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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

June 19, 1997

Briefs

Leave a Comment / California, Community, Old Stories /

Professor Sandler at the podium; Simha and Sara Lainer (right) with Profesor EcksteinWhen Professor Shmuel Sandler was named first incumbent of the Lainer Chair in Democracy and Civility at Bar-Ilan University, he faced an immediate semantic problem.

“There is no word for ‘civility’ in Hebrew,” he said. “It’s an Anglo-Saxon word.”

The Hebrew word in the Lainer Chair’s title is sovlanut, which corresponds to “tolerance,” used in a civic context. But the semantics are less important than the origin and goals of the endowed professorship.

It started with the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by Bar-Ilan student Yigal Amir.

The murder shook Israel and the world, but it was felt with particularly agonizing force at Bar-Ilan University, whose mission includes “teaching the compelling ethics of Jewish heritage” and “bridging the gap between religious and secular Jews.”

Some have said that it is the latter, not the Arabs, that represents the most serious conflict facing Israel. At least Sara and Simha Lainer were sufficiently shaken to suggest and endow the Chair for the university.

“We had, earlier, sponsored a dialogue between Israeli settlers and doves, and were thinking about these problems. But, obviously, the assassination gave us the impetus to do more,” said Sandler, who took time out from his recent speaking tour of the United States to speak with The Journal.

The most intractable problem he will address is the chasm between the Orthodox and secular segments of Israeli society, said Sandler, a political scientist with a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University.

“These are really two separate people, who go to different schools, have different diets, who label each other ‘Khomeinists’ and ‘non-Jews,'” Sandler said.

About the only places where the two cultures commingle are in the Israeli army and at Bar-Ilan, whose student body is 60 percent secular and 40 percent Orthodox.

Sandler, an observant Jew himself, thinks that the term “secular,” as applied in Israel, is, in any case, a misnomer.

“Secularists, in the sense of atheists or agnostics, make up 20 percent of Israel’s population,” he said. “The truly Orthodox also represent 20 percent. But the remaining 60 percent fall somewhere in between.”

Taking issue with a more rigid Orthodox viewpoint, Sandler points out that “Judaism has always had pluralism, even within Orthodoxy. The followers of Shammai and Hillel had bitter disputes, but they married each other. It is only now that some are trying to make Judaism so uniform.”

Currently, Sandler has embarked on one program and is working on a number of future projects in which he plans to collaborate with the Anti-Defamation League.

He is now holding weekly meetings, bringing together high school teachers from Israeli religious and secular schools for lectures and group discussions on “Jewish Values and Democracy.”

The most important aspect of this effort, he believes, is the very fact that teachers from the two separate school systems get together in the same classroom.

The ADL in Vienna

The Jewish Journal was invited to a “coupe de champagne” at the home of Austrian Consul General Werner Brandstetter to “salute the opening of an office of the Anti-Defamation League in Vienna.”

There we met the local consuls general of the Czech Republic and Hungary, as well as Israel’s Uri Palti. It was all very pleasant and celebratory, with just a whiff of Washington thrown in.

But there was a serious side as well. Just a few days after the get-together, visiting ADL international affairs director Ken Jacobson pointed to growing anti-Semitism, ethnic friction and xenophobia in both Eastern and Western Europe. Not so celebratory that.

To combat these trends, the ADL will adapt its prejudice-reduction program, “A World of Difference,” to its new region. The program has already been introduced in five German cities and across the United States.

Heading the Vienna operation is veteran journalist Marta S. Halpert. The ADL’s only other European station, at the Vatican, is also run by a journalist — Lisa Palmeri-Billig.

The perspicacious choice of the two journalists obviously demonstrates the ADL honchos’ high regards for the intelligence, astuteness and complete fairness of the Fourth Estate. — Tom Tugend, Contributing Writer

Going After Arafat’s &’009;&’009;Nobel Prize

F or a while, after the famous handshake with the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat enjoyed a summer honeymoon in the U.S. Peace, or at least the process, was in the air and as Peace Now advocates emphasized, Arafat was now Israel’s peace partner. But times change. There is a new Israeli prime minister, peace is stalled, and Arafat and his team are being looked at whole today.

Enter Rabbi Marvin Hier and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The SWC is launching an international campaign aimed at stripping Yasser Arafat of the Nobel Peace Prize he won in 1994.

Arafat shared the award with then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres for their joint efforts toward Middle East peace through the Oslo accords.

“The recent policy of Arafat’s Palestinian Authority in issuing a death sentence against anyone selling Palestinian land to a Jew — a decision embraced by Arafat himself — makes a mockery of the Nobel Peace Prize conferred upon him,” Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center, wrote to Francis Sejerstedt, chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

In urging the Nobel committee to rescind the award to Arafat, Hier noted that “sanctioning the murder without trial of individuals…is a form of behavior reminiscent of the Dark Ages and reeks of the anti-Semitism invoked by the Nazis.”

The honeymoon with Arafat, such as it was, seems to be over.

“Guest conducting” at Symphony in the GlenA Summer Symphony

Bring the kids, a blanket and picnic lunch to Griffith Park this Sunday, June 22 for an outdoor , musical celebration of the summer solstice. In a grassy glen surrounded by trees and flying frisbees, a concert of classical music will be performed from 3 to 5 p.m. by Symphony in the Glen, a non-profit organization that has been staging free classical music concerts in the city’s parks since 1994.

The concert’s orchestra, an assemblage of musicians from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Hollywood Bowl and other area professional ensembles, will begin appropriately enough with Prokofiev’s Summer Day (A Children’s Suite). Other highlights of the program include Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 (Italian) and a rousing Sousa march that will be “guest conducted” by six children whose names will be picked from a drawing that afternoon.

The founder and creative force behind Symphony in the Glen is Arthur B. Rubinstein — conductor, USC music professor and an award-winning composer of countless film and television scores. His own support, as well as that of sponsors like the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, McDonnell Douglas and KKGO-FM makes it possible for such a large-scale event to be free for everyone — something Rubinstein regards as critical if these concerts are to reach all segments of the public, particularly young children. In lieu of admission, concertgoers are asked to bring a canned food donation to be distributed by the Salvation Army Family Services Division. Such efforts make Symphony in the Glen concerts a joyful mix of culture, community and civic virtue.

