Born to immigrant parents as Estelle Scher, the famed actress who made her name as the ornery Sophia on “The Golden Girls,” for which she received an Emmy in 1988, has passed away at the age of 84. Ms. Getty suffered from advanced dementia.
Like many Jewish stage personalities of her generation, she got her start in the yiddish theater. Below is a not-funny video tribute, complete with sad Jewish violin music, and all.
Thank you, Ms. Getty, for all the years of laughs. May her memory be for a blessing, and may her mourners be comforted.
Drifting around Manhattan a week ago, out of my usual haunts, I decided to ghost my way into Brooklyn to hang out with Matthue at the first Jewish Open Mic at the Tea Lounge. As promised, there were celebrity guests and a good time was had by all.
The Tea Lounge was very cozy, and comfortably fit far more people than you could be given to expect, and lots of locals popped in, apparently astounded by the odd mix of frummies, and hippies - not to mention babies being prepped for a life of rebellion - with tzitzit.
It was very cool to see quite a few of our favorite folks in person (not least our very own Matthue Roth and Y-Love)! Thanks to Shemspeed and Mimaamakim for putting out. Er, sponsoring.
BY the way, we now have evidence that at least two frummies are funny. We already knew that Yisrael Campbell is funny (he was funny even before he was Yisrael) and now we know that Frum Satire is, too. BTW, what’s with all the guys channeling Henny Youngman? Is that the new retro-chic? And when’s the next one?
Editor’s note: The next open mic will be July 23rd at 7:30pm tea lounge. Get there early to sign up on the list to perform!
Profiled in all his ugliness in The New Yorker this week: Billionaire Sheldon Adelson is the third richest man in America, a huge funder of birthright israel, Bush’s election campaigns, the ZOA, the Republican Jewish Caucus (check out the new RJC Watch blog, by the way), One Jerusalem, AIPAC…the list goes on. You’re looking at the sugardaddy-Godfather of American (Jewish) right-wingery here.
In today’s New York Times, reporter Susan Dominus profiles a rising star from the embattled community of Crown Heights who is rising to notariety not only because of his uncommon background, but also because of his positive voice of peace and unity amidst an increasingly polarized cacophony screaming for the opposite. Yosef Abrahamson, a black frum Lubavitcher teen, made his media debut in the Daily Newslast week after his essay won the NYPD’s essay competition, and his story of transition from Omaha to Brooklyn left Ms. Dominus asking herself the same type of questions many reporters tend to after meeting frum Jews of color:
If Yosef, who attends the yeshiva Darchai Menachem in Crown Heights, ever finds himself writing a college application essay, his advisers would have a hard time choosing which of his compelling story lines would most dazzle those college admissions officers: The story of growing up in the only Hasidic family in Omaha? Or the story of being the only student of color in his yeshiva? Or maybe the story of being the only Hasidic person of color in Omaha’s competitive ice skating circuit?
Kol ha’kavod to Yosef Abrahamson, for increasing black frum visibility. Had the article ended here, dayenu, this would have been a fantastic profile about a family with a heartwarming story of bridge-building and a message relevant to all of our communities.
Reported all over the place, but the WaPo doesn’t have that annoying registration thingy. As pretty much everyone knows, Obama has had a lot of political problems with his church. First there was the out of context Wright quote, which was taken to mean that Wright hated every white person, but especially Jews. Apparently the latest hitch has been (Roman Catholic) Rev. Michael Pfleger slamming Clinton in a sermon and implying that she’s a white supremacist.
I have to admit, I have some mixed feelings about this. Now, y’all know that I’m pretty annoyed about the misogyny behind a significant amount of the anti-Clinton activity, from speechifying, to musing about her personal life and sartorial choices, and don’t even get me into the various objects intended to deride (nutcrackers and the like). Let me just say, I don’t think that Obama himself is a misogynist.
But let’s get away fro this most recent thing, which I think Obama shouldn’t have to answer for, either, and get back to Wright. I think that Wright may well be saying something that we ought to be listening to. If you’re an African American, your experience of racism is quite different than any other group of color’s in this country. Unlike (Ashkenazi) Jews and Italians whose move up the economic ladder has allowed us to assimilate and blend in, and the Japanese and Chinese whose model minority status is moving them in that direction as well (along with extremely high exogamy rates), if you’re African American, your class has to get pretty outstandingly high before you - as an individual- are exempted from some of the worst of the bigotry. Even then, go someplace where your name isn’t recognized, and you can wear silk and rubies and it’s not going to help you much.
