I apologize for being such a slacker this past year in posting. (New job and all that- not an excuse, but still).
Still, this morning I find myself with an embarrassment of riches, which I will try to cover over the next few days.
Today’s topic: a terrific post reflecting on tshuvah, and using the teachable moments recently offered us in public by politicians sports figures and musicians for how not to apologize.
I’ve noticed, myself, the spreading plague of people who “apologize” if I have hurt your feelings, implying that it is the victim who is oversensitive to a rather minor slight, or worse yet, implying that they have done nothing wrong at all, and the victim is to blame.
I actually blame the politicians for this one – the non-apology! It all started as a way for them to seem to apologize without actually taking responsibility for what was done wrong.
I would like to note that this is not really an apology. More »
The 2nd day of Rosh Hashanah fell on September 19, 2001, but that was before The Onion gave us permission to laugh again, so talking like a pirate was the last thing on our minds at the time. Other than that, this year is the first combined Rosh Hashanah / TLAPD since TLAPD was founded in 1995. The next time will be in 2020.
So, to help us prepare for this rare conjunction, here are 10 ways to incorporate Talk Like A Pirate Day into the Rosh Hashanah liturgy:
1) (the obvious one) sound the shofARRRRR!
2) …made from rams stolen from another ship
3) (in communities that read Genesis 21) read the story of HagARRRRRR!
4) (in communities that read Genesis 22 on the first or only day) …al echad heHARRRRRim … vaYARRRRRR et hamakom meirachok.
5) Apples and honey can prevent scurvy.
6) …et yom hazikARRRRRRon hazeh…
7) Throw your enemies overboard for tashlich.
8 ) The HadARRRRR CD is sold out, so get a PIRATED copy.
9) Show up without a ticket.
10) Who shall live and who shall die, who by sword and who by walking the plank! ARRRRRR!!!
If you can’t wait until 2020 to do it all over again, Talk Like A Pirate Day 2013 is the first day of Sukkot; start practicing your lulav swordfights! Also it will be none other than Yom Kippur in 2018; I totally want to lein Jonah that year.
by Kung Fu Jew [➚] · Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
If it was doubted before that social media breeds transparency, then the evidence is in Mobius‘ Twitter debates with William Daroff, head of the UJC. The summary: Daroff says the UJC represents all of and is entitled to speak for all of us, at least because they paid for grandma to move here from the old country; Mobius dissents. The juiciest part I excerpt below, but do read the whole thing:
Daroff: @mobius1ski Does Obama represent you? Did Bush? You might not agree w/everything we say or do – but we do represent you.
Mobius1ski: @Daroff Comparing UJC to elected officials is beyond hubris.
Mobius1ski: @Daroff My U.S. citizenship is a social contract w/ the gov’t. My Jewishness is not a social contract w/ UJC.
Daroff: @mobius1ski Didn’t mean to be hubrisy; simply stated: organized Jewish community endeavors to represent Jewish communal interests.
There’s more. Daroff needs a reality check. In his childhood, the federation may have been the be all, end all of Jewish communal life. But the past 20 years saw not just a boom of independent growth, but a decline of previous institutions. The federation system struggles to find not just funding, but a leadership that isn’t plauged with failure and embarassing turnover rates. (Worth mentioning here: yesterday the federation’s highest rising star Daniel Sokatch just left the SF Fed after less than a year to head the New Israel Fund.)
Meanwhile, after decades of stagnation, more than 300 new Jewish orgs have been founded in the past ten years alone, representing 400,000 Jews and $100 million, according to JumpStart’s2009 social entrepreneurship report. These newcomers were founded to get away from the UJC and do work outside the consensus: AJWS, New Israel Fund, Jewish FundS for Justice, Progressive Jewish Alliance (founded by Sokatch), the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, J Street, the Limmuds, PresenTense, ad neaseum, all founded in the past 35 years. And of course, none of these orgs have a seat at the JCPA policymaking plenum or the Council of Presidents I might add further. Their umbrellas are pretty narrow.
It’s a product of our times as well as our generation, created to fulfill a vision for communtiy that the UJC didn’t have and wouldn’t seed. The UJC doesn’t represent me or anyone else who gives neither a dime nor a damn. (Okay, okay, I gave $5 to UJA-NY Fed once, but just so I could vote in the icky World Zionist Congress and undermine the right wing.) My money has gone to groups founded in the past 35 years and I’m hardpressed to find a legacy org worth saving. (Also an exaggeration, I like HIAS’ immigration work with non-Jews.)
