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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

September 21, 2006

Holiday tunes for when you haven’t got a prayer

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Music, Up Front /

I like work. It fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.
— Jerome K. Jerome

 
Perhaps it is the intensity of the emotions raised by the liturgy itself. Or the power of worshipping in a sanctuary filled with people. Or the sense that everything is at stake.

 
I like to think it’s the music.

 
But whatever the reason, the High Holidays provide some of the greatest frissons one can experience in a synagogue. And the music is, indeed, a big part of those rising chills. One need look no farther than four new CDs that include generous helpings of music for the Days of Awe to hear evidence of the power of these holidays to inspire composers and performers.

 
Sometimes the simplest music has the greatest impact. Consider “Shomeah Tefillah: Prayers of the High Holy Days,” a CD by Cantor Lois Welber of Temple B’nai Israel, Revere, Mass. Almost all the music on this recording is from Israel Alter, one of the great Conservative cantors of the 20th century.

 
Alter didn’t write classical hazanut; his compositions are devoid of the coloratura pyrotechnics of the Golden Age cantors. Rather, his settings of the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur liturgies, published 35 years ago, are straightforward, emotionally direct and comparatively simple. And that is the source of their power.

 
Welber opts for an equally simple and powerful approach. Accompanied only by organist Ernest Rakhlin or pianist David Sparr, she tackles Alter’s music head-on, not with flash but great feeling. Welber has a resonant mezzo voice, not glitzy but profoundly effective. The result is a tribute to the power of simplicity.
 
The mandolin i
s an instrument whose sound resonates with poignancy. In the hands of masters like Dave Grisman and Andy Statman, the gentle ringing of its strings carries a powerful emotional charge.

 
Put those two musicians together with “a collection of timeless Jewish melodies,” as their new CD “New Shabbos Waltz” bills itself, and the result is a sterling blend of deeply emotive music.

 
The set kicks off with a melancholy “Avinu Malkeinu,” with Statman’s plangent clarinet stating the traditional tune while Grisman comps behind him. The duo deftly trade leads on this and the other cuts on the record, aided immeasurably by some silky slide guitar from Bob Brozman and rock-solid timekeeping by Hal Blaine on drums and Jim Kerwin on bass.

 
Statman is in a more playful mood than on his recent excursions into Chasidic mysticism, and his interplay with Grisman is delightful throughout.

 
Two of the latest entries in Naxos Records’ series of Milken Archive recordings feature contemporary orchestral pieces inspired by the High Holiday liturgy. In fact, both Herman Berlinski (“From the World of My Father”) and David Stock (“A Little Miracle”) have tried their hand at re-imaginings of the shofar service for Rosh Hashanah. (Given that this year Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat and there is no shofar service, I find this an amusing coincidence.)

 
Berlinski (1910-2001) was a student of the great Nadia Boulanger, albeit an unhappy one, and I think I detect some of her influence in the rich, dense sound tapestry of Berlinski’s “From the World of My Father,” a lovely 1941 piece that pays homage to the synagogue and folk music of Eastern Europe. His 1964 “Shofar Service” is a fairly straightforward setting of the old Union Prayerbook liturgy, here ably performed by the BBC Singers conducted by Avner Itai.

 
Not surprisingly, Berlinski blends two trumpets with the shofar itself, to considerable dramatic effect. Although he was a friend of Olivier Messiaen and his circle, on the pieces included here, Berlinski is not interested in the less-is-more aesthetic of Messiaen; his is a resolutely post-Romantic palette, whether he is writing for organ (“The Burning Bush”) or full orchestra (“Symphonic Visions for Orchestra”).

 
Stock, who was born in 1939, is of a more obviously modernist bent than Berlinski. His operatic monodrama, “A Little Miracle,” which retells an extraordinary story of Holocaust survivors, owes a bit of its rhythmic drive to Schoenberg (perhaps with a nod to Gershwin).

 
But his “Yizkor” is surprisingly conservative, powerfully melodic and quietly restrained. By contrast, his shofar piece, “Tekiah,” written for trumpet and crisply performed by Stephen Burns and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble with the composer conducting, has moments that are distinctly reminiscent of the heyday of minimalism. One hears echoes of Glass in the repetitive ensemble figures behind the staccato trumpet line, and the contrast between foreground and background is a fruitful one. The result is an intriguing recording, but I don’t imagine your local shul is going to try it any time soon.