SO, while I don’t necessarily love Wright, I think we need to listen to him a little more carefully, because he can tell us a lot about what we don’t normally hear. and so, I respected Obama for sticking to his church and not resigning. Especially since it is often true that when you cut yourself off from someone who is angry, you’ve lost your chance to talk to them and help them see a different way out. Obama was a trusted friend, insofar as a clergyperson can unbend among congregants, and Obama might have led him to a more nuanced way of speaking. Who will do that now?
Yay, us!
Congratulations to our very own Sarah Chandler, Ben Dreyfus, and Daniel Sieradski, who were listed in the New York Jewish Week’s 36 Under 36*. We’re very proud of them for their contributions to us and to the Jewish world.
*It’s really “36 Under 36 New Yorkers,” but we won’t hold it against them, you know how New Yorkers are about anything outside of city limits.
A new Gallup poll shows that Barack Obama would do nearly as well as Hillary Clinton among Jewish voters in November.
According to the poll, Clinton would win 66 percent of the Jewish vote versus 27 percent for John McCain in a general-election matchup. Obama would do nearly as well, winning 61 percent to McCain’s 32 percent.
But, still, I just can’t get all the way on the bandwagon. It’s not that I don’t like Obama, but I’m still not convinced that he’s all so much greater than Hil. but that’s not all of it, really. Rebecca Traister said it very well ( and was referenced in this week’s Nation in an article about how Clinton’s using race really is troubling) some time ago in noting how there’s more than just a whiff of real misogyny in the gleeful bandwagoning of Obama.
I’m not inclined to vote for Clinton just because she’s a woman (nor, I must admit, for Obama because he’s African American; I still mourn for Edwards), but I can’t just quite move on from the underlying weirdness of the way so many of my progressive friends -the male ones mostly- talk about Clinton. Usually it’s not in such stark terms as the crazy righties do, they aren’t buying the Hilary toilet plungers or anything, but there is that underlying discomfort which itself is something that they are uncomfortable with, but instead of addressing that problem, it can be disguised by some genuine problems with her policies and campaign style.
Traister nails a lot of it head on:
O’Brien said, “With straight white male progressive friends, I feel something that makes me viscerally angry and afraid — the viciousness of the rebuttals to the suggestion that [Obama's and Clinton's] policies are roughly equal or that Clinton’s have some benefits to them, the outright dismissal of any support of her, the impossibility of having a nuanced conversation … The whole ‘Hillary Clinton is a monster’ theme is so virulent.”
Alex Seggerman, a 24-year-old art history Ph.D. student at Yale and an Obama voter, said, “I don’t think anyone in my peer group, including my parents and my friends, would be comfortable saying, ‘I’m not ready for a woman president.’ They would be ostracized. Saying, ‘She’s had plastic surgery’ or ‘Her attitude is off-putting’ are fine. But these are really expressions of some deeper issues with the fact that she’s a woman.”
…Valenti continued, “Because their friends were not being specifically sexist, or saying something that was tangibly misogynistic, they were having a hard time talking about the sexism of it.” Valenti confirmed that this “Feminine Mystique”-y problem that has no name was familiar to her. “I spoke to a guy friend who said, ‘You’re being ridiculous. I’m not not voting for her because she’s a woman; I’m not voting for her because she’s a bitch!’ He could not see the connection between the two things at all.” Valenti said he explained away his comment by declaring, “I mean ‘a bitch’ in the sense that she’s not good on this or that issue.”
I don’t like the whole oppression olympics. I don’t like it when Jews do it, and I don’t like it among any other groups, either, but I’m definitely not alone in wondering why there’s no real answers -other than the sort of nutty first wave “you must vote with your ovaries”- to how we can end the divide and conquer between the race and gender camps, without having one side or the other have to continue to suffer along with the same old crap.
IN the meantime, since we still live in a world where things like this are firsts, let’s be proud of them.JTA reports on Alysa Stanton-Ogulnick, who reportedly will become the the first black female Reform rabbi next May, when she is ordained at the Cincinnati campus of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
Glad ta meetcha.
Enjoy.
