Original Article in The Times Of Israel:

NEW YORK – By age four, Jason Fuchs was a TV addict. But unlike most kids, he didn’t want to just sit in front of the boob tube, he wanted to be on it.

“My parents would call out to me while I was watching, and I didn’t respond to anything. I remember pointing to the TV and saying, “I want to be in the box–the thing I was staring at,” Fuchs told The Times of Israel last week.

Back then he was too shy to talk with his father’s agent friend; he’d been taught not to speak with strangers. But a follow-up meeting three years later put Fuchs ‘in the box’ – and on the big screen.

Over the past 20 years, the former child actor has appeared in plays (“Abe Lincoln in Illinois”; “A Christmas Carol”), TV shows (“Law and Order: Criminal Intent”; “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit”; “All My Children”; “The Sopranos”) and movies (“Flipper”; “The Hebrew Hammer”; “Mafia!”). The Columbia University graduate has also written scripts, including “Ice Age 4” and “Rags.”

And it his screenwriter chops that has Fuchs, now 29, poised to become a hero for other little television-obsessed boys, with the October 8 debut of his family blockbuster, “Pan.”

Growing up, what were some of your childhood interests outside of TV, movies and acting?

My parents insisted I attend a regular school [as opposed to a performing arts school] until high school. And I never got too successful! It is harder when you are Macaulay Culkin – always working on a regular basis.

My two great loves are basketball and foreign affairs. I have always been a diehard New York Knicks basketball fan. I remember watching the Gulf War on CNN. I knew who Dick Cheney was even when I was a little kid and I had a Gulf War trading card collection.

When 9/11 took place, my father worked across the street from the Twin Towers. He saw them fall and came to get me at school that day, covered in soot. I sort of dove in to learn about the Middle East after 9/11. I wanted to understand everything.

Has this interest in the Middle East continued?

When I was 17 years old, I had an internship at GIS-Global Information System, an independent government intelligence service which gives second opinions to governments. During freshman year of college, I was their UN correspondent.

GIS is run by a brilliant Australian Gregory Copley and Israeli Yossef Bodansky, author of “Bin Laden, The Man Who Declared War on America,” which is ironically the first book I read after 9/11. Bodansky is a rock star to me – he is brilliant and kind. I still have an obsession with current affairs and the Middle East and keep up as closely as I did when I worked there.

Did this interest in Middle East Studies continue at Columbia University?

I took some Middle East courses. I studied with Rashid Khalidi [the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University]. He is a nice guy, but he didn’t like me. We did not share all the same perspectives. It is not so much a Professor Khalidi issue as a Columbia issue – there is some intolerance for a diversity of opinions and they don’t foster an atmosphere of healthy dissent.

What does Israel mean to you?

I have never been to Israel. It is very important to me, I feel a very strong connection and affinity, and I NEED very much to go at some point – sooner than later. I went to Hebrew school, and had a strong sense of yiddishkeit and appreciation for Jewish history.

I am the grandson of two Holocaust survivors (my grandfather is still alive). I am also cognizant of the threats the Jews have faced historically and am aware of how significant it is to have a national homeland like Israel whose founding ethos is “Never Again.”

So knowing that your grandparents were in the Holocaust and didn’t have an Israel to run to, it is a very powerful thing to know that such a place exists.

I also feel a strong connection with it as a lover of democracy. I like living in a democracy, I vote, I do jury duty, I think it is a good way to govern. Jewishness aside, I also feel a kinship to Israel in the same way I feel a kinship to democracies all around the world.

You sound pretty ‘connected’ Jewishly. Do you have a favorite holiday or story?

The holiday that on an emotional level I registered with has always been Passover. For me, the story of Passover is the best story in the Old Testament. It is kind of the template for every movie that I enjoy. The savior motif, the idea that there is someone destined for something special, to lead his people – that is Moses, that is the Exodus story.

You see echoes of that in Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter and in this version of the Peter Pan story. Peter is, in this telling of the story, the Chosen One. He is a messiah-like figure who is fated to do something extraordinary. He rises up from essentially, bondage – he is an orphan in a horrible orphanage – he nuns mistreat him and the other boys – and he rises up to be The Pan, the savior of Neverland.

