Tonight Show veteran gives afternoon concert some Pop
One Baton, Two Conductors: David Amos and Shelly Cohen
By Donald H. Harrison
Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO—The late Ed McMahon, a former colleague on NBC’s “Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,” might have introduced Shelly Cohen on Sunday afternoon, July 25, at the Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra’s pop concert, with a drawn out “Heeeeeere’s Shelly!” Such an introduction would have been in keeping with the show business patter that the guest conductor served up to the San Diego audience.
Cohen had served from 1962 to 1992 as an assistant music director under Tonight Show orchestra leader “Doc” Severinsen, and since has conducted the Los Angeles Pops Orchestra, the Virginia Pops Orchestra and the Pasadena Pops Orchestra, among others. The conductor had driven down from Los Angeles to lead the show on Sunday joining his 12-member Los Angeles-based New Horizon Singers with the 80-piece community orchestra of San Diego in the presentation of familiar Broadway show tunes and Hollywood movie themes.
David Amos, the regular conductor of the TICO orchestra, took a middle seat in the second row of the audience and watched the orchestra that he has led for 35 years respond to the baton of Cohen, a good friend. He described as a “warm pleasure” seeing a representative of Hollywood, in the person of Cohen, “appreciating what we do.”
The concert began with Cohen conducting the audience in singing “The Star Spangled Banner.” Next he led the TICO orchestra in “Holiday for Strings” by David Rose, who had been the music director for Red Skelton’s TV Show. Cohen, dressed in tan pants, blue blazer, pink shirt and blue patterned tie and conducting under a five-tiered, six-pointed Magen David chandelier, told the audience that when he was 10 years old his mother dragged him away from his beloved baseball and to a violin lesson, which he didn’t enjoy. So he took a holiday from strings. However, when he got to high school, he took up the clarinet, and while he was at it, decided to fulfill his mother’s fond hope and play violin too. “Stringed instruments are the closest thing to the human voice,” he declared. Stringed instruments have emotion, and they make mistakes, he insisted.
Cohen said Leonard Bernstein had been of a similarly divided mind – not between baseball and music, but between popular music and classical music. “Happily he did both,” composing not only West Side Story but the Jeremiah Symphony, Cohen commented before leading TICO in a West Side Story medley.
Cohen added immeasurably to the afternoon of popular music with shows about celebrities he has known, or studied, although, curiously, he refrained from sharing any anecdotes about his former colleagues Carson, Severinsen and McMahon.
A self-described jokester, who “will say anything to get a laugh,” Cohen did just that following the percussion filled finale of “Ritual Fire Dance” by Manuel De Falla. Pointing at TICO percussionist Ricki Pedersen, the conductor quipped. “That really wasn’t castanets; she has false teeth.” Pederson laughed along with the audience.
Discussing the “Exodus” selection in the concert’s “Saturday Night at the Movies,” Cohen noted that the lyricist for the song about Israel’s fight for independence was singer Pat Boone, who is “as Presbyterian as you could meet.”
In the concert’s second half, the first selection was Elmer Bernstein’s theme from The Magnificent Seven. Cohen noted that Marlboro cigarettes later chose that theme for its “Marlboro Man” commercial, and quoted Elmer Bernstein’s observation that he “made more money from the Marlboro Man than from the Magnificent Seven.”
The second half featured the New Horizon Singers—five men and seven women, who wore black shirts or blouses, with different pastel colored ties or scarves.
Cohen said that when Henry Mancini composed another of the evening’s selections, “Moon River,” he had difficulty finding someone to record it, until Andy Williams finally said, “I think I’ll take a shot at it.” It became one of the most famous songs in Williams’ repertoire.
The conductor urged members of the audience to join in the Disney Medley of “When You Wish Upon A Star,” “The Mickey Mouse March” and “Chim Chim Cheree,” suggesting however that “if the person next to you is completely out of tune—and doesn’t even belong in the same state,” an elbow jab to that person’s ribs might do nicely.
Moving onto the music of Rodgers and Hart, Cohen said rarely were two collaborators less alike. Richard Rodgers was a Type-A personality, a punctual man to whom being in control was important, whereas Hart was the complete opposite, an alcoholic. “They were at odds all the time.” One time Richard Rodgers had been trying to track Larry Hart down for days, becoming increasingly panicked that they would not finish a song in time. Hart finally arrived, and Rodgers remonstrated with him. “Give me some paper,” said Hart, and in ten minutes time he wrote, “The Lady Is A Tramp,” and then walked out of the studio and disappeared for another three or four days, according to Cohen.
