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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

December 10, 1998

Staying Active at 50

Leave a Comment / California, Community, Old Stories /

The state of Israel isn’t the only Jewish institution celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. On Sepulveda Boulevard, in West Los Angeles, the renowned Leo Baeck Temple is celebrating its Jubilee, commencing with a series of events Dec. 11-13.

And like Israel, many temple members are finding it a struggle to maintain the activism of the temples early years.

Founded in 1948 by a group seeking to expand Reform Judaism in Southern California, the temple has gradually built a reputation for social activism. The congregation’s founding rabbi, Leonard Beerman, was one of the first in his profession to speak out against the war in Vietnam. Beerman and then-Associate Rabbi Sanford Ragins later participated in the “no nukes” protests in the late 1970s — a battle Ragins continues to fight, even making a point of commenting on the recent nuclear tests in India and Pakistan in his 1998 High Holiday sermon.

Ragins said he is simply following in the footsteps of the congregation’s namesake. Rabbi Leo Baeck, one of the premiere rabbis of Berlin prior to World War II, spoke out not only against Hitler but also reproached the Lutheran Church for turning its back on the victims of the Nazi regime. Baeck survived the Thereisenstadt concentration camp and went on to teach in London and the U.S.

Staying Active at 50 Read More »

Season’s Gratings

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

Seventeen-year-old Ben Ereshefsky, a senior at Health Careers High School in San Antonio, says the Christmas season is a difficult time for him. Here in the shadow of the Alamo, holiday cheer is everywhere. “You go to every store in the mall and all you hear are Christmas songs,” he says. “It really drives me crazy.”

Experts say Ben’s feelings are normal. He’s suffering from the December Dilemma. “It’s hard for Jewish kids because it’s Christmastime and they’re not part of it,” says Linda Fisher, director of the San Antonio Association for Jewish Education. “It’s especially hard here. It’s a relatively small Jewish community. The high school students are dispersed among several different school districts, which means there’s often just one or two Jewish kids in a classroom. They may be confronted with writing assignments about the meaning of Christmas. Their house is probably the only one on the block without lights. More than any other time of year, you feel different if you’re Jewish.”

Maybe so, but that’s not what bothers Ben Ereshefsky. “The biggest thing I don’t like is that they keep playing the same songs over and over,” he says. “‘Jingle Bells,’ ‘White Christmas,’ ‘Rudolph.’ It gets kind of redundant.”

What about feeling like an outsider? “I don’t,” Ben says.

Welcome to the December Dilemma, 1998 edition.

December is supposed to be the month when American culture works hardest to remind Jews they are a minority. It’s the time Jewish parents agonize over how to protect their children from feeling deprived for being Jewish. “The dilemma is how to make Judaism feel special and wonderful to kids when every facet of their lives except home and temple is taken over by Christmas,” says Rabbi Barry Block of San Antonio’s Temple Beth-El.

San Antonio seemed a likely place to explore how the dilemma works today. At first glance it looks like the dilemma’s epicenter. Deep in the Bible Belt, 150 miles north of the Rio Grande, it’s America’s ninth largest city, a sprawling metropolis of 1.1 million, with just 10,000 Jews. No other American city of comparable size has such a small Jewish community. It’s also home to the Alamo, that mythic shrine to hopeless fights for freedom. You’d think Jews would feel their minority status here more keenly than just about anywhere.

You’d think. But that doesn’t seem to be the experience of Jewish teens here this month. “I wouldn’t say it’s hard,” says Emily Kates, 16, a junior at Alamo Heights High. “I kind of like Christmas, actually. It’s fun.”

A longtime Ramah camper and active synagogue-goer, Emily doesn’t actually celebrate Christmas. She just doesn’t mind when her friends do. Jewish kids at Alamo Heights — about 30 in a student body of 1,260, the third largest concentration in town — participate in holiday doings only to the extent they feel comfortable. And the school works hard to make things easy.

At the annual Christmas assembly, for instance, the school band plays a carefully balanced holiday medley: one Christmas song, one Chanukah song, and two more with winter themes. “I don’t mind playing the Christmas song,” says Emily, who plays clarinet.