Mobius was very kind to UJC to recognize the good work it did and does. But it’s not the model we need anymore, and I feel it’s not disrespectful to say “Thank you for your work, but it’s time to retire.” The federation is raising money from fewer and fewer donors, making Daroff’s claim to democratic mandate slimmer and slimmer. And personally, I find his haunty, self-important puffery the epitome of leadership I can’t admire.
Daroff, it’s a new era and you need to see your institution in relation to the changes afoot. Take it down a notch. Humility is in these days.
(Thanks to BZ and Jonathan1 for encouragement, and to CoA for the posts that prompted this one).
Twothreads have become particularly prominent at Jewschool lately – exceeding, on average, 100 comments each (the earlier one has about 150, the later about 70) – and both focus on the same issue. This is a hot-button issue for conventional Jewish organizations, which focus on “Jewish continuity” as a central pillar of their ideology.
“Jewish continuity” has created an interesting unholy alliance between militant Zionist groups, as well as the government of the state of Israel, and organized Orthodox groups and government agencies, such as Aish, Chabad-Lubavitch, and the Israeli chief rabbinate. Both sides of the alliance agree on several fundamental tenets:
(1) Jews are an ethnic group, and the central purpose/short term goal of this group is to perpetuate itself.
(2) Matrilineal descent is a necessary requirement for Judaism.
(3) There are no other requirements to be considered Jewish.
(4) People who marry members of other ethnic groups are “Lost”.
Any one of these tenets may be disputed (also – any connection between the aforementioned tenets and the aforementioned groups can also be disputed, but I’ll leave that work to the comment thread), and I would like to dispute them all, while trying to articulate my own (self -contradictory and complicated) views on the matter.
by Kung Fu Jew [➚] · Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
If you’ve missed the news, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom and J Street have entered into negotiations to incorporate the former into the latter, uniting the grassroots votes with the financial clout, respectively, to protect Obama’s back in Congress.
As someone privy to the negotiations, I can’t discuss the evolving details until their completion in late October. But the broad strokes are such: Brit Tzedek’s grassroots chapters will be incorporated into J Street much the same as the Union of Progressive Zionists became J Street U (fan them on Facebook). J Street will hire a national field director and host of regional organizers to take the 50,000 supporters in 40 chapters to the next level of influence. Together they will represent the best thing to happen to Israel politics since Yitzak Rabin shook Yassir Arafat’s hand.
Brit Tzedek built in 8 years what had failed repeatedly over the past 40: a national grassroots conduit for liberal Israel supporters in every major city. Zealously guarding their reputation as staunch Israel supporters, they built leadership teams in 40 major cities based in synagogues and supported by a rabbinical network of some 1,500 rabbis and cantors. Where previous groups failed to prove their Jewish credentials and imploded, Brit Tzedek staked out a secure turf and coined the now common slogan “pro-Israel, pro-peace There is more than one way to be pro-Israel.”
As detailed in a lengthy NY Times Magazine peice this week, J Street in one year has managed to complete the pro-peace movement with a PAC that allows liberal political donors to designate their funds as pro-Israel but not pro-stupidity, hire a staff of 12, and lure big name leadership (like Hadar Susskind formerly head of the JCPA’s DC operation). With a confrontational edge, the org has created a media fray that’s zeroed in on right-wing ties to Pastor John Hagee, Sarah Palin, and the settler movement.
The two of them combined means that any action brings to bear the combined attention of everyday constituents and the big-pursed donors. The pro-Israel right is continually and hopefully sounding the death knell of overwhelming Jewish support for Obama. But in poll after poll, they cannot fight the sheer number of American Jews who want the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over peaceably and support Obama’s approaches. But the past has showed that Congress doesn’t give a damn about opinion polls unless those constituents get off their asses and back up an opinion with a vote or a check. It’s vital that the Jewish left consolidate, streamline and maximize resources.
