Jeremy watches his father Jack Lebewohl follow the Atkins Diet under the gaze of Molly Picon in the poster

Atkins Approved Chopped Liver

ACK LEBEWOHL, proprietor of the venerable Second Ave. Deli on the Lower East Side, assures that even if you’re on the Atkins Diet, you can enjoy the delicious fare at his pastrami palace.

Jack had met with the late diet guru and together they created the Second Ave. Lover’s Diet.

“You can eat pastrami, corned beef, chopped liver, hot dogs, turkey – but without bread or french fries,” Jack said. “Dr. Atkins did not approve pickled tongue, which has dextrose. That’s not part of the diet.”

Jack follows the diet, which eliminates carbohydrates, and swears he lost 65 pounds in seven months. He even found that his cholesterol and heart pressure dropped.

His son Jeremy has no need to diet. The 21-year-old looked quite slim and trim following a year and a half of service in the Israeli army where he finished as a sergeant.

Robby Benson

Becoming A Man At 24

OBBY BENSON says The Passion of the Christ creator Mel Gibson is “a magnificent filmmaker with the tools to sway an audience. Any time you do work that reaches millions of people, it has a point of view. It’s up to Steven Spielberg to rectify the situation.”

We were talking at the Cherry Lane Theater where the actor is appearing in an original musical, Open Heart, with his wife Karla De Vito. She was born to a Catholic Italian family in a town near Chicago.

Robby says he wrote the show for his wife. (That’s one way to keep a 22-year marriage intact.)

They have two children: daughter Lyric, 20, a college student, and son Zephyr, 12.

“We taught our children every religion so as to understand the difference of right and wrong,” Robby says.

It remains to be seen whether Zephyr gets a bar mitzvah next year.

While growing up in Dallas, Robby didn’t get a bar mitzvah. His father became disenchanted with religion.

Robby didn’t “become a man” until 1980, when he was a 24-year-old actor filming Chaim Potok’s The Chosen in Brooklyn.

He was staying with a Lubavitcher family in Crown Heights to soak up the atmosphere for his screen role – the son of a rebbe portrayed by Rod Steiger.

When they learned he never had a bar mitzvah, they took him to shul. “I got called up to the Torah and said the blessings in Hebrew,” Robby recalled.

ORMER New York Mayor Edward Koch says he’s sometimes asked about the 70 million evangelical Christians who support Israel because they believe the messiah will come only when the Jews occupy all of Palestine.

“They want us to be there and then they want us to convert. What do you think?” he was asked.

“We need allies, and 70 million Christians who support the state of Israel is good to have,” Koch said.

He added: “And when a verifiable messiah comes, we have to ask two questions: Are you Jewish? Is this your first visit?”

Hero Home From Iraq

T the National Jewish Outreach Program’s 10^th annual dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria, founding director Rabbi Ephraim Z. Buchwald gave due recognition to a hero of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Lt. Col. Scott Rutter who retired last November.

Rutter, 41, one of many Jews who served in Iraq, commanded the 2^nd Battalion of the 7^th Infantry Regiment of the Army’s 3^rd Infantry Division. He led his battalion in a grueling 21-day pursuit to capture Baghdad International Airport which resulted in the fall of the city.

Philadelphia-born Rutter now lives with his wife, New York native Jolienne, in Rockland County where their two children attend Solomon Schechter School.

GOING GREEN: Hilton Tel Aviv waitresses Xenia Shandrei and Rinat Oz go green as they join hotel staff to mark International Earth Day with a clean-up of Independence Park surrounding the hotel.

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