Rubenstein’s own passion for music began early. His mother filled his childhood home with classical music. By the tender age of 15, he had already conducted his first orchestra. His grandfather, fabled clarinetist Naftule Brandwein, is considered one of the giants of klezmer music.

Visitors who get to Griffith Park before the 3 p.m. performance will be in for a pre-concert treat. From 1:30 -2:30 p.m., Rubenstein will gather up a group of young children for his “Kids Konducting Klass” in order to share with them his own musical tips and love of music. Each child will receive a free coloring book that explores the basics of conducting and musical notes. At 2:30, the audience will be treated to impromtu chamber music as a sort of casual interim concert until everyone is settled and ready to begin. The park, a picnic, Prokofiev… is there a better way to begin the summer? — Diane Arieff Zaga, Arts Editor

Parking is free and shuttles to the handicap-accessible concert site are available. For directins and program information, call (213) 955-6976.

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Community

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Setting a Conciliatory Tone

By Ari L Goldman

Yossef Kanefsky and Ed Feinstein belong to an emerging generation of brash, younger Los Angeles rabbis who are distinguishing themselves by enthusiastically — and openly — embracing Jews who hold dramatically different beliefs.

At a recent forum on pluralism, Kanefsky and Feinstein took a public stand, delivering peacemaking declarations that blur denominational lines in Los Angeles, especially among rabbis — some of whom have adopted separatist, intransigent positions regarding practices and policies of other Jews. Typically, some prominent rabbis have treated Jews of different denominations as less-worthy Jews. But that militant attitude — “if you’re not like me, you’re an enemy” — may fade away as newcomers with a message of conciliation step up in the community.

Kanefsky, a New York native who looks more like a teen-ager than the senior rabbi of (Modern Orthodox) B’nai David-Judea, has been in Los Angeles for less than a year, promoting what seems to be a daring Orthodox philosophy.

What he told the pluralism audience at the UCLA Hillel-sponsored forum may not win favor among all Jewish groups.

“No one movement has all the answers,” said Kanefsky. “And all of the movements have some answers.”

He also sought to separate Modern Orthodoxy from the militant Brooklyn-based Orthodox rabbi who angered most American Jews last March by declaring all non-Orthodox Jews as out-of-bounds.

“Except for beliefs on the extreme right, there can be no question that any Jew who loves God, who wants to lead a life guided by Torah principles, is, of course, a Jew,” said Kanefsky. “Such a person is practicing Judaism [regardless of denomination].”

Feinstein, the lively associate rabbi at (Conservative) Valley Beth Shalom, put a face on a remarkable invitation that he and Senior Rabbi Harold Schulweis crafted a few months ago. Taking his message out into the community for the first time, Feinstein urged Orthodox, Reform and Reconstructionist Jews to come on down to VBS in Encino and talk, freely, in a non-threatening atmosphere, about what they believe.

“I want to hear the Torah of other Jews,” Feinstein said. “I want my Jews to be exposed to other Jews and their beliefs. I’m not afraid. I want my children to see how Orthodox Jews and Reform Jews and Reconstructionist Jews look and act.”

Such talk from the so-called emerging generation of rabbis may eventually overcome an atmosphere of conflict that is dominant in parts of the community. Supporters of the new-style conciliatory language of Kanefsky and Feinstein believe that there is a reason these rabbis can deliver unprecedented unity to the community. They have the advantage of a natural forum: Both are from large, prestigious synagogues.

Also, youthfulness, rabbinically speaking, is on their side. Feinstein is in his early 40s, Kanefsky, his early 30s.

The third member of the panel, Reform Rabbi Richard Levy, the director of Los Angeles Hillel Council and a yarmulke-wearing traditionalist in the most liberal movement, spoke with extraordinary warmth of his love for ritual and prayer practices.

All denominations, he said, “have filled a clear need. None of us has kept Jews out. My belief is, we all stood at Sinai. We just heard things differently.”

As a kind of codicil, he added, “God has approved these different aspects of Jewish expression.”

By the end of the UCLA Hillel program, it was plain that the participating rabbis — Levy, Feinstein, Kanefsky and moderator Chaim Seidler-Feller — were genuinely fond of each other in addition to sharing philosophical beliefs.

Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky (top) and Rabbi Ed Feinstein.

Board of Rabbis Installs Goldmark

Rabbi Lawrence Goldmark was recently installed as president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California. The ceremony, attended by about 120 people, took place following a dinner at Beth Jacob Congregation in Beverly Hills.

Goldmark, 54, has served as spiritual leader of Temple Beth Ohr of La Mirada, a Reform congregation, since July 1979. He is also executive vice president of the Pacific Association of Reform Rabbis, an organization of 250 rabbis from throughout the Western United States. He succeeds Rabbi Dr. Abner Weiss, senior rabbi at Beth Jacob in Beverly Hills.

In an interview before his installation, Goldmark said that the Board of Rabbis, which includes more than 250 rabbis from all branches of Judaism, is characterized by respect and pluralism, with the two-year term of president rotating among the different denominations — from the Orthodox Weiss, to the Reform Goldmark, to Gilbert Kollin of the Conservative Pasadena Jewish Temple (in 1999), to Steven Carr Reuben of the Reconstructionist Kehillath Israel in Pacific Palisades (in 2001).

Goldmark will also chair a search committee for a new executive vice president to succeed Rabbi Paul Dubin, who is retiring in June of 1998. Dubin is one of two staff persons at the board, an agency of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles. — Ruth Stroud, Staff Writer

Opinion

Hocus-PocusBy Yehuda Lev

It is with a sense of relief that the subject is at last out in the open.

I read discussions in The Jewish Journal (June 13), the Forward (June 6) and Time magazine (June 9), of Michael Drosnin’s “The Bible Code.”

I have not read Drosnin’s work, nor am I likely to, but it deals with a phenomenon that has gained some currency in the Jewish community in recent years — the belief that, by using computers to examine the placement of letters and words in the Torah in the form of a hitherto secret code, you can find incontrovertible proof that God was the author of the Torah. This is an idea that offers comfort to those who already believe in the Torah’s divine authorship, and discomfort to those who, like myself, think there is considerable room for doubt on the matter.

