Actor Liam Neeson got a little break from being famous. Sitting on the floor of a community center courtyard in Amman, Jordan, with two dozen teens, he listened attentively as young Syrian refugees — who had no idea that he’s a Hollywood star — talked about the struggles of exile. A 15-year-old girl said she was bullied in school. A boy of the same age said he used to get into fights. “They are all our children,” Neeson, 64, a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, said later. “They want peace, they want to be recognized.” Neeson’s visit to Jordan this week was his first to the troubled Middle East on behalf of UNICEF, one of a number of U.N. agencies and aid groups trying to ease the plight of displaced Syrians and their overburdened host communities. Nearly 5 million Syrians, half of them children, have fled civil war at home since 2011 and settled in neighboring countries, mainly in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. Jordan hosts close to 660,000 displaced Syrians. Most live in Jordan’s poorest communities, where locals often complain that the influx is pushing up rents and driving down wages. On Tuesday, Neeson and his son Micheal, 21, visited a community center operated by the community-development group Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development, and funded by UNICEF, where Syrian and Jordanian teens get to know one another in after-school sessions. Neeson said he was particularly inspired by the Syrian girls. “I thought they would be more oppressed because of their culture, and of course because of the ordeals they have been going through, coming from Syria, the horrors there,” he said. “These girls I met, yesterday and … again here today, they are so positive, so eager and keen to learn.”
Legendary actor and producer Kirk Douglas has received an early 100th birthday present — an award from the World Jewish Congress for his strong support for Israel including starring in the first Hollywood feature film shot in the newly established nation. Ronald Lauder, the organization’s president, said Douglas, who was born Issur Danielovitch on Dec. 9, 1916, was “always proud of his Jewish roots.” He pointed to Douglas’ starring roles as a Holocaust survivor in the 1953 movie The Juggler, which was filmed in Israel and as Jewish U.S. Army Col. David “Mickey” Marcus, who helped save the Jewish state in 1948, in the 1966 movie Cast A Giant Shadow. Douglas’ son, Oscar-winning actor and producer Michael Douglas, accepted the award, telling more than 400 guests at a dinner at the Pierre Hotel that his father would be “so proud and so humbled,” especially since the award is the first honoring the late Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek, Kirk Douglas’ longtime friend. Michael Douglas said his father’s connection to Israel goes back to his childhood, and his dream is to see the country “peaceful and successful,” a place where Arabs and Jews can live together.