The openness runs both ways. This year the Alamo Heights Hunger Club decided, at Emily’s suggestion, to mark the holiday season by joining in her Reconstructionist synagogue’s monthly Feed the Homeless day. Everyone, Jew and non-Jew, came to Emily’s house to cook and wrap food, then headed downtown.

Not all Jewish teens are equally relaxed. Seth Fisher, 17, a junior at Lee High School (and educator Linda’s son), finds the holiday an annoying imposition. “It’s not so much because Jews are excluded, but because it’s assumed that it’s a universal holiday,” he says. “With all the music and decorations, you’re almost forced to celebrate it.”

Still, Seth says, “I respect that the majority are Christian, and I pretty much go about my own thing.”

Annoying, but a far cry from the seasonal crisis so often described by pundits and hand-wringers. Jewish youngsters are supposed to be deeply conflicted this month. The kids in San Antonio seem fine. Why?

One factor is the place itself. South Texas is LBJ country, largely Hispanic, heavily Democratic. It’s Bible Belt, but without the Protestant triumphalism found elsewhere.

“This is a very livable city, because people get along,” says attorney Allan Smith, whose grandfather helped found the Conservative synagogue a century ago. “That’s also true of the Jewish community. It’s big enough to provide diversity and a cultural life, but small enough that people know one another.”

Even more important, the youngsters’ December ease seems a matter of generational change. Jewish kids here, like youngsters in most places, grew up in an America very different from the one where their parents grew up.

“For me, growing up in the public schools here, I felt a lot of jealousy about Christmas,” says student rabbi Julie Hilton Danan, who has a daughter, Elisheva, 16. “But for my own children, I haven’t heard a peep out of them.”

What’s changed, Danan says, is society. “There’s much more emphasis on diversity today,” she says. “Kids are brought up from an early age to understand that people are different and that it’s good. It’s the adults that have the problem.”

More subtle but equally important, being Jewish has gone from low-status to high-status in America in the past generation. As a result, being reminded by the culture of one’s Jewishness has a different impact. In the 1950s it was an embarrassment. For today’s kids, most of them, it’s a compliment.

“A lot of people seem genuinely interested in us,” says Danan’s daughter Elisheva, 16, a classmate of Emily Kates. “They ask us questions about our holidays and stuff. I’ve never felt uncomfortable.”

“It’s funny,” says Danan. “My children are fifth-generation Americans, and they seem to be more comfortable and less conflicted about the Jewish identity than any before them. Who would have predicted it, with all the hand-wringing going on?”

Not that December is entirely easy for today’s kids. “I’ll tell you what’s hard about December,” says Ben Ereshefsky. “Forget Christmas. I have to get my college applications in by Jan. 1. That’s hard.”

J.J. Goldberg writes a weekly column for The Jewish Journal.

Season’s Gratings Read More »

Art is long, and life is brief; at least that’s what they say.

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Old Stories /

The museum world in Los Angeles looks as though it is in for a significant challenge.

The evidence underscoring this was suggested last week in a story reported in The New York Times. On the surface, the story read like an account of the Getty Center one year after the new building had opened its doors atop Brentwood to a staggering almost-2 million visitors. Barry Munitz, who succeeded Harold Williams as head of the Getty late last year, relayed to a reporter what sounded like an end-of-year summary. There had been personnel changes, unanticipated problems with the structure (e.g. not enough bathrooms to accompany the large crowds) and planned modifications in fund-raising policy.

It was the last item that caught everyone’s attention.

Munitz, 57, explained that the Getty’s $5 billion endowment, one of the largest museum endowments in the world, had thus far been the Center’s only source of existence; and that, indeed, he hoped to tranform the Getty into an institution that worked collaboratively with other art and cultural centers as well as with corporate and individual sponsors. One alteration in policy that might follow: The Getty would now seek financial support from individuals and corporations

Already Aetna Insurance was planning to co-sponsor a Degas photo exhibition currently on display at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and which is scheduled for the Getty next year. Meanwhile, Munitz is looking for partners to conceptualize and carry out a variety of cultural projects. He is also, according to one critic, courting Hollywood’s elite.

Art is long, and life is brief; at least that’s what they say. Read More »

Community Briefs

Leave a Comment / California, Community, Old Stories /

Even for an international film producer and inveterate traveler, Arthur Cohn has covered a lot of territory recently.