As for criticism of the idea by believers, I quote Conservative Rabbi David Wolpe from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency report in The Jewish Journal: “To pretend that God gave this evidence of faith but was waiting until we had Pentium chips to uncover it seems to me to be both simple minded and wrong.”

I am not going to enter into the argument except to note that there are Protestant scholars who, with their own computers, examined the same Torah and discovered some hitherto secret codes that foretell the return of the Messiah. One wonders whose version of the Torah each team of experts was examining.

My interest in this stems from an incident some years ago, when I interviewed for The Journal a man who had contributed a large sum of money to Aish HaTorah, an Orthodox educational institution that supports a yeshiva in Jerusalem and maintains offices and meeting rooms on Pico Boulevard. Aish HaTorah has developed a program called Discovery that purports to prove that these codes do in fact exist. He was attracted to Aish HaTorah by the opportunity to study with Jewish educators. When I interviewed him in his office, I asked him for an example of what he had learned.

“Did you know,” he told me, “that 5,000 years ago, there were 10,000 Chinese and 10,000 Jews, and that the effect of persecution on the Jewish people has been so great that while there are billions of Chinese today, there are just a few million Jews.”

I owned up that I had not been aware of this and asked him where he had learned such interesting information.

“From my rabbi,” he said.

“Could you call the rabbi and ask him for his source for this?”

“Certainly.” And he dialed the rabbi’s number and turned on the speakerphone.

When the rabbi answered, his student explained the situation and asked the rabbi from whence had come this data about the Chinese and the Jews.

“From our writings,” said the rabbi.

“That’s it?” I asked.

“That’s it,” said the rabbi. End of conversation.

I returned to the office and wrote a routine human-interest story about this nice man who so generously donated money to an educational Jewish institution; I omitted all references to Chinese vs. Jewish population growth statistics. But I thought to myself as I wrote, that the real story was not in his gift, or even in him, but in the spurious nature of the “education” that was being dispensed by the rabbis of the institution.

That brings us back to the subject of “decoding” the Torah. In the Forward’s article, David Marcus, professor of Bible at the Jewish Theological Seminary, questioned the code’s credibility.

“For it to be valid,” he said, “a scholar would have to prove that the configurations of text that the book offers were the original arrangements. All manuscripts — even printed editions of the Hebrew Bible — differ.”

In his view, the Bible code is “hardly better than fortunetelling…with this type of analysis, you could find anything you want to find.”

I wonder what the Chinese do for laughs.

Yehuda Lev writes from Providence, R.I.

All rights reserved by author.

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Keeping in Rhythm

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The Creative Team: from left; Producer Garth H. Drabinsky, Choreographer Graciela Daniele, Playwright Terrence McNally (above), Composer Stephen Flaherty, Original Novelist E.L. Doctorow, Lyricist Lynn Ahrens and Director Frank Galati. Photo by Michael CooperE.L. Doctorow was wary when the call from Toronto came four years ago. Garth Drabinsky, the maverick theater producer who runs his company like a 1930s movie mogul, had a proposition: He wanted to turn Doctorow’s 1975 best seller, “Ragtime,” into a musical. Drabinsky had won Tonys and made millions with “Show Boat” and “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” and wanted to repeat with “Ragtime.”

But Doctorow didn’t like adaptations of his work; at least, he had intensely disliked Milos Forman’s 1981 film version of “Ragtime.” The novel interweaves the stories of three turn-of-the-century families (one African-American, one Victorian WASP, one immigrant Jewish) with a parade of historical figures. The book, like its title, is a “rag bag,” a tapestry, Doctorow has said; unravel one thread, and the pattern disintegrates. But Forman, alas, chose to focus upon only the Harlem family, so the movie was, in Doctorow’s opinion, a disaster.

Nevertheless, the author agreed to meet with the persuasive, heavyset, gruff-voiced Drabinsky over a long lunch at the Russian Tea Room in Manhattan. Over blinis, the goateed, soft-spoken novelist and college writing professor administered a two-part quiz. What did the producer think of the movie, he wanted to know. How did he interpret the novel?

Drabinsky passionately spoke of the book’s sweeping scope and social issues, and, apparently, passed the test with an A. Within the month, Doctorow had granted his permission. What clinched the deal was that he would get to approve the selection of the librettist, composer, lyricist and director. He would also be encouraged to give notes on the work-in-progress. “And he is being paid well,” wryly says Marty Bell, senior vice president, creative affairs, for Drabinsky’s Livent Inc.

Upon closer examination, it is not surprising that Doctorow was taken with 47-year-old Drabinsky. The producer, after all, has said that he intensely identifies with the Jewish immigrant character of Tateh, who braves black despair before realizing the American dream.

Drabinsky, himself of humble Jewish immigrant stock, was stricken with polio at the age of 3. He endured operations for each of six summers and grew up with one leg almost an inch shorter than the other. As a result, walking is difficult and his back sometimes causes him agony.

But it was this setback that prodded him to achieve, to fly, to “escape from the incarceration of his body,” “Ragtime” director Frank Galati told The New Yorker. Like the fictional Tateh, Drabinsky transformed himself into that most American of paradigms, the show business impresario.

By the age of 32, the visionary, sometimes controversial, entertainment lawyer had produced six movies and had co-founded the movie theater chain Cineplex Odeon, which he turned into a billion-dollar enterprise, according to The New Yorker. In 1989, he co-founded his theatrical production company, Livent Inc., which he has structured like an old Hollywood film studio. Today, it develops, markets and exhibits all its own shows, in stark contrast to the conventional Broadway limited partnership. It gleans almost one-quarter of the North American theatrical box office and earned 1996 revenues of $332 million, The New Yorker says.

“Garth Vader,” as he is sometimes called, is known for doing things his way, and that is how he put “Ragtime” on the stage. After securing playwright Terrence McNally (“Master Class,” “Love! Valour! Compassion!”), he had eight composer-lyricist teams actually audition for the job by writing songs on spec. Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens won the competition; next aboard was director Galati, who is known for dramatic adaptations of books such as John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.”