 

George Robinson is the film and music critic for Jewish Week. His book, “Essential Torah: A Complete Guide to the Five Books of Moses,” will be published by Shocken Books in October.


 

“Shomeah Tefillah: Prayers of the High Holy Days,” can be purchased at www.loiswelber.com.

 

“New Shabbos Waltz” can be purchased at www.acousticdisc.com

“From the World of My Father” and “A Little Miracle” can be purchased at www.milkenarchive.org.

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P. F. Sloan: does he still believe we’re on the ‘Eve of Destruction’?

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Music /

“Eve of Destruction,” the famous folk-rock protest hit from 1965, isn’t usually regarded as a specifically Jewish song. Or even a religious one, for that matter.

It’s a litany of anguished complaints about the problems of the temporal world of the time — civil rights marchers repelled in Selma, Ala., the imminent danger of nuclear war, the threat from a militant “Red China.” It struck such a chord with a teenage audience worried about the future that it reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, a youthful crie de coeur against the political status quo. It became an extraordinary pop-cultural event in its own right.

But the long-missing-in-action writer of “Eve of Destruction,” 61-year-old Los Angeles resident P.F. (Phil) Sloan, cites his studies of Jewish mysticism as a key source of inspiration. After decades of fighting physical and mental illnesses that ended his professional career, Sloan is back with a new CD, “Sailover,” recently released on Hightone Records. Only his sixth album since 1965, it includes versions of “Eve” and other songs he wrote in the 1960s, plus new folk-rock compositions. And he performs at Largo in the Fairfax district, where he grew up, on Sept. 27.

After his bar mitzvah at Hollywood Temple Beth El, Sloan’s rabbi recommended him for early kabbalah training, especially study of the mystical writings and Torah interpretations in the Zohar.

“It is rare because you’re supposed to be 40 [to study],” Sloan said, speaking by phone from Chicago where he was performing at a club. “My rabbi suspected I was an old soul.”

He studied for about 18 months, he said, providing him with “a greater, deeper understanding of Judaism and its relationship to people.”

But at the same time, Sloan was also interested in rock ‘n’ roll. In 1964, while still a teenager, he and friend Steve Barri wrote and recorded “Tell ‘Em I’m Surfin'” as the Fantastic Baggys. His “P.F. Sloan” persona appeared in 1964, when in response to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, he wrote several protest songs, “Eve of Destruction,” “The Sins of the Family” and “Take Me for What I’m Worth.” It took a full year before the growlingly, deep-voiced singer Barry McGuire, fresh from the New Christy Minstrels, released “Eve” on L.A.’s Dunhill Records — also Sloan’s label — and it became a hit.

Sloan feels the song was “directly attributable” to his kabbalah studies.
“The song was a divine gift,” he said. “I was given information about the history of the world through that song — not that that’s unusual in mystical Judaism. It was quite a wonderful gift at age 19 to be given that. I knew it was special and knew it would change things.”

Sloan sees the song as his dialogue with God.

“I say to God that ‘this whole crazy world is just too frustrating,’ and then God says to me, ‘But you tell me over and over and over again about these problems I already know,'” he said.

“It’s an endless dance around this razor’s edge about what God is saying every time I sing this song,” Sloan explained. “He’s telling me, ‘Don’t believe we’re on the eve, I’m not going to allow it.’ And then other times when I sing it, I get the message he’s going to allow destruction to happen. Every time I sing it, I get an insight into what’s going on.”

Sloan’s parents moved from New York, where he was born as Philip Gary Schlein, to Los Angeles for his mother’s arthritis. But when his father had trouble getting permission to open a downtown sundries store under his name Schlein, he changed it to “Sloan” to avoid anti-Semitism.

Working with Barri or alone, Sloan wrote hits for other pop stars in the 1960s, including “Secret Agent Man” for Johnny Rivers, “Where Were You When I Needed You” for The Grass Roots and “Let Me Be” for The Turtles. But his attempts at becoming a successful singer-songwriter like his idol, Bob Dylan, didn’t work out. He says his record company was reluctant to support him at the time and that he signed away his songwriting royalties.

And from roughly 1971 to 1986, he said, he was incapacitated by undiagnosed hypoglycemia that led to depression and catatonia. He lived with his now-deceased parents until they found an apartment for him and helped him get nursing care.