During the last week in October, the winner of a record five Oscars and producer of “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” and “Central Station” was feted in Shanghai at his very own “Arthur Cohn Day” by the Chinese government and film industry.

He used the occasion of a retrospective of his works at the Shanghai International Film Festival to premiere his latest documentary, “Children of the Night.”

Conceived as a cinematic memorial to the 1.3 million Jewish children who perished in the Holocaust — and their rescue from the anonymity of statistics — the film resurrects the faces of its subjects, sometimes at play, more often ragged and starving.

Although the film is only 18-minutes long, Cohn spent three years scouring archives across the world for material, of which only six yielded scraps of usable footage.

For the feature film to follow the documentary at the Shanghai festival, Cohn had originally selected his 1995 movie “Two Bits” with Al Pacino. However, government officials in Beijing insisted on “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis,” the 1971 classic about an aristocratic Italian-Jewish family that is ultimately destroyed by the fascists.

Cohn says that he took the Beijing fiat as a signal that “the theme of the Holocaust has been openly recognized by the Chinese government for the first time.”

His reception in Shanghai was remarkable, as press and public mobbed him like some rock star. More than 130 journalists covered his press conference, during which a giant banner above his head proclaimed “World Famous Producer Arthur Cohn” in Chinese and English.

For the screening itself, Chinese fans fought for tickets to the 2,000-seat theater. When the two films ended, the audience sat, as if stunned, for three-minutes, before quietly leaving.

For most Chinese, it was their initial introduction to a Holocaust theme. Said a young hotel manager, “Six million dead … that’s as if they murdered every bicyclist in this city.”

A reporter for the Shanghai Star perceived that “Cohn seems to cherish a special feeling for the Jews.” Indeed, the producer’s next release will be “One Day in September,” referring to the terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.

The production will be a “thriller with documentary footage,” says Cohn, with Michael Douglas in the central role of the commentator.

“One Day in September” will have its world premiere on Jan. 18 in Los Angeles, under the auspices of the American Film Institute.

A couple of days later Cohn arrived in Hollywood to report on his Shanghai triumph and participate in the first annual International Jewish Film Festival here.

He officiated at the American premiere of “Children of the Night” and presented an award to veteran actor Gregory Peck.

Cohn, who stands a rangy six-foot, three inches, is a third generation Swiss citizen and resident of Basel.

His father, Marcus, was a respected lawyer and a leader of the Swiss religious Zionist movement. He settled in Israel in 1949, helped to write many of the basic laws of the new state, and served as Israel’s assistant attorney general until his death in 1953.

The family’s Zionist roots go even deeper. The producer’s grandfather and namesake, Rabbi Arthur Cohn, was the chief rabbi of Basel. He was a friend of Theodor Herzl and one of the few leaders in the Orthodox rabbinate to support the founder of modern Zionism.

It was because of this support, says Cohn, that Herzl chose Basel, rather than one of Europe’s more glittering capitals, as the site of the first Zionist Congress in 1897.

Of the filmmaker’s three children, two sons have served in the Israeli army and studied at Israeli universities.

Community Briefs Read More »

The Gift of Reading

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

Some years ago, the American Booksellers Association’s holiday advertising theme was the phrase: “Give a gift of love; Give a book.” Jewish Book Month, scheduled in November, anticipated the gift-giving season. This year, as always, a fresh crop of children’s books appeared for the holiday. Consider choosing one of these instead of toys that beep and break:

* Highly praised in publications of the American Library Association and other reviewing journals, Cathy Goldberg Fishman’s “On Chanukah” (Atheneum, 1998) describes the meaning and rituals of the holiday as observed by a young girl and her family. As each candle is lit, a different aspect of the observance is examined and differing qualities are associated with each night’s light: a light of hope, strength, giving, knowledge, freedom, happiness or faith in the darkness. Illustrations by Melanie W. Hall are in mixed media, soft and somewhat abstractly rendered images of family celebration, which include specific symbols in their fluidly glowing composition. Ages 4-8.