Later, discussing the collaboration of Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon on El Condor Pasa, an Inca song they made famous with the English lyrics, “I’d rather be a hammer then a nail,” Cohen marveled that they were two Jewish boys who had lived in Queens. How did they come up with this?
When Cohen reached a segment entitled “Jule Styne on Broadway,” he told the audience, “If you feel like singing along, please don’t!” The medley included “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend,” “Just in Time,” and the show business standard, “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.”
Ralph Barnes, a former Tifereth Israel Synagogue president who raffles off tickets for huggable stuffed toy bears during the concert’s intermission, led the cries of “More! More!” to persuade the singers and orchestra to provide some encores. As “Encores” was printed on the program, it was hardly a surprise, however, that the audience’s pleas were successful.
After Lowe’s solo, the combined orchestra and choir concluded the concert with a medley from The Sound of Music, in a salute to Rodgers and Hammerstein.
Evelyn Kooperman, principal cello, said that working under Cohen and seeing the volunteer orchestra’s own conductor, Amos, staring at her from the second row, was just a touch intimidating.
“Each of them has a different style,” Kooperman said. “Shelly expects us to play like a professional orchestra—after one rehearsal. He’s used to working with professionals who’ve played all their lives.”
“Each has his own idiosyncrasies,” she said. “And they’re both wonderful gentlemen.”
Charles and Albeta Feurzeig were the sponsors of the concert.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World
A modern-day journalist’s letter to Anne Frank
Greg Gross
Editor’s Note: Greg Gross, a retired reporter of the San Diego Union-Tribune recently visited Amsterdam and was moved to write a letter to Anne Frank after visiting the house in which she hid from the Nazis. His letter is reprinted with permission from his new blog “I’m Black and I Travel.”
Dear Anne,
Paid a visit to your house this morning, along with a few thousand other folks, the one where you hid for two years during the German occupation in World War 2, until one of your neighbors ratted you out to the Nazis and they shipped you all off like cattle to Bergen-Belsen.
I saw the rooms in which you lived behind shuttered, darkened curtains day and night, not daring even to let a pinprick of light escape. I try to understand how that must have weighed on your spirit, the conflict you must have felt as a young girl who wanted to run and dance and laugh — and knowing that you dare not do any of those things.
Even after seeing your house, Anne, it is hard to imagine your life.
I saw the stairs you climbed up and down to get to and from the hiding places that also served as hearth and home. My God, but they were steep! More like the ladders aboard the Navy ships I used to visit as a boy who dreamed of going to sea.
I picture you and your sister, Margot, lightly and silently bounding up and down those stairs in all your youthful agility. I’m sorry to report that neither youth nor agility have remained with me here. But in that perpetual memory that you left behind in your diary, I still see you now as you were then, young and effortless in defying gravity up those steep, wooden stairs.
The world will forever see you that way, Anne. Young. Alert. Observant and insightful beyond your years.
It’s sad to think of what you might have gone on to create and achieve had you lived to the age that I am now, or even half of it. But I prefer not to be sad when I think of you. I’d rather dwell on the incredible record of life you left behind.
You said you wanted to be a journalist and later a writer. Well, Anne, you were both. You faithfully recorded the times and circumstances of your life — and in doing so, you spoke for millions. Maybe you never knew the joy of cashing that first paycheck in return for your writings, but you were in fact a journalist, and a writer. I’m addressing you here as a colleague, not a child.
I saw that you left behind an unfinished novel in your house, which is fitting. Not just because your young life ended as an unfinished work, but because the struggle to rid the world of hatred, the same hatred that turned you from a child into a fugitive, also remains unfinished.
You’ve probably heard a lot of talk these days about “tolerance,” how we should replace hate in the world with tolerance. I don’t know, Anne. Tolerance seems a little negative somehow, a little inadequate. It’s as if we’re saying “I still see you as a cockroach, but I’ll put up with your existence.”
I think we might do better if we forgot about tolerance and focused on acceptance. Acceptance of one other just as we are, just as you saw us all. As human beings.
Anyway, thank you for being who you were, for the writing that you did, for the humanity you maintained in spite of everything. One day, we will meet, you and I, and talk shop. One writer to another. We’ll have fun.
Best regards,
.greg
Adventures in San Diego Jewish History, October 1, 1954, Part 4
Compiled by San Diego Jewish World staff
Rabbi Levens Joins Special Program
Southwestern Jewish Press, October 1, 1954, Page 7
Rabbi Monroe Levens of Tifereth Israel will be one of three community leaders to participate in “An American Dedication,” a non-religious program to be presented Sunday, October 10, at 3 p.m. in the Balboa Bowl, according to George A. Scott, chairman of the Second United Success Drive of the San Diego Area Community Chest.