Day 15,
Week Three: Tiferet
Day One: Chesed (Chesed of Tiferet)
(Two weeks and one day of the Omer)
JTA notes the upcoming ordination of the marvelous and lovely person Gershom Sizomu.
Why is this interesting to JTA? Gershom Sizomu will become the first officially ordained rabbi of Uganda’s Abayudaya Jews. He will be ordained in a few days at American Jewish University (formerly University of Judaism) from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies (as will our very own equally fabulous Danya Ruttenberg!).
Sizomu, inherits the spiritual leadership of his community, through his father and grandfather.
Some 1,000 Abayudaya Jews live in five Ugandan villages. …Most Abayudaya Jews converted in 2004, and hundreds of the children now attend the Hadassah School, where they learn Hebrew and Jewish studies along with a general curriculum.
At the end of May, Sizomu will return with his wife and three children to Uganda to reassume leadership of the Abayudaya.”
By the way, he also has a lovely accent. And a nice singing voice which is featured (as is his wife’s) on the Grammy award winning nominated Abayudaya: Music from the Jewish People of Uganda from the Smithsonian’s Folkways records.
Ed Koch, the irascible former mayor of New York City, has purchased a burial plot in Trinity Church, the only uptown cemetery still accepting burials. According to the Times (of course!) Says Koch, “The idea of leaving Manhattan permanently irritates me.â€
The Times reports:
Mr. Koch also said he had ordered a tombstone to “adorn my grave upon my death, which I hope won’t be for another 8 to 10 years.â€
Carved on the tombstone is the most important prayer in Judaism, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One,†in English, Hebrew and a transliteration, and the last words of the journalist Daniel Pearl before he was murdered by Islamic terrorists: “My father is Jewish; my mother is Jewish; I am Jewish.â€
…I called a number of rabbis to see if this was doable,†he said. “I was going to do it anyway, but it would be nice if it were doable traditionally.â€
He said he had been advised to request that the gate nearest his plot be inscribed as “the gate for the Jews,†and the cemetery agreed.
He was also instructed to have rails installed around his plot, so he ordered them.
Being buried in Manhattan, Mr. Koch said, would also make it easier for former constituents to visit.
“I’m extending an open invitation,†he said.
Although the plot is non-denominational, I am very struck by this irony, of someone declaring his Jewishness by… buying a burial plot in a churchyard, and then declaring it “the Gate of the Jews.”
He is spending a lot of money on a place where his remains will be, but I wonder, what could that money have done for the Jewish community.
Speaking more generally, I have often been struck when doing funerals, by how odd it is that people who aren’t particularly interested in being active in the Jewish community while alive want to be buried by a rabbi, after it can’t make much of difference any more. There’s some odd niggle that I can’t quite put my finger on about people who want to be Jews in their deepest moments, but who don’t do Jewish. On this day of gevurah in gevurah, it seems to me that we need to be asking how to make our American Jewish sisters and brothers think about being Jewish as something which is more than a -meaningful, perhaps, but only a - hobby, something to be done for one’s own satisfaction, at one’s own convenience, but not to interfere with the business of life.
Perhaps some of you out there in blogoland can get at that niggle better than I.
So, who is this sweet kid in a nice Jewish living room? Is it (a) the newest “Jewish Jordan†(b) the guy my sister went out with last week (c) the man hired to replace Rabbi Herschel Schachter or (d) an international arms trader?
If you guessed (d), you’re right. Efraim Diveroli is the CEO of AEY Inc., the arms company suspended last week for ripping off the Pentagon and endangering Afghani and American soldiers.
Nice to know that our yiddishe kopfs are being put to a good use.
In the Times Online, appears a lengthy review by Geoffrey Wheatcroft of no fewer than 6 books on Israeli and her history: Jacqueline Rose’s THE LAST RESISTANCE, Colin Shindler’s THE TRIUMPH OF MILITARY ZIONISM: Nationalism and the origins of the Israeli Right, David Goldberg’s THE DIVIDED SELF: Israel and the Jewish psyche today, Victoria Clark’s ALLIES FOR ARMAGEDDON:The rise of Christian Zionism, Yakov M. Rabkin’s A THREAT FROM WITHIN: A century of Jewish opposition to Zionism, and Jimmy Carter’s PALESTINE: Peace not apartheid
The review is long and rangy, starting and ending with a focus on the complicated and largely unknown major Israeli historical figure Jabotinsky. As he says in the review,
But the conflict in the Holy Land is still more dissonant in this regard. It is the single most bitterly contentious communal struggle on earth today (something which itself casts an ironical light on the aspiration of the first Zionists to “answer the Jewish question†by “normalizing†the Jews and removing them from the pages of history); it must receive more media coverage than India, which has a population a hundred times greater; it inflames acute passions. And yet it sometimes seems that the more strongly people feel, the less they actually know about the story of Zionism. Maybe it should be a requirement for anyone who wishes to hold forth on the subject to write first a few lines each on Ahad Ha’am, Max Nordau, George Antonius – or Vladimir Jabotinsky.
