By Diana Brement,
JTNews Columnist
Ilana Long is a funny person; and if you saw her perform stand-up comedy in the days before she had kids, you know this.
For those who have missed those days, Ilana has written a book, The Binky Conspiracy: True Tales of Mommydom, so you can access her funny stories at any time.
As the publishing industry goes through massive upheavals, I’m always interested in how writers are getting their books published. Ilana self-published through Create Space, a branch of Amazon.com. Amazon sells the books and prints them as they are ordered, charging the author a fee per book.
“It really wasn’t about the money,” she says, “I had stories I wanted to share” and conventional publishing wasn’t even considered. “I just wanted to get it out there.”
Many of the essays are about the year she and her husband, Steve Blatt, spent in Mexico. Steve had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand before he met Ilana, and as a couple they nourished a long-standing dream to live and work overseas. About two years ago, they took their then-4-year-old twins Benji and Marina to Cancun, where they taught at the International American School and the kids attended bilingual kindergarten at the sister school, Communidad Educative del Sol (www.iasces.com).
Having taught language arts for many years at Northwest Yeshiva High School, and now middle school at Open Windows School in Bellevue, Ilana found teaching overseas challenging. “It was very hard. I was teaching seven classes a day,” she says, as opposed to four or five in the States.
Originally from Cleveland, Ilana moved to Seattle in the early 1990s. She came to perform in a play after working with Second City in Chicago. One of her first local jobs was as a drama camp counselor at the SJCC.
Having laughed my way through most of our interview, I wondered if her students thought she was funny.
“My [middle school] students would be very surprised to find out I do stand-up,” she says, although her yeshiva students thought she was funny. “My own kids think I’m funny,” and she says being around a comedian has led them to have a very sophisticated sense of humor — “or at least sarcasm.”
Steve and Ilana are not formal members of a synagogue, but his family are long-standing members of Temple De Hirsch Sinai in Bellevue, and she grew up at Park Synagogue in Cleveland, one of the nation’s largest Conservative synagogues and where her grandfather, Armond Cohen, served as rabbi for more than 50 years. In the ’90s, Ilana was active in Kulanu, “a big [singles] havurah of East Coasters who ended up, a lot of them, marrying each other,” she says.
Ilana’s book is available on Amazon.com and look for information about an official book launch in early October at thebinkyconspiracy.blogspot.com.
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What does it mean to have a Jewish soul? Meredith Binder’s new short film — she only makes short movies —Alastair MacLean: Y’did Nefesh (Jewish Soul), explores the dilemmas of a young man trying to convince a board of rabbis of his sincerity in wanting convert to Judaism before his wedding.
Filmed at Congregation Beth Shalom in North Seattle, the movie features Meredith (co-writer and producer) and other family members, including her dad, Harold Binder, as one of the reluctant rabbis.
“My films are low/no budget,” the actress, writer and filmmaker explained. “There are no investors for short films,” so she relies heavily on donations of time and services from friends, family, other actors and filmmakers.
“I’m shooting something this month,” she says. “People are giving me free 14-hour days.”
While she grew up in Detroit, Meredith landed in Seattle with her husband, George Ostrow, after a Peace Corps assignment in Fiji where she taught math and physics and he attempted to teach management techniques to village elders, “which they were totally uninterested in.” They chose their new home as “a city where we could raise urban children,” which she says they’ve done with sons A.J., 16, and Elijah, 13.
Meredith started taking theater and acting classes while working as an electrical engineer. After committing to acting full-time, “I got cast in [Northwest Film Forum founder] Jamie Hook’s Naked Proof,” she says. “That kind of put me on the map.”
The family belongs to Beth Shalom, and although George is not Jewish he’s “very much part of the Jewish community.” Having longed for a sukkah when growing up, “now I’m married to a guy who builds me a sukkah every year,” Meredith says.
Meredith has been surprised how many different people relate to the theme of the movie. She recommends it “for anyone who loves to laugh, anyone who is an outsider, anyone who is a convert, anyone who is Jewish…knows someone who is Jewish.”
Available “for only $5.95″ at www.indieflix.com, it’s been on that site’s top seller list for over two weeks as I write this, which Meredith calls “very exciting.” You can see a preview at the site as well.
An interview with Meredith and her director Andy Spletzer appears on this paper’s sister site, jew-ish.com. Read it at http://jew-ish.com/index.php?/blogs/blog1_item/484.
Meanwhile, Meredith is working on another production.
“Thankfully, Seattle is a good place to make films,” she says.