NYTimes posts a video that needs to be seen by everyone this nakba/independence day. As the video makes clear, today marks independence for some, and the beginning of a long nightmare for others. I fear the contradictions of zionism mean we will never solve this problem.
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Check these pieces out, because it’s Yom ha-Shoah, and it’s May Day, and maybe your thoughts, hands, and memories are starting to get all a-jumbled.
Lawrence Bush staggers through every emotion I’ve ever felt about Yom ha-Shoah. 10 paragraphs of hope, despair, resolve, empathy, and what-ifs. The series of realizations, like descending stairs, when you see those horrendous pictures of what happened, and think about it happening to you, until you remember that something very like it is happening to other people right this second. It’s a quick read, but parse it slowly. http://jewishcurrents.blogspot.com/2008/05/never-say-never-again.html
Right in the middle he mentioned Zog Nit Kein Mol, the Partisans’ anthem, sending me across the internet from broken link to wikipedia stub, sifting for lyrics, background, a recording in any format. Eventually I found a clip of Paul Robeson singing it, and Ross Altman’s “Paul Robeson and the Jews” column in FolkWorks magazine. (http://www.folkworks.org/content/view/35453/3176/) There’s a little too much tooting of our own shofar in Altman’s essay for me, but there’s also a great mad tour towards its end leaping from the Partisans to the HUAC blacklist to ol’ Joe Hill, “labor’s martyred troubadour”.
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Get out your fedoras, everyone, here’s some news:
Michael Chabon’s best-selling 2007 book, “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union,” will be made into a film by the Coen brothers. Can’t wait to see what they do with this; just please, guys, no hair mousse in this one will ya?
But I can’t wait for the tefillin jokes! How many movies have a plot that turns on a pair of tefillin? I can’t wait.
Joel and Ethan Coen, the maverick filmmakers whose Jewish sensibility has been evident in countless of their movies, but who have yet to fully actualize their Semitic humor in a full-blown Jewish film.
Until now.
Late last week, the Guardian revealed that the Coens had agreed to write and direct the film adaptation of “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.”
“Naturally, I am over the moon about this,” Chabon wrote in an e-mail to JTA. “They are heroes of mine.”
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Guest Post from Jacob Rosenblum
Between 1 and 2 am on Tuesday, April 29, I stood guard at an orphanage run by the Islamic Charitable Society in Hebron. An order for closure was put on the orphanage, to go into effect yesterday; the military has visited the site three times already, and have said that anyone (Palestinian) still in the building starting April 28 could be arrested and held for five years in prison.
Standing guard consisted of sitting near the door with my laptop, playing a computer game, with music coming out of the the headphones around my neck; about four or five times, I paused what I was doing to mute the music, and listened more closely to the sounds of the Hebron night, which never amounted to anything much. There were plenty of night dangers to imagine in the wind which blew through the courtyard, islamic prayer flags flapping against the building.
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Israel is proving that it’s never going to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity as I feared before. Israel blew off an offer by Hamas to halt rocketfire. And whether or not you like Carter, he’s also managed to extract negotiable terms from Hamas during his much-maligned meeting, including a ceasefire and a letter from Gilad Shalit to his parents. What is Olmert thinking?
This is not rosy-eyed, kumbaya-singing wishful dreaming — when an unperterable enemy offers a ceasefire, do you turn it down and say “You started it!”? But what is so infinitely frustrating is that by accepting this offer, Israel doesn’t lose anything. There’s no substantial “taking a chance”. Every effort via blockade to halt the rockets and prevent rearmament has erstwhile failed, so lifting the blockade is hardly a sacrafice. Either Hamas’ rockets continue or Israel allows them to gain some diplomatic trustworthiness. Should Hamas fail to follow through, then, fine, Israel can reneg on the deal too. But to turn it down? Stupidity.
The only point in turning it down is if Israel doesn’t want to negotiate at all. Because she does…Right? I find this dogged beleif that Israel is the persistent peace-seeker a bunch of bunk. After all, this is repeat behavior.
I just read a few excerpts from Shut Up, I’m Talking: And Other Diplomacy Lessons I Learned in the Israeli Government and it can’t help but confirm my fears that Israel and her government — being the respective sizes of New York City’s population and it’s governance — often accomplish and hinder more by accident than by design. Considering the Israeli government frequently doesn’t know when the Israeli government is building settlements (either now or then), I find that fits with my understanding just perfectly.
And while I don’t mean to be so negative, particularly in a season of celebration for Israel’s 60th b-day, it’s no time to put on some rosy-tinted blindfold. Sderot, I’m sure, is really glad to hear that Israel has flushed this really dumb deal.