If not many Europeans or Americans know who “Jabo†was, Israelis certainly do. He remains the most charismatic, fascinating and controversial figure in the history of Zionism, and in the state to whose creation he devoted his life, but which he never saw. Born in 1880 in Odessa, he was converted to the Zionist cause as a young man by tsarist persecution, became a tireless publicist and organizer, and helped to create the Jewish Legion which fought with the British against Turkey during the First World War. In the 1920s he broke away to found the uniformed youth group Betar, and then the militantly nationalistic right-wing brand of Zionism he called Revisionism, in opposition to Chaim Weizmann and the general Zionists, and to David Ben Gurion and the Labour Zionists of the Yishuv, the Jewish settlement in Palestine.
From Betar would grow the Irgun Zvei Leumi, which waged an armed campaign against the British and the Arabs – in British and Arab eyes, a terrorist campaign – in the ten years before Israel was born. When Jabotinsky died in American exile in 1940, he had not seen the murderous horror that engulfed the European Jews, the creation of the Jewish state, or the legacy of his own movement. The Irgun evolved into the right-wing Herut party, which was not merely excluded from office but veritably anathematized in Israel for the first quarter-century the state existed after 1948, but which, now in the guise of Likud, took power at last in 1977 under the old Irgun leader Menachem Begin – and which descends to the present administration.
Last Wednesday, Rabbi Herschel Schachter, a Rosh Yeshiva at YU, was giving a class to young Americans at Yeshivat HaKotel in Jerusalem. At some point, the class was opened up to questions, and in response to a question regarding service in the army, he said that your decision to serve in the army should be based on what the army was doing. Well, that’s not so bad. Yes, doubting the army is taboo in Israel, but I’m alright with that. Here’s the kicker. He went on to say, “If the army is going to give away Yerushalayim [Jerusalem] then I would tell everyone to resign from the army – I’d tell them to shoot the rosh hamemshala [prime minister].â€
Yes, yes, yes, that’s what he said. Unfortunately, the YouTube video of this unfortunate quote was removed, but the Jewish Week wrote down a transcript. That’s called incitement folks, it’s bad. Here in Israel, we’ve already had one prime minister murdered after Rabbis couldn’t keep their mouths shut, and apparently this Rabbi thinks the world would be better if it were to happen again.
In all fairness, I should also report the apology that Rabbi Schachter issued recently,
Statements I made informally have been publicly excerpted this week. I deeply regret such statements and apologize for them. They were uttered spontaneously, off the cuff, and were not meant seriously. And they do not, God forbid, represent my views. Jewish law demands respect for representatives of the Jewish government and the State of Israel.
OK. It’s something of an apology. However, it seems difficult to accept. Rabbi Schachter apologized for speaking off the cuff and for not respecting representatives of the Jewish government. Where’s the concern for human life? Where is the apology for saying the same things that have already resulted in one murder? Rabbi Schachter is an important public figure and a rabbinic leader. His words are received hungrily by thousands of students, and even among other Rabbis he calls the shots. He is the halakhic decisor for the Orthodox Union and for dozens of rabbis across the country. The Mishna (Avot 1:11) tells us, “Sages, be careful with you words!” We know in our own recent history how important a principle that is. Rabbi Schachter needs to know it too.
YU also needs to do better. Even if this is the best apology Rabbi Schachter can muster, I expect something more from YU. What would you do if your teacher, or your children’s teacher, said such a thing? What would happen to a professor who spoke this way? The university’s failure to censure Rabbi Schachter is a tacit acceptance of his remarks. I pray to God that YU and the many well educated people there don’t agree with Rabbi Schachter - and I want to hear them say so.
