No matter how often people across the globe trumpet their claims that the political and economic warfare movement known as BDS (the Boycott of, Divestment from and Sanctions against Israel) is racking up victories, the reality is quite different.
Just this past week a slew of American film and television actors traveled to the Jewish State to see its wonders first hand. Not to put too fine a point on it, one of the primo wonders, as far as this large group of actors were concerned, was the wine being produced in Israel.
In the group which numbered nearly a dozen, there were stars of current television shows such as C.S. Lee, star of “Dexter,” and Anson Mount IV, of “Hell on Wheels,” a historical drama about the transcontinental railroad.
There was even a mother-daughter pair on the trip. The mother, Lea Thompson, has been a film and television star for several decades.
Thompson starred in all three “Back to the Future” hit movies from the mid- to late 1980’s, and starred in the 1990‘s sitcom, Caroline in the City. For the past two years Thompson has been in the television family drama “Switched at Birth,” and is in three films coming out within the next year and a half.
Thompson’s daughter, Zoey Deutch, starred in the film “Beautiful Creatures,” and will appear in the part of Rosemarie Hathaway in “Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters,” based on a popular book series. “Vampire Academy”comes out in 2014. Deutch is the daughter of director Howard Deutch, whom Thompson married in 1989. Zoey was raised in her father’s religion, which is Jewish.
“I love it here in Israel,” Deutch said. “We went out at night in Tel Aviv, we’ve met so many amazing people and now we taste such amazing wine,” she told one of the organizers of the trip.
After several days traveling from army bases and visiting popular tourist attractions, the celebrity group was treated to a VIP tour of the Golan Heights Winery to enjoy Israel’s award-winning wine.
“We wanted to bring the celebrities to the winery to show them that Israel is more than conflict,” Irwin Katsof, director of the program that brought these stars to Israel, said. “We spent an evening drinking amazing wine, eating a fabulous spread and showcasing such a positive aspect of Israel.”
Another actor on the trip was Korean-American actress Vivian Bang, Bang was “Soo-Mi” in Jim Carrey’s “Yes Man,” and plays Susan Sullivan in the TBS comedy series “Sullivan & Son.”
The actors were brought to Israel by a program run by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, called American Voices in Israel.