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Like many American Jews in their twenties, Gregory Levey was looking into internships while studying at law school. Unlike most, he fell into the job of speechwriter for the Israeli Prime Minister. The result? A surreal and absurdist memoir, Shut Up, I’m Talking: And Other Diplomacy Lessons I learned In The Israeli Government”. Very Short List gave it the best Venn diagram in the world — a combination of Catch 22, The Daily Show and David Sedaris. The book was released today; Greg will be reading and signing copies tonight in New York at 7 PM at Borders on Park and 57th. You can check out an excerpt from the book here.
Disclaimer: I’m a friend of Greg’s. But you all knew I was a whore. (Disclaimer #2: I’m not using the term “whore” in a sexist or gender-politics sense, Jewschoolers.)
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An article in The Jewish Week about a new Haggadah for men only has really got me confused. Here is an admittedly simplistic timeline of the last 35 years.
So apparently men have different needs then women after all! They need their own space, agendas and perspective in order to connect to spirituality. Can you see why this would be confusing?
[Blessings for a wonderful Yom Tov to all - male and female! May we all be worthy of connecting to the spiritual emanations of global, national and personal redemption available to us through the mitzvot of Pesach.]
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Just off the Boston showing of Peices, Suzana Berger now directs A State of Innocence by Naomi Wallace, showing twice this weekend at the Women Center Stage’s First Annual Short Plays Fest in Manhattan.
For those who missed Pieces‘ Boston showing, Zohar Tirosh plays herself as an 18-year-old Israeli American who joins the IDF just in time for the rise and fall of the Rabin/Olso/Second Intifada era. For American audiences, this play helps us understand what it’s like to feel the pressure to join, the resistance to authority, the scares of friends fighting in the armed forces, and ultimately the hope and disappointment of the then-peace process. Now in her 30s, Zohar (with Berger’s direction) pitches the play to recapture some of the lost hope of that time, and convincingly so. Especially powerful since it played alternating nights with the Rachel Corrie play.
Berger’s next short play, A State of Innocence, takes place “in the ruins of the Rafah zoo, where a Palestinian mother, an Israeli soldier, and an architect enter a world where the usual rules do not apply.” I would encourage those with a flair for theater and no chametz to clean up before the first seder, to check out this play.
Full play list after the jump. More »
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J Street and the JStreetPAC is live! Their official press release has all the goods. And, in a little flattery to us here, Jewschool is linked up on their recommended daily analysis blogs. Their intro:
- Sign up and announce it to your friends!
- Suggest a pro-peace political candidate to support with JStreetPAC money.
- Donate. Yes, I already made my first donation.
For those of you who don’t know how this works: this is political money. This is not tax-deductible. This is not charity. This is meeting head-to-head the wallets of the forces of right-wing ugliness. The goal the first year is $1.5 million. This is, quite honestly, peanuts compared to AIPAC’s $100 million endowment. But speaking truth to power is not for the weak of hope and a million bucks goes a long, long way.
More on Mother Jones, WashPost, NPR, and JTA.
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That’s right, there is a movement afoot to take values voting out of the hands of the Christian Right, and place it firmly where it belongs, in the hands of the Jewish Left.
And to kick it all off we are going to get indignant!
Actually, the Jewish arm of this movement is only a piece of a broader movement to bring faith and values into the political conversation on the left, and to bring progressive religious voices into the mainstream debate about current political issues.
To kick this off right The Righteous Indignation Project is hosting a conference in Boston, May 4th - 6th.
One of the things that makes this conference so cool is that it is going to be a meeting of (at least) two generations of the Jewish left. Its also bringing progressive groups from across the country together. It is a collaborative effort of all sorts of cool groups from across the country, including jfrej, jewish funds for justice, jcua (chicago), pja, kavod, jalsa, avodah, ajws, tikkun ha-ir (milwaukee).
The conference speakers include david saperstein, ruth messinger, melissa weintraub, leonard fine, jill jacobs, mik moore, aryeh cohen, dara silverstein, alana alpert, arthur waskow, carinne luck, diane balser, dan sieradski, daniel sokatch, sharon brous, and jonah pesner (among others).
You know you want to be there!
Check out more details after the jump.
More »
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Zionist Revolutionaries with pistols, Daugavpils (now in Latvia),1905. The Yiddish and Russian Banners displayed include: (right) “Down with the Monarchistic Constitution! Long Live the Democratic Republic!” and (bottom) “Workers, All Peoples, Unite!”
