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Google Doodle celebrates the Jewish designer of cat-eye glasses, Altina Schinasi
(New York Jewish Week) – The Google Doodle for Friday, Aug. 4 features a cartoon image of a bespectacled woman peering out from one of the lenses of orange cat-eye glasses. The Doodle celebrates the 116th birthday of Altina “Tina” Schinasi, the Sephardic Jewish artist, inventor and New Yorker who devised the distinctive eyeglasses.
A trained sculptor, Schinasi designed the glasses in the late 1930s while working as a window display designer in Manhattan. Many major manufacturers rejected her designs, inspired by the Italian Harlequin mask, because they were too edgy. She pushed forward and partnered with a boutique optical shop called Lugene on Madison Avenue, where one of the first pairs was sold to writer Clare Boothe Luce. Schinasi’s designs took off and she soon established her own eyewear company.
The “Harlequin”-style glasses, more popularly known as “cat-eye,” became a hallmark of glamor in the late 1930s and were a dominant eyeglass silhouette through the mid-20th century, worn by the likes of Lucille Ball, Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn.
By the mid-1940s, Schinasi sold her eyeglasses company and moved out to Los Angeles, where she again focused on painting, sculpture and, later in life, filmmaking. Three of her paintings appeared in an exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Schinasi was born on this day in 1907 at her family’s mansion at 351 Riverside Drive. She was the youngest of three daughters born into a wealthy Sephardic family. Her dad, Turkish-born Morris Schinasi, was an international tobacco businessman who made his fortune by inventing a cigarette-rolling machine and then selling his own brand of cigarettes.
Her mother, Laurette Schinasi, was born in Salonica (now Thessaloniki, Greece). The two met when Morris Schinasi was on a business trip to Salonica — Laurette was the granddaughter of his business partner. They married in 1903.
Upon Morris Schinasi’s death in 1928, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that Schinasi left $1.3 million (roughly $23 million in today’s dollars) to be allocated to several hospitals and Jewish charities, as well as to erect a hospital in Turkey and a new synagogue building for the Bual Zion Congregation (now the B’nai Zion Congregation), a Conservative synagogue in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
The Schinasi Mansion was designed by William Tuthill, the same architect who constructed Carnegie Hall, in the early 1900s. It was declared a New York City Landmark in 1974 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Currently owned by Goldman Sachs executive Mark Schwartz, it still sits on West 107th Street and Riverside Drive and is presently the largest single-family residence along Riverside Drive.
As a child, Tina Schinasi attended the Horace Mann School in the Bronx before beginning boarding school at age 12 at Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Massachusetts. A biography of Schinasi in an online Dana Hall encyclopedia states that Schinasi felt that “although she had many friends, she often felt isolated as one of the only Jewish students on campus and tried to hide that part of her identity from her classmates.”
Upon graduating, Schinasi studied painting in Paris and decided to attend art school instead of college. In the late 1920s, she began to study painting with Samuel Halpert, a Russian Jewish immigrant, at the Nicholas Roerich Museum on the Upper West Side.
Schinasi’s first job was designing windows for stores on Fifth Avenue, where she brushed shoulders with the Spanish artist Salvador Dalí. She and Dalí then went on to study under George Grosz, who had fled Germany in 1932 and Maurice Sterne, a Jewish sculptor and painter from Latvia.
In the late 1930s, Schinasi had her artistic breakthrough and achieved a lasting legacy through her patented design of the Harlequin eyeframe. Per Wikipedia, “A walk down the street occasioned this design breakthrough; finding herself underwhelmed by the lackluster frames in an optician’s window, Altina set out to create a frame that conveyed whimsy, mystery and romance.”
“‘Surely, there must be some way to design eyeglasses that could be attractive! What looks good on a face? What adds to a face? What could a woman wear on her face that would be romantic?’ she wondered.”
In 1939, she won the Lord & Taylor Annual American Design Award. She has been credited with transforming eyeglasses into a fashion accessory.
In 1960, she produced a documentary film about her former art teacher, the late Grosz, who, though not Jewish, was in exile from Germany and was active in anti-Nazi efforts. Titled “George Grosz’ Interregnum,” the 29-minute film was nominated for an Academy Award and won first place at the Venice Film Festival.
Also during the 1960s, Schinasi acquired the film rights for Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington. She commissioned a screenplay and met with King, Rosa Parks and other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement while on a trip to Alabama. All expressed excitement about the movie. However, Schinasi could not raise funding for the film and it was never made.
Married four times, Schinasi had two children, Terry Sanders and Denis Sanders, with her first husband Morris Sanders. Both of her sons became film directors. In 2014, her grandson Peter Sanders and her granddaughter Victoria Sanders produced and directed “Altina,” a documentary about her life.
“My grandmother Tina was proud of her Jewishness, deeply affected by the rise of the Nazis and personally furnished 13 affidavits to enable Jewish refugees to enter the United States. But we were never practicing Jews in the religious sense,” Peter Sanders told JTA at the time. The film relied on footage shot on the honeymoon of her first marriage in 1927 and 1928, as well as a two-hour interview filmed by her son in 1991.
Altina Schinasi died in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1999 at age 92.
In a note from Google, the company wrote, “Happy birthday to the woman who was a visionary in more ways than one!”