* “A Chanukah Treasury” (Henry Holt, 1998), compiled by prolific children’s writer Eric A. Kimmel and illustrated by Emily Lisker, is a delightful compendium of not only history and tradition, but stories, songs, poetry, recipes, legends and lore. It offers information found nowhere else I know of: for example, the source of the White House Menorah (did you know there was one?); how to celebrate Chanukah in Alaska while being stalked by a moose (hint: he loves latkes); and a few interesting variations on the dreidel game. The pictures, in acrylic paints on canvas, are brightly colored, reminiscent of folk art and a definite asset to this entertaining and educational work. For family use; all ages.

* Little people are not unknown in Jewish children’s literature. We did, after all, have K’tonton. But he was an out-in-the-open human family member. In “When Mindy Saved Chanukah” (Scholastic Press, 1998), also by Eric Kimmel, Mindy Klein’s miniature family — like The Borrowers — live very much behind the scenes, in the back of the walls of the famous Eldridge Street Synagogue in New York. When the shul brings in a predatory cat, the Klein family’s plans to go foraging for a candle with which to celebrate Chanukah become very dangerous indeed. After Papa fails, intrepid Mindy dares all and succeeds, helped by zayde, who understands that cats can seldom resist pickled herring. Barbara McClintock’s ink, watercolor and gouache illustrations are a delight, using sepia tones to enhance the early 1900s setting and amusing details to underscore the family’s size (zayde’s helmet is a thimble; Mindy’s climbing hook is a paperclip). Ages 4-8.

* Mark Podwal, whose work appears both in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Times, is the author/illustrator of many Jewish books. His latest, “The Menorah Story (Greenwillow, 1998), is in simple text and glowing pictures. Podwal gracefully casts light on this important symbol and its place in Chanukah’s history. Ages 5 and up.

* In 1987, Jane Breskin Zalben began writing and illustrating a series of warm and cozy stories that brought Jewish holiday tales into the popular tradition of using small animals to tell universal stories. This holiday season brings us “Pearl’s Eight Days of Chanukah (Simon & Shuster, 1998). Pearl, a young lamb, celebrates each of the eight days along with visiting cousins Harry and Sophie. Linked by short segments describing the family’s activities for each night are recipes, crafts, puppet shows, songs, history of the holiday and more. Painstakingly and charmingly illustrated in pencil and watercolor, this is an excellent guide for families celebrating with young children. Ages 4-9.

* For a Chanukah chuckle, seek out David A. Adler’s “Chanukah in Chelm,” wonderfully illustrated by Kevin O’Malley, (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1997). In this picture book, Mendel, the caretaker of the shul, has a big problem when the rabbi instructs him to place the chanukiyah on a table by the window so its glow may be seen outside. Finding the menorah in a closet, he goes off in a futile search for a table, ignoring (like many of us) what is right under his nose, the table the menorah rested on in the first place. Funny and fond old-world watercolor and pen pictures by O’Malley are just the thing to expand upon Adler’s humorous folk tale. Ages 4 and up.

Also appropriate for Chanukah are several new books that not only address Chanukah, but the entire Jewish year:

* Gilda Berger’s “Celebrate! Stories of the Jewish Holidays” (Scholastic Press, 1998), with vivid and dramatic watercolor paintings by Peter Catalanotto, first ties each holiday to a story from the Bible (e.g. the story of Jonah for Yom Kippur), Berger then appends three sections on each story: What We Celebrate, exploring the background of the holiday including a timeline; How We Celebrate, explaining traditional observances; and Crafts and Food, which provides activities and recipes with careful instructions. All ages.

Rita Berman Frischer is the librarian at Sinai Temple

The Gift of Reading Read More »

Eight Things You Need to Know About Chanukah

Leave a Comment / Celebrations/Simchas, Old Stories /

Some years ago, the American Booksellers Association’s holiday advertising theme was the phrase: “Give a gift of love; Give a book.” Jewish Book Month, scheduled in November, anticipated the gift-giving season. This year, as always, a fresh crop of children’s books appeared for the holiday. Consider choosing one of these instead of toys that beep and break:

* Highly praised in publications of the American Library Association and other reviewing journals, Cathy Goldberg Fishman’s “On Chanukah” (Atheneum, 1998) describes the meaning and rituals of the holiday as observed by a young girl and her family. As each candle is lit, a different aspect of the observance is examined and differing qualities are associated with each night’s light: a light of hope, strength, giving, knowledge, freedom, happiness or faith in the darkness. Illustrations by Melanie W. Hall are in mixed media, soft and somewhat abstractly rendered images of family celebration, which include specific symbols in their fluidly glowing composition. Ages 4-8.