Over a year and a half, two readings and a workshop, the creative team tackled the daunting task of adapting Doctorow’s book. Particularly challenging was drawing out the emotions behind the novel’s terse, reportorial, utterly unsentimental prose, as was winnowing down the sprawling narrative and the large cast of characters.

Protagonists such as Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung were ultimately cut from the saga, to Doctorow’s slight disappointment.

“He’s always seen ‘Ragtime’ as the story of an era, while we wanted to focus on that central image of the melting pot, on how the three [families] ultimately become one,” Flaherty says.

The composer was “incredibly nervous” when Doctorow arrived for a staged reading, but he need not had worried. The author was “visibly moved” by the production and, afterward, declared that he was honored by how faithful it was to the spirit of his book.

For Flaherty, the most difficult and frustrating endeavor was composing music for the Latvian Jewish immigrant character of Tateh. “I’m an Irish-Catholic from Pittsburgh, a former altar boy, and Eastern European harmonies just weren’t in my musical vocabulary,” he says. Flaherty studied books on klezmer music, listened to scratchy, vintage recordings and attended Drabinsky’s Passover seder with the rest of the cast and creative team. “But whatever I wrote sounded like bad ‘Fiddler on the Roof,'” he says.

Then, Flaherty’s revelation came: Tateh is struggling to become an American, so his music should reflect both the Old World and the New. Thus, we hear klezmer instrumentation with the syncopated rhythm of ragtime. But by the time the émigré has become a successful filmmaker, in the second act, the Old World clarinet-and-fiddle sounds are gone.

Meanwhile, the actors, in both the Toronto and Los Angeles productions, were immersed in research of their own. In the vast concrete Debbie Reynolds Professional Rehearsal Studio in North Hollywood, Galati’s office was transformed into a library about the “Ragtime” era.

The some 55 actors spent a morning sitting on the floor and sharing their immigrant roots: “Frank [emphasized] that that was how we were going to find our way into the story,” says Judy Kaye, who portrays the anarchist Emma Goldman and is the granddaughter of Jewish émigrés. Kaye read Goldman’s 1,000-page autobiography, but she skipped Forman’s movie because Doctorow didn’t like it.

As for what exactly is at stake in Los Angeles, that depends upon whom you talk to. Bell, for one, is nonchalant: Sure, some $10 million is on the line, but the Toronto show has run to terrific reviews and nearly sold-out houses. “Ragtime” will go on to San Francisco and Vancouver, so the musical “will not live or die by what happens in L.A.”

Kaye sees it differently. “This is the American première, in a show-business town, and we will be under as much scrutiny as we will be in New York, maybe more,” she says. “For Garth, it is his reputation that is on the line. He is also very emotionally attached to this story.” She pauses, then says, “It is his story.” n

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America, Set to Music

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Coalhouse Walker Jr.
(Brian Stokes Mitchell),
a ragtime pianist brimming
with confidence and plans
for the future

America, Set to Music

By Diane Arieff Zaga, Arts Editor

Broadway-

bound

‘Ragtime’

reaches

deep

into the

heart of

Doctorow’s

novel and

pulls out

a rousing,

epic musical

After the countless ads, fluff pieces and an advance press packet thick enough to choke a horse, the question hung in the celebrity-studded lobby of the Shubert Theatre last Sunday evening: Could “Ragtime” pull it off?

The answer is a resounding yes. Fans of “big” musicals who may have been unmoved by the direction the genre has taken in recent years will be heartened by “Ragtime,” a sweeping and ambitious $10 million production with a soul. Librettist Terrence McNally, director Frank Galati, musical composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist Lynn Ahrens have created an epic musical adaptation of E.L. Doctorow’s novel that places its stirring, human-scale narrative front and center.

The syncopated music made famous by Scott Joplin is the show’s central metaphor — marking the beginning of a new century humming with energy and the promise of big changes to come.

“Ragtime” begins in 1906, and the entire company is on stage for the stylish and rousing opening number that sets the scene: It was the music of something beginning/ an era exploding/ a century spinning in riches and rags/ and in rhythm and rhyme. The people called it Ragtime….”

It’s a smartly staged introduction to the three narrative strands that constitute the story. The gentry of New Rochelle, dressed in costume designer Santo Loquasto’s creamy Victorian whites and twirling lacy parasols, sings sweetly of their America, a smugly romantic place destined for a rude awakening. Their world was an affluent WASP idyll where, “there were no Negroes or immigrants….”

Suddenly, the African-American members of the cast twirl to the foreground, dancing with defiant joy to the syncopated new rhythms of rag, determined to bust loose into a new age. Both groups are then joined by a gaggle of immigrants. Jews in shtreimels and beards, babushkas and shawls, rush warily to center stage, only to huddle uncertainly in the middle. They glance back and forth between the black and white ensembles, which square off and face each other in a dance buzzing with tension and the threat of conflict. It’s a compressed, evocative tableau of American history, and one of many pleasurable moments in the play when Graciela Daniele’s inventive choreography adds dramatic punch to the proceedings.

Understandably, certain plot points from Doctorow’s sprawling, intricate novel have been cut. Even so, this “Ragtime” is a tapestry of interweaving stories that adheres more closely to the spirit and scope of the book than Milos Forman’s ponderous and lopsided film adaptation.

At the outset, “Mother,” “Father,” “Younger Brother” and “The Little Boy” live a charmed and bucolic life in New Rochelle. All of that is destined to change after Father (John Dossett), a pompous and hidebound traditionalist, leaves with Admiral Peary for a yearlong expedition to the North Pole. In his absence, the heatedly idealistic Younger Brother finds that his walloping juvenile crush on vaudeville sex symbol Evelyn Nesbit metamorphoses into a passion for radical justice, sparked by the fiery rhetoric of anarchist Emma Goldman one night in Union Square.

