was never one piece of evidence of Russian collusion, but since Trump's low-tax, smaller-government policies were very popular and were lifting people of all races and all education levels up, he had to be destroyed. After all, the media and other Democrats care about power, not great results, so they had to intentionally mislead the public.
If the FBI, state prosecutors, the IRS, and the intelligence agencies spent their time doing their jobs instead of spending a significant amount of time and resources targeting their political opponents, the government would be much more efficient, and taxpayers would save a lot of money.
Most of the media will still pretend that there is nothing political about the Obama and Biden administrations' IRS and FBI and that the N.Y. prosecutor is honest. I bet if the N.Y. prosecutor's office looked for a few minutes at the Clinton Foundation, it might find inappropriate payments and activity.
Hillary, Biden, Lois Lerner, Comey, McCabe, Holder, and others could violate as many laws as they liked with no repercussions, but the Trump organization is charged with paying inappropriate perks? As the media and other Democrats continue to pretend no one is above the law.
Picasso kept in Maine house closet for 50 years is sold
Picasso from 1932"Le Repos"
(AP) — A mixed-media painting attributed to Pablo Picasso has been sold after spending 50 years in a closet in a house in Maine.
John McInnis Auctioneers, based in Massachusetts, confirmed that the painting entitled "Le Tricorne" sold on Saturday, the Boston Globe reported.
The 16 x 16 inch (40 x 40 centimeter) painting is signed and dated in the year 1919. It is believed to be a study for the stage curtain Picasso painted for a ballet of the same name that debuted that year in London, according to the New-York Historical Society. That curtain has been on display at the historical society in New York City since 2015.
The website liveauctioneers.com reported the sale price of the painting was $150,000, plus a 24% buyer's premium.
Neither the buyer nor the seller was named, but the seller gave a statement on the website saying the painting was found in a closet of a home his father inherited from a female relative who studied art in Europe in the 1920s.
"This painting was discovered in a house owned by my great aunt which was passed down to her from her uncle in the late 1930s," the statement reads. "There were several paintings kept in a closet for 50 years (including this example) which were left by her at the time of the passing of the house to my father and now to me."
The buyer will have at least 120 days to authenticate the painting with The Claude Picasso Administration, which is managed by the artist's son.
A Classic Work Of Early Publishing In Eretz Yisrael
A fine copy of a first edition of an important work I acquired this week was an exciting find for me. While we take book printing for granted today, the publication of this work was an extraordinary achievement and a pinnacle of the messianic fervor that was common amongst those who risked their lives to move to Eretz Yisrael in the early 19th century.
The book is Pe'at Hashulchan, authored by R. Israel of Shklov, a talmid of the Vilna Gaon and a leader of the Talmide Hagr'a who trekked to the holy land and settled in Safed. He left Eastern Europe in 1809 with a group of the students of the Vilna Gaon and joined the former groups of the talmidim who already settled in Safed. He was very active in leading the community, organizing support from abroad with fundraising trips to Europe and working to achieve an amicable relationship with Arab neighbors. When rumors of rediscovery of the ten lost tribes reached him, he organized and sent emissaries to Yemen and elsewhere to attempt to make contact with them and hasten the Redemption.
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The new reality of Jews living in the land of their fathers led to the publication of his Pe'at Hashulchan, a work dealing with halachot of the Land of Israel, particularly shemittah, a subject that was newly relevant with the establishment of agricultural endeavors by the new olim.
The printer of this work, Israel Bak, was a master printer and a devout chassid who learned and practiced his trade in the city of Berdichev. In 1831, he moved to Eretz Yisrael and settled in Safed, bringing his printing press, tools and several of his employees with him. His printing press, funded with the generous support of Moses Montefiore, was the very first printing press in Eretz Yisrael in modern times. He managed to publish a few Hebrew works in Safed, the final one being the Pe'at Hashulchan in 1836. The following year a major earthquake devastated Safed, killing many of its inhabitants, including much of his family and leaving the city in ruins. Israel Bak's concurrent operation, an agricultural settlement on Mount Meron, the very first farm founded by Jews in modern Israel, was devastated as well.
Bak and R. Israel of Shklov both left Safed and resettled in Jerusalem, where Bak founded a new printing business, with the first printing press to exist in Jerusalem. From 1841 and on, for 22 years, his press was the only Hebrew press in Jerusalem, printing over 100 sefarim.
This sefer's printing was thus a culmination of the great messianic fervor of both the students of the Baal Shem Tov and those of the Vilna Gaon, who lived in peace together in Eretz Yisrael and whose joint ventures resulted in the writing and publication of this now classic work on the halachot and agricultural customs of the land of their fathers.