The left wing now represents the strongest infrastructure its ever had: a PAC, a grassroots presence, rabbinical cover, a campus wing, and a President that’s right where they want him to be. The untapped potential is vast but there is only a 12-18 month window to push negotiations to completion and Bibi Netanyahu is pushing back with all his might. The Brit Tzedek-J Street arrangement couldn’t come at a more crucial point. But thank God, now it’s time to get to work.
If you’ve not signed up for the J Street “Driving Change, Securing Peace” conference on October 25-28, then you must. The conference features an alliance of all the major progressive Israel groups, leading Israeli human rights activists, the new leaders of the pro-peace Jewish community, and a bit of a party too. You can go to the “Driving Change, Securing Peace” conference for free — submit an essay to Jewschool’s contest by September 20.
This year Sh’ma is inaugurating a monthly column in which authors from across the Jewish spectrum address the question: What are the idols that you had to/still have to smash in order to move on in your religious/Jewish life? I introduced the column and wrote the initial essay here.
But really, isn’t this just the type of rebellion you’d expect to find at a Jewish youth group retreat/convention?
Bronfman scion’s temple plans aren’t U.S. town’s cup of tea
Jeffrey Bronfman is stirring controversy in a remote New Mexican town where he is seeking to build a massive temple for his obscure religious sect to practice an unconventional brand of worship – drinking psychedelic tea to bring them closer to God.
The religion was founded by a Brazilian rubber tapper in 1961 in the Amazon rain forest, and has about 8,000 followers worldwide whose beliefs fuse Christian theology with certain aspects of native spirituality.
Mr. Bronfman brought the religion, known as UDV, to the United States in 1992, and the religion has since grown to attract about 130 followers, mainly in the Santa Fe area.
This is not the first time Mr. Bronfman, whose family once owned Seagram’s, has found himself at the centre of high-profile controversy linked to his religion, which prohibits the consumption of alcohol.
Three years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in favour of his group’s religious right to drink the tea, known as hoasca, which is brewed from two plants grown in the Amazon that contain DMT, a hallucinogen that is considered a controlled substance by the U.S. government.
Mr. Bronfman, an environmentalist who discovered the religion and the tea on a trip to the rain forest in the early nineties, successfully argued that the drink was a religious communion, necessary for followers to fully connect with God.
This is the second post in a series on Social Justice Showtunes. The series starts here with a post about the 1937 Broadway musical Pins and Needles.
When I drew up my initial list of songs to include in this series, there was no question that “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” would be included. Since its debut in the third edition of Americana in 1932, the song has captured the imagination of Americans with its poignant and painful depiction of the Depression-era life of a WWI veteran. The song has been continually recorded throughout the intervening decades by everyone from The Weavers to George Michael. (In 2001, The Harburg Foundation issued a CD with 18 different renditions across seven decades that really drove this point home.)
But the most famous recording remains Bing Crosby’s 1932 recording with the Lennie Hayton Orchestra:
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
from Americana
Music by Jay Gorney
Lyrics by E. Y. “Yip” Harburg
Premiere: October 5, 1932
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Variety dubbed the song “a ballad of the Depression,” and the song remained on the Hit Parade through Crosby’s recording as well as Rudy Vallee’s.
The song was Harbug’s first masterpiece, but he went on to write the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz and Finian’s Rainbow. In a 1970s Lyrics & Lyricists concert at the 92nd Street Y, Harburg spoke about the song:
I grew up when America had a dream, and its people, a hope. Whether we were struggling against the shackles of slavery or the shackles of scarcity, the hope was there. In 1930, the dream collapsed. The system fell apart. The people were not angry. They were not in revolt. This was a good country on its way to greatness. It had given our immigrant parents more freedom, more education, more opportunity than they had ever know. What happened? We were baffled, bewildered… and the bewildered, baffled man sang [these lyrics]…
Gorney is less well-known, although he is also credited with discovering Shirley Temple. His other big hit song was “You’re My Thrill.” (Here’s a Weekend Edition story on Gorney from 2006 with more information.)
Both men were active in progressive politics, which eventually landed both on the wrong side of the House Un-American Activities Committee and on the blacklist. Gorney seems to have been devastated by the blacklist. Harburg continued to work on Broadway (where the blacklist was pretty consistently defied) and branched out into poetry with Rhymes for the Irreverent, republished in this decade to support the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and organization fighting to protect the separation of church and state in America.