And that’s not an original idea at all. It is a very traditional idea, one that resonates for me in some of the stories that mean the most to me, and hopefully resonates for so many people.

How did the Pan story make it to to the big screen?

When I was 9 years old, I got stuck on a Peter Pan ride with my dad, and was stuck for 20 minutes in a pirate ship. I was always a curious kid with an insane number of questions for my dad: Why is Peter Pan, Peter Pan? Why can he fly? Why do he and Hook hate each other so much? What is Neverland? Why is he there?

By the way, that’s not an un-Talmudic way to approach things for a nine year old.

What kept me motivated is when no one bought the script. I didn’t write it on spec. I was too passionate. I thought I’d pitch it and maybe someone would bite but no one did. Finally, I met with Warner Brother’s exec Sarah Schechter and she told me to do it. It is a fairy tale story within itself!

What was it like working with Hugh Jackman?

Hugh Jackman is amazing. With a movie star of that kind of measure, you don’t know what to expect. Hugh is the most normal, kind, decent human being you’d ever hope to work with. When your most famous actor is as big of a mensch as Hugh Jackman is, everyone has to be a mensch. It sets the tone for the entire crew.

What does it mean to you personally to have Pan coming out in Israel?

I love the fact it is opening in Israel. It is very meaningful that something that meant so much to me, the story I told my agent, my parents and my girlfriend – is out there for people in Israel who have no clue who I am to go and see.

You’re rumored to be writing the “Wonder Woman” script starring Gal Gadot.

Anything related to DC Comics is like working with the CIA – there is a code of silence. I have read what you have online about what my involvement with that project might be. I can only speak as a fan – I always loved comics as a kid. I am as hardcore a DC Comic fan as there is. But in terms of my involvement, I cannot comment. I think Warner Brothers has set the film “Wonder Woman” to come out in June 2017.

What do you have in the pipeline? What are you currently working on?

I recently wrote a movie script for “Break My Heart One Thousand Times,” a supernatural thriller where ghosts are part of everyday life and a TV pilot for TNT, “Black Box,” a conspiracy thrillerish TV show.

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Original Article Published On The Ruderman Family Foundation

For most tennis fans, the highlight of the 2015 U.S. Open was the anticipation and excitement around Serena Williams possibly winning the Grand Slam—all four major titles in a calendar year–for the first time since Stefi Graf accomplished this feat in 1988. For me, the highlight occurred on the last Friday of the tournament, when both women’s semifinals matches were played. A great deal of attention was focused on Serena’s shocking defeat to Roberta Vinci.

For those unable to get inside Arthur Ashe Stadium to see the Simona Halep/Flavia Pennetta semifinals match life, it was being projected on the giant screen outside of Ashe Stadium for hundreds to see. On an equal size screen, the Shingo Kunieda vs. Joachim Gerard semifinals match from Armstrong Stadium, and the Michael Jermiasz vs. Nicholas Peifer quarterfinals match from Court 17 were also being shown. Who in the world are these tennis players? They are admittedly not household names like Djokovic, Federer or Williams. They are championship wheelchair tennis players, getting the respect and honor they deserve! Kunieda, from Japan, is the #1 seed and Feifer from France is the #2 seed.

Wheelchair tennis is a serious event at the U.S. Open. Members of the media receive an official U.S. Open 2015 Wheelchair Tennis Competition Media Guide and a supplemental 20 page booklet of player biographies. The guide notes that this is the ninth year of the U.S. Open Wheelchair Competition at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, and features 20 of the sport’s elite talents. For the uninitiated, signs on the U.S. Open grounds provide some background:

“Wheelchair Tennis began in California in 1976. Since then, it has grown to be played on six of the seven continents and, currently, there are more than 170 tennis tournaments on the wheelchair professional tour. The Men’s and Women’s division athletes have disabilities in their lower extremities only and are classified by gender. Quad division athletes have disabilities in their lower and upper extremities and are classified based on disability, not gender. It is one of the only sports in which you may see men and women competing against each other on equal terms.”

