Arts in Brief

Israeli screenwriter makes lists of finalists, Portman takes new baby to shul and more.

By EHUD LAVSKI
Her Last Day 311 (photo credit: Courtesy of Eyal Landsman)
Her Last Day 311
(photo credit: Courtesy of Eyal Landsman)
Israeli screenwriter makes list of finalists The Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles has named Israeli screenwriter Ehud Lavski as a finalist for one of its 26th annual Don and Gee Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting.
Seven individual writers and three writing teams are finalists for the fellowships.
Their scripts will now be read and judged by the Academy’s Nicholl Committee, which may award as many as five $30,000 fellowships.
The fellowships will be presented in early November in Los Angeles. “It’s a great honor,” said Lavski, whose script is called Parasite. -Hannah Brown
Lotto to list nominees for Sapir Prize
On November 1, Israel’s state lottery will issue the list of 12 authors nominated for the Sapir Prize for Literature for 2011. At the next stage, the judges will issue a short list of five authors, from whom the winner will be chosen. A prize will also be given for a debut book.
Each shortlisted writer as well as the winner of the prize for the first book will receive NIS 25,000. The Sapir Prize winner for 2011 will receive NIS 150,000.
For the first time, the winning book will be translated into Arabic, as well as the customary translation into a foreign language of the author's choice. -Jerusalem Post Staff
Theater great Miriam Zohar turns 80
On Friday Bet Lessin (BL) is throwing an 80th birthday bash at Tel Aviv's ZOA House for actress and Israel Prize (1987) laureate Miriam Zohar, currently center stage in BL’s Her Last Day. Among those paying tribute are playwright Hillel Mittelpunkt, long time colleague Leah Kenig, actors Lior Ashkenazi, Eli Gorenstein, Yona Elian and many more. The MC is Natan Datner.
Zohar was born in Romania and arrived here via the Cyprus interment camp when she was 15. There she was bitten hard by the theater bug, and when she finally got to Israel, Zohar was accepted by Habimah where she worked until 1995. Since then she’s been at BL.
Her most famous roles include Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (twice), Ethel in On Golden Pond, Arkadina in The Seagull, and the title role in Medea. Her other prizes include Actress of the year in 1995. -Helen Kaye
Jobs biography tops E-book charts
The Steve Jobs biography has debuted at the top of the charts, and you can expect it to stay there for a long time.
Though official book sales figures from Nielsen will not be released for more than a week, Steve Jobs is already No. 1 on the Kindle bestseller list, the Nook bestseller list and the Apple iBookstore chart.
The authorized biography, written by Walter Isaacson, appeared in book stores yesterday, and the print and versions is already No. 1 on Amazon.com.
Industry analysts expect it to stay there for some time, and Amazon spokesperson Brittany Turner already told Reuters it could be the top-selling book of the year. -Reuters
Casino returns Nazi-looted painting
A German casino has returned a Nazi-looted painting to the heirs of a German-Jewish art gallery owner.
The return of “The Masters of the Goldsmith Guild in Amsterdam in 1701” by Dutch portrait painter Juriaen Pool II (1665-1745), took place Tuesday at the Amsterdam Museum.
The beneficiaries of the estate of Max Stern, who ran a gallery in Germany before he was forced by the Nazis to liquidate his works, are Concordia, McGill and Hebrew universities.
The Pool painting, which depicts some of Amsterdam’s most important citizens, is the ninth Nazi-looted piece of artwork to be returned to the university heirs.
Stern liquidated his gallery’s works of more than 400 pieces after Jews were banned from selling art. In 1943, after recovering a fraction of the works, Stern moved to Canada and purchased the Dominion Gallery of Fine Arts..
The artist Pool lived in the 17th century building that houses the Dutch museum, which once was an orphanage. -JTA
Portman takes new baby to shul
Israeli-born American actress Natalie Portman, 30, took her four-month old son, Aleph, to the Ohr HaTorah Temple in Culver City, California on Saturday.
She was accompanied by her fiance, Benjamin Millepied. Portman gave the public a first look at her son last week while leaving a friend’s home in Los Angeles, and while shopping at Farmers’ Market with Millepied.
A spokesperson for the star of Black Swan confirmed a report in Entertainment Weekly that she had turned down a role in indie flick Adaline, a part that was offered to Katherine Heigl, after becoming a mother for the first time. -Jerusalem Post staff