But in 1986, he also started visiting Sai Baba, a controversial Indian guru who claims healing powers, at his ashram. He has gone back every two years and slowly started to recover. He said by 2001 he felt good enough to start performing again. In 2003, for instance, he participated in a tribute concert to Jewish religious singer and songwriter Shlomo Carlebach at Congregation Beth Jacob.

“I’m now walking 1 1/2 miles a day,” Sloan said. “I have a huge amount of energy. It’s like God has touched me and just given me a tremendous amount of love and energy. I feel like I’ve been reactivated.”

P.F. Sloan will be at Largo, 432 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles. Doors open at 8 p.m. $5-$20.

For more information, call (323) 852-1073 or visit P. F. Sloan: does he still believe we’re on the ‘Eve of Destruction’? Read More »

7 Days in the Arts

Leave a Comment / Calendar, Entertainment, Picks and Clicks, What's Happening /

Saturday the 23rd

How to make the holiday meaningful for the kids? Pick up a children’s book recommended by the Ratner Media and Technology Center at the Jewish Educational Center of Cleveland. Sylvia Epstein’s “How the Rosh Hashanah Challah Became Round” and Barbara Diamond Goldin’s “The World’s Birthday” are just two of many that make the list.

To view it in full, visit the Jewish Federation’s Web site, at ” TARGET=”_blank”>soundstruestore.stores.yahoo.net.

Tuesday the 26th

At first glance, his scribbles look about as impressive as your kid’s. But look closer at Frank Gehry’s sketches and you realize these are the seminal gestures that begat the architectural master’s greatest structures. “Frank’s Drawings: Eight Museums by Gehry” is now on view at Patricia Faure Gallery. See for yourself.

Through Oct. 14. Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., B7, Santa Monica. (310) 449-1479.

Wednesday the 27th

Sid Ceasar and “Your Show of Shows” inspired laughs in its day, and inspired the guys who write for laughs today. “Comedy Conversations” is the Museum of Television and Radio’s new series, “bringing together legendary comedy creators with their spiritual progeny.” First up are Larry Wilmore (“The Bernie Mac Show”) and Mitchell Hurwitz (“Arrested Development”), discussing how Sid inspired them. Future installments include Steven Levitan (“Just Shoot Me”) discussing his inspirations; Glen and Les Charles and James Burrows, and Phil Rosenthal (“Everybody Loves Raymond”) on Norman Lear.

$15-$25 (individual tickets), $39-$65 (series). 465 N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills. (310) 786-1091. ” TARGET=”_blank”>www.museumoftolerance.com/delirium.

Friday the 29th

Opening this week, The Jewish Federation’s Bell Family Art Gallery presents “Otto Natzler at 98: Honoring a Master Artist.” The exhibition features ceramic vessels and forms created by Natzler, as well as by his late wife, Gertrude, with whom he collaborated for more than 38 years. Together, they were a celebrated team credited with playing an early role in the craft renaissance that begin in the late 1950s. Photographs of Natzler’s glazes, taken by Natzler’s present wife, Gail Reynolds Natzler, are also on view.

Sept. 28-Dec. 15. 6505 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. (323) 761-8000.



7 Days in the Arts Read More »

Live in the ‘hood: words of awe

Leave a Comment / Community, Congregations, Holidays, Opinion /

I love a good sermon. There’s nothing like the uplift you get from hearing words that go right to your soul.
 
Words on a page can’t do thatfor me. In a live sermon, you can almost taste the breath of the rabbi. You can feel the occasional struggle for the perfect word. If the speaker has sparkling insights, with just the right pitch and cadence, the words ebb and flow like a river taking you to new discoveries. All along, you feed off the energy of the crowd. Your adrenaline keeps pumping until the rabbi finally wraps up the sermon to a sigh of quasi-relief from an audience that was clinging to every word.You can bet that the Jewish world will be clinging to every word during the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur sermons. These are the much-anticipated Words of Awe: the Rose Bowl and Super Bowl of Jewish sermons.
 
Personally, I think we make too big a deal of these annual sermons. Judaism is not about annual resolutions; it’s more about daily renewal. But daily renewal doesn’t sell tickets, so like it or not, the Super Sermons are upon us, and rabbis all over town are getting ready to elevate our souls. What can we expect?
 
The truth is, all sermons, whether Reform, Conservative or Orthodox, are there to promote something “good.” But how do they get there?
 