* “A Chanukah Treasury” (Henry Holt, 1998), compiled by prolific children’s writer Eric A. Kimmel and illustrated by Emily Lisker, is a delightful compendium of not only history and tradition, but stories, songs, poetry, recipes, legends and lore. It offers information found nowhere else I know of: for example, the source of the White House Menorah (did you know there was one?); how to celebrate Chanukah in Alaska while being stalked by a moose (hint: he loves latkes); and a few interesting variations on the dreidel game. The pictures, in acrylic paints on canvas, are brightly colored, reminiscent of folk art and a definite asset to this entertaining and educational work. For family use; all ages.

* Little people are not unknown in Jewish children’s literature. We did, after all, have K’tonton. But he was an out-in-the-open human family member. In “When Mindy Saved Chanukah” (Scholastic Press, 1998), also by Eric Kimmel, Mindy Klein’s miniature family — like The Borrowers — live very much behind the scenes, in the back of the walls of the famous Eldridge Street Synagogue in New York. When the shul brings in a predatory cat, the Klein family’s plans to go foraging for a candle with which to celebrate Chanukah become very dangerous indeed. After Papa fails, intrepid Mindy dares all and succeeds, helped by zayde, who understands that cats can seldom resist pickled herring. Barbara McClintock’s ink, watercolor and gouache illustrations are a delight, using sepia tones to enhance the early 1900s setting and amusing details to underscore the family’s size (zayde’s helmet is a thimble; Mindy’s climbing hook is a paperclip). Ages 4-8.

* Mark Podwal, whose work appears both in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Times, is the author/illustrator of many Jewish books. His latest, “The Menorah Story (Greenwillow, 1998), is in simple text and glowing pictures. Podwal gracefully casts light on this important symbol and its place in Chanukah’s history. Ages 5 and up.

* In 1987, Jane Breskin Zalben began writing and illustrating a series of warm and cozy stories that brought Jewish holiday tales into the popular tradition of using small animals to tell universal stories. This holiday season brings us “Pearl’s Eight Days of Chanukah (Simon & Shuster, 1998). Pearl, a young lamb, celebrates each of the eight days along with visiting cousins Harry and Sophie. Linked by short segments describing the family’s activities for each night are recipes, crafts, puppet shows, songs, history of the holiday and more. Painstakingly and charmingly illustrated in pencil and watercolor, this is an excellent guide for families celebrating with young children. Ages 4-9.

* For a Chanukah chuckle, seek out David A. Adler’s “Chanukah in Chelm,” wonderfully illustrated by Kevin O’Malley, (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1997). In this picture book, Mendel, the caretaker of the shul, has a big problem when the rabbi instructs him to place the chanukiyah on a table by the window so its glow may be seen outside. Finding the menorah in a closet, he goes off in a futile search for a table, ignoring (like many of us) what is right under his nose, the table the menorah rested on in the first place. Funny and fond old-world watercolor and pen pictures by O’Malley are just the thing to expand upon Adler’s humorous folk tale. Ages 4 and up.

Also appropriate for Chanukah are several new books that not only address Chanukah, but the entire Jewish year:

* Gilda Berger’s “Celebrate! Stories of the Jewish Holidays” (Scholastic Press, 1998), with vivid and dramatic watercolor paintings by Peter Catalanotto, first ties each holiday to a story from the Bible (e.g. the story of Jonah for Yom Kippur), Berger then appends three sections on each story: What We Celebrate, exploring the background of the holiday including a timeline; How We Celebrate, explaining traditional observances; and Crafts and Food, which provides activities and recipes with careful instructions. All ages.

