The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will present the 24th Mark Twain Prize for American Humor to Adam Sandler at a gala performance at the Kennedy Center on March 19. The prize recognizes individuals who have had an impact on American society in ways similar to the 19th-century novelist and essayist Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain.

“Adam Sandler has entertained audiences for more than three decades with his films, music, and his tenure as a fan favorite cast member on ‘SNL,’” said Kennedy Center president Deborah F. Rutter. Sandler’s films have grossed more than $3 billion worldwide.

Previous recipients include Richard Pryor, Carl Reiner, Whoopi Goldberg, Bob Newhart, Lily Tomlin, Steve Martin, Neil Simon, Billy Crystal, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Dave Chappelle and Jon Stewart

Robert Iger is returning to Walt Disney Co. as chief executive less than a year after he retired, a surprise comeback that coincides with the entertainment company’s attempt to boost investor confidence and profits at its streaming media unit.

Iger, 71, who was chief executive for 15 years and retired as chairman last year, has agreed to serve as CEO for two more years, effective immediately, replacing Bob Chapek, who joined Disney in February 2020. Disney stock sank more than 40% while Chapek was at the helm. Disney is competing poorly with Netflix and is also seeking to revive its share price. The company is hopeful “an old hand on the tiller” can turn the tide.

Hazel Homer-Wambeam is from a small Jewish community in Laramie, Wyoming. With only 1,150 Jews in the whole state and no synagogue in sight, the Jews of Laramie gather in a local Masonic Temple for services and meet for potluck dinners. But Hazel Homer-Wambeam took her love for singing and dancing to the Miss Wyoming competition and was named the first Jewish crown holder.

In December, she will head to the national competition and vie to be only the second Jewish Miss America in the program’s history. The first, Bess Myerson, competed as Miss New York in 1945.

Rabbi A. James Rudin, the longtime interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee, will be conferred the prestigious Papal Knight of St. Gregory for his work in support of Catholic-Jewish relations. Only eight other Jews have been knighted by the order, established in 1831, that recognizes personal service or unusual labor in support of the Catholic Church. Among them are three other rabbis: David Rosen and the late Mordecai Waxman and Leon Klenicki.

A Reform rabbi and also a writer who has contributed hundreds of columns over the years to Religion News Service, Rabbi Rudin has traveled widely to meet with popes, presidents, Protestant denominational leaders, and world-famous evangelists in his efforts to improve Jewish-Christian relations in the aftermath of WWII and the Holocaust.

This year, he published a memoir, The People in the Room: Rabbis, Nuns, Pastors, Popes and Presidents, detailing his 42 trips across the Atlantic on behalf of the AJC.

Thousands of Chabad rabbis gathered in Brooklyn for their annual “class photo,” having traveled from all 50 states and more than a 100 countries to attend a six-day convention at the group’s headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway.

As a bonus, Rabbi Avrohom Rapoport of the New Jersey shore measured each rabbi’s beard to determine which was the longest. The winner was 26 inches.

Photo by Chabad of Brooklyn

Sally A. Kornbluth, a cell biologist whose eight-year tenure as Duke University’s provost has earner her a reputation as a brilliant administrator, as creative problem-solver, and a leading advocate of academic excellence, has been selected as MIT’s 18th president. She will assume the post o Jan. 1, 2023, succeeding L. Rafael Reif, who had announced his intention to step down after 10 years leading the institute.

As Duke’s provost since 2014, Kornbluth has served as the chief academic officer of one of the nation’s leading research universities. She oversees Duke’s 10 schools and six institutes, and holds ultimate responsibility for admissions, financial aid, libraries among other facets of education.

Kornbluth’s election as MIT’s president is the culmination of an eight-month process in which a 20-member presidential search committee generated a list of approximately 250 possible candidates.

She earned her BA in political science from Williams College in 1982, followed by two years at Cambridge University as a Hershel Smith Scholar, where she earned a BA in genetics. She returned to the U.S. to pursue a PhD in molecular oncology at Rockefeller University, awarded in 1989, and took postdoctoral training at the University of California at San Diego. She joined the Duke faculty in 1994.

She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.