My first exposure to wheelchair tennis was in 2012 when Israeli Noam Gershony defeated the world’s #2, David Wagner. Gershony, 24 at the time, humbly told me after the match, “It is always easy being the underdog – there is no expectations and less pressure.” Each wheelchair tennis player has his or her unique story. Gershony had taken a few tennis lessons, but he was never a serious player. Gershony served as an Israeli army Apache helicopter pilot; a crash during the 2006 Second Lebanon War left him paralyzed. Early in his lengthy rehab, he was asked the seemingly unusual but very forward thinking question, “What sport would you like to pursue?” He chose tennis and went on to win several singles titles in his career. Gershony and the other wheelchair players I have watched and met at the U.S. Open are living proof that participating in sports and physical activity allows participants—with or without disabilities—to feel good physically and mentally.

I applaud the tennis world for making wheelchair tennis just another part of the U.S. Open, up there with men’s and women’s singles and doubles, mixed doubles and juniors events. I was pleased to read recent articles in a major U.S. newspaper, USA Today, which showcased athletes with disabilities who have extraordinary abilities—and participate in typical sports events: “One-handed Receiver Dominates with Speed, Spunk” (9/15/15) and “Blind Player Joins Southern Cal Practice” (9/16/16). May we continue to see opportunities of all abilities to be included in sports—the payoff for everyone is great.

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Original Article in The Times Of Israel:

NEW YORK — Sports fanatic Jeremy Posner and his wife Rabbi Paulette Posner have one rule for their three boys when going to a baseball game: “You can’t eat your hot dogs until you finish your ice cream.”

Just because the Posners keep kosher — adhering to the Jewish dietary laws that forbid mixing meat and dairy — doesn’t stop them from being, and eating, like diehard baseball fans.

Recently, the Posners left their apartment on the Upper East Side in Manhattan to get to Citi Field early enough to watch their beloved NY Mets — currently in first place of the National League East division — take batting practice before their game with the Philadelphia Phillies. It was also before the crowds started filing in so they could grab an assortment of kosher classics, including hot dogs, knishes and pretzels, before the lines got too long.

Just a Matt Harvey arm’s throw away at the US Open underway in Flushing Meadows, Jonathan Katz, owner of the Open’s Kosher Grill behind court 17, had already sold nearly 500 hot dogs and all of his wraps to avid, yet hungry, tennis fans.

In between matches — where top Israeli player Dudi Sela crashed out in the first round — the Solomon family of Long Island waited patiently in line at Katz’s popular food stand. With them were their strictly observant cousins Yona and Uri Walfish of Queens, who were delighted they could attend a sports event and not worry about buying food.

“People from all over the world buy kosher hot dogs, people who don’t even know what kosher is want kosher,” said Katz, who manages seven workers every day of the tournament except for Friday night and Saturday.

Katz, who worked on the New York Stock Exchange before starting in the kosher food business, remembers growing up in Queens and going to games where there was no kosher food, except for ice cream. Now you can find it pretty much at any major sporting event.

Katz began serving kosher food in 2003 at New York Giants football games. He then went on to found Kosher Sports Inc., which operates concession stands in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Miami and elsewhere. His company has even provided kosher food at the Super Bowl, the annual championship game of the National Football League.

Strawberries and parve cream

Dan Eleff, a self-described foodie and founder of dansdeals.com, recently compiled a roundup of 31 professional sports teams that have a kosher food stand, noting the recent addition of one at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles. The Dodgers are now one of 10 baseball teams — in addition to seven football, seven basketball and seven hockey teams — that offer kosher food across the US and Canada.

But kosher food is not just restricted to North America. You can even find it across the pond in England at Wimbledon, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of four Grand Slam events with the US Open as well as the French Open and Australian Open.

In 2009, Rabbi Dovid Cohen of the Chabad of South London started Kosher Court, a kosher truck located outside the stadium.

“We sell several hundred hot dogs, burgers and baked potatoes over a two-week period,” said Cohen, who is particularly proud of serving a Wimbledon classic — strawberries and cream, stressing that the cream is parve and contains no dairy ingredients.

Cohen is unaware of Chabad colleagues selling kosher food at the French or Australian Opens, though he noted that the Jewish movement provided kosher food at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and at various cricket tournaments.