Meanwhile, Mother (Marcia Mitzman Gaven) has taken in a young and frightened black woman and her newborn son. It is Sarah (LaChanze), on the run from a failed romance with the handsome Coalhouse Walker Jr. (Brian Stokes Mitchell). Coalhouse, a ragtime pianist brimming with confidence and plans for the future, is unaware of the birth of his child and determined to find his lost love. After they reunite in all-white New Rochelle, Coalhouse takes to visiting Sarah at Mother’s house every Sunday, driving there in his beloved new Model-T Ford. The weekly specter of “the nigger” in his gleaming automobile, however, infuriates the men of the town’s largely Irish volunteer fire department. Seething with hatred, they destroy Coalhouse’s car, setting the story’s tragedy in motion.

Back in the city, the immigrant Tateh (John Rubinstein) and The Little Girl (Danielle Weiner) are trying to scrabble out an existence on the teeming Lower East Side. A struggling artist, Tateh cuts out silhouettes for a nickel apiece. But as he and his daughter sink deeper into poverty, his dream of life in the goldene medina rapidly darkens into a relentless nightmare. They flee New York, get caught up in a violent labor strike in a Massachusetts mill town, and finally find salvation through Tateh’s little handmade “movie books,” crude cutout images that seem to move as one flips the pages. After the books become a modest hit, Tateh invents a primitive film projector and scores success in the early movie business as director “Baron Ashkenazi.”

It’s a daunting mosaic of a plot, but McNally and company prove themselves up to the challenge. The real-life historical figures who peppered the original narrative — Goldman, J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford and escapologist Harry Houdini — are used artfully here, both as metaphors of an age and as bits of our collective past come to life. Only Evelyn Nesbit (Susan Wood), whose celebrity as “the girl on the swing” was sealed after her millionaire husband murdered her lover, architect Stanford White, fails to become a meaningful thread in this tapestry. Instead, she remains a free-floating bit of camp history, never resonating on a deeper level.

“Ragtime” producer Garth Drabinsky held exhaustive Los Angeles auditions for the cast, and, by and large, it’s a solid and able company.

The elegant Mitchell, a charismatic baritone who soars in his role as Coalhouse, is the sole holdover from the Toronto production. He infuses the doomed hero with feline grace and stiff-necked nobility. Coalhouse was always a compelling character, even if his early optimism about America is a bit of a puzzle. In lesser hands, Coalhouse could easily ring false, a maddeningly naïve riff on the Brother from Another Planet. But Mitchell’s expressive portrayal is, at once, specific and larger than life — a metaphor for how our best hopes of America persist in spite of everything. It makes his descent into rage and despair a fall that has consequences for all of us.

Some other performances stand out. The patrician-looking Gaven is luminescent as Mother. LaChanze, in the smaller role of Sarah, is able to stir the back row of the theater with her piercing “Your Daddy’s Son” and “The Wheels of a Dream.” As Tateh, Rubinstein is fine in “Gliding,” a bittersweet lullaby to his daughter flavored with Jewish melody. But he is most winning here as an actor. Despite his role as the archetypal immigrant, he studiously avoids any whiff of schmaltz, and is especially good in a boardwalk scene with Mother.

Flaherty’s musical score is blessedly free of the forgettable segue numbers that dilute much of musical theater. Ahrens’ lyrics neatly enrich the characterizations and propel the story forward with depth and style. They are moving but not manipulative — even in numbers where the temptation to woo us with false sentimentality may have been great. “He Wanted to Say,” “Back to Before” and “Till We Reach That Day,” an aching anthemlike ballad against racism, are vivid cases in point.

Eugene Lee’s fun and evocative set is money well spent. During the number “Success,” J.P. Morgan strides self-importantly along a catwalk that slowly descends to crush the hopeful plebes below. In a memorable Ellis Island scene that looks like a sepia photo come to
life, bedraggled immigrants rush forward with their documents at the ready, their hope impervious to the succession of barred gates that slam shut in front of them with each advancing step. They, like Coalhouse, Sarah and the rest, are looking for the country of their dreams. Instead, what they get in “Ragtime” is America — “a strange new music,” as powerful and dissonant today as it was a century ago.

“Ragtime” plays at the Shubert Theatre, 2020 Avenue of the Stars, Century City. It closes on Sept. 7. Tickets are available at the theater box office or by calling (800) 447-7400.

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‘I am Tateh’

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After months of rehearsal as a poor immigrant struggling to protect his daughter, Rubinstein has forged a close bond with Danielle Weiner, the young actress who plays Little Girl
In “Ragtime,” the part of Tateh, a widowed, immigrant Jew who comes to New York with a young daughter in tow, is in many ways a role that is especially close to the heart of actor John Rubinstein.

“Twenty years ago, I wanted that part,” said Rubinstein, who was “thrilled” to be approached for the role in the new musical. “I am Tateh. Like him, I have artistic aspirations. I enjoy the art of acting, but, ultimately, I’m Daddy.” (He is the father of four children who range in age from infancy to adulthood.)

Both as a father and as a son, Rubinstein had plenty of material from which to build this character. His father, world-renowned pianist Arthur Rubinstein, was a Jewish immigrant from Poland who first visited the United States in 1906, the year that “Ragtime” begins.

“My parents were older, particularly my father, who was 61, when I was born,” he said. “They both had such vivid memories of that period. My mother remembers fleeing Lithuania after the Russians took over. She and her family moved to Warsaw, where her father — a conductor — founded the Warsaw Opera. She was Catholic, so for her, it was all about nationality, about Russia confiscating her family’s property…. Their estate was on a rather large piece of land. It was almost Chekhovian.

“For my father, being a Polish Jew was the flip side of that experience. It wasn’t about Polish nationalism in the least. They left in ’38 or ’39, before I was born — first to Paris and then to the U.S. When they fled Hitler, the Gestapo took over their Paris house and robbed it of everything, including a portrait of my father by Picasso.”

Years later, the Rubinsteins traveled back to Poland. It was then when the enormity of the Holocaust began to take shape in the young actor’s mind.

“We went back in 1958, when I was 12 years old,” he said. “A huge swarm of people came to meet us from my mother’s side. ‘I’m your granduncle,’ this one was saying. That one is your second cousin, and so on. Amid this mass of people, just one young man approached my father — a nephew of some sort who had survived. Just him. It was then that I really got it.”