The program, which will feature the unity of all three major faiths dedicated to American ideals, will present American music played by the Starlight Opera orchestra and choral selections by a 250 voice interfaith chorus under the direction of Carl Dewse.
Scott emphasize that he program will not be religious in any way other than an expression of unity toward the American way of life.
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Deceased
Southwestern Jewish Press, October 1, 1954, Page 7
Mrs. Jean Kirsner, 42, on Sept. 18. Born in Illinois, Ms. Kirsner had lived here the past eight years. Rabbi Morton J. Cohn conducted services on Sept. 21 in Benbough Mortuary. Entombment was in Cypress View Mausoleum.
Survivors are her husband, Sidney, and a son, Steven.
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William Rochocz, 687, on Sept. 17. Born in Germany, Mr. Rochocz came to the United States in 1937 and to San Diego in 1945. Services were conducted by Rabbi Morton J. Cohn on Sept. 21 in Merkley-Austin Mortuary. Interment was in Home of Peace Cemetery. He is survived by his wife, Margaret.
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Telephones In Color Now Available
Southwestern Jewish Press, October 1, 1954, Page 7
Do you want a peking red telephone to match your draperies or a yellow one that will blend well with other yellow tones, from lighter lemon shades to buffs and browns.
A limited supply of eight different colors is now being received by the local telephone business office for the first time.
Colors included are green, beige, yellow, ivory, brown, blue, gray and red. The ivory sets are proving most popular, largely because they are designed to blend well in offices or rooms finished in light colors, such as the bedroom or the kitchen.
Robert Black, Pacific Telephone manager, says there is a waiting list for all colors, due to the heavy demand. There also is a $10 installation charge.
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Noted Legislator To Speak Here Oct. 1
Southwestern Jewish Press, October 1, 1954, Page 8
A man who helped push formation of the State of Israel and has since been one of its staunchest friends – Rep. Sam Rayburn of Texas – will be a San Diego visitor this week.
Rayburn, House speaker in every Congress since 1940 except the 80th and 83rd—will address the Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson fund-raising dinner at El Cortez Hotel Friday night, Oct. 1.
Often referred to as the “greatest compromiser since Henry Clay,” Rayburn served the Roosevelt and Truman administrations through some of history’s most difficult days. Almost alone, he is credited with having saved the Selective Service Act a scant three months before Pearl Harbor.
Jewish leaders have noted that on issues affecting the formation and support of Israel, Rayburn never has compromised but always brought his legislative skills to bear in helping arouse the support of other key members in Congress.
The Texan also has been active on behalf of Israel Bond issues and is a consistent foe of discriminatory provisions of the McCarran-Walther Immigration Law.
Contributions of $25 and $10 are sought for Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner tickets the funds to be used in support of local Democratic nominees. D.G. Hamilton is dinner chairman.
Rayburn, the evening’s only speaker, will be introduced by Dr. Ross T. McIntire, Democratic nominee for Congress in San Diego’s 30th District.
The program will be broadcast on KFMB radio, beginning at 9:30 p.m.
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Council Honors U.N.; Dr. Rust Speaks Oct. 5
Southwestern Jewish Press, October 1, 1954, Page 8
National Council of Jewish Women will honor United Nations Month with a noon luncheon meeting at Temple Beth Israel on Tuesday, Oct. 5
This organization is especially interested in the support of the United Nations, and is one of the few women’s clubs to have an observer there.
Dr. William J. Rust, president of California Western University, will be the principal speaker. He has chosen as his subject, “U.N. Depends on You.”
Honored guests will be the presidents of local civic organizations, members of the press, and representatives of the Houses of Hospitality, the latter in native costumes. The afternoon will have a wonderful international flavor.
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Water Authority Dedicates Second Barrel Saturday
Southwestern Jewish Press, October 1, 1954, Page 8
Another important chapter in the history of water development in San Diego County will be written Saturday with the dedication of the second Aqueduct barrel. The site is at the south portal of Oat Hill tunnel on the McMahan Ranch, about eight miles north of Escondido.
The second barrel, on which construction started late in 1952, has been completed several weeks ahead of schedule. It will have been “usably completed” this week, a development that will be highlighted when for the first time Colordo River water is turned into both barrels at the finale of Saturday’s ceremony.