In the Reform sermon, the dominant punctuation is the exclamation point! Many Reform congregants go to synagogue only during the High Holidays, so the rabbis better grab them while they can. Here you can expect a lot of dramatic stuff like the Jewish obligation to assist the genocide victims of Darfur, and other very worthy and worldly causes. It’s empowering, and it sounds a lot juicier than the commandment to put on tefillin every morning.
 
In the Conservative sermon, the punctuation of choice is the comma. Their debates never end, and they love it that way. They get turned on by tension, especially the noble, Jewish kind of tension, like having to balance our love for humanity with our love for our fellow Jew, or reconciling our obligations to Israel with our obligations to America, or struggling with our desire to go to synagogue against our inclination to visit Neiman Marcus.
 
In my new Pico-Robertson neighborhood, you can enjoy the Orthodox sermon, and here the punctuation that rules is the period. You don’t walk out of an Orthodox sermon all perplexed, wondering what to do next. Hard-core Torah is what you do next. Lots of it. But before you reach this state of closure bliss, you will wallow in delicious detail, some of which might appear trivial at first, but if you can suspend your ADD instincts long enough, you will witness how the Torah can transform the tiny into the big and meaningful.
 
At an Orthodox sermon, for example, you might hear an explanation of why you shouldn’t eat nuts at Rosh HaShanah (in Hebrew, the word for “nut” has the same numerical value as the word for “sin”); why the shofar can’t come from a bull’s horns (it would remind God of the sin of the Golden Calf); or, like I once heard from a Chassidic rabbi, how the word atonement can be read as at-ONE-ment, the idea being to be at one with all of our roles in life — parent, worker, sibling, friend, citizen, neighbor, student, teacher, Jew, etc. — and remember on Yom Kippur to atone for each one to create a higher and holier ONE in each of us.

If you want to experience the most intense Orthodox sermon of the year, come back on the Shabbat afternoon before Yom Kippur, for the ancient tradition known as “Shabbat Tshuvah” (repentance). Rabbis can spend months preparing for this Talmudic discourse that will punctuate the Days of Awe. (A little scoop: the title of the discourse by Rabbi Elazar Muskin of Young Israel of Century City will be “Like a Good Neighbor…”).
 
Of course, things are never as neat as they seem. There are rabbis of all denominations who often go beyond the expectations of their “label.” Still, it’s clear that there are major differences among the denominations — both of style and substance — which shouldn’t surprise anyone: since the Maschiach hasn’t arrived yet, not every Jew wants to be part of the same movement or listen to the same sermon.
 
Sometimes, though, I wonder what would happen if everything got switched around. What if, for example, an Orthodox sermon got smuggled into a Reform congregation, or vice versa? What would happen then?
 
Actually, it looks like something is already buzzing in my neighborhood. If you visit B’nai David-Judea Synagogue on the first morning of Rosh Hashanah, Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky will announce a major initiative to get his members involved with environmental protection. Although this is an area that is usually associated with the Reform branch of Judaism, not the rabbi’s Orthodox branch, Rabbi Kanefsky believes this should be an Orthodox concern, and he’s got the Torah sources to back it up.
 
It makes you wonder what’s next. A Reform synagogue promoting no driving and no TV on Shabbat? A Chassidic shul fighting for universal health care? The possibilities are endless. Go ahead, think big.
 
It’s that time of year.
 
David Suissa, an advertising executive, is the founder of OLAM magazine and Meals4Israel.com. He can be reached at davids@jewishjournal.com.

Live in the ‘hood: words of awe Read More »

Lebanon war underscores inequality of Arab Israelis

Leave a Comment / Opinion, Worldwide /

Wars, like hurricanes, tend to expose flaws in societies. In Israel, the recent war with Hezbollah revealed lack of preparedness for this kind of war against an elusive enemy, mediocre
conduct of the operations, deficiencies in equipment, shortages of shelters for the civilians and more.

 
The fact that Israel after the war is in a better strategic position than the prewar situation doesn’t seem to sweeten the pill.

 
People here vocally demanded a commission of inquiry, wishing to see heads rolling.

 
Hurricane Katrina shed light on flaws both in the preparations for such disasters and in the U.S. government response to it. Likewise, in Israel, the recent war has triggered great controversy.