Google also thanked Schinasi’s son Terry Sanders for his contributions to the project. In a note, Sanders wrote, “Happy Birthday, Tina! Thank you for your courage, kindness and inspiration. Much love, always,” and signed it on behalf of himself and Schinasi’s seven grandchildren: Victoria, Juliette, Peter, David, Eve, Jessica and Brittany.
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The post Google Doodle celebrates the Jewish designer of cat-eye glasses, Altina Schinasi appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students
Haredi Jewish men look at the scene of an explosion at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Israel, on Nov. 23, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad
Israel’s military said it would issue 54,000 call-up notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students following a Supreme Court ruling mandating their conscription and amid growing pressure from reservists stretched by extended deployments.
The Supreme Court ruling last year overturned a decades-old exemption for ultra-Orthodox students, a policy established when the community comprised a far smaller segment of the population than the 13 percent it represents today.
Military service is compulsory for most Israeli Jews from the age of 18, lasting 24-32 months, with additional reserve duty in subsequent years. Members of Israel’s 21 percent Arab population are mostly exempt, though some do serve.
A statement by the military spokesperson confirmed the orders on Sunday just as local media reported legislative efforts by two ultra-Orthodox parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to craft a compromise.
The exemption issue has grown more contentious as Israel’s armed forces in recent years have faced strains from simultaneous engagements with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Iran.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Netanyahu’s brittle coalition have voiced concerns that integrating seminary students into military units alongside secular Israelis, including women, could jeopardize their religious identity.
The military statement promised to ensure conditions that respect the ultra-Orthodox way of life and to develop additional programs to support their integration into the military. It said the notices would go out this month.
The post Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sharply criticized on Sunday a cabinet decision to allow some aid into Gaza as a “grave mistake” that he said would benefit the terrorist group Hamas.
Smotrich also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to ensure that Israel’s military is following government directives in prosecuting the war against Hamas in Gaza. He said he was considering his “next steps” but stopped short of explicitly threatening to quit the coalition.
Smotrich’s comments come a day before Netanyahu is due to hold talks in Washington with President Donald Trump on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day Gaza ceasefire.
“… the cabinet and the Prime Minister made a grave mistake yesterday in approving the entry of aid through a route that also benefits Hamas,” Smotrich said on X, arguing that the aid would ultimately reach the Islamist group and serve as “logistical support for the enemy during wartime”.
The Israeli government has not announced any changes to its aid policy in Gaza. Israeli media reported that the government had voted to allow additional aid to enter northern Gaza.
The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The military declined to comment.
Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid for its own fighters or to sell to finance its operations, an accusation Hamas denies. Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with conditions threatening to push nearly a half a million people into famine within months, according to U.N. estimates.
Israel in May partially lifted a nearly three-month blockade on aid. Two Israeli officials said on June 27 the government had temporarily stopped aid from entering north Gaza.
PRESSURE
Public pressure in Israel is mounting on Netanyahu to secure a permanent ceasefire, a move opposed by some hardline members of his right-wing coalition. An Israeli team left for Qatar on Sunday for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
Smotrich, who in January threatened to withdraw his Religious Zionism party from the government if Israel agreed to a complete end to the war before having achieved its objectives, did not mention the ceasefire in his criticism of Netanyahu.
The right-wing coalition holds a slim parliamentary majority, although some opposition lawmakers have offered to support the government from collapsing if a ceasefire is agreed.
The post Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Aug. 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
Australian police have charged a man in connection with an alleged arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue with worshippers in the building, the latest in a series of incidents targeting the nation’s Jewish community.
There were no injuries to the 20 people inside the East Melbourne Synagogue, who fled from the fire on Friday night. Firefighters extinguished the blaze in the capital of Victoria state.
Australia has experienced several antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023.
Counter-terrorism detectives late on Saturday arrested the 34-year-old resident of Sydney, capital of neighboring New South Wales, charging him with offenses including criminal damage by fire, police said.
“The man allegedly poured a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and set it on fire before fleeing the scene,” police said in a statement.
The suspect, whom the authorities declined to identify, was remanded in custody after his case was heard at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Sunday and no application was made for bail, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
Authorities are investigating whether the synagogue fire was linked to a disturbance on Friday night at an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne, in which one person was arrested for hindering police.
The restaurant was extensively damaged, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group for Australia’s Jews.
It said the fire at the synagogue, one of Melbourne’s oldest, was set as those inside sat down to Sabbath dinner.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog went on X to “condemn outright the vile arson attack targeting Jews in Melbourne’s historic and oldest synagogue on the Sabbath, and on an Israeli restaurant where people had come to enjoy a meal together”.
“This is not the first such attack in Australia in recent months. But it must be the last,” Herzog said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incidents as “severe hate crimes” that he viewed “with utmost gravity.” “The State of Israel will continue to stand alongside the Australian Jewish community,” Netanyahu said on X.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese late on Saturday described the alleged arson, which comes seven months after another synagogue in Melbourne was targeted by arsonists, as shocking and said those responsible should face the law’s full force.
“My Government will provide all necessary support toward this effort,” Albanese posted on X.
Homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles in Australia have been targeted by antisemitic vandalism and arson. The incidents included a fake plan by organized crime to attack a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives in order to divert police resources, police said in March.
The post Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue first appeared on Algemeiner.com.