David N. Weiss is an American screenwriter and film director. He is the screenwriter of All Dogs Go to Heaven and Rock-a-Doodle and co-writer of The Rugrats Movie , Shrek 2 , Clockstoppers , Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius , Rugrats in Paris: The Movie , The Smurfs , its sequel and Disenchanted with writing partner, J. David Stem. He has also written for television shows such as Mission Hill , Cybill , and Roundhouse .
Weiss grew up in Ventura, California. [1] [2] Weiss was raised in a Reform Jewish household and converted to Christianity as a teenager. He reverted back to Judaism in adulthood after meeting observant Jews while in Ireland. [3] [4]
Weiss wrote and directed several award-winning shorts and wrote the screenplay for the MGM classic, All Dogs Go to Heaven . With his writing partner, J. David Stem, Weiss served as a head writer for Rugrats and wrote the holiday special A Rugrats Chanukah . [5]
In 2005, Weiss was elected vice president of the Writers Guild of America, West. [1] In 2009, after serving two terms as vice president, Weiss was elected secretary-treasurer of the Writers Guild of America, West. [6]
Weiss has also written three books for children, including Kay Thompson's bestseller, Eloise in Hollywood (with Stem, for Simon & Schuster). He is a patron of the Insight Film Festival. [7] He has taught at the Ma'aleh School of Television, Film and the Arts in Jerusalem, Israel. [5]
Christianity began as a movement within Second Temple Judaism, but the two religions gradually diverged over the first few centuries of the Christian era. Today, differences of opinion vary between denominations in both religions, but the most important distinction is Christian acceptance and Jewish non-acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah prophesied in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition. Early Christianity distinguished itself by determining that observance of halakha was not necessary for non-Jewish converts to Christianity. Another major difference is the two religions' conceptions of God. Depending on the denomination followed, the Christian God is either believed to consist of three persons of one essence, with the doctrine of the incarnation of the Son in Jesus being of special importance, or like Judaism, believes in and emphasizes the Oneness of God. Judaism, however, rejects the Christian concept of God in human form. While Christianity recognizes the Hebrew Bible as part of its scriptural canon, Judaism does not recognize the Christian New Testament.
Judaism is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jewish people. Judaism evolved from Yahwism, an ancient Semitic religion of the late Bronze Age to early Iron Age, likely around the 6th/5th century BCE. Along with Samaritanism, to which it is closely related, Judaism is one of the two oldest Abrahamic religions.
Modern Orthodox Judaism is a movement within Orthodox Judaism that attempts to synthesize Jewish values and the observance of Jewish law with the modern world.
Rob Kutner is an American comedy writer.
Aish HaTorah, also called "Aish," is an Orthodox Jewish educational organization and yeshiva.
Shlomo Riskin is an Orthodox rabbi, and the founding rabbi of Lincoln Square Synagogue on the Upper West Side of New York City, which he led for 20 years; founding chief rabbi of the Israeli settlement of Efrat in the Israeli-occupied West Bank; former dean of Manhattan Day School in New York City; and founder and Chancellor of the Ohr Torah Stone Institutions, a network of high schools, colleges, and graduate Programs in the United States and Israel.
Jewish culture is the culture of the Jewish people, from its formation in ancient times until the current age. Judaism itself is not simply a faith-based religion, but an orthoprax and ethnoreligion, pertaining to deed, practice, and identity. Jewish culture covers many aspects, including religion and worldviews, literature, media, and cinema, art and architecture, cuisine and traditional dress, attitudes to gender, marriage, family, social customs and lifestyles, music and dance. Some elements of Jewish culture come from within Judaism, others from the interaction of Jews with host populations, and others still from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community. Before the 18th century, religion dominated virtually all aspects of Jewish life, and infused culture. Since the advent of secularization, wholly secular Jewish culture emerged likewise.
David Friedman, known professionally as David Benioff, is an American writer and producer. Along with his collaborator D. B. Weiss, he is best known for co-creating Game of Thrones (2011–2019), the HBO adaptation of George R. R. Martin's series of books A Song of Ice and Fire. He also wrote 25th Hour (2002), Troy (2004), City of Thieves (2008) and co-wrote X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009).
Terry Rossio is an American screenwriter and film producer. He co-wrote the films Aladdin, Shrek, and all five of the Pirates of the Caribbean series. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Shrek, and won the Annie Award for Writing in a Feature Production, as well as the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Shrek. He often collaborates with fellow screenwriter Ted Elliott.
Daniel Brett Weiss is an American television writer and producer. Along with his collaborator David Benioff, he is best-known for co-creating Game of Thrones (2011–2019), the HBO adaptation of George R. R. Martin's series of books A Song of Ice and Fire.
Dan Gordon is an Israeli-American screenwriter, television writer, television producer, television director, film producer, novelist, playwright, film director, and reserve duty captain in the Israel Defense Forces.
Open Orthodox Judaism is a Jewish religious movement with increased emphasis on intellectual openness and a more expansive role for women. The term was coined in 1997 by Avi Weiss, who views halakha as permitting more flexibility than the normal practices of Orthodox Judaism.
David Benkof is an American political commentator who lives in Jerusalem. He was raised in St. Louis, Missouri and then went to college at Stanford University, where he came out as gay his freshman year. In 1989 he served as the international president of United Synagogue Youth.
Orthodox Jewish outreach, often referred to as Kiruv or Qiruv, is the collective work or movement of Orthodox Judaism that reaches out to non-observant Jews to encourage belief in God and life according to Jewish law. The process of a Jew becoming more observant of Orthodox Judaism is called teshuva making the "returnee" a baal teshuva. Orthodox Jewish outreach has worked to enhance the rise of the baal teshuva movement.
In Judaism, a person who is shomer Shabbat or shomer Shabbos is a person who observes the mitzvot (commandments) associated with Judaism's Shabbat, or Sabbath, which begins at dusk on Friday and ends after sunset on Saturday.
"A Rugrats Passover" is the 23rd episode of the third season of the American animated television series Rugrats. It first aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on April 13, 1995. The episode follows series regulars Grandpa Boris and the babies as they become trapped in the attic on Passover; to pass the time, Boris tells the Jewish story of the Exodus. During the episode, the babies themselves reenact the story, with Tommy portraying Moses, while his cousin Angelica represents the Pharaoh of Egypt.
"A Rugrats Chanukah" is the first episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series Rugrats. It first aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on December 4, 1996. The special tells the story of the Jewish holiday Chanukah through the eyes of the Rugrats, who imagine themselves as the main characters. Meanwhile, Grandpa Boris and his long-time rival, Shlomo, feud over who will play the lead in the local synagogue's Chanukah play. While many American children's television programs have Christmas specials, "A Rugrats Chanukah" is one of the first Chanukah specials of an American children's television series.
The animated television series Rugrats has been noted for its portrayal of Judaism, a dynamic rarely represented in American animated programming during the series' broadcast run (1991–2004). Six episodes of the series are devoted to Jewish holidays and to explaining their history, and the Pickles family is shown to be part-Jewish.
Faranak Margolese is an American-Israeli writer, best known as the author of Off the Derech, a book about contemporary assimilation in the Orthodox Jewish world.