Rita Berman Frischer is the librarian at Sinai Temple

Eight Things You Need to Know About Chanukah Read More »

Something for Everyone

Leave a Comment / Holidays, Old Stories /

Some years ago, the American Booksellers Association’s holiday advertising theme was the phrase: “Give a gift of love; Give a book.” Jewish Book Month, scheduled in November, anticipated the gift-giving season. This year, as always, a fresh crop of children’s books appeared for the holiday. Consider choosing one of these instead of toys that beep and break:

* Highly praised in publications of the American Library Association and other reviewing journals, Cathy Goldberg Fishman’s “On Chanukah” (Atheneum, 1998) describes the meaning and rituals of the holiday as observed by a young girl and her family. As each candle is lit, a different aspect of the observance is examined and differing qualities are associated with each night’s light: a light of hope, strength, giving, knowledge, freedom, happiness or faith in the darkness. Illustrations by Melanie W. Hall are in mixed media, soft and somewhat abstractly rendered images of family celebration, which include specific symbols in their fluidly glowing composition. Ages 4-8.

* “A Chanukah Treasury” (Henry Holt, 1998), compiled by prolific children’s writer Eric A. Kimmel and illustrated by Emily Lisker, is a delightful compendium of not only history and tradition, but stories, songs, poetry, recipes, legends and lore. It offers information found nowhere else I know of: for example, the source of the White House Menorah (did you know there was one?); how to celebrate Chanukah in Alaska while being stalked by a moose (hint: he loves latkes); and a few interesting variations on the dreidel game. The pictures, in acrylic paints on canvas, are brightly colored, reminiscent of folk art and a definite asset to this entertaining and educational work. For family use; all ages.

* Little people are not unknown in Jewish children’s literature. We did, after all, have K’tonton. But he was an out-in-the-open human family member. In “When Mindy Saved Chanukah” (Scholastic Press, 1998), also by Eric Kimmel, Mindy Klein’s miniature family — like The Borrowers — live very much behind the scenes, in the back of the walls of the famous Eldridge Street Synagogue in New York. When the shul brings in a predatory cat, the Klein family’s plans to go foraging for a candle with which to celebrate Chanukah become very dangerous indeed. After Papa fails, intrepid Mindy dares all and succeeds, helped by zayde, who understands that cats can seldom resist pickled herring. Barbara McClintock’s ink, watercolor and gouache illustrations are a delight, using sepia tones to enhance the early 1900s setting and amusing details to underscore the family’s size (zayde’s helmet is a thimble; Mindy’s climbing hook is a paperclip). Ages 4-8.

* Mark Podwal, whose work appears both in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Times, is the author/illustrator of many Jewish books. His latest, “The Menorah Story (Greenwillow, 1998), is in simple text and glowing pictures. Podwal gracefully casts light on this important symbol and its place in Chanukah’s history. Ages 5 and up.

* In 1987, Jane Breskin Zalben began writing and illustrating a series of warm and cozy stories that brought Jewish holiday tales into the popular tradition of using small animals to tell universal stories. This holiday season brings us “Pearl’s Eight Days of Chanukah (Simon & Shuster, 1998). Pearl, a young lamb, celebrates each of the eight days along with visiting cousins Harry and Sophie. Linked by short segments describing the family’s activities for each night are recipes, crafts, puppet shows, songs, history of the holiday and more. Painstakingly and charmingly illustrated in pencil and watercolor, this is an excellent guide for families celebrating with young children. Ages 4-9.

* For a Chanukah chuckle, seek out David A. Adler’s “Chanukah in Chelm,” wonderfully illustrated by Kevin O’Malley, (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1997). In this picture book, Mendel, the caretaker of the shul, has a big problem when the rabbi instructs him to place the chanukiyah on a table by the window so its glow may be seen outside. Finding the menorah in a closet, he goes off in a futile search for a table, ignoring (like many of us) what is right under his nose, the table the menorah rested on in the first place. Funny and fond old-world watercolor and pen pictures by O’Malley are just the thing to expand upon Adler’s humorous folk tale. Ages 4 and up.

Also appropriate for Chanukah are several new books that not only address Chanukah, but the entire Jewish year:

* Gilda Berger’s “Celebrate! Stories of the Jewish Holidays” (Scholastic Press, 1998), with vivid and dramatic watercolor paintings by Peter Catalanotto, first ties each holiday to a story from the Bible (e.g. the story of Jonah for Yom Kippur), Berger then appends three sections on each story: What We Celebrate, exploring the background of the holiday including a timeline; How We Celebrate, explaining traditional observances; and Crafts and Food, which provides activities and recipes with careful instructions. All ages.

