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Friday August 15, 2008

Shorts: Art

Brad Pitt to play Jew in Tarantino film

Brad Pitt will star as a Jewish American soldier in a film by Quentin Tarantino.

Pitt signed on to play a southern Jew who leads a team of eight Jewish Amer-icans in exacting revenge on the Nazis in German-occupied France.

The film, “Inglorious Bastards,” is due to start shooting in Germany in October. — jta

Nurse investigated for title of mix CD

A mix CD with a provocative title triggered Israeli suspicions that nuclear secrets were being leaked.

Yasmin Sabah, a 22-year-old Israeli nurse, became the target of an undercover security probe last month after a passer-by saw a music CD in her car with the handwritten title “Jericho IV — Nuclear Upgrade.”

Israel is widely believed to have developed ballistic missiles known as Jerichos, though it is officially a state secret.

According to Sabah, who came forward with her account this week, two secret service agents posing as car buyers voiced interest in her vehicle and, having arranged a rendezvous, listened to every song on the CD before confiscating it.

Sabah said she was given the CD by a friend, and did not know the origins of the title. Israel’s Defense Ministry confirmed that Sabah had been investigated. — jta

Two Jewish authors on Booker long list

Two Jewish authors — one Australian, the other British — are in contention for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

“A Fraction of the Whole,” by Sydney-born Steve Toltz, 36, is on the long list of 13 novels for the prestigious literary prize.

The 650-page novel tells the story of a father and son on their journey through Australia to Paris and on to Thailand.

After graduating from college, Toltz lived in Canada and traveled through Europe. He told the Australian Jewish News his “background as Jewish, as an Australian, as a middle-class person in an affluent Western nation all bore some influence on the novel.”

Linda Grant, the British Jewish author of “The Clothes on Their Backs,” also was selected for the long list.

The short list will be announced Sept. 9. The winner will be announced Oct. 14. — jta

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