The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts presented the 24th Mark Twain Prize for American Humor to comedian, actor writer, producer and musician Adam Sandler at a gala event on March 19. The prize honors one of the world’s greatest humorists.

“Adam has created characters that have made us laugh, cry, and cry from laughing,” said Deborah F. Rutter, president of the Kennedy Center. “He has entertained audiences for more than three decades with his films, music, and his tenure as a fan favorite on SNL.”

Previous recipients have included Richard Pryor, Jonathan Winters, Carl Reiner, Whoopi Goldberg, Bob Newhart, Lily Tomlin, Lorne Michaels, Steve Martin, Neil Simon, Billy Crystal, George Carlin, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Ellen DeGeneres, Carol Burnett, Jay Leno, Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, David Letterman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Dave Chappelle.

Shul member Ellen Wiederlight was featured with Jill Schroeder in an article in the March 16 issue of the Suffolk Times. The article pointed out that Jill Schroeder, a personal trainer, was preparing to run a half-marathon and raise $5,000 for lung cancer research, which her client, Ellen Wiederlight, has been battling for eight years.

In addition to training with Jill Schroeder twice a week, Ellen Wiederlight will participate in an experimental antibody medical trial at Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The procedure there binds receptors on specific types of cells and is linked to a drug that attacks cancer cells without harming healthy cells, the newspaper said.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has announced plans to honor the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Brooklyn native, with the unveiling this spring of a permanent carving of the justice’s likeness in the New York State Capitol. Ginsberg’s portrait along the Great Western Staircase will be only the seventh woman depicted in the staircase gallery.

Avi Mayer, a pro-Israel activist and communications professional has been named the next editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post. Mayer, 38, will succeed the current editor of the 90-year-old English language newspaper in mid-April, after Passover.

He most recently served as managing director of global communications and public affairs for the American Jewish Committee, and previously served as the spokesperson for the Jewish Agency for Israel. He also served in the spokesperson’s unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

This just in…but it won’t be out until November. Penguin Random House wants to be sure everyone knows that Barbara Streisand has written a memoir and, to that end, the hype has already begun — even though the current pub date is Nov. 7 — nine months until the baby is birthed.

My Name Is Barbra talks about life and career, natch, and with so much to talk about, the star squeezes the content into a reported 1,040 pages — just in time for Hanukkah gift-giving

Meet the new Jewish members of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 118th Congress. Their varied backgrounds are illustrative of the many paths Jews are taking to the halls of Congress in the 21st century.

• Daniel Goldman, D-NY: Daniel Sachs Goldman, 46, heir to the Levi-Strauss & Co. fortune, is as federal prosecutor in Manhattan, and legal analyst for NBC and MSNBC. He has already established a profile on Capitol Hill, joining Democratic Representative Ritchie Torres of the Bronx to file a complaint with the House Ethics Committee regarding George Santos.
• Max Miller, R-OH: A former Marine, Miller, 34, is the scion of a wealthy Cleveland-area real estate family. He won his district on a platform of opposition to teaching “critical race theory” in schools, opposition to the two-state solution in the Middle East, and cutting inflation through reduced government spending and lower taxes.
• Greg Landsman, D-OH: During the campaign, Greg Landsman, 46, billed himself as a “former public school teacher,” even though he taught Spanish for just a year in 2001, two years after graduating from college. He went on to earn a graduate degree from the Harvard Divinity School and returned to Cincinnati, where he worked in the education nonprofit sector. Landsman has joined the New Democratic Coalition, the main alliance of moderate Democrats in the House.
• Becca Balint, D-VT: Becca Balint, 54, an LGBTQ person, won election last November to the seat occupied by Bernie Sanders (1991-2007) before his move to the Senate. She is the first woman House member from Vermont and was the first woman president pro tempore of the Vermont State Senate. She won her seat as a left-wing, Bernie-style progressive. Her campaign stressed her fight for paid parental leave, increased minimum wage, reproductive freedom, and her belief in “healthcare for all.”
• Jared Moskowitz, D-FL: Three weeks after a gunman murdered 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, in February 2018, Democratic State Representative Jared Moskowitz, now 42, rose on the floor of the legislature and spoke in favor of a wide-ranging measure on gun safety. He was instrumental in the passage of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Act, signed by then-Republican Governor Rick Scott, an achievement in increasingly red Florida. He is now the House member for the district. Like Landsman of Ohio, Moskowitz has joined the centrist New Democrat Coalition.