The governor of New York is about to lose his job for paying for sex. Rabbi Schachter advocated murder. That’s a big deal.
Well, no, not really,but he does claim that waterboarding isn’t so bad, because “the person is in no real danger.” He voted Wednesday in opposition to a bill that would limit the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual which does not include waterboarding, as a permitted interrogation technique. I guess he knows better than the army.
The Conn Post reports:
“We are at war,” Lieberman said. “I know enough from public statements made by Osama bin Laden and others as well as classified information I see to know the terrorists are actively planning, plotting to attack us again. I want our government to be able to gather information again within both the law and Geneva Convention.”
In the worst case scenario — when there is an imminent threat of a nuclear attack on American soil — Lieberman said that the president should be able to certify the use of waterboarding on a detainee suspected of knowing vital details of the plot.
RRRRRRright. Except of course for the problem is that the best evidence is that torture does not actually give good information. To the contrary, all the best evidence is that torture does not provide good evidence. But let’s ignore that fact, shall we? Torture is not part of the Geneva convention, and furthermore, even if it were that wouldn’t be an acceptable reason for using it. Um, also, we’re not at war. But if we were, that is precisely, davka, the time when our worst impulses need to be reigned in by the rule of law. It’s not biggie to refrain from doing what one ought not at a time when there’s no pressure.
Here’s the best line of the article though, “Lieberman said that his position on waterboarding differs from that of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who he has endorsed as a presidential candidate. As a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam, McCain was tortured. McCain, he said, believes waterboarding is torture.”
So, let me get this straight, McCain, who has experienced this torture, calls it torture, but you, who have not, are okay with contradicting him? Well, okay. As long as we’re clear on it.
Also see here.
Could you please stop telling people you’re religious? It embarrasses me.
Many people complain that it’s difficult to find a synagogue to join in New York City. There are just so many options, that none of them feel exactly right - you might call it The Shul-Goers Dilemma. These days, however, I’m feeling pretty good at Temple Bet Pollan.
Michael Pollan gets his fair share of love on this blog, and his new book In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto has already joined its predecessor, The Omnivore’s Dilemma as a New York Times Best Seller. Pollan is in the middle of his second whirlwind book tour in two years (I guess he sleeps on the plane) – and I hear the same account every where he goes. Huge venue, sold out show, knockout performance.
Like any effective leader - Martin Luther King included - he’s charismatic and big on the big ideas that change the way we think - or in this case how we eat. But as I devoured (pun intented) Pollan’s new book on my subway commute, I wondered what, if anything, does his worldview offer to the Jewish community? And, perhaps more interestingly, what wisdom does the tribe have to offer back to him?
Since we’ve now completed another year, it’s time for our annual, highly idiosyncratic, completely unscientific, best–of round up. Happy (secular) new year from all of us here at Jewschool! More »
Babe Ruth was a quintessential American. Somewhat larger than life, the Babe represented the kind of freedom that drives those who believe in despotic regimes mad. During World War II, when Japanese soldiers charged American troops, they would sometimes scream, “To hell with Babe Ruth.” Not “to hell with FDR” or “to hell with Douglas MacArthur,” but “to hell with Babe Ruth.”
And now he needs our help.
OK, OK, so why write about that on Jewschool?
Because we owe him one.
Dr. Rafael Medoff wrote in the Jewish Ledger a few weeks ago that during the last week of December 1942 Babe Ruth helped to keep public attention focused on Hitler’s atrocities. Although the U.S. and Britain had finally publicly acknowledged and condemned the mass murder of Jews by Nazi Germany, there was no talk of any steps being taken to rescue the Jews and the issue was fading from the public eye.
So, Babe Ruth and other prominent Americans of German descent, stepped up to the plate and signed the “Christmas Declaration by men and women of German ancestry†which appeared as a full-page ad in the New York Times and nine other major daily newspapers.
It read in part:
“[W]e Americans of German descent raise our voices in denunciation of the Hitler policy of cold-blooded extermination of the Jews of Europe and against the barbarities committed by the Nazis against all other innocent peoples under their sway. These horrors … are, in particular, a challenge to those who, like ourselves are descendants of the Germany that once stood in the foremost ranks of civilization.â€
The ad went on to “utterly repudiate every thought and deed of Hitler and his Nazis,†and urged the people of Germany “to overthrow a regime which is in in the infamy of German history.â€
Dr. Medoff’s article drew the attention of the Babe’s granddaughter, Linda Ruth Tosetti, who wrote a comment on the article expressing delight in reading about how her grandfather took a public stand against Hitler. She also asked for help in getting Babe’s number retired from all of baseball by signing the petition that can be found here.
