I’m on a boat
Can you guess where I’m going to be part of this weekend?
July 17, 2009
Emmy Gadolah
I’m a TV junkie. I come by it honestly: My mother rearranged her college classes around All My Children. But even I couldn’t wake up at 5:30 this morning to watch the nominee announcement for the Emmys, which honors the best and brightest on the small screen.
The Emmys are being held this year at 8 p.m. (which means 8 p.m. in Los Angeles and New York, as opposed to the 5 p.m. telecast for the Oscars). So to air at 8 p.m., the men and women of Tinsel Town need to be at Temple Beth Nokia by 4 p.m. for the red carpet; and 5 p.m. for the ceremony. Sunset on Sunday, September 20 is at 6:53 p.m. So thank you to the Academy for holding an award show for a heavily Jewish industry on the same day as one of the biggest holy days of the entire Jewish calender. Was Kol Nidre taken?
But back to the nominees.
The Emmys don’t have the prestige of the Oscars, the class of the Tonys, the fun of the Golden Globes or the sexiness of the Grammys. But they do have something special: the ability to honor televisions newbies and veterans.
Not since the mid-80s, when The Golden Girls was on the docket for Best Comedy have I been this excited about the nominees. I’m not going to rehash the list, but offer up special awards for some special shows and people:
Best Comedy or The “I Shouldn’t Be Laughing at This” award
Whether you find it offensive or hilarious (or both), the animated Fox show Family Guy pokes fun at Judaism on a weekly basis like no other (example: main character Peter Griffin sings “I Need a Jew” to the tune of “When You Wish Upon a Star). Its nomination for best comedy makes history for being the first animated show in this category since “The Flintstones.”
Changing channels: The five friends on “How I Met Your Mother” make you forget those six people who hung out at Central Perk. While finding out who the mother is has taken a few seasons, the journey is fun to take with this incredible ensemble.
Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media – Fiction or the “Just Five More Minutes Award”
I just wanted to call out this category for the concept. The online world of one of my favorite dramas, “Lost,” is nominated for its Dharma Initiative site, an online world dedicated to the mysterious group behind everything that is happening on the island. The show also touts a nominee for Outstanding Drama Series or the “Did You Just See That” award and an Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series or “Is He Good or Evil Award” nod for the mesmerizing Michael Emerson as “Other” Ben Linus.
Outstanding Music Composition For A Miniseries, Movie Or A Special (Original Dramatic Score) or the “I’m Crying Again” award
You think Hallmark, you think tissues. Jeff Beal’s music for Loving Leah (Hallmark Hall Of Fame Presentation) defiantly contributed to my hankie use as I watched this story about at Orthodox Jewish woman and the relationship she develops with her late husband’s brother.
Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy Series or the “Make Me Laugh” award
If you haven’t watched this hilarious homage to geekdom, you are missing something special. First-time nominee Jim Parson’s Sheldon Cooper is a standout who excels in the world of science, and offers wry observations of the world around him.
Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Comedy Series or the “Awe-some” award
He created a bracket to figure out which former girlfriend was stalking him and has developed more Loony Laws than any small town (Lemon Law, anyone), which makes Neil Patrick Harris as Barney Stinson simply legen—wait for it—dary.
Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Miniseries or a Movie or the “Legends” Award
For fans of the “Indiana Jones,” series “The Mummy” and “Night at the Museum,” “The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice,” the third movie in the adventure-filled series, is the perfect TV alternative. Comedy genius Bob Newhart plays head librarian Judson, who seems to know just about everything.
Outstanding Guest Actor In A Drama Series or the “Legends II” Award
The folks at “C.S.I.: New York” cast veteran actor Edward Asner as Abraham Klein, a one-time Hitler Youth member who adopted a Jewish identity to escape arrest after the Holocaust. If that doesn’t intrigue you, how about the episode’s title: “Yahrtzeit.”
Outstanding Guest Actress In A Comedy Series or the “Legends III” Award
Everyone’s favorite former St. Olafian, Betty White, has stolen scenes in countless TV shows and movies, and her turn on “My Name Is Earl.” as Crazy Witch Lady, a woman Earl tormented when he was a teen, is no exception.
Outstanding Guest Actress In A Drama Series or the “Legends III” Award
The queen of comedy, Carol Burnett, takes a scary turn in this episode of “Law & Order: SVU,” where she plays former dancer Bridget “Birdie” Sulloway, who becomes slightly Norma Desmond-like (or Nora Desmond if you are fan of her hiccup-inducing variety program, “The Carol Burnett Show”).
After two days of trying to get in the Book of Life, maybe we are all entitled to kick back, relax and welcome 5770 with “L’Shanah Tova Tikatelevision.”
