New York Daily News
Originally published on January 5, 2006

The writer-director of "Kabbalah," an Off-Off-Broadway religious satire in which cast members strip naked, yesterday blasted female lead Emily Stern as a "Jewish-American princess" for abruptly quitting the show, and called her famous father, Sirius Satellite Radio jock Howard Stern, "a psycho."

Israeli-born stage maven Tuvia Tenenbom, who runs the Jewish Theater of New York, told me he canceled the run when the 22-year-old actress - who played Madonna in the show - bowed out after six weeks at the Triad Theater on W. 73rd St. because a couple of Howard Stern fan sites exposed her celebrity parentage.

"We are looking for a talented actress to replace her," Tenenbom said, adding that he kept his promise never to reveal Emily's father's identity, not even to the show's publicist.

But after a Stern fan site outed her, Emily was distraught.

"She said she was freaked out and had to quit, but I told her she was behaving like a JAP - just what she promised me she would not do," said the 48-year-old Tenenbom, a former Orthodox rabbi who moved to the United States 25 years ago, drove a cab, taught math and did other odd jobs before founding the Jewish Theater in 1993.

"After I cast her in late September, her father called her in for a meeting," Tenebom recounted. "She came back very shaken. She said, 'My father basically told me that if I take the role [which requires her to be on stage nude for the last 10 minutes], that his enemies would buy blocks of tickets, throw garbage at my vagina, take nude pictures of me and put them all over the Internet.'

"I told Emily, 'You have to stand up for yourself as a human being and as an individual, and separate from your father. Your father is a psycho. Your father is selfish.' "

Howard Stern's manager, Don Buchwald, refused to discuss the situation and called me an unprintable name. He added sarcastically: "You're a noted journalist, and I look forward to reading one of your epic stories."

Emily Stern, likewise, didn't respond to messages. She studied acting at the Stella Adler Studio and had appeared in a dozen New York productions before joining "Kabbalah," which The New York Times panned as "dreadful," "mind-numbing" and "in bad taste."