Black-Jewish Entertainment Alliance

Both Black and Jewish (and black and Jewish) celebrities are signing on to the Black-Jewish Entertainment Alliance, a new endeavor that aims to create solidarity in the industry between the two groups. The alliance’s mission statements asks entertainers that, “In the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr., Rabbi Abraham Heschel, and the many Blacks and Jews who stood together in the fight for civil rights, we come together to support each other in the struggle against hatred and bigotry.” On the group’s program, an upcoming panel about being both Black and Jewish (featuring musician/activist Autumn Rowe, social justice artist Bourn Rich and former pro basketball player David Blu).

End of an era

Larry King, whose genial manner and signature suspenders graced CNN for 25 years with his eponymous show, is dead at 87. No cause of death was given, but King had recently been hospitalized for Covid. Born Lawrence Zeiger, he started his career in radio in Florida and claimed to have interviewed more than 50,000 people. His wife, Shawn King, described the funeral like this: “We all, it was just family, we wore Larry’s suspenders, every one of us.”

Back to ‘The Wonder Years’

Fred Savage is returning to his roots. “The Wonder Years” child star is directing the pilot of a new reboot of the show. The 44-year-old actor is partnering with friend and producer Saladin K. Patterson to bring the story back to life, but with a different angle. The new version is set in the same era, but this time focusing on a middle-class, Black family in Montgomery, Alabama.

Haddish is ‘ready’ again

Comedian and actor Tiffany Haddish is ready to present the second season of her comedy showcase “They Ready,” which started streaming on Netflix on Feb. 2. In it, she turns the limelight over to other comedians to highlight people she thinks deserve a chance at success. She told the Los Angeles Jewish Journal it was the project she was proudest of. “I was able to give an opportunity to other comedians and it fills my heart with joy because it changed their lives,” she said.

Bar mitzvahs to movie star

Canadian comedian and actor Seth Rogen is opening up in his new book, titled “Yearbook.” “I talk about my grandparents, doing stand-up comedy as a teenager, bar mitzvahs, and Jewish summer camp, and tell way more stories about doing drugs than my mother would like,” Rogen writes to describe the book. Rogen’s parents met in Israel on a kibbutz, and he cut his comedy teeth in the Vancouver Jewish social scene.

Prepped for the big one

How big is the biggest wave? Try 100 feet. Hawaii’s Makua Rothman has become a candidate for surfing history for riding the biggest wave ever surfed. “A wave like this is a wave of a lifetime and coming down something like that is mind blowing,” the 36-year-old said, describing his epic ride.