 
Another common aspect is that the war and the hurricane mainly hit the weaker elements of both societies. In Israel, where half of the north is populated by Arabs, they became — like their Jewish neighbors — victims of Katyusha rockets launched by Arabs from over the Lebanese border. Yet, they don’t enjoy the same shelter system as the Jewish residents, and once the rockets hit them, further lack of past adequate investments in infrastructure were exposed. In short, the war has reminded us once again of the issue of inequality of Arabs in Israel.

 
Not that the Israeli Arabs make things easy for anyone. Last week, Arab members of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, stretched the Israeli democracy to its limits. Three of the Balad Arab Party went to Damascus — defying the Israeli law that forbids visits to enemy countries — and one of them, the vocal Azmi Bishara, went as far as warning his Syrian host of an impending Israeli attack.

 
I thought this was outrageous. That’s like Jane Fonda visiting a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun crew at the height of the Vietnam War or former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark offering his services to the enemies of America.

 
I took out my frustration on my good friend and taxi driver Zachariah, an Israeli Arab living in Abu Gosh, near Jerusalem. There is nothing like a ride with your favorite taxi driver to have a good and heated discussion on the important issues of the day. With Zachariah expertly maneuvering through the crazy Israeli traffic, we always get straight to the point.

 
“What’s the matter with you Arabs?” I asked him. “Must you bite the hand that feeds you?”

 

“We learnt it from you Jews,” he retorts. “It’s called chutzpah.”

 
“Gimme a break. What kind of people would vote for such a shmuck like Bishara?”

 
He grinned in that special way, reserved only for an Arab in a Jewish state who had just outwitted a Jew.

 
“Not you, Zacharia!”

 
“Me and many in my village,” he announced triumphantly.

 
“But why? He is a communist and a Christian, and you are a bourgeois and a Muslim. What on Earth do you have in common?”

 
“Nothing,” Zachariah said, not smiling anymore. “He just knows how to annoy you. That’s the only way to make you Jews think about us Arabs.”

 
Do we really need a war or an outrage like Bishara’s visit to Damascus to remind us that one of every five citizens in Israel is an Arab, and that the Arab does not enjoy the same equality promised by our Declaration of Independence? Prime Minister Ehud Olmert toured the Israeli north, which had been badly hit by the Hezbollah rockets, and promised that in the reconstruction ahead, Arab villages and townships would get the same treatment as the Jewish ones.

 
However, if we were smart, we would use some affirmative action here to compensate the Israeli Arabs for past neglect. The news of Arabs living as equals in a Jewish state will spread like brush fire in this region and would be the best outcome of this war.

 
In the meantime, an American Jew sent a donation to the people of the Israeli north, with the proviso that the money go to Jews only. I hope that the check was duly returned to the sender.

 
However, I didn’t hear an outcry from the American Jewish leaders, who would raise hell if someone dared contribute to Hurricane Katrina refugees only if they were not Jewish. When will Jews who care about Israel understand that enhancing Arab equality in Israel is the best way to support the Jewish state?
Once the inequality of the Israeli Arabs becomes a nonissue, my taxi rides might become boring. But then I trust good old Zachariah and the Bisharas to keep us busy with other things.

 

Uri Dromi is international outreach director at the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem.

Lebanon war underscores inequality of Arab Israelis Read More »

And who shall die

Leave a Comment / Holidays, Judaism, Obituaries, Opinion, Worldwide /

I’d like to suggest a small addition to your synagogue’s High Holiday services this year, as if they’re not long enough.
 
Sometime before the recitationof the mourner’s kaddish, or perhaps just before the Torah is returned to the ark, pull out any Sunday Los Angeles Times, and turn to the obituary section.
 
Then have your rabbi read the names listed under Military Deaths. If you can spare another minute or two, select one of the extended obituaries the L.A. Times compiles on Californians who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
Each Sunday, the Times runs the Department of Defense’s list of that week’s American military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. The paper accompanies those with fully reported stories on any Californian killed. For the past few months, I’ve been reading these articles religiously.
 
For example:
 
Army Sgt. Andres J. Contreras, of Bell, killed in his HumVee by a roadside bomb. By age 11, Contreras was taking care of his five younger brothers. At 23, he leaves behind a 4-year-old daughter, Grace.
 
Army Sgt. Thomas B. Turner Jr., 31, of Cottonwood, on his second stint in Iraq, killed when his Bradley fighting vehicle ran over a roadside bomb in Muqdadiya, north of Baghdad. Turner loved ranching and motorcycles. He and his wife, Jennifer, had a 21-month-old son, Ethan, and her 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Cantrell.
 