The Harburg Foundation continues to support progressive causes in the spirit of Yip’s own politics, including
projects that (a) work toward world peace, (b) work to end economic and social discrimination and exploitation, racial/ethnic conflicts, and civil injustices; (b) provide educational opportunities to low-income and minority students through scholarship organizations; (c) advance and promote new works of American political art, especially efforts involving cultural and societal issues; (d) preserve and enhance the legacy of E.Y. Harburg through new projects or revivals of his standard works in all media.
And what of “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime” itself? Unfortunately, it has never been as timely as it is today. Once again we have veterans returning home to the worst unemployment statistics of our generation, laborers whose industries have nearly shut down, a national debate about how to provide for our needy, and many Americans questioning whether there ever was an agreement as to what the American Dream is.
Listening to the song today, it’s the very last line that really kills me, when the singer switches from addressing the listener as “brother” to “buddy.”
Whether you think it’s up to the government or the populace (or some combination thereof) to solve the various messes we’re in — the economy, health care, etc. — this song speaks to us all. The real question is whether any of us are really listening.
If you’re interested in learning more about a Jewish organization working on issues of economic justice, check out Jews For Racial & Economic Justice. Right now, their mission is centered on New York City, but if you live outside of NY, JFREJ provides an interesting model to consider bringing to your own city.
Over the past year, there have been lots of signs pointing towards a much-needed restructuring of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the organization linking Conservative synagogues in North America. The movement announced the first wave of these changes on Friday. Taking a page from the Reform Movement’s playbook, regions are being replaced with much larger “districts,” and offices are being closed in favor of telecommuting. Word on the street is that while these changes will affect the structure of the adult regions, the USY regions will remain as is for at least a couple of years.
Speaking of USY, the Youth Department got its own restructure, with the formation of a Youth and Young Adult Services department, to be headed by Rich Moline. (Okay, maybe it’s not fair to link to his blog, which only has one post, but it’s certainly an interesting one post to have in light of what’s going on. You might know Rich better as the director of Koach, USCJ’s college outreach program.)
This department will also house Kesharim. Quoting from the USCJ memo announcing these changes:
Kesharim will grow from being a committee that gives grants to new minyanim to offer more resources to people in their 20s and 30s and to new and emergent congregations. Richard Moline, now Koach’s director, will become the director of the new Youth and Young Adult Services department and within the new department Jules Gutin will be associate director for informal youth activities and Rabbi Elyse Winick will be associate director of Koach. Kesharim will be run by six assistant district directors, one in each to-be-formed district, and Mr. Moline will supervise and support them.
With this new structure we will be able to provide Conservative Jewish experiences to our children as they grow to be young adults, so that by the time they have families of their own their understanding of Conservative Judaism and their identity as Conservative Jews will be integral to their understanding of themselves. That is how this movement will grow, through the challenges and engagement of our children and their children.
Sigh.
I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll use small words and a bold font.
We are not children. Please do not treat young adults in their 20s and 30s like children.
Really, I’m at a loss to say much more than this. If the movement is losing members between the time individuals complete USY and the time they have their first child, the answer is not to extend the USY experience right up to the mid-life crisis.
Maybe I’m wrong, and I’ll be pleasantly surprised that one department will be able to offer excellent services to middle-school kids through middle-aged adults. But I’ve been intimately involved with the Movement – and these departments in particular – for about two decades, and nothing I’ve seen encourages me to think differently.
Guestpost by “anonymous,” who is Jewish, and Skyler, who was raised Christian. Both writers are post-transition FTMs. Anonymous first asked to write a guest post a couple weeks ago, before Skylar’s article was forwarded to me. I thought they ran well, and show parallel thoughts and struggles across religions. – TWJ
Skyler: Last weekend was the annual Gender Odyssey Conference here in Seattle. One of the workshops I attended was called Homo No Mo’, presented by Peterson Toscano. Fantastic. He talked and acted out his experience with change therapy and the ex-gay movement, and opened up a discussion. (You can own the full play and a form of the discussion by buying his DVD.) This weekend he also performed Transfigurations: Transgressing Gender in the Bible which I unfortunately missed. You can see his trailer for that here:
Anonymous: Years ago, I participated in online communities for transsexual Jews. We would talk about when to switch the gendered Hebrew words in prayer to reflect our true gender identities, how to deal with mechitzahs while transitioning, how to fulfill the first mitzvah, of being fruitful and multiplying, and generally support one another. It was a place to find support, when most of us could not find it in our home communities, especially not in our shuls or Jewish communities. We discussed the merits of programs like JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality) and the appeal of diving fully into the frum world so we could make those binary gender models work for us.