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(Never Sorry)
Southwestern Jewish Press, October 1, 1954, Page 8
A man is never sorry for the things he didn’t say.
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“Adventures in San Diego Jewish History” is sponsored by Inland Industries Group LP in memory of long-time San Diego Jewish community leader Marie (Mrs. Gabriel) Berg. Our “Adventures in San Diego Jewish History” series will be a regular feature until we run out of history. To find stories on specific individuals or organizations, type their names in our search box.
Glick warns that Iran believes creating nuclear force its religious duty
By Norman Greene
Norman Greene
LA JOLLA, California — No matter what else is discussed, “Iran is the main issue in the Middle East…everything else is irrelevant,” stated Caroline Glick, Deputy Managing Editor of the Jerusalem Post before an audience of over 500 gathered at Congregation Beth El by the San Diego Chapter of Friends of the Israel Defense Forces.
Can a nuclear Iran be contained? “Absolutely not,” she stated because “we are dealing with a death cult” that fervently believes in a life beyond this one where Islam will rule. All Iran’s nuclear efforts are “to advance Iran’s messianic quest.” There is no parallel with the history of U.S./Russia’s nuclear competition or standoff, because the Soviet Union believed in nothing…no hereafter.
Glick, born in Chicago, received her B.A. from Columbia, her Masters from Harvard, made Aliyah in 1991 and served in the IDF for five years before embarking on a many faceted career that has seen her as an adviser to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, a member of the team negotiating with Yasser Arafat’s PLO, a Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. and currently the lead columnist for Israel’s Makor Rishon newspaper, as well as her current Jerusalem Post position. She is a frequent speaker and TV commentator, as well as an author and syndicated columnist.
Her San Diego presentation Tuesday evening, July 20, was both rapid fire, detailed and impassioned.
Glick reported three consequences of a nuclear Iran: Middle East de-stabilization, a political realignment of Middle East nations and a Middle East nuclear arms race (Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Jordan) that she stated had already begun. As a result, “Egypt and Jordan will abrogate their peace treaties with Israel. Fatah, which has no authority to make peace, will abandon any efforts. All of the U.S. Persian Gulf Sunni allies (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain) will move away from the U.S.”
In discussing sanctions against Iran, which she says has dominated U.S. discourse, Glick stated that they have been on the table since early 2000 and that “none will have the slightest effect on Iran’s nuclear program. Even if 70 million Iranians have to starve, the regime doesn’t care.”
As far as “regime change” is concerned, Glick says there is no chance of that happening in the foreseeable future. Still she feels: “It is good to keep the regime busy with the opposition, no matter the moral quality of that opposition.”
Drawing a bleak picture, Glick was very clear that “the only way to stop Iran’s nuclear program is the use of military force. She reiterated that “seven years have been wasted by feckless politicians without the guts to take action.” There has been a complete failure of U.S. policy beginning with the last two years of George Bush’s presidency (“when he seemingly lost his will”) and continuing with Barack Obama’s first year of appeasement efforts that have totally failed, said the Chicago native.
The U.S., she said, “has fallen asleep on its watch – a terrible thing.”
An attack on Iran’s nuclear capabilities “would not be to protect Israel” she bluntly stated. It is in the fundamental interest of the U.S. to protect the flow of Middle East oil. While noting that the U.S. military has the power, she stated that a U.S. attack on Iran was “not going to happen” even though the U.S. needs to project its power in the Middle East. She noted that Israel hasn’t attacked because of U.S. pressure.
Referring to anti-missile systems development, she said that such programs do not constitute a viable program. They are ” a failure of imagination” in the face of a threat to world security. She noted that Iran’s satellite launching long-range missiles endanger not only Israel, but also Europe and all other Arab nations.
Glick discussed Israel’s role in the equation and stated that Israel, which was founded to prevent another Holocaust, has the capacity to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, but is hampered by the U.S. threat to withhold re-supplying Israel should an attack occur. “Obama has not given Israel any assurances to resupply if war were to happen.”
As such, Glick was extremely critical of the Obama administration. Quoting Winston Churchill: “The U.S. always does the right thing after exhausting every other possibility,” Glick exhorted her audience to show their support for Israel and the Free World by contacting all their representatives and political candidates to openly stand behind Israel against Iran. The U.S.’s lack of meaningful action she attributed to the backlash against Bush’s Iraq war.
Glick warned that Israel has been “carrying the rest of the world for quite a while now and there is fatigue, a fear of making mistakes, the wearing effects of the condemnation of the rest of the world.” She said the distortions of Jew-hating groups attempting to delegitimize and isolate Israel is real and paralyzing. “There is need to hear the voices of reason in the U.S..”
