So much of Jewish life is about remembering, keeping Shabbat, yahrzeit dates and who in the family slighted whom, that when it comes to a movie about forgetting, such as the Polish and Israeli film “Demon,” we may be at a loss.
In Jewish folklore a dead malcontent may return to possess the living.
“The Possession” is off to a devilishly good start at the box office, grossing $21.3 million — making it the second best opening for a movie on Labor Day weekend after “Halloween” in 2007, which brought in $30.6 million.
Kibitzers, dreamers, medieval travelers and dybbuks are among the wide array of heroes, heroines and mystical villains in this season\’s crop of Jewish children\’s books, as publishers expand their offerings beyond holiday books and biblical retellings.
Claire Luce Booth, the wife of the owner of Luce Publications, reported a frank conversation with a Jewish friend. Booth said, \”I must admit being positively bored by all this talk of the Holocaust and its constant repetition of Jewish suffering.\” The Jewish friend replied, \”I know just how you feel. I feel exactly the same way about the Crucifixion.\”
Each would like to see the other\’s story go away. But neither will go away. Golgotha and Auschwitz, the Crucifixion and the Holocaust, remain the dybbuk of our culture. They must both be confronted and understood.
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