Seventh-inning prayers

Menachem Lubinsky, founding publisher of trade magazine Kosher Todayand creator of Kosherfest, the world’s largest kosher food trade show, observes an increase in kosher food options at sports events throughout the US. In his view, kosher food at sports events is more than a community service to observant Jews.

“It is a recognition of the fact that more and more people require kosher food,” he said.

Food stands, according to Lubinsky, also offer more than just food. The kosher vendors in some stadiums serve as a gathering point for daily prayer services during baseball’s seventh-inning stretch or between periods at NY Rangers hockey games.

“In places like NY, you may find a minyan [prayer quorum] of up to 50 or 60,” he said.

Yet the food stands face challenges, too — kosher vendors close on the Sabbath and Jewish holidays, and sporting events can be infrequent or short-lived.

“Despite the challenges of running a food stand according to halacha [Jewish law], in the end, it is worth it,” Lubinsky said.

And it certainly has been worth it for the Kosher Grill at the US Open as Katz and his staff work in the 92°F (33°C) heat grilling up hotdogs for his Jewish and non-Jewish customers alike.

“We expect to sell up to 600 a day,” he said with a smile.

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Original Article in The Jewish Ledger:

For fans hoping to see Israelis in action at the U.S. Open tennis tournament this year, the key was to show up a week early. Three of the five Israelis hoping to compete in the main draw were out before the tournament even started.

Shahar Peer, Julia Glushko and Amir Weintraub competed in the US Open Qualifying Tournament, which took place at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, N.Y. August 25-28. Players ranked from approximately 105 to 250 in the world entered a 128, player men’s and women’s draw. More than 30,000 spectators attended the free week-long event.

The 16 men and women who win three straight matches enter the main draw of the U.S. Open, which kicked off on August 31 and will run through Sept. 13. More than 700,000 tennis fans watch the top men’s and women’s players from around the world compete for a staggering $42,253,400 in prize money.

Peer lost in the first round of the qualifiers to Tamira Paszek of Austria 6-2, 6-3. Amir Weintraub lost in the first round to Guilherme Cezar of Brazil 3-6, 6-4, 6-3. Julia Glushko won her first round match to American Julia Boserup 4-6, 6-3, 6-1, but lost in the second round to Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, 2-6, 6-0, 6-4.

Dudi Sela, ranked 104th in the world, automatically received a spot in men’s singles draw. He lost a tough four-set match to Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay, ranked 40th in the world, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4, 6-1. “I started off tight but then I felt very good and thought I could win,” said Sela, coming off a tournament win at a Challenger tennis tournament event in Vancouver the week before the Open. Sela plans to return to Israel then travel to Asia for several tournaments.  Despite the loss early in the tournament, he said proudly, “I love tennis and I hope to continue playing as long as I can!”

The last remaining Israeli in the Open, Jonathan “Yoni” Ehrlich, played doubles with new partner Artem Sitak of New Zealand. Erlich is perhaps best known as half of the championship team of “Andyoni.”  His partner, Andy Ram, 35, retired last year after the two won their five-set doubles match versus Argentina in the Davis Cup in Sunrise, Fla. last September. Ram is currently co-founder and CEO of Pulse Play, a company that produces smart watches for tennis and other racket sports.

Erlich and Sitak lost their first round match to the Italian doubles team of Marco Cecchinato and Andres Seppi, 6-7, 6-3, 7-6. Erlich, returning from recent knee surgery and illness, was disappointed with the loss, saying,  “I thought we would go further. We played decent but didn’t take it.”  Erlich will return home to Israel to spend time with his children, 7 and 3.

One Jewish player of note in the Open’s main draw is Diego Schwartzman, 23, of Argentina. Following a first round win, he battled Rafael Nadal, the 8th seed, for nearly three hours, eventually losing 7-6, 6-3, 7-5.  Schwartzman also lost in the second round of the men’s doubles.

Once again, the tournament offered kosher food from Kosher Grill, a food stand just off the main food court. The stand is under kosher supervision and is closed on Shabbat. The Katz operates kosher food stands at many sports stadiums and arenas and has provided kosher food at the Super Bowl.

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