In late 1904, 6000 Jewish activists issued a Declaration of Jewish Citizens calling for civil equality for Jews in Russia. In February 1905, religious communities in 32 cities sent a petition with a similar demand to the government in St. Petersburg. Then, toward the end of the March, 67 activists representing all shades of opinion except that of the Bundists attended an illegal meeting in Vilna, where they established the Union for the Attainment of Full Rights of Jewish People of Russia, a remarkably effective organization that promoted Jewish interests. It established branches in 14 provinces, mainly in the Pale of Settlement, and fought not only for equal rights for Jews but also for cultural autonomy — the right of Jews to maintain their own schools and their own language. The organization gained added stature in May 1905 by joining the Union of Unions, a large association of professionals committed to overturning the autocratic system of rule.
- Abraham Ascher, The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, 2008.
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Apparently, serious Jews are allowed to work at non-explicitly Jewish farms. My friend Shira has started Wild Goose Garden recently and just got featured in the big Philadelphia newspaper.
For an economics major, Shira Kamm is handy with a shovel or a hoe. And she’s cozy behind the wheel of a truck or a tractor.
But she does tire of questions about how she manages that 12-foot truck, assumptions that she must be gay, and unwanted advice from guys.
Such is the lot of the female farmer.
Kamm, 30, just signed on to lease land from a retired couple in Glen Mills to start her own farm: Wild Goose Garden, on four acres near Cheyney University.
And that puts her among a new breed of city slickers - urbanite devotees of the Do-It-Yourself culture, committed to sustainability and ready to put their jeans to good use.
Goodluck with the 2008 season!
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When (if?) you walk into a major retailer, be it Whole Foods, Express, or Apple, you are likely to be attracted in a specific direction, like most other folks. The direction you are pulled in is not an accident so much as the product of millions of dollars worth of research into lighting, spacing, use of color, sound, product organization, and signage. As it happens, there is enough demand to have created the need for specialized store designers and their accompanying professional organizations.
About a year ago when i started writing this post (before i totally got overwhelmed with workflow) Eli K-S encouraged me to write down some of the guiding principles and minor logistical issues that go into a well prepared davening space. We will never spend a dollar on improving the design, but I am certainly interested in using our collective brainpower to effectively consider the small nuances they way the folks due when they build a hotel lobby, a supermarket, or a cafe. What follows is a practical and values-driven approach to designing prayer spaces.
More »
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In some deep way, parts of American Judaism are still paralyzed by fear and still suffering from holocaust induced post-traumatic-stress. Going to day school I felt it, and being the grandson of survivors I know the narratives in a deeply personal way. We often hear that things seemed just fine in Germany before the Nuremberg Laws. Of course, everything wasn’t fine and all it took was an economic disaster to bring long-held hate to the surface in the form of blame. In some ways, our country today, looks a bit similar. Beset by enormous economic trouble we don’t yet know how our fellow countrymen will respond. A we-are-never-safe Jew might worry that– between all the Jewish Wall Street tycoons and Greenspan presiding over the run-up that resulted in collapse–rosy days might not be ahead. I don’t buy that analysis but at the same time I know how deep the narrative runs and re-runs. That is why it was so heartening to read Obama’s speech on race given earlier today (I hope to watch later, at home). An amazing excerpt from the speech on the flip:
Here is an excerpt:
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
Though the vision doesn’t talk about Jews specifically it fights against the idea that minorities should be constantly on edge that one day, when the shit hits the fan, and the problems are great, that the “real Americans” will behave like the “real Germans”. It says that we are all, together, the “real America.” My grandfather recently passed away but this is the sentiment, the dream, he was chasing when he fled Dachau, a place where he could be a real citizen. It is beautiful to hear a major candidate offer such an inclusive message (and mean it). This articulation of what America truly is and what politics should be about is, to borrow a phrase, very good for the Jews.
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Or if you’re not free until next year, and would like to spend the year learning is Jerusalem, check this out:
FUNDED LEARNING OPPORTUNITY IN JERUSALEM NEXT YEAR
Yakar seeks creatively maladjusted, non-conformist students to be Yakar Scholars
The Yakar Scholars Program: deep inquiry into traditional texts coupled with an approach that treasures personal authenticity, the arts and a commitment to justice.
* Learn in Beit Midrash 3 mornings a week + 2 evenings a week.
* Receive free tuition and a Stipend of $300 per month for living expenses
* Scholars can learn at either Advanced or Introductory levels, women and men
* Scholars are asked to contribute their talents to the community
We seek people dedicated to looking deeper within tradition and themselves for truth, who are equally dedicated to responding to the cry in the street, and serving the community.
The Yakar Scholars Program: In the service of God there are no rules, and this itself is not a rule.
Apply Through Interview. Contact: Tel: 972-2-561-2310 /1 Or: info {at} yakar(.)org
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Many of the writers here at Jewschool share something amazing in common: we were Everett Fellows. And you could be too!
Imagine late-night singing and philosophical discussions under the stars… engrossing Jewish learning … opportunities to participate in a variety of services, arts experiences, shabbat celebrations, and outdoor activities… the chance to meet a group of dynamic,
thoughtful, energetic Jewish young adults as well as community members of all ages at a weeklong institute. Sounds fantastic, right?
Apply to be an Everett Fellow at this year’s National Havurah Summer Institute. As an Everett Fellow, you can enjoy the institute for a fraction of the actual cost and benefit from a built-in community of other 20-something Jews.
The National Havurah Summer Institute 2008 will take place August 11th-17th at Franklin Pierce College in rural New Hampshire. Each participant selects two week-long courses on topics ranging from text study to ethics and social justice to arts and culture. In addition to the week-long classes, there are daily workshops and activities; participants (even first-timers) are encouraged to design and teach a workshop, lead services, or otherwise take leadership roles. The community is egalitarian, diverse, and pluralistic.
Everett Fellows participate fully in the classes, workshops, and other activities at the Institute, plus they enjoy their own peer-led programming designed to help them form a community and support each other’s exploration of various Jewish issues. Fellows receive a scholarship for tuition, room, and board and only have to pay for registration and dues.
For more information, you can check out the National Havurah Committee’s website at havurah.org (click on “summer institute brochure available”). The application is due May 15th. If you have any questions, you can leave a comment, or email institute {at} havurah(.)org
Looking forward to seeing you at the Institute!
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The details are still coming in but Eliot Spitzer the Governor of New York has been implicated in a prostitution scandal. He rose through the system by fighting corruption, criminal syndicates, fraud, and corporate misconduct. I expect unless the NYTimes allegations are false he will be forced out of office. He was an up-and-comer. Until 2:00 PM today he may have been the most likely Jew to become a major presidential candidate in ‘12 or ‘16.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer has informed his most senior administration officials that he had been involved in a prostitution ring, an administration official said this morning.
Update: There are some substantial reasons to believe that Spitzer was a political target of Bush’s appointees at the Justice Department. Mainly, the speed with which the case happened from beginning to end implies that it was handled from the outset by the Public Integrity Section. This further implies that the case started with a warrantless search of Spitzer’s financial history while Governor and proceeded to follow up the lead that yielded this conviction. Of course this doesn’t make his behavior more acceptable just speaks to how to proceed and whether this is a setup or a clean prosecution.
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In Alberta, an organization, in partnership with the local government, has tracked down, will restore, and is moving a small - 800 square feet - synagogue across the prairies to Calgary. Originally built in 1913, near the present location of Sibbald, Alberta, the building served as a synagogue, Hebrew school, library, and community centre for the small Montefiore colony of mostly Russian and Eastern European Jewish immigrants who had come to the prairies to try to make it as farmers.
According the the society’s research, most of the colony’s members moved to Calgary, Edmonton, or California during the 1920s, abandoning their small community due to harsh farming conditions (read: poor soil and extreme winters). During the Depression, the government sold the synagogue to a family; that family eventually moved the house with them to another eastern Alberta location, but kept the home for over 70 years.
Little Synagogue on the Prairie has purchased the house, and is fundraising to restore it now.
“We are hoping that the Jewish community in Canada will support this unique project, which is such a positive way to educate people about the beauty of Judaism,” Karshenbaum says. Trudy Cowan, a heritage and museum consultant, will oversee the synagogue’s restoration.
“The building has an impressive amount of original historical content intact,” she says. “We have been able to access the original ceiling behind the drop ceiling that was added. The tops of the original windows are still there. We can even see they had a separate little library, and we have two books stamped ‘Montefiore Hebrew Free Public Library.’”
Cohen says that the “front of the synagogue had a Magen David, which is gone, but the amazing thing is that the nail holes for it are still there.” [source.]
The synagogue will be open for visitors - mostly tourists, but they hope weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs will be held there too - in the spring of 2009, to coincide with the 120th anniversary of the first Jewish family settling in Calgary. The synagogue will be located in Calgary’s Heritage Park, making it the second North American historic park to contain a synagogue.
While I think this is a great historical project, and I’ll make sure to check it out on future visits to Calgary, I don’t know how keen I am about one aspect:
Tour guides in costume will explain Jewish religion and culture to visitors to the synagogue.
Having seen the recent fake payos and beards, and heard the horrible fake accents, on House and Law & Order SVU, I’m hoping they do a really good job with those costumes… Or scrap the idea and have regular, contemporary people giving the tours.
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