Adi Ezroni and Maya Kadar, Elem volunteers, are two of the 36 young innovators who are re-imagining Jewish life here, in Israel, and abroad.
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Adi Ezroni, 31, Popular Israeli actress turned human rights advocate
It’s a dark irony that Adi Ezroni, 31, a noted actress on Israel’s top-rated drama series, “Hostages,” was actually held hostage a few years ago. She was traveling in Cambodia, filming a feature film ("Holly") and a documentary about child trafficking ("Redlight"). “The Chinese and Cambodian mobs were after us,” says Ezroni, who lives here most the year. “When I got to the airport, they told me I couldn’t leave.”
Ezroni was held for two weeks before U.S., Israeli and local authorities arranged for her release. Not long after, in 2008, she won The US State Department Anti Trafficking Anti-Trafficking Hero Award. Her work on child trafficking is part of another one of her projects — the nonprofit RedLight Children Campaign, which she founded together with Guy Jacobson — that she says is partly inspired by her Jewish education. “It’s not specifically Jewish,” she acknowledges, “but it’s Jewish in that it’s a universal moral cause.” Her connection to youth and Judaism continues through her active involvement as a board member of ELEM - Entry, The Young Leadership of ELEM in New York, creating fun events for young Israelis and Jews and raising money and awareness for Youth at Risk in Israel.
Her strongest attachment is to Israel, however. Though she’s been in New York for six years, she lived most of her life in Israel and is very much a celebrity there. She began her career as host of the leading Israeli children's show, but has since migrated to the grittier material of prime time. Her most recent show, “Hostages (Hatufim),” which follows three Israelis held captive by Syrian militants, was just picked up by the American producers of “24.” But Ezroni says she does not know yet whether she’ll be in the American version.
Currently, she’s producing a bio-pic about Rachel Bluwstein (1889-1931), a legendary poet and early Israeli pioneer. Bluwstein came to Palestine from Russia, first in 1909. She returned after the First World War, but caught tuberculosis. “She basically reinvented herself as a poet,” Ezroni said. In Israel today, her poems are ubiquitous, chiseled on monuments and set to music.
Ezroni enlisted Anna Thomas (“Frida”) to write the script, and is looking for additional investors. But she thinks Bluwstein’s story will make it an easy sell.
“It’s a very touching story ... I think it’s time to make a film that doesn’t deal with war and that shows [early Jewish pioneers] as regular people.”
Favorite movie(s): Toss-up: “La Vie en Rose,” “The Big Lebowski,” “Barton Fink,” “Waltz with Bashir.”
Favorite Jew: Another wash: Rachel Bluwstein or the Coen brothers.
Maya Kadar, 32, Helping distressed Israeli youth
Though Maya Kadar, 32, has lived most of her life in America, she was born in Israel. So perhaps not surprisingly, her foreign-born roots have always defined her life in the States. But she has few qualms with this bifurcated identity. In fact, she’s become a crucial link between young New York professionals and the Israeli nonprofit ELEM, founded in 1981, which helps at-risk Israeli youth get back on their feet.
“It provides a safe place to talk about their feelings and work through them,” said Kadar. “It’s a really worthy cause.”
Kadar graduated from Barnard College in 2000, and then spent a few years in Israel getting her master’s in filmmaking from Tel Aviv University. Because of her strong connections to the Jewish state, a friend of hers on the American board of ELEM, Oren Heiman, contacted Kadar about three years ago.
“He wanted to have the younger generation give their take on how to raise money” for ELEM, Kadar said. Kadar, along with a few other New York-based young professionals, was then asked to lead that project.
These young fundraisers are now at the vanguard of the organization in America, bringing ELEM — which hosts programs in more than 30 Israeli towns preventing homeless children from being sent to shelters and counseling girls who have been sexually abused — into the 21st century. Kadar has taken a particularly active leadership role in the organization’s annual fundraising dinner. Last fall, she helped bring high-profile Israel artists like Ron Agam and Aliza Olmert (Ehud’s wife) to a reception at a fashionable Soho gallery.
Despite a full-time job at BrainPop.com, an educational Web site for children, and the rigors of family life — she’s married with a newborn daughter — Kadar says that ELEM and Israel are still essential commitments. “I’m very happy with my career right now,” she says. “But first and foremost, I’m an Israeli. And Israel has always been central to my life.”
Favorite filmmaker: Ernst Lubitsch.
Favorite Jew: Golda Meir.
