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April 12, 2002/Nisan 30, 5762, Vol. 54, No. 30
Food, Fisher highlight Passover
LENI REISS
Senior Contributing Editor
It is Easter Sunday, and at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel and at both Wright's Restaurant and the Pavilion, crowds have congregated to feast on buffets featuring mounds of shellfish and succulent slices of baked ham. But in the enormous Biltmore Conference Center, nearly 900 Jewish guests are partaking in a kosher Passover par excellence.
Organized by VIP Passover in conjunction with Leisure Time Tours, the weeklong extravaganza offers seders, lectures, side trips, spa services, children's activities, and cuisine catered by the Danziger group out of Chicago. The festivities also include a one-night-only concert by David (Dudu) Fisher, the Israeli superstar who has appeared on Broadway and in London and Jerusalem as Jean Valjean in "Les Miserables," and typically travels to the states monthly for gigs.
It was renowned mega-producer Cameron Mackintosh who sought Fisher out for the role after seeing him perform. Since Fisher is an observant Jew who doesn't work on the Sabbath, Mackintosh hired another performer for Friday nights and Saturday matinees.
Because "this is too costly for other producers to do," Fisher explains, "I have come to understand that no one right now can afford to open a show with me." As a consequence, he is taking matters into his own hands and is preparing a one-man, off-Broadway show over which he will have scheduling control. He also is in the running for the lead in a new CBS-TV production of "Fiddler on the Roof."
Fisher laughingly acknowledges that his Israeli nickname doesn't translate all that well into English. In 1995, when he first appeared on Broadway, he told Jewish News it was suggested that "David" be used on the marquee. "I told them 'Dudu' is my name, and it is one that people remember," he says. "In Israel it is a lovely name." And when his wife was asked about his star status she told a reporter, "Once he was my Dudu, now he is everyone's Dudu," an innocent remark that got a lot of good-natured press coverage.
Wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "You don't get older, you get better," Fisher, 51, was in a relaxed mode. He had flown here from the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York where he had served as cantor at seders at Kutcher's, a popular resort/country club. Prior to that he had made 30 appearances in the Miami area. It was as a cantor that Fisher began his singing career, and he serves annually in that capacity at Kutcher's and other traditionally Jewish hotels in the area.
With a wife and three children at home in Petach Tikva, and two sons now serving in the IDF, Fisher is understandably anxious about the war now raging in the region. "By now I know so many who have lost people," he says. "My wife's parents were supposed to have been at the seder in Netanya and changed their minds at the last minute. The situation is frightening to me as a religious man, as a believer. I don't see how humans can resolve it. It will have to be resolved from above. But this won't break us. It will make us stronger," he maintains.
Former Phoenix resident Leah Adler, owner of The Milky Way, a kosher restaurant in Los Angeles and incidentally the mother of Stephen Spielberg, is among the guests at the Biltmore for Passover. She also expresses concern about the situation in Israel while adding optimistically, "The child in me believes it will turn out all right. And right now, this is a beautiful day and a beautiful holiday."
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