Culture, Mishegas

Ranting 'bout Jewish Reading and Writing

n+1The editors of n+1 published a rather spot on though somewhat rambling rant about the new Jewish mags. Wandering through Heeb’s pornography, Guilt and Pleasure’s banality and nextbook.org’s intellectual provincialism they make some astute points before ending in a somewhat unfocussed post-rant yawn. Worth the read, here.

10 thoughts on “Ranting 'bout Jewish Reading and Writing

  1. I actually agree with almost the whole thing. I can’t always enjoy criticism towards the ones I love, but it’s damn true. Just because I support the existance of Heeb doesn’t mean I would read the vapid thing myself. G & P is an over-funded rag by a continuity foundation, not any expression of bottom-up Jewish innovation, an exercise of patronizing “what should we be talking about?” peices. Yawn. Nextbook is cutting edge but, yes, let the Jews out of the closet to talk about the rest of literature too. The compliments to Zeek are well-deserved — seconded! They left out New Voices, though, which exists in the parallel campus universe which is simultaneously a great magazine for being run by two 22-year-olds and written by undergrads, and also has a bad habit of biting the hands that feed it. (Having been one of those 22-year-olds, I say this with pride too. But I’m biased.)
    I can only predict what the criticism would be of Jewschool as well. Probably that we’re the irrelevant and intellectually elite left. But I can hack it. Maybe we should do a similar thumbs up/down of all the JBlogs out there…
    And one important question: who the hell is n+1?

  2. Okay, I’m biased, but…while they make plenty of hilariously true observations, they also don’t know anything about the foundation behind Nextbook, which is also the foundation behind my project G-dcast. It has nothing to do with a rich guy who discovered Judaism on his deathbed. It’s run by a very alive, very observant Jewish woman. They only fund programs having to do with education. Serious education. High schools and such. They are also funding my educational cartoon which last time I checked had not a shred of hipster irony or shameful ethnocentrism.
    But good thing we have snarky brainiacs with free time on their hands to tear us all down – it keeps us honest.

  3. So, not for nuthin’, but since you brought it up, what is the point of “low commitment learning”? Why is that a good thing? Wouldn’t we want to promote high commitment learning? If anything learning should be high commitment. Actual learning is the highest commitment. Otherwise its just another useless diversion. Unless the point of education is base level evangelism, putting flesh and blood in the population survey, sanctifying semen for the future of the race, why would we want “low commitment learning”?
    You know, I’m just saying.

  4. Aryeh, its just marketing copy.
    I know that you are a high commitment learner, so maybe this stuff isn’t for you, but I am willing to be you can watch a g-dcast and learn something in four minutes. You’re a good candidate for long term learning, but checked out teenagers who don’t live in New York and don’t have a mentor have to start somewhere.

  5. Okay, so we can go round and round about whether or not a checked out teenager will watch a g-dcast video and … what? get turned on to jewish learning? get interested in learning more? be interested in being jewish? I’m not sure what the goal is. I live in a cultural world in which commitment translates into substance. John Coltrane is supposed to have known some 10,000 chord progressions by heart. That is the basis upon which he created “out of thin air” the idea and practice of free jazz. (and when you listen to the astounding groundbreaking Ascenscion album you can see how hard it was to break free of the paths already trod.) The question that haunts me is not the question of bodies. Whether checked out high school Jews will “return” to their Judaism, or whether unaffiliated Jews (those grown-up checked out high school Jews?) will return to their Judaism. The question that haunts me is our responsibility to Judaism–and more specifically the textual tradition that we have inherited. In what way our we going to leave it enhanced? What will our contribution be? What is the next story on this building that is Judaism? This has nothing whatsoever to do with bodies and wombs and sperm. Another two million Jews could check out without it making a difference. Almost two thousand years of creating this tradition shows that, ultimately, it takes engaged long-term committed study and the practice of study to be able to create a completely new layer of Judaism (out of that textual tradition and many other materials) that will stick.
    The bodies will or won’t follow. Not my concern.

  6. Engaged long-term committed study isn’t the only way that we’ve added more “stories on the building that is Judaism.” The Hasmoneans, for example, did it through war and the Greek practice of declaring holidays to commemorate military victories. That one seems to have stuck. Who’s to say that our story won’t be one built of art, or of opening the doors to our tent to truly let all who should enter come in?

  7. not explicitly stated but the article gives me a sense that jewish nationalism is a failure in terms of long-term jewish existence. these publications are an example of the lack of lasting meaning and value produce by an identity based on nationalism or ethnic particularism.

  8. Lets say you’re right about the Hasmoneans and the Greeks, for the moment. We are still talking about a committed practice. Neither Mattathias nor the authors of the various books of Makkabees (I, II, III, or IV), engaged in a low commitment practice. Using John Coltrane as an example was no coincidence. I definitely think that our layer could be made of art, but that it will only stick to the extent that it is engaged and committed. “Opening the doors to our tent to truly let all who should enter come in” isn’t doing anything, if those who come in don’t have to do anything once they are in.

  9. Unrelated question about G-dcast:
    Does each week’s guest narrator write his/her own script, or does someone write all the scripts and give them to the narrators? I ask because some of the episodes I’ve seen incorporate rabbinic midrashim as an integral part of the biblical story, and I was curious whether this approach represents G-dcast’s views or the views of individual narrators.

  10. Okay, to the first topic:
    I’m not interested in people returning to Judaism as a goal. I mean, if they do, that’s great, but it’s not a goal of the project. The goal is very simple, very focused: raising basic Jewish literacy. Not religiousity. Not observance. Literacy. People don’t know basic Tanach stories. So the project is to hopefully spread knowledge of our shared texts, which underlie everything that other institutions might hope to build – whether that be furthered literacy, observance, nationalism, whatever. The founders of the State of Israel, for instance, were not religious, but they were Jewishly literate, and their knowledge of our text, mythology, scripture – whatever you want to call it – informed the way they structured their project. It is my hope that as whatever type of Jew each of us chooses to be, including wholly secular, we take action in the world with an informed knowledge of our texts. This is a baby step.
    To BZ’s question – each narrator writes their own script. We advise, but only to make sure the pieces reflect some ground rules about style and attempts at being as pluralist as possible. The approach and ideas are completely up to each week’s voice.

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