Ki Tov Tuesday: June 24, 2025

The Jewish-ish entertainment edit including Dolly, gunslingers, and mimes

Dear Chevralah,

Some weeks are harder than others, with highs, lows, and everything in between. But as is our habit with Ki Tov Tuesdays, let's focus on the good parts.

This time around, let’s dish about entertainment.

Mime time with Ethan Slater

While French entertainer Marcel Marceau was best known for his brilliant skills as a mime, he was also a Holocaust hero.

Born Marcel Mangel in 1923, Marceau changed his last name to blend in with his non-Jewish neighbors. At a later point he joined the Jewish resistance and helped evacuate Jewish children from France to Switzerland. Marceau rescued three separate groups of 24 Jewish children while all pretended to be Boy Scouts.

Jewish Broadway actor Ethan Slater (best known for his roles in Wicked, and as SpongeBob SquarePants on Broadway, and also for being Ariana Grande’s boyfriend) co-wrote Marcel on the Train, which is set to debut in spring 2026.

Rabbi with a cause

Following in the auspicious footsteps of The Bear Jew, Zohan, The Hebrew Hammer, and The Golem of Prague, is Rabbi Mo, a Chabad rabbi who unexpectedly becomes a gun-toting hero of a new movie, Guns & Moses.

Written by Salvador Litvak, AKA the Accidental Talmudist, the film boasts a cast of Hollywood heavy hitters, including Dermot Mulroney, Christopher Lloyd, Neal McDonough, Jake Busey, and everyone’s college crush, Mark Feuerstein as Rabbi Mo.

The movie is out in July, but you can check out the trailer now.

Hello, Dolly!

While Dolly Parton is technically not Jewish, she’s such an all-around mensch that I choose to embrace her as an honorary member of the tribe. Case in point: For the past three decades, Parton has definitely become a person of the book by gifting books to children from birth to the age of five, free of charge. She is also a well-known philanthropist whose Dollywood Foundation stresses education. And let’s face it, Dolly knew how to rock a *sheitel decades before RuPaul wore his first lace front wig.

In any event, Dolly just announced Dolly: Live in Las Vegas, a limited-run engagement at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. The concert —her first extended run in 32 years — will include seven decades of her classic hit,s including "9 to 5," "Jolene," and "I Will Always Love You."

A better use of tunnels

Think there are few things that are less Jewish than James Bond? Think again.

Despite being a WWII hero, Bond creator Ian Fleming was, according to The Forward, "a notorious right-winger who wore his anti-Semitism on his sleeve." Most of Fleming's 13 Bond novels "made a point of disparaging Jews" — content later scrubbed from films. Villain Auric Goldfinger, obsessed with gold and wealth in ways that echo classic antisemitic tropes, was named after Fleming's real Jewish neighbor whom he reportedly despised.

Now the irony: A network of 90,000-square-foot tunnels below London that may have inspired Bond's world is becoming a spy museum and bar. Originally dug during the Blitz, they housed the Special Operations Executive where Fleming served as liaison officer, surrounded by female agents heading to Nazi-occupied territory.

The front-runner to play the next James Bond? Jewish British actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

What delightful irony that just as these tunnels open to the public, a Jewish actor may end up inheriting the role whose creator spent decades vilifying people exactly like him.

And just because; current James Bond actor Daniel Craig is married to the consummate nice Jewish girl, actress Rachel Weisz, the daughter of Holocaust refugees.

Look up

One of the most well-known and often invoked psalms is 121, Esah Einai ,אֶשָּׂא עֵינַי — "I will lift my eyes."

It opens with these timeless lines:

A Song of Ascents. I will lift up my eyes unto the mountains; from where shall my help come? My help comes from God, who made heaven and earth.

And later declares:

The guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.

This psalm has been set to music countless times — some versions rousing, others soothing — and it feels more timely now than ever. Here's an intimate and almost mournful version by the Jalle Band, a group of Israeli friends who make extremely traditional music together.

(I'll have to double-check what I wrote about this psalm in my book Ancient Prayer: Channeling Your Faith 365 Days of the Year — the 10th anniversary updated edition should be out this fall).

jalle_band

A post shared by @jalle_band

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Torah time

My family is having a sefer torah written in memory of my brother Tzvi, he of blessed memory. In case you're unfamiliar with the process, a commissioned torah can take about a year to write. A sofer (scribe) writes every single letter by hand with special ink. He also uses a quill on parchment, making this art as well as ritual. It’s a labor-intensive and significant commitment, and we’d love to involve as many people who knew and loved my brother to take part in this beautiful mitzvah.

We invite you to visit our fundraising page at charidy.com/tzvi All donations are tax deductible

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We will read again

In a true act of triumph, former hostage Eli Sharabi broke the Israeli record for fastest selling book with his memoir Hostage. The book took former tech exec Sharabi two months to write and sold 20,000 copies in its first week of sales- four months after his release from captivity.

On our nightstand

I Don’t Know How to Tell You This by Marian Thurm is not an easy book to read; but it feels like it’s about people we know. The book’s focus is Judge Rachel Sugarman and some of the upheavals in her life including her husband’s increasing memory loss, and the residual trauma of her grief-stricken Holocaust survivor mother-in-law. It will be out in mid-July.

So, what’s bringing you joy right now? Drop us a comment below, share your own thoughts for Ki Tov Tuesdays, or reply to this email with your insights and ideas!

🎗️Onward and upward (like Psalm 121!)

*Sheitel: Yiddish for wig. Many observant Jewish women cover their hair in public, sometimes with a nearly undetectable lace front wig.