The Emmy Awards, with host Neil Patrick Harris, airs Sept. 20 at 8 p.m on CBS. For the full list of nominees, click Emmy Gadolah Read More »
A Profound Disagreement on How to Live Jewish Lives –By Rabbi Hyim Shafner
The Mishna in Berachot (53b) states: “With regard to one who ate a meal and forgot to say the bircat hamazon (grace after meals), Bais Shamai says they must return to their place and say the grace, Bais Hillel says they should say grace in the place they are when they remember.”
The Talmud on this Mishna comments: “We learned in a Berita (an uncannonized Mishna), Bais Hillel said to Bais Shamai, “According to your opinion, if one ate on top of a hill, are you saying they would they have to climb back up to recite the grace after meals?” Replied Bais Shamai to Bais Hillel, “If someone forgot their wallet on top of a hill would they not climb back up for it? If one would return up the hill for their own honor, for the honor of heaven how much more so should they.”
This is an interesting and surprising argument between Bais Shamai and Bais Hillel. Isn’t Bais Shamai right? If we would go back up the hill for ourselves, should we not return to say the grace after meals for God? What is Bais Hillel’s reason for disagreeing with Bais Shami’s opinion?
The following piece of Talmud (Betza 15a) may shed some light: “They say about Shami the elder that all his days he would eat in honor of the Shabbat. If he found a nice animal one day he would say, “This one is to eat for Shabbat.” The next day if he found another one that was better than the first he would put aside the second one to save for Shabbat and eat the first animal. But Hillel the elder had a different path, all of his deeds were for the sake of heaven, as it says in the verse, “Bless god each day.”
Though Hillel and Shami were both great sages they had very different takes on how to live a Jewish life. To elucidate I will rewrite the preceding two arguments in the form of a conversation.
Bais Hillel: You can bench (say grace after meals) wherever you remember.
Bais Shami: No, you must bench where you ate.
BH: That may be better, but I’m sure you don’t really believe that, for, what if someone ate on a hilltop, surely you would not ask the person to schlep back up the mountain to bench?
BS: Wouldn’t you do that for your wallet? So certainly you should for God’s honor; to bench!
BH: Who says this is about honoring God by schlepping? Maybe we honor God by benching well, not after sweating up a mountain (with Yiddish accent)!
BS: Eating is very physical, Shabbat is holy, let us use the holiness of Shabbat to sanctify even the weekday meal.
BH: God is right here, everywhere, in every step, in every meal, not just on Shabbat and not just back up on the mountain top. God must be an inherent part of our everyday lives!
BS: It’s better to go back up the mountain to bench….
BH: No, it’s better to let people bench and have some kavanah and not hock them to climb back up a hill…
BS: Climbing back up a hill is a great religious act since it enables one to bench in the best way. Shouldn’t we make that sacrifice for a mitzvah?
BH: No, benching is a great religious act since by it we thank God for our food. Yom Kippur for instance or giving up one’s life for the sanctification of God’s name, these are acts of sacrifice, benching though is thanking god for our everyday food in our everyday, real lives. God is already a part of that. Its what benching is.
BS: We fundamentally see religion and the way in which it can effect life differently, don’t we?
BH: Yes we do, at least we agree about that.
Both opinions are the word of the Living God, but the halacha (the law, the path) follows Bais Hillel, (Aruvin 13b).
A Profound Disagreement on How to Live Jewish Lives –By Rabbi Hyim Shafner Read More »
Remembering Gary Tobin
I’ve been meaning to pay say homage to Gary Tobin, the Jewish demographer who died last week at the age of 59. Tobin was the head of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research, a keen observer on organized Jewish life, and someone who believed the community needed to be more big tent.
I spoke often with Tobin, who always gave a great quote, no matter what story I was working on. In fact, I called his office and cell the day he died. Like a lot of the journalists he kept contact with, I had no idea he was even sick. Little more than a month before, when Tobin and his wife had been vacationing in the Caribbean, he was still working, taking my calls and offer an insight or two.
J.J. Goldberg, who knows a thing or two about American Jewry, sums up Tobin’s contributions in this appreciation:
During a quarter-century of research, he documented a community that was more robust, more diverse and, most controversially, more populous than commonly believed.
Tobin often infuriated colleagues by questioning their methods as well as their results. He argued that standard survey methods failed to account for particular Jewish behavior patterns — such as reluctance to discuss Judaism with strangers on the phone — and therefore overlooked whole segments of the community. That produced undercounts and generated unneeded alarm. Over time, his findings convinced him that the gloomy insularity of mainstream Jewish institutions was turning away potential adherents.
