By JESSICA FREIMAN
CJN Intern
Molly Resnick
TORONTO - “This was how important I used to be,” said former NBC producer Molly Resnick, holding up photographs of herself embracing Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Sophia Loren and Henry Winkler, better known as the Fonz from Happy Days.
Resnick was referring to a journey that has taken her from a childhood as a Bulgarian-born secular Israeli to a job as host and producer of an influential TV talk show to her current lifestyle as an Orthodox Jew.
It all started when she “left the land of milk and honey for the land of gold and money,” Resnick told the audience at the Judith Dan Memorial Lecture on “From Hollywood to Holy Wood” at Toronto’s Village Shul last week.
Shortly after coming to the United States from Israel in 1972, Resnick landed a dream job as a producer and host at NBC’s New York-based “Five Minutes With…”
“Anybody who was anybody wanted to be on my show,” she said. “I used to pinch myself. Moshe Dayan and Abba Eban were in my office. This was the most amazing life dream that you could imagine.”
She was poised to “conquer the world,” Resnick said, but two incidents led her to question whether the path she was on was the right one for her.
The first incident was a brush with John Travolta. He was scheduled to appear on her show to promote Saturday Night Fever, which would become a big hit in the 1970s, and Resnick had prepared an introduction stating that not all movie critics were fond of Travolta’s performance.
“Travolta’s agent read the introduction I had written and said, ‘If you say these things, we’re not letting him on the show.’
“I said, ‘The door is open.’
“As they were filing out, I asked John, ‘Don’t you have something to say on the subject?’ He shrugged. Here was the megastar and he couldn’t make a decision about a meagre interview. He was just a puppet on a string, part of a media apparatus. This made me wonder if this was what life was all about,” she said.
The second incident came on the heels of the 1975 United Nations resolution declaring that Zionism equals racism.
“I got a call from the head of the Anti-Defamation League asking me to run an interview to refute that Zionism is racism. I thought it was a great idea. My first instinct was to call the PLO to have a ‘balanced interview.’ It was forbidden for Israelis to contact the PLO, but I also had American citizenship.
“So I called them and said I was with NBC,” she said.
When Resnick told the PLO representative she was originally from Tel Aviv, “he knew I was an idiot. He said, ‘You’re from Tel Aviv and you want me to say Zionism is racism?’”
After having a PLO member question her attachment to her own nation, Resnick became uncertain about the life she was leading and decided to take a leave of absence.
In her subsequent travels, she met a Lubavitch family in Brazil. She connected with their daughter and became so impressed with her lifestyle and outlook on life that Resnick decided to become observant.
“I thought to myself, ‘What am I going to tell NBC?’ God is almost like a four-letter word in Hollywood.”
Meanwhile, Resnick said, NBC was preparing to offer her “the job of the millennium. NBC got the contract to cover the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and I was [asked] to run a human interest unit in Moscow, covering stories about individual contestants out of Moscow.
“I told that VP that I couldn’t accept the job because I observe the Sabbath. “ The VP said, ‘Someone as smart as you is going for institutional religion?’”
Resnick didn’t take the job. As she walked out of his office, she said she felt as though she had experienced her own Akedah (the biblical sacrifice of Isaac).
“My Israeli friends were very supportive,” Resnick joked. “They said I should just cut my arm off.”
But Resnick had the last laugh: The United States ended up boycotting the Moscow Olympics. And NBC didn’t cover them.
“In Judaism, you are supposed to view life as though you are both dust of the earth [and yet] the entire world was created for you alone.
“I really believe that they cancelled the Olympics because of moi,” she smiled.
CJN Intern
Molly Resnick
TORONTO - “This was how important I used to be,” said former NBC producer Molly Resnick, holding up photographs of herself embracing Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Sophia Loren and Henry Winkler, better known as the Fonz from Happy Days.
Resnick was referring to a journey that has taken her from a childhood as a Bulgarian-born secular Israeli to a job as host and producer of an influential TV talk show to her current lifestyle as an Orthodox Jew.
It all started when she “left the land of milk and honey for the land of gold and money,” Resnick told the audience at the Judith Dan Memorial Lecture on “From Hollywood to Holy Wood” at Toronto’s Village Shul last week.
Shortly after coming to the United States from Israel in 1972, Resnick landed a dream job as a producer and host at NBC’s New York-based “Five Minutes With…”
“Anybody who was anybody wanted to be on my show,” she said. “I used to pinch myself. Moshe Dayan and Abba Eban were in my office. This was the most amazing life dream that you could imagine.”
She was poised to “conquer the world,” Resnick said, but two incidents led her to question whether the path she was on was the right one for her.
The first incident was a brush with John Travolta. He was scheduled to appear on her show to promote Saturday Night Fever, which would become a big hit in the 1970s, and Resnick had prepared an introduction stating that not all movie critics were fond of Travolta’s performance.
“Travolta’s agent read the introduction I had written and said, ‘If you say these things, we’re not letting him on the show.’
“I said, ‘The door is open.’
“As they were filing out, I asked John, ‘Don’t you have something to say on the subject?’ He shrugged. Here was the megastar and he couldn’t make a decision about a meagre interview. He was just a puppet on a string, part of a media apparatus. This made me wonder if this was what life was all about,” she said.
The second incident came on the heels of the 1975 United Nations resolution declaring that Zionism equals racism.
“I got a call from the head of the Anti-Defamation League asking me to run an interview to refute that Zionism is racism. I thought it was a great idea. My first instinct was to call the PLO to have a ‘balanced interview.’ It was forbidden for Israelis to contact the PLO, but I also had American citizenship.
“So I called them and said I was with NBC,” she said.
When Resnick told the PLO representative she was originally from Tel Aviv, “he knew I was an idiot. He said, ‘You’re from Tel Aviv and you want me to say Zionism is racism?’”
After having a PLO member question her attachment to her own nation, Resnick became uncertain about the life she was leading and decided to take a leave of absence.
In her subsequent travels, she met a Lubavitch family in Brazil. She connected with their daughter and became so impressed with her lifestyle and outlook on life that Resnick decided to become observant.
“I thought to myself, ‘What am I going to tell NBC?’ God is almost like a four-letter word in Hollywood.”
Meanwhile, Resnick said, NBC was preparing to offer her “the job of the millennium. NBC got the contract to cover the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and I was [asked] to run a human interest unit in Moscow, covering stories about individual contestants out of Moscow.
“I told that VP that I couldn’t accept the job because I observe the Sabbath. “ The VP said, ‘Someone as smart as you is going for institutional religion?’”
Resnick didn’t take the job. As she walked out of his office, she said she felt as though she had experienced her own Akedah (the biblical sacrifice of Isaac).
“My Israeli friends were very supportive,” Resnick joked. “They said I should just cut my arm off.”
But Resnick had the last laugh: The United States ended up boycotting the Moscow Olympics. And NBC didn’t cover them.
“In Judaism, you are supposed to view life as though you are both dust of the earth [and yet] the entire world was created for you alone.
“I really believe that they cancelled the Olympics because of moi,” she smiled.
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