Rubinstein said that while his father was never particularly religious, “he was a proud Jew and a staunch Zionist” who remained tremendously involved with Israel. “You know, after 1914, my father said he’d never play again in Germany, and he never did.”

After months of rehearsal as a poor immigrant struggling to protect his daughter, Rubinstein has forged a close bond with Danielle Weiner, the young actress who plays Little Girl, Tateh’s mostly silent daughter.

“I adore her,” he said. “After every show, I get down on my knees and thank her for her energy. She’s my partner. Eighty percent of my role, in a sense, is addressed to her. Her support and good acting make it work. And sometimes, she tells me to remember my props.” — Diane Arieff Zaga, Arts Editor

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Justice for Jonathan Pollard

Leave a Comment / Israel, Old Stories, Opinion, United States /

Imagine that it is 1940, and Great Britain is fighting Hitler’s Nazi Germany almost alone. Imagine, further, that an American who loves both America and England and hates the Nazis works in American intelligence and has access to secret files concerning Germany that, for whatever reason, the United States has not shared with Great Britain. This American gives the secrets to England and is caught.

This spy has, of course, violated both American law and the trust that its intelligence agencies had placed in him. Now, the question is what should be done to him? Specifically, should we regard him morally or legally as the same as an American who spied for Germany?

The answer is so obvious that only in a morally confused age such as ours would the question even be entertained. Yet this is precisely the question to be asked with regard to Jonathan Pollard, the American who spied for Israel.

Let us review the parallels to the imaginary situation outlined earlier. Israel has been at perpetual war for its survival (a threat England never faced against Germany, which wanted to vanquish, not end, its existence). An American who loved both America and Israel used his access to American intelligence on those Arab regimes and passed it on to Israel. He spied on behalf of America’s most loyal allies, not on behalf of any of America’s enemies, and he gave away secrets about Arab regimes devoted to Israel’s destruction not, to the best of our knowledge, about America. And, unlike spies whose espionage cost the lives of American and pro-American foreign agents, we know of no American and pro-American foreigner who lost his life because of Pollard.

Yet Jonathan Pollard was given a life sentence in prison — more punishment than some Americans who have spied on behalf of America’s enemies, and certainly more punishment than nearly all the murderers in America; and he has now languished in prison, often in solitary confinement, for 12 years.

The argument that Pollard was a spy, and that is all that matters, may be legally valid, but it is not morally valid. The argument that “spying is spying” is no more moral than “killing is killing.” Circumstances always determine the morality of an act. Just as most of us distinguish morally between terrorists killing innocents and anti-terrorists killing terrorists, most of us morally distinguish between spying on a democratic ally, especially one fighting for its existence, and spying for an anti-democratic enemy such as the Soviet Union. Furthermore, the United States spies on Israel and probably on most of its other allies. Last year, for example, Germany expelled an American for spying on Germany.

None of this is meant to defend what Jonathan Pollard did. Unless he actually saved Israel from something as awful as an Iraqi biological or nuclear attack, what he did is unjustifiable. As Rabbi Irving Greenberg recently wrote, “Pollard’s good intentions paved the way to political hell.” I am writing only to morally evaluate what he did in light of the suffering he has endured, and to compare his punishments with those given to other American spies and to violent criminals.

He is largely a broken man who suffers alone and who, for reasons that are not our business but that compel our compassion, has also suffered family crises. His continued suffering serves no good purpose. Again, as Rabbi Greenberg, one of the most credible voices in American Jewry and someone who, in his own words, “was not one of those who expressed sympathy for him when the case first broke,” wrote: “I have come to the conclusion that enough is enough…. It is time to extend mercy to Jonathan Pollard…. [There has been a] relentless parade of parallel cases in which far more damaging and dangerous spies received milder sentences.”

We quickly learn of the damage done to America by those who have spied on behalf of America’s enemies, and no damage has been revealed in Jonathan Pollard’s case. It makes one wonder why former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger so vociferously sought to keep Pollard in prison. Two reasons suggest themselves. One is that, for whatever reason, Weinberger has a particular loathing for Pollard; the other is that he may fear that if Pollard is released, Pollard will reveal how much sensitive data about Israel’s enemies the Weinberger Defense Department kept from Israel. I have no proof for either claim — I hope they are untrue. But neither Weinberger nor anyone else, including the entire American media, has offered any data that argue for the treatment Pollard has received.

Enough is enough. As I watch America release thousands of murderers and child molesters after a few years in prison, and give a spy for Saudi Arabia no prison term at all, I get progressively more disturbed as to why Jonathan Pollard is still in prison.

To contact Justice for Jonathan Pollard, call (416) 781-3571; fax (416) 781-3166; or e-mail pollard@cpol.com. The web site is http://www.interlog.com/.

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Minister of Compassion

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

Israel Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai (center) in animated conversation with Federation President Herb Gelfand (right) joined by Israel Consul General Yoram Ben Ze’ev. Photo by Peter Halmagyi

Minister of Compassion

Yitzhak Mordechai, Israel’s defense minister, delicately discusses peace, his boss and the conversion bill during a recent L.A. visit

By Tom Tugend, Contributing Editor

Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai is arguably the most popular politician in Israel, and during a recent four-day visit to Los Angeles, he proved that his common touch might work equally well abroad.

For instance, during an inspection tour of the aerospace company TRW, where he was received like the conquering general he has been most of his life, Mordechai noticed three office workers handing out the company’s souvenir coffee mugs, emblazoned with the Israeli and American flags.

Mordechai turned from the escorting dignitaries, walked over to thank the office employees and, lifting his empty mug, toasted them with a hearty “L’Chaim.”

His thoughtfulness extended even to so humble a petitioner as a local reporter. Finishing up an interview, the stocky minister handed the reporter a nicely wrapped box that contained a handsome ballpoint pen, bearing the seal of the state of Israel.

Only rarely did his natural courtesy require a gentle nudge. As a television crew was packing up its equipment after an interview, Mordechai’s media adviser whispered a few words, and his boss asked the crew’s indulgence to add one more important remark.

When the camera was ready, Mordechai said, “I want to thank all the Jewish people for what they have done for Israel.”

