A STORY MEANT FOR THE MOVIES — Kansas City native Mitchell Flint passed away on Sept. 16, 2017, in Los Angeles. Born in 1923, he was an American lawyer and a veteran aviator. He first served as a U.S. Navy fighter pilot during World War II, and later served as an American volunteer pilot in Israel’s first fighter squadron during its War of Independence. He has been credited as one of the people who assisted in the creation of the Israeli Air Force. According to an article about him published in the Los Angeles Times Sept. 30, his story has now been told in the book “Angels in the Sky: How a Band of Volunteer Airmen Saved the New State of Israel,” which is available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. A film version of the story is also in the works.
VOTE FOR BERT’S BITES — In June The Chronicle published a feature article about KC native Roberta Mendelsohn Intrater’s Bert’s Bites Crunchy Snack Granola. Now it’s been nominated in the latest 10 Best Readers’ Choice travel award contest! Their expert panel selected Bert’s Bites as a contender for Makers in the USA: Best Food & Drink, which just launched. The contest, which is being promoted by USA TODAY, gives voters four weeks to vote for the candidate of their choice. A person can vote once a day for the run of the contest and voting ends Monday, Oct. 23, at 10:59 a.m. central time. To vote go to 10best.com and search Bert’s Bites.
HIGH HOLIDAY FOOD DRIVE STILL ACCEPTING DONATIONS — It’s not too late to support the communitywide High Holiday food drive.
The JFS Food Pantry is accepting non-perishable food items and personal care items for the pantry. The goal is to collect 17,500 pounds of food — that’s the amount of food the JFS Food Pantry distributes each month! Drop off donations at local Jewish congregations or in designated pantry barrels at the Jewish Community Campus through Oct. 13.
YACHAD — THE JEWISH COMMUNITY KOSHER FOOD PANTRY UPDATE — As you may recall the Yachad Kosher Food Pantry was damaged not once but twice recently due to flood waters that heavily damaged the Chabad House Center on Indian Creek Drive. Rabbi Zev Wineberg said the pantry is still in need of gift cards to help serve their families while repairs are being made to the building. For more information contact Rabbi Wineberg at or 913-649-4852.
KCPT AIRING ‘SHOLEM ALEICHEM: LAUGHING IN THE DARKNESS’ — Kansas City’s public television channel, KCPT, will air the film “Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness” at 10 p.m. Friday, Oct. 13. It’s described as a film that provides a riveting portrait of the great writer whose stories became the basis of the Broadway musical “Fiddler on the Roof.”
“The film tells the tale of the rebellious genius who created an entirely new literature. Plumbing the depths of a Jewish world locked in crisis and on the cusp of profound change, he captured that world with brilliant humor. Sholem Aleichem was not just a witness to the creation of a new modern Jewish identity, but one of the very men who forged it.”
If you’re not available Friday night, set your DVR to check it out at a more convenient time.
HUNTING FOR NAZI VICTIM BRAINS — In an NBC Left Field exclusive, Katie Engelhart traveled to Berlin to speak to scientists at the Max Plank Institute for Brain Research about an odd discovery. In 2015, a scientist at a famous research organization in Germany, the Max Planck Society, uncovered a horrifying secret — in a cardboard box, in a basement archive, in Berlin. The box was filled with human brain slides, encased in glass — some of them, from victims of the Nazi euthanasia program. Within months, a second Max Plank Institute in Munich had uncovered thousands of suspicious slides that should have been buried long ago.
How did the brains end up there? Why? Were the brains experimented on, by scientists, after the war? And who is to blame?
In August, NBC Left Field travelled to Germany for the launch of a massive, $1.8 million investigation into the origin of the Nazi brains. This 10-minute documentary combines present-day reporting with historical archive, to ask a larger question about what we should do with tainted science. Go to nbcnews.com/leftfield to see the video.