“My sister had to explain to my niece that Daddy is sleeping and he won’t wake up,” Jennifer’s sister, Meredith Coghlan, told the Times.
 
“Does this mean he won’t e-mail me back?” Sarah asked.
 
Sgt. Jeffrey S. Brown, 25, of Trinity Center, was a 6-foot-1, 220-pound high school fullback known for his easy laugh and ready smile. He was on his third tour of duty when his helicopter crashed into a lake in Al Anbar province. Brown’s last words, according to his father, were “Fifteen feet to water!”
 
Brown’s father, a Vietnam veteran, was angry that the Army extended his son’s service through the stop-loss program, the so-called “backdoor draft.”
 
“My kid should not be dead,” Ed Brown told the Times, “because he did live up to his contract, and the Army did not live up to theirs.”
 
I spend every Sunday morning with these names and faces, over coffee, in the comfort of my home. They haunt me, in no small part because of the numbers of dead they represent. On the same page the Times also publishes the Defense Department’s ongoing tally of the American war dead. As of last week:In and around Iraq: 2,676.
 
In and around Afghanistan: 277.
 
Other locations: 56.
 
That’s a lot of heart-wrenching stories that I’ll never read, that no one will ever read.
 
Our words lead to actions, our actions have consequences — we are accountable for what we say and do to one another, and to God. That is the enduring message of the High Holidays; it’s the ethical foundation of our faith. And it’s why the Jewish default emotion is, of course, guilt.
 
In the days when the Temple stood, the High Priest made a confession on behalf of himself and his household. Today, the Hineni prayer and the Avodah service recreate the gravity of the priestly confession.
 
“Please do not hold [the congregation] to blame for my sins,” the cantor chants, “and do not find them guilty of my iniquities, for I am a careless and willful sinner.”
 
These litanies provide moments of grave public accountability, when our leaders accept the moral weight of their own transgressions.
 
I’m no rabbi or leader; I’m a guy who writes a column. My own early endorsement of the war was lukewarm and conditional, very Tom Friedman-, David Remnick-esque, but it was approval.
 
“The soldiers who are fighting this war have our absolute support,” I wrote just as the shooting started. “Our support for the war they are engaged in is, however, conditional — not on the actions of our soldiers, but on the decisions of their commander-in-chief.”
 
I believed in the danger of Saddam Hussein; I believed his demise would help turn the tide against Mideast despotism; I believed — in retrospect, how could I? — that the intelligence community that got Sept. 11 so wrong had Iraq right.So instead of writing, “No!” in as many persuasive ways as I humanly could, I offered a weak, lawyerly, “Well, OK.”
 
I don’t fantasize for an instant that my half-of-one-thumb-up was all President George W. Bush needed to launch the second Iraq War. But if my conviction convinced one reader, I’m sorry. I apologize.
 
And I apologize to the families of the dead. To the sons and daughters of the fallen. To the extent that those of us who should have known better didn’t try to stop this war before it started, to the extent we trusted men and women who were undeserving of our trust, we bear the guilt of these untimely deaths.
 
True, the final chapter is not written on this war. Wait, some will say, od tireh, you shall see how good it will yet be.
 
No. What will be good will be for our leaders to stop adding to the obituaries; to confess their wrongdoings, their hubris, their misjudgments; to atone for wasting good lives in a bad war.
 
Atonement, the prophet Ezekiel said, brings, “a new heart and a new spirit.”This administration has two years left to redeem itself for the lives it has squandered in fault and in folly. May all of us join with a new heart and a new spirit to help it, or force it, to do so.
 
Shana Tova.
 

And who shall die Read More »

So sorry, wrong numbers

Leave a Comment / Singles /

There are so many choices of singles events, but most of them don’t seem to work for me: SpeedDating — concept is interesting, but my age range and location
never seem to match my availability; outdoor sports — not my thing, and it’s not that I’m out of shape, I’m just a fair-skinned California girl who, in addition to not wanting to be burned to a crisp, has never shown much talent for volleyball or hiking; social dances — I went to enough of those alone when I was in junior high. Enough said.

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So sorry, wrong numbers Read More »

For Rosh Hashanah: Make your own joy

Leave a Comment / Torah /

The best part about Y2K, in my judgment, was that it signaled the end of the 20th century.