In his last decade, Tobin began coupling his scholarship with outspoken advocacy. He wrote books and launched new organizations through his institute to promote outreach to Jewish minorities — black Jews, conversos and others — and to press for activist recruitment to Judaism through conversion. Genial and affectionate in his private life, he became, paradoxically, a passionate battler for a more relaxed, less alarmist Judaism.
Equally paradoxical, Tobin’s views on antisemitism and Israeli security were as hard-line as his views on Jewish identity were liberal. He produced a series of studies after 2001 showing rising hostility toward Jews and Zionism on campus. In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, he partnered with the neoconservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies to survey attitudes toward Islamic militancy and American defense. His liberal friends would argue that his alarmism in international affairs didn’t square with his denunciations of alarmism within the community. Tobin would reply, often with a bemused smile, that he was simply reading the public pulse. It was easy to disagree with him, but impossible to dislike him.
Read the rest here.
Remembering Gary Tobin Read More »
Forgive me Godbeat: A brief farewell to journalism
The beginning of Shabbat will bring to a close my two years of wandering in the Jewish community. But this has been no desert.
Since joining The Jewish Journal in May 2007, I’ve had some amazing experiences—grilling the Israeli prime minister, interviewing my journalistic hero, going to Yom Kippur services, sitting down with Hollywood CEOs, walking the Holy Land, digging into the history of Jewish hoops.
Really, it’s been a blast. I’ve also learned a lot more about what it means to be a Christian named Greenberg and saw many of my notions of Jewish life in L.A. smashed. I’ll be reflecting on the latter in a first-person piece for The Journal next week.
A few of my stories really mattered, many more just entertained. And in the process I received some recognition that I can’t imagine having earned if I hadn’t left the comfort (gulp) of daily newspapers for the uncertain world of Jewish journalism. Flashback four weeks:
Thank God for the religion beat. At the Press Club dinner; won Journalist of the Year in under 100k category. Amen.
Thank you, LA Press Club.
Next up, UCLA School of Law. And no, I don’t know what type of law I want to practice. How about the kind that pays enough that I will be able to afford to keep writing?
This is a sad moment for me, indeed, and there will be many more during the next month, and probably even more when finals approach in December. I love—truly love—being a journalist. And while I anticipate enjoying law, I wouldn’t even be considering the career change if the future of newpapers and magazines was a bit more stable.
But I’m young enough to be able pull the trigger now, when I can figure my way out of this prisoners dilemma. And hopefully after a decade or so of really hard work I’ll be able to transition back to being a part-time journalist and author.
Even now I’m not making a clean break with journalism. I’m going to continue writing this here God Blog and will also be contributing at GetReligion. I hope you’ll keep reading.
Links to my favorite stories are after the jump:
Forgive me Godbeat: A brief farewell to journalism Read More »
Travelers Troubled by Thrombosis
Prolonged immobility has long been known to increase the risk of blood clots forming in veins in the legs (the medical term for which is deep venous thrombosis). Blood clots in the legs can be quite painful and debilitating but they can also travel to the lungs which can be life threatening. So doctors use medicines or inflatable leg squeezing devices to prevent blood clots in hospitalized patients who are bed-bound. But there is a much more common time when we all are fairly immobilized – travel. On long trips we frequently sit still for hours at a time, a perfect setting for blood in our leg veins to pool and clot.
An article in the current issue of Annals of Internal Medicine formally reviewed the existing studies on travel-associated deep venous thrombosis and concluded that travel increases the risk of a blood clot almost threefold, and that each 2 hour increase in the duration of travel increases the risk by 18%.
The likelihood of a blood clot in any single episode of travel wasn’t estimated, but is presumably very low, given the huge number of people who travel. So this should not make you cancel your trip to see Aunt Martha. Instead, follow these common sense suggestions from the Centers for Disease Control anytime you have to sit for longer than four hours:
- Get up and walk around every 2 to 3 hours.
- Exercise your legs while you’re sitting by:
- Raising and lowering your heels while keeping your toes on the floor
- Raising and lowering your toes while keeping your heels on the floor
- Tightening and releasing your leg muscles
- Wear loose-fitting clothes.
Tangential miscellany:
That reminds me. If you happen to fly on US Airways this month, pick up their in-flight magazine. ” target=”_blank”>Deep Vein Thrombosis
Annals of Internal Medicine article: Travelers Troubled by Thrombosis Read More »
Bruno and the World’s Best Hummus
If you can get past the thousand swinging penises, bare bottoms and endless dildos that fill most of the screen in Bruno, you can appreciate creator Sacha Baron Cohen’s genius for wrapping biting social commentary in fully-realized comic moments. What I’m talking about is hummus.
