Michael Douglas Heads to Israel for Bar Mitzvah

 Michael Douglas Heads to Israel for Bar Mitzvah. HT: Forward.

Ynet reports that Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones are in Jerusalem with their children as part of the bar mitzvah celebration of their son Dylan.

Douglas is the son of Kirk Douglas, who was born Issur Danielovitch (early in childhood he became Issur “Izzy” Demsky) and his first wife, Diana Dill. The elder Douglas started exploring religion under the influence of Aish HaTorah after narrowly escaping death in a 1991 helicopter crash, and since then he’s expressed regret on several occasions that he neglected his Jewish identity for so many years and never raised his sons as Jews. It’s a bit odd, considering that he filmed two movies in Israel before it became fashionable post-1967, at a time when hardly anyone was visiting Israel, much less promoting it.

The first one, the critically acclaimed 1953 “The Juggler), about a Holocaust survivor who comes to Israel, struggles with his past and finally comes to terms with it on a kibbutz, was the first Hollywood feature film to be made in Israel. The second, the 1966 war pic “Cast a Giant Shadow, is a biopic about Colonel David “Mickey” Marcus, the American World War II military hero who volunteered to fight in Israel’s war of independence and ended up accidentally getting shot by an Israeli sentry because he didn’t understand the Hebrew warnings. We should all be so assimilated. Read the full Story here

"מזל טוב" "Mazel tov" - Muhammad Ali's grandson celebrates his Bar Mitzvah.

"מזל טוב" "Mazel tov" - Muhammad Ali's grandson celebrates his Bar Mitzvah.(YJN).We have named former world boxing champion Muhammad Ali Heavyweight champion "The Greatest", "People's Champion" and "The Louisville Lip" Now I would like also call him "Zaidy" and he is very proud of that. The boxing news media reported that the grandson of Muhammad Ali recently became a bar mitzvah. The 13-year-old Jacob Wertheimer, the son of Ali's daughter Khaliah Ali Wertheimer and her husband Spencer Wertheimer. "I was born and raised as a Muslim," Ali Wertheimer said. "But I'm not into organized religion. I am more spiritual than religious. My husband is Jewish. Nobody put any pressure on Jacob to believe one way or another. He chose this on his own because he felt a kinship with Judaism and Jewish culture. "Accordingly, Jacob had his Bar Mitzvah ceremony in the congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia on April 28. Jacob's mother also shared that the theme of the bar mitzvah was a celebration of diversity and inclusion. "My father was supportive in every way. He followed all the Torah readings and looked closely. It meant a lot to Jacob that he was there," she said.Read the full story here.