I’m really happy they decided to include this in the programming this year. Church was a big part of my life growing up, but it isn’t currently. In joining facebook I’ve found a lot of friends from my past, from school and church. I quickly realized, looking back on my life, that once I got to be a teenager and was involved in the church youth group I had to give up all of my school friends because they weren’t part of the pentecostal/evangelical church. I really regret that. There were so many cool people at school that I isolated myself from. Now that I’m gay and trans, 99% of my church friends will have nothing to do with me, tell me they don’t agree with my lifestyle and disapprove of me, or completely ignore me. It’s sad, really. I’m still me. I’m just presenting myself to the world how I’ve always felt on the inside. I’m just being true to who I am…and am more happy and well adjusted than I’ve ever been before.
Judaism was a big part of my life growing up, and still is, though in different ways. When I was younger, I went to religious school, a community high school program, and a Jewish youth group. Being closeted about having transitioned from female to male, I cut ties to my Jewish communities. I felt isolated at synagogue, and stopped going. I no longer felt I had anything in common with the few friends I had maintained from youth group. The social networking world is a nightmare for me; a few people have tracked me down on facebook and have friended me, often asking me incredibly personal questions up front (“You’ve received a friend request from Someone, with the message: ‘Hey, heard that you were a dude now. Did you ask the surgeon to circumcise your surgical dick? lol’”). I don’t know if it’s our religious upbringing that leads to the distance, but when friends from high school find me on facebook, there usually isn’t the same degree of awkwardness.
This brings me to my thoughts about religion. Religion is truly a device to separate people. Peterson did say something that made me soften my almost militant atheism. He said that he had tried being atheist but failed because he kept finding himself praying under his breath. He said that his brain was just wired to have some sort of god in there. I suppose that sort of idea isn’t harmful to others but it’s those that take religion to the point of forcing and injecting their beliefs into society at large that need to be stopped. It’s just dangerous.
I’ve had rabbis and relatives argue that religion and piety trump identity. If only I were more frum, more observant, I would have been happy living my life as a female, having babies, and keeping a home for my husband. I don’t know if it was their constant bombardment over several years, or my own internalised trans-phobia, but I gave pause to their suggestions. I then realised that I was being true to who I am, and would be happier being male in the world. I spent a lot of time studying Genesis, and midrash, becoming comfortable with the notion that we all are created in God’s image; God, and Judaism, could still be in my life if I transitioned genders.
There were two obviously gay teenage boys in my church youth group. One ended up committing suicide the other I haven’t been able to locate on facebook to find out if he’s happy and true to himself now. My boyfriend from church back then has been struggling his whole life with being gay. I knew he was struggling back then and I occasionally see him now; once, a couple years ago with a girl on his arm. He’s trying so hard to be a good christian, and works in an industry that he’s voiced to me that he cannot be openly gay in. Back in our youth group days, I remember my parents and the church youth leaders telling him to try and get me to dress and act more like a young lady. That’s a whole other story for another time.
When I was younger, I played with gender. I was never a “girly girl,” but I’m sure my parents wouldn’t have guessed I was a boy either. I took cues from two elementary school classmates. One, A, was very androgynous, had an androgynous name, and was fascinated by my Judaism. (I was the only Jew in my class, and one of a handful at the school.) We would spend recess on the jungle gym, then I would teach A Hebrew. R was a girly boy, who had a fantastically individualised style; I would now compare him to Ricky on My So-Called Life. Instead of wearing a backpack like the rest of us kids, R had a briefcase, in which he would carry his homework, lunch, and a doll. R was the friend I would spend lunches with, lying on the field, looking up at the sky, discussing how we might fit into the world. One of the ways I tried to fit in was by getting involved in my synagogue, taking on “boy” roles like leading services and giving d’var torahs.
Anyway. That brings me to this trailer for a new documentary called This is What Love In Action Looks Like, about a teen who wrote on MySpace in 2005 about his parents sending him to an ex-gay centre that offered “freedom from Christianity”:
For resources and support, check out Beyond Ex-Gay, an “online community and resource for those of us who have survived ex-gay experiences.”