So sign the petition folks - it’s the least we can do!
Okay, no one really thinks so. For one thing, Hoffman’s been dead a while, and Sacha Baron Cohen is still alive and kicking. Also he appears, as a general rule to be adequately groomed. But this just in:
In Spielberg’s new movie on the trial of the Chicago seven, Baron Cohen will play Abbie Hoffman. A rather more serious film than Baron Cohen’s incredibly strange, and disputedly funny (some say yes, others not so much) Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, The Trial of the Chicago Seven is about the famous dust-ups resulting from protesters of the 1968 Democratic party convention (not “Democrat party convention,” as the TimesOnline refers to it, incorrectly)
The Trial of the Chicago Seven follows protesters who disrupted the 1968 Democrat party convention with an anti-Vietnam-war “carnival†that turned nasty. Demonstrators threw bricks, police responded with tear gas and the centre of Chicago was engulfed in flames. Curfews only escalated the violence.
After the clashes, independent investigators blamed eight police officers and eight protesters including Hoffman, who had already disrupted the New York Stock Exchange with showers of fake money.
The police were not charged but the protesters were accused of inciting a riot. One was jailed for contempt, leaving the seven to fight the charges.
It was, said the late writer Norman Mailer, who testified for the seven, a noisy televised clash between the old order and the burgeoning counterculture.
Hoffman and four others were found guilty of attempting to incite a riot while crossing state lines, but the convictions were overturned and none served any jail time.
Hoffman, of course, was well-known as a prankster who used his somewhat outre pranks as a form of protest against the Vietnam war. That, I’m sure is the attraction for Baron Cohen, but he also had a much longer history as well. He had been active in the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and later a leader of the Yippie movement. Hoffman was also somewhat of a tragic figure, as he committed suicide at 52 , having somewhat earlier been diagnosed as bipolar.
I think it will be very interesting to see Baron Cohen’s take on Hoffman. Note to Baron Cohen: What could you change with your comedy if you put your mind to it?
Update: according to CNN: “It is an awful and disgusting lie,” Smith said in a statement Monday provided by his publicist. “It speaks to the dangerous power of an ignorant person with a pen. I am incensed and infuriated to have to respond to such ludicrous misinterpretation. Adolf Hitler was a vile, heinous vicious killer responsible for one of the greatest acts of evil committed on this planet,” read the statement.
What I want to know, now, is what he actually did say. I suppose we’ll never know.
OK, so everyone in the world must now know that actor Will Smith was in the Scottish press, who quoted him saying, “Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘let me do the most evil thing I can do today. I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was ‘good’. Stuff like that just needs reprogramming. I wake up every day full of hope, positive that every day is going to be better than yesterday. And I’m looking to infect people with my positivity. I think I can start an epidemic.”
I’ve gotten a dozen emails about this, and I’ve seen it reported in an assortment of blogs, and what I want to say is: STOP! More »
Born to immigrant parents as Estelle Scher, the famed actress who made her name as the ornery Sophia on “The Golden Girls,” for which she received an Emmy in 1988, has passed away at the age of 84. Ms. Getty suffered from advanced dementia.
Profiled in all his ugliness in 
Last Wednesday, Rabbi Herschel Schachter, a Rosh Yeshiva at YU, was giving a class to young Americans at Yeshivat HaKotel in Jerusalem. At some point, the class was opened up to questions, and in response to a question regarding service in the army, he said that your decision to serve in the army should be based on what the army was doing. Well, that’s not so bad. Yes, doubting the army is taboo in Israel, but I’m alright with that. Here’s the kicker. He went on to say, “If the army is going to give away Yerushalayim [Jerusalem] then I would tell everyone to resign from the army – I’d tell them to shoot the rosh hamemshala [prime minister].â€
has already joined its predecessor, 
as a New York Times Best Seller. Pollan is in the middle of his second whirlwind book tour in two years (I guess he sleeps on the plane) – and I hear the same account every where he goes. Huge venue, sold out show, knockout performance.