Mordechai was born in Iraq 53 years ago and came to Israel at age 5. He served 33 years in the Israeli army, mainly as a combat officer, and rose to the rank of major general.

He joined Binyamin Netanyahu’s campaign shortly before last year’s election — after briefly flirting with the Labor Party — and is given considerable credit for the Likud victory, thanks to his mobilizing support across the electoral spectrum, particularly among Sephardic voters.

Only a few weeks ago, posters sprouted mysteriously in some parts of Israel, proclaiming “Mordechai for Prime Minister.” In a recent magazine article, he is described as “compassionate… and a classic example of the American leadership model: reliable, trustworthy, cares about people like you and me, with vision and clear goals.”

During his tightly programmed and heavily guarded stay in Los Angeles, Mordechai met, in closed events, with the leaderships of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles and AIPAC’s local branch, talked with the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times, had lunch with California Gov. Pete Wilson, and even exchanged views with actors Richard Dreyfuss, a Peace Now stalwart, and Ed Asner, a mainstay of Hollywood’s liberal wing.

The encounter with some 40 Federation leaders was a bit of a learning experience for Mordechai. After addressing the group on Israel’s military situation and the status of peace talks, Mordechai took questions.

It quickly became obvious that his audience wanted him to take back a message conveying their profound concern about the conversion bill now pending in the Knesset. The bill would officially deny recognition to conversions performed in Israel by Reform and Conservative rabbis.

“I don’t think Mordechai realized the extent of the chasm that is opening up between Israel and American Jewry on the question of religious pluralism,” said Dr. Gerald Bubis, a member of the Federation’s executive committee and a longtime activist in Americans for Peace Now and a past national co-chair.

Judging by the mood at the meeting and similar exchanges elsewhere, Israeli Consul General Yoram Ben Ze’ev noted that he hadn’t seen the Jewish community leadership so agitated since the “Who Is a Jew?” controversy of a decade ago.

“It is no longer a theological, but a political, issue,” said Ben Ze’ev.

Later, in a private interview, Mordechai addressed the subject with some anguish.

“I know that many Jews are worried,” he said, “but we must find a clever formula that will lead to a common understanding.

“Many times in our history, we have had misunderstandings that divided the Jewish community. We have to be united.”

Asked whether, realistically, such a formula could be found, he replied, seemingly with more hope than conviction, “I think there can be a formula; I hope there will be a formula.”

Mordechai was at pains to scotch any speculation that he might be available for the top government post, should Netanyahu stumble.

“Mr. Netanyahu is an excellent prime minister, young, with high education and motivation,” he said. “He has another seven to eight years to be the leader of the Israeli government.

“I have a high responsibility now, and I am giving it all in my power. I will be full of happiness if we do not put Israel into war and succeed in achieving peace.”

The highlight of Mordechai’s visit was the elaborate inspection tour at TRW of the world’s first laser-based air-defense system, which is being developed jointly by the United States and Israel.

The project, known as THEL/ACTD, for Tactical High Energy Laser/Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrator, is specifically designed as a state-of-the-art defense against the short-range Katyusha rockets that threaten northern Israel.

Somewhat to the surprise of his circumspect hosts, Mordechai predicted that the THEL system will be operational and in place in Israel by late next year or early 1999.

While TRW managers and technicians explained the complex technology of the system, Mordechai again showed his human touch.

“On behalf of the children of Israel” who are exposed to Katyushas in the settlements adjoining the Lebanese border, Mordechai thanked the TRW staff for “helping to defeat terrorism.”

He said that he would pass on a scale model and an artist’s rendering of the THEL system, presented to him, to a school in Kiryat Shemona, the community that has suffered the most from the rocket attacks.

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Mission

Leave a Comment / Old Stories, Travel /

A mission to Israel that’s billed as the largest ever in the history of the Los Angeles Jewish community is scheduled to take place between Nov. 1 and 10 of this year. About 500 Southern Californians are expected to participate in the Golden Anniversary Community Mission, which is being coordinated by the Jewish Federation Council in commemoration of the Jewish state’s first 50 years.

Some 200 people have already signed up and paid their deposits, with another 300 expressing interest, said Evy Lutin, who is co-chairing the mission with her husband, Marty Lutin. She expects that at least half of those who decide to go will be visiting Israel for the first time.

The 10-day trip, which is priced at $2,950, includes round-trip air fare between Los Angeles and Tel Aviv aboard a charter plane, five-star hotel accommodations in major cities, most meals, top Israeli tour guides and air-conditioned buses. A contribution to the Federation is required, but there is no minimum.

Highlights of the trip include:

* Meeting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Tel Aviv Mayor Roni Milo and, possibly, poet Yehuda Amichai at his home in Jerusalem.

* Visiting Yad Vashem’s Children’s Memorial and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s Mount Herzl grave site in Jerusalem, and celebrating Shabbat at the Southern Wall.

* Celebrating Israel’s 50th anniversary, in Tel Aviv, visiting the renovated ancient port city of Jaffa and, possibly, the Israeli stock market and fashion and jewelry centers.

Some will tour northern Israel, meeting with Golan Heights settlers, taking a security seminar at an army base, visiting Caesarea and Haifa, and staying overnight at kibbutz guest houses. Others will head south, where they’ll meet recent Ethiopian Jewish immigrants at an absorption center in Beersheba, visit a Bedouin museum, and possibly meet Palestinians in Gaza.

In Jerusalem, options may include visiting the new Western Wall tunnel, the Jewish Quarters, Masada and the Dead Sea. A two-day extension to the trip will take visitors to the Jordanian cities of Petra, Jerash and Amman.

For more information on the Golden Anniversary Community Mission, call the Federation at (213) 852-7872. — Ruth Stroud, Staff Writer

10-day trip,

$2,950,

includes round-trip air fare between Los Angeles and Tel Aviv

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Compromise

Leave a Comment / Israel, Old Stories, Politics, Power /

Binyamin Netanyahu’s crises never come singly. One, of prime interest to American Jewry, was put on hold this week. Another, which hogged the headlines for Israelis, ended with blood on the saddle.