Rita Berman Frischer is the librarian at Sinai Temple

Something for Everyone Read More »

Chanukah with the Spielbergs

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

When Steven Spielberg and his three sisters were growing up in Scottsdale, Ariz., the Spielbergs celebrated Chanukah like any other Jewish family — well, almost.

“You have to realize that everything in our household was exciting, everything had an edge of hysteria,” says Leah Adler, the ultimate authority on her director son.

One Chanukah, “I decided to do what normal people do and give one gift each night,” says Adler, a 78-year-old pixie of a woman, who reminisces while presiding over The Milky Way, her kosher dairy restaurant in West Los Angeles.

The attempt at normalcy didn’t work, though, mom recalls. “It was a fiasco, because the first night there was a big present, but the next night it was a box of crayons. Steven was so ongeblosen [disappointed] and he said, ‘This is no good.’ From then on, we went back to giving just one big present on the first night.”

Now Spielberg, who turns 52 on Dec. 18, and his wife, Kate Capshaw, have their own blended family of seven children, ranging in age from 1 to 20.

The Spielbergs’ Chanukah begins with dad lighting the menorah, while the whole family joins in for singing. Presents are still a problem, but now it’s because “the younger kids are just inundated with toys,” says Adler. At that point, “Kate takes charge,” reports her mother-in-law. “She sees to it that the kids aren’t overly indulged.”

To wind up the evening, there are “mucho, mucho, mucho potato pancakes,” prepared by Kate and the resident cook.

* Excerpted from the author’s profile of Steven Spielberg in “Jewish Family & Life” (Golden Books, 1997).

Chanukah with the Spielbergs Read More »

Notes from a Master

Leave a Comment / Old Stories /

With the release of “Star Trek: Insurrection,” composer Jerry Goldsmith has completed his fourth orchestral score for a “Star Trek” feature film. During the past 35 years, the composer has written some of the most memorable film and television music ever. His 100-plus film scores are remarkably diverse, including “Alien,” “Chinatown,” “Basic Instinct” and last summer’s “Mulan.”

Born in Los Angeles in1929, Goldsmith studied with Jakob Gimple and Mario Castelnuevo-Tedesco in the 1940s. He went on to write for such television shows as “Gunsmoke” and “The Twilight Zone” before writing his first film score for the 1956 western “The Black Patch.”

In a rare break in his schedule — he has written six scores since January — Goldsmith spoke with The Jewish Journal at his home in Beverly Hills.

Jewish Journal: How did you begin in music?

Jerry Goldsmith: My grandfather gave my parents a piano for a wedding present. I started taking piano lessons when I was 6. More piano lessons, and then I started getting serious about it when I was 12. When I was 14, I really thought I was going to be a concert pianist and I was composing little pieces, and that was it: I decided I wanted to be a musician, wanted to study music.

JJ: Has anti-Semitism been an obstacle to overcome in your career?

JG: I may have lost some job somewhere along the line because I’m Jewish, but I don’t think so, because most of the people I have worked for are Jewish. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. There are many self-deprecating Jews out there who are sorry they are Jews. I’m sure it’s there. It has never gone away.

There was one old-time director, a great director, and I did his last picture — why am I being coy? He’s dead. It was Howard Hawks. I just read his biography, and it said he was an anti-Semite. It was a shock to me. He was very nice to me. He was very old and sort of out of it, but he couldn’t have been nicer. He gave me a hand-tooled belt as a present. Maybe he didn’t know I was Jewish. I don’t know. I hear more stories about it in the past than I do today.

JJ: How has being Jewish influenced your work?

JG: I’m very aware of my Jewishness. As I’ve gotten older and older, I find that I’m more secure in it and more comfortable with it. I think my son’s bar mitzvah was the third-happiest day of my life, the first being when I married his mother, then his birth, then his bar mitzvah.

My wife has just turned 50 and just got bat mitzvahed. My wife has probably made me more aware of my Jewishness, making sure that we get to High Holy Day services and we light the candles every Friday night and observe the Sabbath to a certain extent.

As far as the music is concerned, it’s interesting the two major things that I’ve done were “QB VII” and “Masada.” I just felt like nobody else could have written this music and done what I did. There’s some gene or something particularly Jewish or, at least, that I’m Jewish that I have this affinity for this kind of music that only a Jew can do. It seems like a pompous and arrogant thing to say. I really think that only Jews can relate to this kind of feeling.