I’ve often wondered about going to a yeshiva, living their as one of the guys, continuing to hide. Knowing that I have that choice is empowering. Knowing that some people don’t have that same choice is unbearable.
This is the first of a series of three Rosh Hashanah video greetings I produced for Taglit-Birthright Israel. The title “High Resolutions” brings to mind technology, and personal resolutions for a new year, during the “high holidays”. So the videos are all about improving interpersonal communication by cutting back on less personal methods of communication through technology, like Facebook, Twitter, and texting.
To enter, answer the following question in blog or video format.
QUESTION:
What keeps you hopeful and/or invested in a two-state solution for the future of Israel and Palestine?
Please choose one of the following as a lens or a focus for your blog/vlog:
A – Social Justice within Israel
B – What it means to be pro-Israel in modern America
C – Jewish values and Israel activism
Round 1: Jewschool editors will choose the top 10 entries (8 blog format, 2 video format)
As hard of a question as this is, it is up to us to share our voices. Enter Jewschool & JStreet Blog/Vlog Competition TODAY and win free registration toJStreet’s first conference!!
Get your writing and or video featured on Jewschool, like these people:
There’s that thing that people say about the Torah: that every word and every letter is there for a reason. When I first saw Mayim Bialik’s G-dcast, I winced. I mean — she is, of course, smart and funny and clever — but she was, after all, Blossom. And the silly-hat thing — I mean, did we have to include it?
I should not have worried. Just like every word has its purpose, so too does every accoutrement have its purpose — including Mayim’s hat.
And, because we are nothing if not Torah-study completists, here’s the incomparable Dahlia Lithwick, of NPR/Slate/Newsweek fame, talking about the other Torah reading of the week, Nitzavim:
by chillul Who? [➚] · Thursday, September 10th, 2009
Amreeka, a film by Cherien Dabis (official site) about a single mother who makes her way from the West Bank to rural Illinois with her teenaged son, is now playing in New York. By the end of the month, this Palestinian take on the old “Coming to America” formula will be in theaters across the country. I sorta can’t wait.
Lately I’ve noticed I’m becoming more and more in sync with all things Palestine. As long as it’s not explicitly about the long war or nationalist politics, I can’t resist a Palestinian cultural experience. I root for their athletes. I read their [English-language] blogs. Seeing Palestinian individuals succeed has started giving me a kind of nachat I tend to associate with taking pride in the accomplishments of Israelis – or Jews – or New Yorkers. You know, my people.
I guess it was bound to happen. Stay linked to someone long enough, even through violence and terrorism and occupation, and you start to rub off on each other. Daniel Pipes has a whole website devoted to showing how Palestinian nationalists use Zionist rhetoric and concepts. This bugs the hell out of him, but I wonder what else would anyone expect? We eat their food. They use our organizing principles. We employ them. They trade agricultural products with us. We love their homeland a little too much, they love ours just as terribly, and certainly we both know what it’s like to be disposessed of our homes and turned into geopolitical pawns. The tightly linked infrastructures, economies, and cultural resources of Israel and Palestine are sometimes pointed to by one-state advocates claiming that two countries between the Jordan and the Sea are one too many. I may disagree, but I think it’s clear that there’s something connective, something almost familial going on in Canaan. We and the Palestinians may be more “killing” cousins than “kissing” cousins most of the time, but to me it seems we’re cousins nonetheless.
So this is my hearty Mabrouk & Mazal Tov to Ms. Dabis and to the cast and crew of Amreeka (including Palestinians, Israeli Arabs, and at least one guy with the name of an American Jew). You’ll be getting my $9.50 down at the Landmark soon enough.
Jeffrey Bronfman is stirring controversy in a remote New Mexican town where he is seeking to build a massive temple for his obscure religious sect to practice an unconventional brand of worship – drinking psychedelic tea to bring them closer to God.
Both men were active in progressive politics, which eventually landed both on the wrong side of the House Un-American Activities Committee and on the blacklist. Gorney seems to have been devastated by the blacklist. Harburg continued to work on Broadway (where the blacklist was pretty consistently defied) and branched out into 
Over the past year, there have been lots of 
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