JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

(Red Sox) meet the National League champion Pirates in a
nine-game interleague series, with the winner taking 60 percent
of the gate receipts and the loser 40 percent. Dreyfuss believed
a post-season contest would establish better relations
between the two squabbling leagues and create additional interest
in baseball. It did, beyond anyone’s imagination, and
thus was born the first World Series, a permanent American
icon that achieved almost mythic proportions. In a gesture of
goodwill, and contrary to the treacherous, greedy image of the
typical owner, Dreyfuss put his club’s $6,699.56 gate receipts
into the players’ pool, which earned the 16 Pirates $1,316 each,
more than the victorious Boston players’ $1,182.
In 1909, Dreyfuss built Forbes Field, the first modern
steel-frame triple-tier stadium and the first baseball park capable
of seating 25,000 fans. The stadium represented a visionary
statement, for up until then no one believed that a game
of baseball could attract that many people. Dreyfuss was also
instrumental in having the spitball pitch banned from baseball
in 1920.
Dreyfuss was also a pioneer in the formative years of professional
football. He was co-owner and manager of the Pittsburgh
Athletic Club, winners of the pro football championship
in 1898, professional football’s fourth organized season.
[Elli Wohlgelernter (2nd ed.)]
DREYFUSS, RICHARD (1948– ), American actor. Dreyfuss
was born in Brooklyn, New York, where his father was an
attorney, but the family moved to Los Angeles, where he was
educated. He joined the West Side Jewish Center and at the
early age of nine showed his penchant for acting, taking part in
all the plays produced there. Even as a high school student he
was engaged to play professional parts, and from 1963 to 1973
acted on Broadway, in repertory and comedy. He first gained
his reputation as a film actor in George Lucas’ American Graffiti,
playing the part of Curt Henderson, and from then went
from strength to strength. In 1974 he went to Canada, and The
Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, a film with a Jewish theme
in which he starred, won first prize at the Berlin Film Festival.
In 1974 he starred in Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of
Peter Benchley’s best-selling novel Jaws, which became the
biggest box-office hit to that date. A year later he played the
part of Yonatan Netanyahu in the TV film Victory at Entebbe,
about the Israeli commando action that freed hostages held
in a plane hijacked to Uganda. In 1977 he starred in another
highly successful Spielberg film, Close Encounters of the Third
Kind. In 1977 he was awarded the Academy and Golden Globe
awards for best actor for his performance in The Goodbye Girl.
At the time, at age 29, he was the youngest performer ever to
have won a Best Actor Oscar. Dreyfuss went on to act in such
films as The Big Fix (1978), Whose Life Is It Anyway? (1981),
Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), Tin Men (1987), Stakeout
(1987), Nuts (1987), Moon over Parador (1988), Lost in Yonkers
(1983), Always (1989), Postcards from the Edge (1990), Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990), What about Bob?
(1991), Silent Fall (1994), Mr. Holland’s Opus (Oscar nomina-
drezner, yeḤiel dov
tion for Best Actor, 1995), Mad Dog Time (1996), Krippendorf ’s
Tribe (1998), The Crew (2000), The Old Man Who Read Love
Stories (2001), and Silver City (2004).
Dreyfuss has also performed in many stage and television
productions. He starred in the 2001 TV drama series The
Education of Max Bickford as well as such TV movies as Prisoner
of Honor (1991), Oliver Twist (1997), Lansky (1999), Fail
Safe (2000), The Day Reagan Was Shot (2001), Coast to Coast
(2004), and Copshop (2004). On Broadway he has appeared
in But Seriously (1969), Total Abandon (1983), Death and the
Maiden (1992), and Sly Fox (2004). In 2000 Dreyfuss was
awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Hollywood
Film Festival. With Harry Turtledove, Dreyfuss co-authored
the novel The Two Georges (1996).
Bibliography: J. Phillips, You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This
Town Again (1991).
[Jonathan Licht / Rohan Saxena and Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)]
DREYZL, LEAH (second half of 18th century), composer of
tkhines (Yiddish prayers). Dreyzl lived in Stanislav, Poland,
and came from a distinguished family. Her great-grandfather
was Ḥakham Ẓevi *Ashkenazi (1660–1718) and several
of her male relatives were rabbis and scholars. Leah Dreyzl
married Rabbi Aryeh Leib Auerbach, who became the rabbi
at Stanislav and was closely associated with the burgeoning
Ḥasidic movement. He was believed to be an intimate of the
Baal Shem Tov.
It is clear from her own writings that Leah Dreyzl was
educated. The two tkhines she is known to have written are
filled with biblical references and lines from the prayer book,
and are permeated with mystical overtones. They were published
posthumously, probably during the 19th century, and
were named (by the publisher) “Tkhine es rotsn” (“Tkhine of
a Time of [Divine] Favor”) and “Tkhine Sha’arei Teshuvah”
(“Tkhine of the Gates of Repentance”). An introduction to
the published edition credits “Mistress Hena…widow of the
departed…Rabbi David Tsvi,” with passing down these writings
“from her mother-in-law, the righteous, pious, renowned
rabbi’s wife, Mistress Leah Dreyzel.” Both of these poems, written
for the penitential month of Elul, easily lend themselves to
oral recitation. This has led literary analysts to conclude that
Leah Dreyzl was a firzogerin in the Stanislav synagogue, leading
the women’s congregation in prayer.
Bibliography: E. Taitz, S. Henry, and C. Tallan, The JPS
Guide to Jewish Women: 600 B.C.E.–1900 C.E. (2003), 143; C. Weissler,
Voices of the Matriarchs: Listening to the Prayers of Early Modern Jewish
Women (1998), 26–28.
[Emily Taitz (2nd ed.)]
DREZNER, YEḤIEL DOV (1922–1947), Jew executed by the
British in Palestine. Drezner was born in Poland and came to
Ereẓ Israel with his parents who settled in Jerusalem, where
Drezner joined the Betar movement. In 1940 he moved to Netanyah,
where he joined I.ẓ.L. under the pseudonym of Dov
Rosenbaum. In 1945 I.ẓ.L. retaliated for the flogging inflicted
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 21