Glick worries about the loss of young Jews in the Diaspora, which she blames on the emphasis in Jewish education since the 90’s on the Holocaust at the expense of teaching Zionism. “The Holocaust is a German story, not a Jewish Story,” Glick stated. ” It focuses on the Jews as victims, not as actors who are ‘doing’ things.”
“To be a Jew, you have to do something – to build and to ‘do’–instead of holding a whiny discourse” Glick stated. “If you are damned if you do or don’t, it’s far better to ‘do’ ” she added.
Glick was welcome to the podium by Julian Josephson, San Diego chair of the Friends of IDF, Executive Director Nir Ben Zvi and Charles Wax who made the formal guest speaker introduction. A brief IDF film showed that since the organization was founded in 1981, it has provided support for Israeli soldiers, veterans and their families through scholarships, recreation facilities as well as social welfare, spiritual and bereavement programs. The message delivered is that “soldiers know they have strong backing from Friends of the IDF worldwide.”
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Greene is a freelance writer based in San Diego
Commentary: More worrying signs about U.S.-trained Palestinian army
By Shoshana Bryen
Shoshana Bryen
WASHINGTON, D.C. –JINSA has long expressed concern about military skills being transmitted by the U.S. to a Palestinian Authority military force while the Palestinian government remains openly hostile to Jewish sovereignty in the Middle East. The Israelis tell us, “The more they do against Hamas, the less we have to do.” The Americans tell us, “Everything we do is coordinated with our friends in Israel.”
We believe them both, while remaining enormously skeptical about the ultimate wisdom of the plan and right now have a queasy feeling about the future of what has been called “Dayton’s Army.”
LTG Keith Dayton, USA, who for the past five years was the U.S. Security Coordinator for the Palestinians, is being replaced by MG Michael Moeller, USAF (who will receive his third star along with the assignment). Interestingly, while LTG Dayton’s career in the Army centered on EUCOM, the European Command of which Israel is a member, MG Moeller comes to the job from CENTCOM, which specifically does not involve itself in matters involving Israel or the Palestinians.
Until now?
MG Moeller, currently director of strategy, plans and policy at CENTCOM, is said to have had no contact with the Palestinians to date, but is it possible that the U.S. is thinking that Americans working with a Palestinian army should be integrating their thinking with CENTCOM – an operationally largely Arab command – while the Americans working with the IDF continue to be EUCOM? Is someone thinking that a Palestinian army should not be partnered with the IDF, but with Arab armies?
Yes, we are channeling a report from January that said overtures had been made to move the PA to CENTCOM – to which Gen. Petraeus said such overtures had not been made, and we believed him. Yes, we are also channeling a report that said CENTCOM was “red teaming” the idea that the U.S. should engage Hamas (and Hezbollah). The reports were by the same person, and refuted by people we trust, but still, it is hard not to think that somewhere in the U.S., military people are taking the approach that Hamas (and Hezbollah) is not an enemy of the U.S., but only of Israel. From there, they can “solve” the “Palestinian problem” with the “two-state solution” and declare victory.
In fact, Hamas is an avowed enemy not only of Israel, but of Fatah, Israel and America’s current Palestinian partner and the object of Dayton’s army’s training.[1] It is impossible to consider American engagement of Hamas while training the army that wants to destroy it- unless you are training a PA army for national purposes regardless of what the future Palestinian government decides to do with it, for example, use it against Israel, not Hamas.
MG Moeller will take over a force with three immediate issues – one Palestinian and two American.
Perhaps because they have different end games in mind.
Has anyone ASKED the Palestinians if they PLAN to meet their Roadmap obligations? Has anyone ASKED the Palestinians if they WANT to create a “right-sized PSAF” and what “right-sized” means to them? We didn’t think so, but if you don’t know that, the PALESTINIAN emphasis on “specific program outputs” unrelated to the UNITED STATES considers the political goals of the Palestinian Army is precisely what we’ve been worried about.
And the fact that MG Moeller’s focus on American security issues is CENTCOM-oriented makes us worry that the Palestinian force will be disconnected not only from American policy goals, but from the IDF that currently shares its obsession with Hamas, but which may find itself with a Palestinian army relating to Arab state armies on its borders.
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Bryen is senior director of security policy of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Her column is sponsored by Waxie Sanitary Supply in memory of Morris Wax, longtime JINSA supporter and national board member.
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