Leaders of American Reform and Conservative movements reached an agreement, in principle, with the prime minister and other secular members of his ruling coalition to find, by Sept. 15, a compromise solution to their confrontation over a proposed conversion bill that Diaspora Jews feared would reduce them to second-class status in Israeli eyes.

On the same Tuesday night, Dan Meridor resigned as finance minister after a Cabinet showdown that most Israeli commentators attributed to a clash of personalities rather than its ostensible cause — exchange rates and the pace of economic liberalization. “Binyamin Netanyahu,” as political analyst Hanan Crystal put it, “no longer wanted Dan Meridor in his government.”

The conversion bill compromise was based on a position paper presented to the prime minister and his colleagues by a Reform and Conservative delegation.

“I believe this is a great gain for us,” said one delegate, Rabbi Richard Hirsch, executive director of the World Union of Progressive Judaism.

Rabbi Uri Regev, the foremost Israeli campaigner for religious pluralism, was “cautiously optimistic.” He recognized that the emerging formula still had to overcome the opposition of Netanyahu’s religious coalition partners, who control 23 of the 66 seats in the 120-member Knesset.

The three Orthodox parties did not endorse the deal. One of their Knesset members stalked out of a Knesset committee room when the American delegation entered. “Chutzpah,” said a fuming Rabbi Moshe Gafni, a member of the haredi United Torah Judaism Party. “They have no place here.”

“Potentially,” Uri Regev told me, “this is an historic breakthrough.” He celebrated the degree of seriousness with which the prime minister and coalition representatives approached the issue as “an unprecedented turn of events.” The politicians were evidently shaken by the depth of Diaspora anger on a matter that tends to be consigned to the margins by most Israelis.

Regev, one of the first Israeli-born Reform rabbis, pinned his hopes on two possibilities. Either some of the Orthodox Knesset members would pull back from the brink, recognizing that they would not command a majority if the bill was presented again. Or a combination of secular government and opposition Knesset members would vote it down. However, that does not mean, as some of the delegation expected, that the government would now grant them equal standing in Israel.

Under this week’s compromise, the legislation was pulled from the Knesset agenda. In return, the non-Orthodox movements agreed to withdraw their petitions to the Israeli Supreme Court, which precipitated this crisis. The justices had given legislators until June 30 to clarify the law if they so wished.

The tug of war between Netanyahu and the governor of the Bank of Israel, Ya’acov Frenkel, on one side and Dan Meridor on the other ended less amicably. After announcing his resignation, the finance minister told reporters that he was not resigning over economic policy alone. He had, he said, lost faith in the prime minister.

Tension between the two Likud leaders goes back to early 1996, when it looked as if Netanyahu was going to lose the May elections. Meridor was reported to have plotted to replace him as the Likud candidate for prime minister. After winning the elections, Netanyahu was forced, against his will, to include Meridor on his government team.

Although they agreed on the need for liberalization, the prime minister repeatedly humiliated the finance minister over economic tactics. Meridor responded by openly criticizing Netanyahu’s handling of the Bar-On affair, the abortive appointment of an underqualified party hack as attorney general in questionable circumstances.

Following his resignation, Meridor blamed Netanyahu’s hatchet man, Avigdor Lieberman, for undermining him. Lieberman had, indeed, made no secret of his determination to get rid of his boss’s troublesome rival.

“I have served in the government of Menachem Begin,” Meridor said. “I served in the government of Yitzhak Shamir. I have never seen anything like this. A chapter has closed, and I cannot continue anymore. As long as I had faith in the prime minister, I remained in the government.” Nothing, he contended, had changed since the Bar-On scandal.

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Open-Door Policy

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

They are your brother, your cousin, your lawyer, your best friend, or possibly yourself. Yet, while there are as many gays, lesbians and bisexuals in the Jewish community as in any other, they often feel like outcasts in their own faith, afraid that they can’t be open about their sexuality and a committed Jew as well.

Am Echad, a group that formally became part of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles in March, aims to help change both the perception and the reality of being homosexual or bisexual in the Southern California Jewish community. The organization, whose name means “one people” in Hebrew, will, for the second year, have a booth at the Christopher Street West Lesbian and Gay Pride Festival (CSW) this weekend (June 21-22), at the corner of San Vicente and Santa Monica boulevards in West Hollywood. The importance of visibility was underscored by Am Echad co-chair Bruce Maxwell.

“I think it’s very important that many gays, lesbians and bisexuals feel that they don’t have to go back in the closet to get involved with the Jewish Federation Council or with any other Jewish organization,” Maxwell said. “Many people come to [Jewish] events with their spouse or partner, but, if you’re gay or lesbian, you have to think twice about whether you can safely support something because you’re not sure if you can bring your partner.”

By providing a safe place for gays, lesbians and bisexuals to come out as committed Jews and be visible in their own community, Am Echad “puts a face to the stranger,” said Maxwell.

At last year’s CSW Festival, Am Echad gathered 250 names of people interested in volunteering and contributing money to the Federation. Some were already affiliated with synagogues and other Jewish organizations, but many were not.

“For some, for the first time, they felt that ‘maybe, I can be who I am and be part of the larger Jewish community,'” said Stuart Leviton, Am Echad’s campaign chair.

Several groups within the Federation are co-sponsoring the Am Echad booth at CSW, including the Federation’s Metro and Western regions, the Jewish Federation/Valley Alliance and the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles.

“It’s a tremendous step the Federation has taken in recognizing this community,” said Jan Simons, who chairs Am Echad’s Public Relations Committee.

Am Echad is the first gay and lesbian outreach group that has been made an official part of any federation across the country, Maxwell said. At least three similar groups are beginning efforts to affiliate with federations in San Francisco, Philadelphia and South Florida, he said.

The initiative to bring this organization into the Los Angeles Federation came from the Metro region, said Federation executive vice president John Fishel.

“There are large numbers of residents of this community who are positively identified as Jewish and are part of the gay and lesbian community, and who would like to be more…active in Jewish life,” Fishel said. “We thought that it was a good thing, and we’re encouraging it.”

For more information about Am Echad, call the Federation’s Metro office at (213) 852-7759. n

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