Fear not. I’m not going to malign the hallowed name of Jerry Seinfeld, even though his comedic touch has slipped in old age. I was just looking for a good excuse to use the above clip from “The Puffy Shirt.”
The hook? An Oct. 12 gaffe from Los Angeles’ legal newspaper, the Daily Journal, highlighted on LAObserved by a letter to the Daily Journal from Arthur Gilbert, a presiding judge of the California Court of Appeal:
Attorney Jeffrey A. Lowe in his article, “Spotlight on Roman Polanski,” (Oct. 12) scores Judge Lawrence Rittenband for belonging “to a Los Angeles country club that barred Jews from membership.” Lowe proclaims that Rittenband, the trial judge, “apparently was clearly anti -Semitic.” Putting aside for the moment, the question of how one can be “apparently” and “clearly anti-Semitic,” Lowe got his facts wrong. About 27 years ago I served with Judge Rittenband in the Santa Monica branch of the Los Angeles Superior Court. However dissatisfied Mr. Lowe is with the manner in which the Polanski case was handled, Judge Rittenband decidedly was not anti-Semitic. He and I had lunch together at his country club, Hillcrest, a Jewish country club. You see, Judge Rittenband was Jewish and immensely proud of his heritage and culture. There is so much more I would like to say, but because the Polanski case could be characterized as a “pending case,” the California Code of Judicial Ethics require I say no more. Darn.
Fortunately for Lowe, you can’t libel a dead person, and Rittenband died in 1994 at age 88.
Despite his vow to sit on the bench until Mr. Polanski returned, Judge Rittenband stepped down in 1989, saying, “I can’t wait that long.” But he added, “I’ll quote a Gilbert and Sullivan opera: ‘I’ve got him on my list.’ “
The Israeli electro-rock-pop band Terry Poison doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Zionism. They belong more in the European electronic music underground. They sing in English and French about boys and partying. Their wardrobe consists of glittery, metallic bodysuits that outlandish pop sensation Lady Gaga would envy. They don’t consider Diaspora Jews who love Israel as their natural market. (Check out the Journal’s upcoming feature on the band.)
But the band’s lead singer and founder, Louise Kahn, left her homeland of Norway to become a part of the Jewish experiment in the Holy Land and to contribute her own sense of fashion, musical creativity, and partying to the Jewish state. Now her dreams are coming true, with a sound that is rocking Israel’s radio waves, regular gigs in Europe, and a bid at the best new Israeli act at the MTV Europe Music Awards being held in Berlin this November.
“Israel was a legitimate place for me because my parents are Zionists,” she told the Journal during a sound check at the Hollywood Playhouse, where they performed on October 15 as part of the Israeli corner of L.A. Fashion Week. Born in Trondheim, a town she now describes as a Jewish museum, she moved to Oslo with her family at age 10, then left for Israel’s metropolis at age 19.
“I found Tel Aviv really exciting,” said Kahn as she prepared her platinum blonde hair extensions that make her look more Norwegian. She admits her natural color is light brown and that her nose is not small enough to be bond-fide Scandinavian. “This was in 2000, right before the intifada. Norway has always been a very homogeneous society.”
She grew-up a good Jewish girl, with Zionist parents having sent her to the Bnei Akiva Zionist youth movement as a child.
“If you’re a minority like me—even if my family is three generation Norwegian—I didn’t really feel like I belonged. When I came to Tel Aviv, it was very freeing to be a part of the majority and leave this ‘Jewish business’ behind.”
She didn’t know any Hebrew when she landed, and she cheated on the Hebrew placement exam to get admitted into Israel’s prestigious art academy in Jerusalem, Bezalel, where Terry Poison was born. “I stopped playing with another band and started writing electronic music on the keyboard, sampler—low tech. A girlfriend and I started playing around Tel Aviv like crazy.”
Haifa native Idan “Bruno” Grift caught wind of the girls at their gigs, and upgraded the band to four girls (plus himself and a drummer) and worked in the studio with them to perfect their sound. