Tablet Magazine

Henry Kissinger—Conflicted Jew, Influential Sec. of State—Turns 90

Gil Troy — Thu, 23 May 2013 04:00:20 +0000

Henry Kissinger, who turns 90 this Monday, May 27, is one of the most influential Jews in American history—and one of the most controversial. In the 1970s, if Woody Allen was all about using Jewish smarts to manage the world’s insults and sorrows, Henry Kissinger was all about using Jewish smarts to manage the world.

This brilliant refugee from Nazi Germany with the gravelly voice, Teutonic accent, and thick Poindexter glasses, embodied the pinnacle of a certain type of Jewish aspiration and achievement in 20th-century America, becoming a Harvard professor in 1954, Richard Nixon’s foreign-policy mastermind in 1969, and the first Jewish secretary of state in 1973, as well as the era’s most surprising sex symbol. For the past four decades, he has remained the dean of America’s foreign-policy establishment, advising presidents and foreign governments alike. Just this month, at the Atlantic Council, Hillary Clinton wished him an early happy birthday. “Everywhere I go,” she said, “people talk to me about Henry.” Yet at the same time he remains a profoundly polarizing figure. In the last few years alone bloggers have called him a kapo who should have been gassed, and the late Christopher Hitchens pronounced him a “vile creature.”

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French Jewry's Growing Challenges Explained

Clémence Boulouque — Thu, 23 May 2013 04:00:07 +0000

In March, an alleged anti-Semitic attack by a group of young Arabs against an Israeli movie director at a film festival in the south of France led to a welter of conflicting accounts. The version that circulated first, mostly on Israeli and American media, sounded only too plausible in light of recent events involving hate crimes in France: Horowitz had been beaten up by a gang of young Arabs for being Israeli. As Tablet magazine reported last month, eyewitnesses, however, hastened to debunk the story, and the director himself soon offered a more careful reappraisal of the facts: Some isolated intoxicated individual punched him after asking him for a cigarette. Immediately following these denials, anti-Zionist websites sought to further discredit the director and, at the same time, emphasize the Jews’ promptness to spread lies and fictions of victimhood.

Ironically, such confusion and its inextricable layers of deception do convey an important truth: These events shed light on mounting anxiety among French Jews, on the tensions between ethnic communities within French society, and on their highly dramatized perception from abroad. “After what happened in Toulouse, people’s fears are legitimized. They are no longer fantasies,” noted Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur. One of the three women rabbis in France, the young mother of three has always warned against undue alarmism. Yet a year after the tragic events in Toulouse, the possibility of large-scale violence looms large in her mind—and the minds of other French Jews.

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Ultra-Orthodox Jews’ Long, Forgotten History of Working Hard

Elliott Horowitz — Thu, 23 May 2013 04:00:06 +0000

The intense and often corrosive debates on ultra-Orthodox military service in the state of Israel, debates which have continued for more than six decades, have in recent years been accompanied by a discourse of nearly equal intensity (and sometimes greater corrosiveness) on the subject of Haredim in the workforce. The two ultra-Orthodox parties currently represented in Israel’s parliament—though to their chagrin no longer in its government—have devoted themselves to not only increasing state support to their educational institutions, but also to providing monthly stipends for men who forsake conventional employment in favor of full-time Torah study. One of these parties, Shas, headed by nonagenarian spiritual authority Ovadia Yosef, has come to champion, at government expense, an ultra-Orthodox lifestyle hardly consistent with its Sephardi and Middle Eastern roots. But the parliamentary representatives of United Torah Judaism—operating under instructions from its exclusively Ashkenazi Council of Torah Sages, which includes Hasidic as well as “Lithuanian” rabbis—have also sought to “protect” an ostensibly traditional way of life that is actually a relative novelty.

It wasn’t always thus. In the early days of the state there was still a vigorous religious party called Poalei Agudat Yisrael (PAI)—founded in Poland in 1922—which was as much a workers’ party as an ultra-Orthodox one and which had established its first kibbutz in 1944. The Lodz-born Binyamin Mintz—a Gerrer Hasid who had first worked in construction when he came to Palestine in 1925—represented the party in the first Knesset of 1949 and was subsequently re-elected several times. In the third, fourth, and fifth Knessets, however, his small party ran jointly with Agudat Israel (ancestor of today’s United Torah Judaism) and accepted the authority of its non-Zionist Council of Torah Sages—which meant leaving the government in 1952 over the issue of compulsory national service for women. In 1960 Mintz made the bold decision—against the instructions of that council and of his own revered Gerrer Rebbe—to accept a ministerial post from Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Mintz’s death (at the age of 58) less than a year later reflected the anguish he had experienced. It also foreshadowed the death of a movement that might well have created a more variegated Haredi society than the one whose allegedly traditional way of life strains the Israel economy and alienates even other observant Jews who send their sons (and daughters) to the IDF and hand over hefty portions of their paychecks to the state—rather than receiving monthly allowances from it.

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Aussie Jewish Elders React to 'Gangnam Style'

Elissa Goldstein — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:41:10 +0000

Here it is, dear readers: the Gangnam Style video to end all Gangnam style videos.

Residents of Gary Smorgon House, a Jewish aged care home in Melbourne, Australia, were asked to weigh in on Psy’s 2012 smash hit. (Full disclosure: this reporter’s cousins’ grandmother, Esther Klein, appears at 0:17.)

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Best Craigslist Ad Ever? Looking for Rabbi Versed in DARK TALMUDIC ARTS to create GOLEM.

Adam Chandler — Wed, 22 May 2013 18:20:54 +0000

Currently making the rounds on the Twitter machine is an ad that made the best of Craigslist earlier this year, a feat considering…well…we all know what circulates on Craigslist.

Let’s start with the title: Looking for Rabbi Versed in DARK TALMUDIC ARTS to create GOLEM.

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By July, the Three Biggest Cities in America Will Have Jewish Mayors

Adam Chandler — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:24:08 +0000

Today, the election of Eric Garcetti as Los Angeles’ new mayor is being widely reported. Garcetti will be the city’s first Jewish mayor as well as the city’s youngest mayor in over a century. What this also means is that when Garcetti is sworn in on July 1, American Jews will be able to brag (or smile nervously) that the three biggest cities in the United States now have Jewish mayors.

That news, coupled with the announcement that Anthony Weiner is now pursuing one of his lifelong dreams by entering the race to replace Michael Bloomberg in Gracie Mansion, means that should Weiner somehow win, the Jewish mayoral triumvirate will hold until 2015, when Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel faces re-election. (For those interested, my hometown of Houston is the country’s fourth-biggest city. While Houston may have broken ground by electing Annise Parker, its first openly gay mayor in 2010, I think it’s safe to say we should be happy with New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.)

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Man Linked to Boston Bombing Suspect Killed by FBI

Adam Chandler — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:04:21 +0000

In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, focus was drawn to an unsolved, grisly triple homicide that took place in 2011. The three men killed were Brendan Mess, a friend of deceased Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and two of Mess’s friends, Raphael Teken and Erik Weissman.

As we noted earlier this month “the details of the unsolved 2011 slaying have the florid hallmarks of a tabloid splash: the three victims–two of whom (Erik Weissman and Raphael Teken) were Jewish–were believed to be have been killed in extraordinarily gruesome fashion on September 11, 2011 in Waltham, Massachusetts.”

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Nukes, Syria, Elections:The Latest Dispiriting Iran Update

Adam Chandler — Wed, 22 May 2013 14:47:40 +0000

As we noted in Daybreak, the race to replace Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got infinitely less interesting when two of the major candidates were disqualified for dubious reasons. One of them was former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who despite giving Supreme Leader Ali Khameini his job, expressed dismay about the regime violence against protestors following the rigged 2009 elections. The new presidential frontrunner is Saeed Jalili, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, who looks a little bit like a benevolent high school history teacher. If only your history teacher said things like this:

“The fact that the Iranian nation is defending their rights makes [the US] hopeless. Today they are witnessing Iran’s eye-catching progress, thanks to [Iranian] resistance.”

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Daybreak

Adam Chandler — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:07:51 +0000

• Disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner is running for mayor. (Insert your joke here.) Check out his campaign video. [YouTube]

• A Florida man linked to deceased Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was reportedly shot and killed when the FBI tried to interview him. [NYT]

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How John Kerry Is Messing Up in the Middle East

Lee Smith — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:00:27 +0000

Secretary of State John Kerry says that’s it’s now or never for Israelis and Palestinians to reach agreement on a two-state solution. Interestingly, neither Israeli nor Palestinian officials have any idea what Kerry is talking about. With the Arab Spring uprisings tilting the Middle East status quo on behalf of Israel’s enemies, Jerusalem is not about to give up the West Bank—nor is the Palestinian Authority in any position to defend it. Little wonder then that an Israeli official recently told Haaretz, that Kerry “looks like a naive and ham-handed diplomat.”

But of course, Kerry’s public statements have little connection to workable diplomacy. Rather, the secretary of state is the leading man in a theatrical production about American Middle East policy whose only audience members, at this point, are Beltway pundits. In the real world, what matters are the chips you lay on the table—and whether you are willing to bet. Having exited Iraq, packed up our gear in Afghanistan, abandoned our “red lines” about Iran’s nuclear program and Syria’s use of chemical weapons, America has gone from player to kibitzer.

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Video: At Home with San Francisco’s Jewish Astrologer Jessica Lanyadoo

Tracy Levy — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:00:12 +0000

Daughter of a Jewish Iraqi refugee and granddaughter to Polish Holocaust survivors, astrologer Jessica Lanyadoo likens her mixed upbringing—both Ashkenazi and Sephardi—to someone with a “biracial background.” Perhaps it is this dual heritage that gifted her with an unusual amount of openness and tolerance. These same qualities have helped make Lanyadoo wildly successful as a psychic, astrologer, and medium; she charges over $250 a session, and waiting time for an appointment with her can run months long.

Lanyadoo’s home is a perfect reflection of her background: Judaism is “a huge part of who I am,” Lanyadoo told me. In this video tour of her home in San Francisco, Lanyadoo explains exactly what that means.

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Sundown

Adam Chandler — Tue, 21 May 2013 22:44:11 +0000

• The border between Israel and Syria in the Golan continues to heat up with various exchanges of gunfire between IDF troops and Syrian forces. It’s the first time Syria says it deliberately targeted Israeli forces. In a separate incident, an Israeli soldier in the engineer corps was killed while working in a minefield. [Reuters]

• Will embattled hedge fund hero Steve Cohen call it quits? New York Mag asks around. [NYM]

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Boruch Spiegel, One of the Last Warsaw Ghetto Fighters, Dies at 93

Adam Chandler — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:44:49 +0000

Last month, some of the Tablet staff had the honor of attending the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the related commemorations throughout the city. At the event itself, we had the chance to hear Simha Rotem, one of the three surviving members of the ghetto fighters, deliver a speech in which he spoke not just of the experience of the uprising but the audacity of making the decision to fight at all.

“The thought of waging an uprising was dictated by our determination. We wanted to choose the kind of death we would die,” he said.
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Doors Guitarist Robby Krieger on the Death of Ray Manzarek

Adam Chandler — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:31:03 +0000

As you may have heard, yesterday Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist and founding member of The Doors, died at age 74 after a long bout with cancer. Co-creator of some of the most recognizable songs of the 20th century, Manzarek cemented his legacy with long solos and grabbing intros on a number of Doors songs.

The quasi-Baroque introduction Mr. Manzarek brought to the Doors’ 1967 single “Light My Fire“ — a song primarily written by Mr. Krieger — helped make it a million-seller. Along with classical music, Mr. Manzarek also drew on jazz, R&B, cabaret and ragtime. His main instrument was the Vox Continental electric organ, which he claimed to have chosen, [Manager Tom] Vitorino said, because it was “easy to carry.”
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Is Humbert Humbert Jewish?

Adam Chandler — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:12:17 +0000

The New York Review of Books has a lengthy piece in their upcoming issue (h/t Marc Tracy) that asks a serious question: Is Humbert Humbert, the stuffy, troubled hebephiliac from Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita Jewish? Okay, it asks many questions, it is a characteristically lengthy peer at four new books about/by Nabokov. One of the books is Andrea Pitzer’s The Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov in which the theory is posited.

The answer is not obvious. Of course it isn’t. But the evidence is compelling.

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Why Is a New York Rabbi Giving a Tolerance Award to Indonesia's Intolerant President?

Jeremy Menchik — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:55:55 +0000

On May 30, Rabbi Arthur Schneier, the leader of Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue and founder of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, plans to give the World Statesmen Award to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The award is given annually to world leaders who support the foundation’s mission to promote tolerance and respect for human rights. Previous award recipients include Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

But this year’s choice is bizarre. Not only has Yudhoyono not fought intolerance in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country and home to millions of religious minorities, he has actively courted Islamist political parties and granted them key Cabinet positions. He appointed as government minister a politician who blames Christians for their persecution and routinely calls for heterodox Muslim sects to be outlawed. As a result, acts of violence against religious minorities have risen dramatically during his eight years in office. Christian churches in West Java and North Sumatra have been forced to close due to discrimination in the issuing of building permits. Minority Shi’ite Muslims have been forced from their homes by militant Islamists and made refugees in areas where they lived peacefully for decades. Most alarming is the militants’ 10-year campaign of violence against a heterodox Muslim sect called Ahmadiyah; vigilante groups have destroyed Ahmadis’ homes, set fire to their mosques, forced their relocation, and murdered Ahmadi Muslims with the tacit and sometimes outright approval of the government. Just this week, Yudhyono’s religious affairs minister oversaw the forced conversion of 20 Ahmadi Muslims.

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Bin Laden's Son-in-Law Wants to Keep His Jewish Lawyer

Adam Chandler — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:37:09 +0000

What do you get when you combine a high-profile federal terrorism case with a Manhattan locale? A lot of unintentional hilarity.

So goes the case of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law, who faces trial for reportedly conspiring to kill Americans. Following his arraignment, Abu Ghaith was assigned an experienced public defender, but decided he doesn’t want one. Who does he want instead? Stanley L. Cohen.

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Iconic Streit's Matzo Factory to be Featured in New Documentary

Jillian Scheinfeld — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:30:13 +0000

In a dark wooden desk in the office at Streit’s Matzo Factory sit the Ellis Island immigration papers of Nettie Streit. In 1890 Nettie and Aron Streit emigrated from Europe to America, and in 1925 they set up shop on Rivington Street. The contents of Mr. Streit’s desk have remained untouched ever since.

One of the last remaining factories in New York City, Streit’s Matzo Factory is not only a producer of Passover fare, but a defender of Jewish history that has withstood the rapid transformation of the Lower East Side. Although the factory has been around for 88 years, many newcomers to the hip and trendy neighborhood have little knowledge of its existence.

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Daybreak

Adam Chandler — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:02:46 +0000

• The European Union (finally) appears set to place Hezbollah’s military wing on the the EU’s list of terrorist organizations. It’s not the whole chicken, but it’s definitely a start. [AFP/Arabiya]

• Ryan Lizza explains the unprecedented nature of the Department of Justice’s public naming of Fox News reporter James Rosen as “an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator” in its investigation of leaked classified material. [TNY]

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Robert Worth, Edward Luttwak, Amos Harel, and Others Discuss the Fracturing of Middle Eastern States

David Samuels — Tue, 21 May 2013 04:00:49 +0000

The fracturing of established Middle Eastern states into tribal, religious, and political enclaves isn’t visible on the maps that appear in newspapers and atlases. But while diplomats and commentators continue to refer to “Iraq” and “Syria” and “Lebanon” by the names that they were given in the aftermath of World War I, the reality on the ground is much more confusing.

Some of the new Arab statelets, like the Hamas enclave in Gaza and Hezbollah’s territory in Southern Lebanon, fly the flag of movements belonging to the Sunni and Shia streams of Islam. The Alawite rump state of Syria still flies the flag and uses the stationary of a U.N. member state, while Sunni rebels flying black jihadist banners control large swaths of Syrian territory and enjoy at least a temporary measure of diplomatic recognition in the West. Meanwhile, Kurdistan has tens of thousands of well-trained men under arms, a thriving economy, and independent diplomatic ties with its neighbors as it inches forward to independence. The Palestinian Authority, which enjoys newly upgraded formal representation at the United Nations, can alternately be seen as a dependent mini-state—whose borders are controlled by Israel, Jordan, and Egypt—or as a rump-state that has lost control of over 40 percent of its citizens to Hamas.

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The Exception or the Rule: Literary Critic Adam Kirsch’s Weekly Talmud Study

Adam Kirsch — Tue, 21 May 2013 04:00:22 +0000

Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world.

In reading the Talmud, I have been especially interested in the glimpses it offers of how its complex rules were, or were not, actually observed in real life. It’s hard to imagine the average Jew in fifth-century-C.E. Babylonia—a farmer, soldier, or merchant—mastering the knowledge required to make judgments on every aspect of Jewish law. The question then becomes, did the majority of Jews consult experts frequently, or did they proceed by custom and rule of thumb, or did they simply ignore the law altogether? Was strict observance the exception, as it is among American Jews today, or the rule?

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Mayor Ed Koch To Receive Honorary Catholic Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral

Jonathan R. Cohen — Tue, 21 May 2013 04:00:13 +0000

At the Feb. 4 funeral of Ed Koch, who died of heart failure at 88, the former mayor received one of the greatest send-offs in New York City history. Thousands of people gathered in the cavernous sanctuary of Temple Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue to hear personal and moving eulogies from his closest friends, his nephews and their children, the current mayor, an Israeli ambassador, and a U.S. president. At the conclusion of the uplifting service the organist played “New York, New York” as a funeral dirge. The casket was escorted to the curb, and the crowd, after rising in a standing ovation, spilled into the street, lingering to say goodbye and to reminisce.

It was an incredible, some might even say perfect, send-off for a larger-than-life mayor. But in fact, there was actually an element of the Mayor’s life that was not captured that day: his fondness for the Catholic Church.

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Molecular Gastronomy Takes Root—Finally—in Israel

Dana Kessler — Tue, 21 May 2013 04:00:08 +0000

Over the past two decades, molecular gastronomy has changed the way influential chefs cook in many parts of the world. Thanks to a recently opened store and a soon-to-open restaurant, Israel is finally starting to catch up to this weird world of experimental cooking.

Molecular gastronomy, a term coined in 1992 by Hungarian physicist Nicholas Kurti and French physical chemist Hervé This, is a discipline located somewhere between cooking and science, where the kitchen turns into a lab and chefs turn into mad professors, abandoning traditional food preparation in favor of using technical innovations to transform ingredients physically and chemically. In the past 20 years, molecular gastronomy has become a popular culinary practice—at least at the high end of the culinary spectrum—that many believe has revolutionized the way people cook, and eat. Others, however, find it tedious and inaccessible to the average diner, the food equivalent of jazz—perhaps more enjoyable for the one who performs than it is for the audience.

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Sundown

Adam Chandler — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:14:58 +0000

• A powerful tornado hit near Oklahoma City, leveling a number of neighborhoods and causing multiple casualties. Officials have yet to fully determine the damage. [NYT]

• An off-hand remark by German Prime Minister Angela Merkel has prompted a war of words between Germany and Hungary about World War II. Merkel initially sought to criticize Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for his controversial measures in altering the country’s constitution. [AP]

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Muhammed al-Dura Revisited and the Qatar's Call for Peace

Adam Chandler — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:47:38 +0000

As we noted in Daybreak and many have been noting elsewhere, an investigation in Jerusalem recently concluded on the topic of Muhammed al-Dura, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who was thought to be killed during the opening days of the Second Intifada. After reviewing unedited footage of the event almost 13 years later, the panel concluded that there is no certainty that the boy was shot or even killed during in the incident.

Winston Churchill famously quipped “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” I am sure a great orator like Churchill would have sought less levity in describing the damage of lies if he were referring to the case of Muhammed al-Dura, whose iconic image and martyrdom, according to the committee, may have been entirely staged.

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Steimatzky Tells Israelis to Bring a Book to Bed

Elissa Goldstein — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:08:58 +0000

Well, this is probably the strangest, most compelling advertising campaign I’ve seen in a while: Steimatzky, the iconic Israeli bookstore chain founded in 1925, has issued a series of images of readers asleep in bed with their books… and the fictional—or non-fictional—protagonists of said books. (h/t to Liora Halperin for the Facebook tip-off.) Each image in the series is accompanied by the caption, “With the right book, you’re never alone.”

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Helen Keller's 1933 Letter to Book-Burning German Students

Adam Chandler — Mon, 20 May 2013 17:02:35 +0000

Slate’s new history blog recently posted a piece on a semi-obscure letter from Helen Keller to German university students in the wake of a decision to burn books that were deemed “un-German.” Among the books was Keller’s, whose political leanings were chronicled in How I Became a Socialist. As Rebecca Onion points out, Keller’s letter contained a prescient excoriation for Germany’s treatment of its Jewish citizens.

To the student body of Germany:
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'Ode to the Latke' by Edward Stankiewicz

Adam Chandler — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:10:03 +0000

If you’ve not read today’s piece by Frances Brent about the late Edward Stankiewicz, here’s your reminder. Also, to accompany the piece, we’re running one of Stankiewicz’s poems, which gives homage to the latke. Stankiewicz was a member of the linguistics faculty at the University of Chicago, which hosts the famous annual Latke-Hamantash Debate.

Ode to the Latke

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Dozens of Hezbollah Fighters Killed in Qusair

Adam Chandler — Mon, 20 May 2013 14:37:27 +0000

It’s being reported that as many as 30 Hezbollah fighters along with 20 other troops loyal to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad were killed in battle today in Qusair, a rebel-held city that was taken back by pro-Assad forces over the weekend.

The fighting in Qusair is noteworthy for a number of reasons. The first is its importance to the long-term aims of the embattled Assad.

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Daybreak

Adam Chandler — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:02:49 +0000

• Peggy Cidor, a journalist and member of the Women of the Wall group, found her Jerusalem home had been sprayed with graffiti by vandals. Slogans like “Torah tag,” a reference to price tag attacks, was painted on her door and “Women of the Wall are villains” was found on the wall outside her apartment. [ToI]

• An Israeli commission has concluded that Muhammad al-Dura, a Palestinian boy and icon of the Second Intifada, may not have been struck by bullets at all during a shootout infamously captured by French television in September 2000. [NYT]

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How Neocons and Obama Liberals Made the Same Mistakes About the Middle East

David P. Goldman — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:00:54 +0000

Errors by the party in power can get America into trouble; real catastrophes require consensus.

Rarely have both parties been as unanimous about a development overseas as they have in their shared enthusiasm for the so-called Arab Spring during the first months of 2011. Republicans vied with the Obama Administration in their zeal for the ouster of Egypt’s dictator Hosni Mubarak and in championing the subsequent NATO intervention against Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. Both parties saw themselves as having been vindicated by events. The Obama Administration saw its actions as proof that soft power in pursuit of humanitarian goals offered a new paradigm for foreign-policy success. And the Republican establishment saw a vindication of the Bush freedom agenda.

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Remembering the Late Linguistics Scholar, Yiddishist, Holocaust Survivor, and Painter Edward Stankiewicz

Frances Brent — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:00:26 +0000

In April, there was a belated memorial service in the parlor of Pierson College Master’s House for Edward Stankiewicz, linguistics scholar, Yiddishist, painter, and napkin artist. He died on the last day of January after several turbulent years, at 92. A student played the violin and the room slowly filled with a few aging students and loyal friends, a rabbi from Hillel, some elderly Slavicists and mathematicians, his son, and his daughter-in-law. The remembrances made me think of the kind of tribute made by public-school boys honoring a beloved teacher who had flogged them often and hard, for their own good. Stankiewicz was that way. As his son, Steve, explained, “He had no tolerance for what he considered stupidity, which included most people he ever came in contact with.” He was also the most polyglot person I’ve ever encountered—fluent in 14 languages: Polish, Yiddish, German, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, Macedonian, Latin, Italian, French, English, and to a lesser degree Spanish, Bulgarian, and Romanian.

Stankiewicz was a friend, and for a while he and his wife Florence became surrogate grandparents for my children after our family relocated to New Haven from the Chicago area in 1991. He came to many birthdays and Hanukkah parties, gracing us with his elegantly tart turns of phrase and his dashed-off napkin drawings, caricatures of those who sat around our dining-room table. He especially liked subjects who had curly hair and protuberant noses, providing interesting lines for his nimble pen. While Florence was alive, he could still appear stoutly natty; he always wore a suit and tie and had a husky, throaty laugh. I can imagine that in the 1950s, as a young intellectual refugee, he must have been quite debonair.

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How The Nazis Destroyed Berlin's 50,000 Jewish Businesses, and Why Berlin Has Never Been the Same

Vox Tablet — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:00:24 +0000

Berlin has long had an anti-capitalist bent, part of its countercultural charm. But before the war, it was a more enterprising and bustling place, due in no small part to the nearly 50,000 Jewish-owned businesses located there. What happened to those businesses under Hitler is at the core of meticulous research by Humboldt University historian Christoph Kreutzmüller. While most of us are familiar with images of Nazi boycotts and smashed storefront windows, Kreutzmüller and his research team have assembled less familiar details about the escalating campaign of violence and administrative harassment that led to the demise of Jewish enterprises and, ultimately, the demise of the idea of Berlin as a center of industry and commerce.

Kreutzmüller’s findings were on display earlier this month in an exhibit at the Berlin Chamber of Commerce as part of the city’s yearlong reckoning with the 80th anniversary of Hitler’s rise to power. They can also be found (in German) in his new book, Final Sale: The End of Jewish Owned Businesses in Nazi Berlin, and in an online database of thousands of companies that used to exist in the city. Reporter Brian Zumhagen visited Kreutzmüller in Berlin to talk with him about his research and to visit several sites where Berlin’s forgotten Jewish enterprises once stood. [Correction: Christoph Kreutzmüller is currently a researcher and educator at the House of the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, and not, as stated in the piece, a professor at Humboldt University of Berlin.] [Running time: 13:28.]http://cdn1.tabletmag.com/wp-content/files_mf/podcast_feature052013_berlinzumhagen.mp3

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Barbie's Dreamhouse in Berlin Has a Nightmare Opening

Adam Chandler — Fri, 17 May 2013 20:12:33 +0000

File under: This would be a funny story were it not so terribly serious…yesterday’s opening of the Barbie Dreamhouse Experience, ostensibly a museum-meets-theme-park in Berlin’s commercial Alexanderplatz area, was overshadowed by some (not entirely unwarranted) protests against Barbie as a reductive feminist symbol.

In the weeks before its opening, various groups voiced their disapproval of the temporary theme park. And on Thursday, demonstrators finally got their chance to show just how furious they are. In the early afternoon, an activist with the women’s rights group Femen climbed onto the gigantic shoe dressed only in a mini-skirt. She was carrying a burning cross on which a Barbie doll had been crucified. Parents and children stood nearby. The women screamed over and over again: “Being Barbie is not a career!”…
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The New York Jets Keep Shedding Jews

Adam Chandler — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:49:55 +0000

The Jewish minyan that once made up the front office of the New York Jets is starting to look more and more like an empty shul.

The first sign of danger: The firing of Jets General Manager Mike Tannenbaum, who (to quote Scroll Editor Emeritus), “despite coming from outside Boston, looking the part, and being named Mike Tannenbaum” isn’t actually Jewish. Then today, came the real news:

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Israeli Kids Cover Pearl Jam, Lobby Them to Play in Israel

Dana Kessler — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:27:29 +0000

There is a running joke in American pop culture about how difficult it is to get into a Pearl Jam concert. The Seattle-based 90s grunge rock band has maintained its popularity over the years and, married with their crusade against Ticketmaster, Pearl Jam remains a tough ticket to get. Nobody tell the Israelis that.

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The World Yearns for Kentucky Fried Chicken

Adam Chandler — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:51:29 +0000

Kentucky Fried Chicken has long been an American culinary institution spreading goodwill throughout the world [reference needed]. Colonel Harland Sanders, who is not really a colonel, but is a visionary, has brought American-style fried chicken to countless countries around the world–creating a veritable UN of yum no less vital than Ray Kroc’s Golden Arches. Where the Colonel’s secret recipe hasn’t worked, KFC has adapted. In Israel, for example, KFC recently went kosher, after swapping its milk-based chicken coating for a soy-based replacement.

Yesterday, Fares Akram blew the roof off the global yearning for Kentucky Fried Chicken when he wrote about a Gaza smuggling operation in which Khalil Efrangi, a pseudonymed savvy businessman, and others sneak chicken over (or rather under) the border from Egypt to Gaza. Next they deliver four-hour-old chicken to happy patrons at nearly $30 a bucket.

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Israelis in the Golan Heights Warily Eye the Syrian Border

Daniella Cheslow — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:31:25 +0000

When Israel was suspected of bombing weapons sites in Syria nearly two weeks ago, the Israeli government reacted coolly to Syrian threats of war. Bashar Assad, the common wisdom went, was too beleaguered to try a serious retaliation. But Israelis in the Golan Heights think differently. They hear the sounds of the fighting just over the border, and warily note when the occasional rocket or mortar lands in the Golan. Now, some Israelis are drilling emergency plans, seeking weapons permits, and recalling the 1973 war when Syrian troops marched across the Golan.

In Alonei Habashan, just before the Shavuot holiday, community manager Israel Bar told me the Syrian civil war has changed life there. Alonei Habashan is a religious moshav of 56 families. The moshav grows grapes for the Golan winery and runs a modest guest house. In the last few weeks, Bar said, two mortars fell in an open area just inside the moshav’s fence. On the side of the road that sweeps around Alonei Habashan is a concrete arsenal painted blue and locked with a black dial that looks like a safe. Usually, weapons sit here just in case, but Bar said last month he applied for permits from the army to allow locals to hold guns in their homes. The moshav council has guided each family for which bomb shelter to flee to in case of emergency.

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Daybreak

Adam Chandler — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:54:59 +0000

• Following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rejection of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plea to not delivery a sophisticated air-defense system to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, it’s being reported that 12 Russian warships are now patrolling the waters outside of Tartus, Syria. Yikes. [ToI]

• Meanwhile, Israel may have located what is believed to be a new natural gas field off the coast of Haifa. The discovery of a third natural gas field comes as Israel decides how much gas it will export on the market or import to maintain energy independence. [JTA]

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Bar Mitzvahs in Exotic Locations, From Jungles to Beaches to European Villages

Rebecca Meiser — Fri, 17 May 2013 04:00:29 +0000

Last December, on the beaches of the Playacar Palace Resort in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, Henry Goldberg became a bar mitzvah. The Potomac, Md., native stood barefoot on the sand, wearing a new tallit and chanting his haftorah as the waves of the Caribbean Sea crashed behind him. After a small reception, Goldberg celebrated his transition to Jewish adulthood by jumping into the hotel pool.

“At first I wanted to have my bar mitzvah in Asia, ‘cause I like everything Asia,” he told me. “But Mexico was fun, too. And I wasn’t really nervous or anything because I was only there with my family and friends.”

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Was Saul Bellow an Awful Father? Depends on Which Son You Ask.

Richard Kreitner — Fri, 17 May 2013 04:00:24 +0000

“The good thing about children having straight teeth,” Saul Bellow once noted, about the pleasures of paying for orthodontia, “is that they leave a clean mark when they bite the hand that feeds them.”

Saul Bellow’s Heart, Greg Bellow’s new book about his Nobel Prize-winning father, is in many ways one of these marks. Born the same year that Bellow’s first novel, Dangling Man, was published, Greg knew his father longer than any of his brothers (or his father’s five wives) did, and had to adjust the most to Bellow’s late-blooming fame. After his father’s death in 2005 produced “distinctly filial” reminiscences from “self-appointed sons and daughters,” Greg—a recently retired psychotherapist who describes himself as “skilled in unraveling murky narratives”—set out to unravel his own.

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Sitting Shiva for Smash—and, One Fears, a Generation’s Connection to Musical Theater

Rachel Shukert — Fri, 17 May 2013 04:00:09 +0000

This week was Shavuot, when the Jews received the Torah. But just as the good Lord giveth, so does he taketh away (is that in the Torah? Or is that a New Testament thing?). And this week was also one of loss so great, I fear I can hardly do justice to the resulting sense of emptiness in just once column, except to say it’s a comfort to know that on some level, humanity grieves together.

We’re all always sitting shiva for something or other—our youth, our illusions, the perfect sentence that flew out of our minds (never to return) when the person in front of us thrust his seat back, almost crushing our pelvis and breaking the screen on our laptop. (Yes, I’m on a plane right now, just like Thomas Friedman! If it crashes, this will be the last thing I ever write. Dynamism!)

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How YouTube and Radiohead Helped Transform Israeli Culture

Liel Leibovitz — Fri, 17 May 2013 04:00:08 +0000

Three weeks ago, Rotem Shefy was no different than hundreds of other Tel Avivis her age: talented, hopeful, and thoroughly unknown. Despite having served in the Israel Air Force’s prestigious singing troupe and having graduated from Israel’s top (and only) musical academy, Shefy, 28, settled into a life of small gigs and big dreams. She hadn’t the means to cut an album, but her considerable talent helped her secure a recurring spot in one of the city’s most stylish cafés, and she soon won a small but sizable audience.

For most Israeli artists, this is where the story ends. But thanks to YouTube, Radiohead, and accusations of cultural colonialism, Shefy became an overnight sensation.

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Happy Shavuot!

Adam Chandler — Tue, 14 May 2013 18:15:21 +0000

Faithful readers, we’re stepping away for Shavuot.

If you haven’t checked out our stellar Shavuot line-up, we’ve got video of Joan Nathan making blintzes, thoughts on why so few American Jews celebrate the holiday, everything else you need to know about Shavuot, and much much more.

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How Did a Jewish Site in Krakow Become a Nightclub?

Stephanie Butnick — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:41:13 +0000

Tensions are high in Krakow’s Jewish community after a new nightclub opened this past weekend—in a 19th century Jewish house of study. Mezcal, Krakow’s new spot for “cool dance parties with DJ’s and agressive, even metal concerts,” debuted this weekend in the former Chewra Thilim beit midrash, in Kazimierz, the city’s Jewish quarter.

Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza published photographs of the club’s construction, with walls being built in front of frescos, which were discovered during a 2008 restoration of the site, and sinks being installed where pews once stood. According to Jonathan Ornstein, director of the Jewish Community Center in Krakow, flyers were spotted around the city last week promising a club unlike any other—a shock to members of the Jewish community, who knew the building had been rented but were unaware of its unconventional new use. “To me it’s just an unnecessary thing that didn’t need to happen,” he told me.

How did this religious site end up as a boundary-pushing nightclub? According to the Jerusalem Post, the leaders of Krakow’s Jewish community signed off on a five-year lease of the property, which they gained ownership of in 1997, citing the financial strain of the building’s upkeep. Asked whether Mezcal, which is operated by non-Jewish Poles, is at all similar to the trendy event spaces opening in former synagogues around New York City, Ornstein gave an emphatic no. “It’s not a synagogue that was built in the 1950s,” he explained. “We’re talking about a 19th century building with important historical value.”

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The Doctor Is Out: Remembering Dr. Joyce Brothers

Rachel Shukert — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:44:06 +0000

Ladies and Gentlemen, the doctor is out.

Dr. Joyce Brothers, the legendary television psychologist and $64,000 question boxing maven (she later credited her expertise in this area to a producer suggestion, hours and hours of furious cramming, and a truly prodigious memory), has died of a respiratory ailment at age 85. Gentle, approachable and calmly articulate, Dr. Brothers was a ubiquitous but always charming media presence, from her television show to her columns to her multitude of cameo appearances, including The Simpsons, Hollywood Squares, Happy Days (in which she famously dissected the latent homosexual tendencies of the Cunningham’s dog—it’s on the blooper reel) and my personal favorite, her gracious turn on the country club catwalk during the Wilderness girl-themed, Robin Leach-hosted celebrity fashion show in my favorite movie of all time, Troop Beverly Hills (“clad in khaki for a luxury stroll or a walk in the woods.”)

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How Stephen Hawking Is Wrong

Liel Leibovitz — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:42:03 +0000

Now that the Stephen Hawking controversy has died down and the usual suspects have traded their predictable barbs, it would serve us well to examine, coolly and without prejudice, the contours of the affair. If for no other reason, we’re likely to see similar cases pop up in the near future, and rather than being swept anew each time by the powerful gales of resentment and rage, we would do well to try and define the contours of useful conversation. Let us steer clear of the blowhards on either side, whom we’ve lost long ago. Let us also avoid nudging the conversation towards absolute terms like legitimacy, and assume, bluntly, that any human action that is not illegal is a legitimate and permissible one. What we aim for is something much more practical and far less illustrious, namely some common ground for us, the majority of people who see the nuance in this situation and who strive to settle reason, justice, and common-sense. Towards that end, I propose, the following four principles apply:

The Priority Principle: As soon as news broke of the esteemed physicist’s snubbing of the Jerusalem conference, defenders of the Jewish State argued that Hawking’s response was nonsensical given the rush of brutalities surging everywhere from Damascus to the Democratic Republic of Congo. To the extent that it implies that one ought to focus on one conflict at a time, the argument is false; as Noam Sheizaf rightly pointed out in +972, “the genocide in Cambodia was taking place at the same time as the boycott effort against South Africa,” and any claim that we ought not to focus on one when there’s another going on may very well lead to inaction. This, however, is where the priority principle comes into play: to the extent that one chooses to be an engaged and responsible global citizen, one is expected to set priorities and act on them. Such is the mark of maturity: while we are all surrounded by a constellation of stimulations, we must, if we wish to lead a morally balanced life, concentrate our attention on those challenges that are most pressing, which, as all but the most hardened cynics would agree, means that priority ought to be given to any crisis involving the loss of human life. There is little doubt that, for many, living in the occupied West Bank is cruel and tragic. But 70,000 human beings have been slaughtered in the last two years just a few kilometers to the north in Assad’s inferno. Anyone, then, is free to protest Israel’s policies, but as long as they remain silent on other, and far more pressing, catastrophes, reasonable observers will be right to question whether singling out Israel mightn’t be guided by ulterior, and dishonorable, motives.

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Daybreak

Adam Chandler — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:05:42 +0000

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have his work cut out for him as he attempts to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin not to give Syrian dictator Bashar Assad anti-aircraft missiles. [ToI]

• Dr. Joyce Brothers, the famous television host, psychologist, and only woman to answer the “$64,000 Question” has died at age 85. [NPR]

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Eating Blintzes at B&H, One of New York's Last Dairy Restaurants

Vox Tablet — Tue, 14 May 2013 04:00:52 +0000

B&H Restaurant in Manhattan’s East Village was once part of a neighborhood that vibrated with Jewishness. Yiddish theaters peppered the area. Ratner’s was down the street, and the 2nd Avenue Deli was just across the way. Opened in 1942, the dairy-only B&H has outlasted most of these joints—sure, the 2nd Avenue Deli remains but in a new location and not even on 2nd Avenue—with its blintz and pierogi offerings gobbled up by hungry customers in a classic, narrow diner space brightened by lime green walls.

Little has changed on B&H’s menu. So says Eve Jochnowitz, a lifelong Greenwich Village resident, Yiddish scholar, and Jewish culinary ethnographer, who has just finished translating and editing a 1930 Yiddish cookbook by Vilna restaurateur Fania Lewando. In anticipation of Shavuot, for which many of us indulge in cheesecake and other dairy delights, Jochnowitz joined Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry for a visit to B&H to talk about the history of dairy restaurants, their forgotten cousin the “appetizing store,” and the unexpected pleasure of a soup made with pickles. Jochnowitz also offers her favorite vegan alternative to the cheesecake. [Running time: 15:00.]http://cdn1.tabletmag.com/wp-content/files_mf/podcast_feature051413_BHrestaurant.mp3

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What’s the Difference Between the Samaritan Torah and Jewish One? Thousands of Little Things.

Chavie Lieber — Tue, 14 May 2013 04:00:42 +0000

While Jews study a number of religious books—from the Talmud to the Shulchan Aruch—the text that provides the religion’s very foundation is the Torah. And the version of the Torah most commonly studied by Jews is known as the Masoretic text, the most authoritative Hebrew version of the Torah.

But it is not the only one.

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