About 100 naked penises into the movie, fabulously gay Bruno decides he must do something major to become famous. So he jets off to Israel to make peace in the Middle East. Cut to Bruno/Baron Cohen sitting between former Mossad officer Yossi Alpher and Palestinian negotiator Ghassan Khatib.
Bruno takes advantage of their kindness by purposely confusing hummus the dish with Hamas the Palestinian terrorist organization.
A lot of stories quote a line or two from the exchange to show how Cohen duped the former Mossadnik, but the entire scene, in context, shows Cohen managed to make a much more important point.
“Why are you so anti-Hamas?” Bruno asks. “I mean, isn’t pita bread the real enemy here?”
“You think there is a relation between Hamas and Hummus?” Khatib asks.
“Hummus has nothing to do with Hamas,” Alpher responds “It’s a food. We eat it, they eat it.”
“You think there is a relation between Hamas and Humus?” Khatib asks.
Bruno looks confused. “Was the founder of Hamas a chef? He created the food and got lots of followers?”
Alpher begins to lose his patience. “Hummus has nothing to do with Hamas. It’s a food, okay? We eat it, they eat it—”
—“It’s vegetarian, it’s healthy, it’s beans,” Khatib says.
Then Cohen goes in for the kill: “So you agree on that,” he says.
Underlying these cultures, both locked in a vicious war, is a commonality that is perfectly symbolized by a bowl of “healthy, vegetarian” beans.
Cohen, you have to understand, has an Israeli mother. (His dad is from Wales, which I guess doesn’t lend itself to as many funny food scenes). When I met him two years ago, we spoke almost entirely in Hebrew. He lived on a kibbutz for a while, and he has a degree in political science from Oxford. I’m going to posit that in a serious conversation about the Palestinian Israeli conflict, he would astound Alpher.
But by playing the hummus card, he made one of the most powerful points he could about Jews and Arabs, and about food. People who share the same food usually share the same fate. That’s true whether they know it or not, whether they act as if it’s true and learn to cooperate, or strive to ignore that truth, and turn their knives on one another.
The columnist Tom Friendman has famously written that countries with McDonalds never go to war with each other. His point is that spreading democracy and free markets spreads peace. But Friedman’s McDonald’s theory begs a question: how can people who eat the exact same foods kill one another?
They can and do.
On an unmarked street in the Christian Arab part of the Old City of Jerusalem, find Lina’s. I go there on every visit to Israel. Seven tables, no fan. The owner stands in an alcove by the entrance, pounding a wooden pestle into a simmering vat of garbanzo beans. He pours in fresh ground tehina, he sprinkles in lemon salt and garlic, and all the time he keeps moving that stick-sized pestle, until the mixture is smooth and almost white, and fluffed with air. There’s no menu. You sit, a young man puts a slice of onion, a pickle and a tomato wedge in front of you, some warm pita, then the owner ladles some warm hummus onto a plate, drizzles it with olive oil, and sends it over.
It’s not 100 percent safe for anyone who looks too Jewish to get there—Jews have been attacked walking the Old City alleys, and Israelis will tell you it’s too dangerous—but there are always Israeli Jews in Lina’s. If you want the best hummus in Israel—I believe it’s the best I’ve had in the world—you have no choice. So what does that mean? Israelis will risk their lives to eat hummus with Arabs—they just can’t seem to make peace with them.
When I returned from my last trip to Israel, I decided I needed to recreate Lina’s hummus, or a close facsimile, in my kitchen. Rule number one is: no canned chickpeas. To make good hummus, you need to soak your own garbanzo beans. For great hummus, make it and serve it warm.
Almost Lina’s Hummus
1 cup dried garbanzo beans
1/2 cup good quality tahina
2 cloves garlic
1 T. plus 1 t. baking soda
1 t. cumin
Juice from 1/2 lemon
1 t. salt
1/4 c. olive oil
Paprika and Chopped Parsley
1. Rinse beans well and cull any dark, broken ones, and any pebbles, too. Soak beans overnight in water with 1 T. baking soda. Drain beans, soak in fresh water for an hour.
2. Put in saucepan with water to cover by two inches, with 1 t. baking soda. Bring to boil, skimming foam, then simmer and cooking til very soft, about an hour.
3. Remove from pot (do not drain away cooking water) and place in blender or Cuisinart with a 1/4 cup of the liquid, the garlic and cumin. Blend until smooth. Let cool 5 minutes, add the rest of the ingredients and enough of teh cooking liquid to make a very smooth mixture, the consistency of soft sour cream (it hardens as it cools). Taste for seasoning.
4. To serve, pour onto plate, drizzle with more olive oil, sprinkle with paprika and chopped parsley, and serve with warm pita bread.
5. Now go make peace.
Bruno and the World’s Best Hummus Read More »