In the score for “First Knight,” the final battle scene was temp-tracked with the ubiquitous “Carmina Burana.” The director said, “We’ve got to have a chorus singing in this big battle of six or seven minutes.” I didn’t know what a chorus was going to do. He said, “Don’t even bother writing it. We’ll just use the ‘Carmina Burana.'” At that time, it seemed rather a great idea because I was so pressed for time. Actually, it was a combination of my agent and my wife who said: “Don’t do it. Don’t take the easy way out. Do it right.” So I said, “OK, I’ll do music for it, but the chorus has to say something.” So I sat there for hours with the director, who’s also Jewish, and I said, “Give me some words for the chorus to sing, and I’ll get it translated into Latin, and we’ll be off and running.” So we picked the “Shma.” So if you listen to the big battle scene, it’s the “Shma” translated into Latin with orchestra and chorus.

JJ: Do instruments belong in the synagogue?

JG: Yes, I think so. I find a correlation, a similarity between synagogues and concerts. The trick is to get young people involved. I’ve been a member at Steven S. Wise for 25 years, and there has always been an emphasis on the musical aspect of it. I was shocked the first time I went there and the cantor was playing a guitar, and it was very hip…and they’re constantly writing new music. Michael Isaacson is the music director there and really a beautiful singer. I’d like to write something for it if I have enough time…if only we spoke Latin instead of Hebrew.

I think our older liturgical music has been steeped in Christian-sounding music. I used to hear these chorales, as a kid, that could have been used in a Presbyterian church as far as I was concerned. Just translate the words into English. Then I heard some of the new music being written, and it was wonderful, so I went and I saw a lot of younger faces and a tremendous congregation. I didn’t know it could be that way. It caught one of the great aspects of Judaism. And they do instrumental music. I remember, on Yom Kippur, hearing the Kol Nidre on cello. It was very moving.

JJ: What is the role of electronics in the classical music of the future?

JG: I don’t know yet. My enthusiasm has certainly waned from the mid ’80s, when I thought it was the end-all to everything and the new salvation of music. The role that I had always hoped electronics would be is a means and not an end. I had hoped it would be an adjunct to the orchestra, a new section. As much as I use electronics, in concert I try to use the real thing. Right now, I’m in limbo about electronics.

JJ: When Samson lost his long hair, he lost all his strength and was enslaved. What would happen to Jerry Goldsmith if he lost his famous ponytail.

JG: I’d be unrecognizable. I’m thinking about getting it cut after this concert season. Who knows?

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Images of Israel

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Robert Cumins was working on the staff of his junior high school paper in Fair Lawn, N.J., when he had his first scoop.

He sent a note to Pierre Salinger, then press secretary to President Kennedy, asking for an interview. Salinger invited Cumins to the White House, where the 14-year-old attended presidential press conferences and welcoming ceremonies with visiting dignitaries.

Cumins’ stories not only ran in his school paper, but the tale of the chutzpadik teen who wangled his way into the White House was also picked up by his hometown newspaper and The Associated Press. It was Cumins’ launch into the national — and, eventually, international — scene.

He became a professional photojournalist whose work has been featured on the covers of Time and Newsweek and in magazines and newspapers around the globe. Starting with the Camp David Accords, Cumins has photographed every major peace summit and signing involving Israel, including the famous four-second handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat in 1993.

Beginning with a trip to Israel in 1973, Cumins has visited the Jewish state more than 100 times.

Ten of Cumins’ pictures, along with the work by five other well-known photographers (such as Journal photographers Shlomit Levy, Bill Aron and Jill Lichtenstein) and 47 local photographers, are included in “Images of Israel: A Photographic Perspective of Israel at 50 Years,” an exhibition that opens this weekend at Christie’s Los Angeles. All photos are for sale, with 25 percent of the proceeds going to benefit the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles’ United Jewish Fund. The Federation is sponsoring the show.

“Images of Israel” will be on view from Dec. 13 to 17. Gallery hours are from noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday. Christie’s is located at 360 N. Camden Drive in Beverly Hills. For information, or to arrange tours, call the Federation at (323) 761-8122.

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