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Who among us would want to relive the last 100 years? Tens of millions of
people died during the previous century in the most violent and brutal ways.

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World War I, at the start of the century, was supposed to be the war to end all wars; it turned out to be merely the beginning. Fascism, Nazism, Stalinism, Maoism and many other iterations of -isms, resulted in the bloodiest century in human history. Auschwitz and Hiroshima were two cataclysmic events that demonstrated the unbridled power and willingness of human beings to destroy life.

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I, for one, was delighted to see the century end. Because how could the next one be worse?

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Now that we are halfway through the first decade of the 21st century we are beginning to see how it could be worse. The penchant for genocide and murder on a massive scale as a result of secular orthodoxies apparently has not abated. But now, as we begin this new century, it has been supplemented by a penchant for genocide and murder on a massive scale by religious orthodoxies.

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The definition of a fanatic used to be someone who believed in something so strongly he was willing to give up your life for it. Today’s religious fanatic is not only willing to give up your life to reach their goals, but also their own lives and the lives of their children, as well. Martyrdom, what you and I call suicide with maximum collateral damage, is a religious ideal. This brand of religious fanaticism seeks to re-establish the glory of the Islamic caliphate.

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In effect, these fanatics want to return us to the seventh century, when Islam first conquered the world and spread its message by word and by sword. It is not paranoid to express fear over what could possibly happen if these groups trade the sword for something nuclear. They will then have the power to return much of the world to the seventh century — if, indeed, there would still be a world.

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Kind of hard to wish each other Happy New Year after that.

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Fear turns to anxiety and then to despair if we allow ourselves to feel helpless in the face of the threat of cataclysmic destruction. But despair is just not the Jewish way. We are simply not allowed, the sages of the Talmud tell us (Shabbat 30b), to allow sadness to dominate our mood: “The Shechina, the Divine Presence, cannot dwell in the midst of sadness.”

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To live in sadness is to block the presence of God from entering the world. To despair of a peaceful future is to give a victory to the forces of darkness. That is why Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav, the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, who himself struggled with depression, is famous among Chasidim for his great teaching: “Mitzvah gedolah lihiyot b’simcha tamid” — it is a great mitzvah to be in joy perpetually.

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How do we turn despair to joy? By exercising control over our environment. By utilizing the personal and collective power we have yet to tap. By responding to this homicidal religious fanaticism with a religious determination of our own. By endowing certain economic, political and technological policies with the holiness of a religious imperative.

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The transition from an economy based on oil to something that doesn’t enrich Muslim theocracies is a mitzvah. We condemn Iran for having funded Hezbollah, but the reality is they did so with our petrodollars. Reducing their income from the exportation of oil removes a powerful tool for Iranian mischief.

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Conservation — buying a hybrid, flipping off unused lights and unwatched TVs, recycling and more — is a mitzvah of the highest order. Establishing the greening of Jewish institutions — including synagogues, schools and communal buildings — is not just good for the environment, which should be motivation enough, but it will help save lives. And it goes without saying that actively opposing nuclear proliferation is also a mitzvah.

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These are mitzvot that have taken on great urgency and will change the world. If each of us finds the determination and the strength to begin this now, this will indeed be a happy New Year. And a much safer one as well.

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Perry Netter is rabbi of Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles and author of “Divorce Is a Mitzvah: A Practical Guide to Finding Wholeness and Holiness When Your Marriage Dies” (Jewish Lights, 2002). He can be reached at pnetter@tbala.org.

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Controversial Muslim leader Hathout gets award despite opposition

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At a meeting that featured catcalls, standing ovations and the ejection of a disruptive audience member, Los Angeles' County Human Relations Commission voted again Monday to give an award to Dr. Maher Hathout, a local Muslim leader whose harsh rhetoric on Israel generated accusations of anti-Semitism and extremism.

The four commissioners who voted in favor were outnumbered by five who abstained and four who were absent.

Hathout's victory marks the first time a Muslim-American has received the commission's award.

In what Commission President Adrian Dove called a “tough hearing,” the public body ended weeks of uncertainty by reaffirming its vote to confer the John Allen Buggs Award for excellence in human relations on Hathout, despite opposition from much of the organized Jewish community. Detractors had portrayed the chairman of the Islamic Center and senior advisor to the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) as an apologist for terror and called his past criticism of Israel veiled anti-Semitism. Hathout and his supporters have countered that he supports a two-state solution, has long renounced terrorism on theological grounds and for years has worked closely with local Jewish groups to bridge the chasm between Muslims and Jews.

Five commissioners — Donna Bojarsky, Vito Cannella, Rebecca Isaacs, Eleanor Montano and Mario Ceballos, abstained. Bojarsky, public policy consultant and founder of L.A. Works, a volunteer-service organization, is the child of a Holocaust survivor; she suggested that the honor had been tainted by the process and the controversy and that the commission should recognize Hathout's contributions by making him the keynote speaker at its Oct. 5 awards banquet.

She said she abstained because she believes to do so “was the best thing for human relations.”

In a reflection of the highly charged emotions, Allyson Rowen Taylor, associate director of the American Jewish Congress Western Region, said she believes commissioners lacked the courage to vote against Hathout.

“They're afraid of the Muslim community burning cars, burning effigies and burning synagogues,” Taylor said after the meeting.

Emerging from the meeting looking exhausted but relieved, Hathout called the outcome a triumph for freedom of speech and tolerance. Extending an olive branch to his critics, he said he would gladly sit down with detractors to find common ground.

“The test of people is not when they agree, but when they maintain humanity, civility and positiveness when they disagree,” Hathout said at a press conference following the commission's vote, with a private security guard hovering nearby.

However, many believe the rancor surrounding the doctor's selection has dealt a knock-out blow to hopes of reviving the multi-agency interfaith cooperation needed to dispel the mutual recriminations and mistrust that now envelope relations between the Jewish and Muslim communities in Los Angeles. And the ferocity of the attacks against Hathout raises questions as to whether some Jews and Muslims have grown so suspicious of one another in the post-Oslo, post-Second Intifada, post-Sept. 11, post-Lebanese War world that they can no longer find common ground.

Hathout became a lightening rod for criticism soon after the commission tapped him in July for the human relations award, which he is slated to officially receive at a ceremony next month. Following the announcement in July, terrorism expert Steven Emerson wrote an article for New Republic Online depicting the 70-year-old Egyptian-born retired cardiologist, who immigrated to the United States in 1971, as an apologist for terror groups and a strident critic of the Jewish state.

Hathout has characterized Israel as “a racist, apartheid” state”, and has said “the United States is also under Israeli occupation.” Emerson, among others, said Hathout wants to delegitimize the Jewish state and called his remarks code for anti-Semitism.

Hathout responded that he has a long history of moderation; he claims to have been the first Muslim leader to publicly denounce the fatwa issued by the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini on the life of author Salman Rushdie.

In the early 1990s, he said, he denied permission to speak at the Islamic Center to Omar Abdul-Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric now serving a life sentence for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. And he helped organize a Jewish-Muslim Passover seder in 2002.

After the publication of Emerson's article, several major Jewish groups joined the criticism of Hathout, including the Zionist Organization of America, the American Jewish Committee, StandWithUs, the American Jewish Congress, the Republican Jewish Coalition and, following an initial statement that it had no position, The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.

However, there were marked absences among Jewish voices, too: The Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, two international Jewish organizations that fight anti-Semitism and other prejudice, did not take a formal stand. Rabbi Marvin Hier, Wiesenthal's dean and founder, said in an interview that he believes Hathout does not deserve the award unless he publicly labeled Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad as terrorist organizations.

Taking a different tact, the Zionist Organization of America and StandWithUs tried to derail the award by filing a complaint claiming the commission violated open-meeting laws during the selection process. A source close to the commission, who declined to be identified, said county counsel did uncover several violations, including failure to inform the public properly of plans to consider Hathout's nomination at its July 17 meeting.

In response, to comply with the Brown Act, the commission first voted Monday to rescind its July decision. Then, under advisement from an attorney, it reconsidered Hathout's candidacy and again selected him.

In the weeks leading up to the final vote, Hathout's supporters and mostly Jewish detractors waged a multifront war in the media in attempts to sway public and political opinion. Both sides also blasted their members with e-mails admonishing them to attend the Sept. 18 meeting. The groups and their allies also lobbied supervisors and commissioners. In the end, Hathout did a better job of turning out partisans, with about two-thirds of the roughly 100-member audience supporting him.

“I'm proud to be a Muslim, an American, and I'm proud to see justice prevail,” said MPAC board member Hedab Tarifi, following the meeting. She added that she hopes interfaith dialogue will make a comeback given the support Hathout received from some moderate Jews.

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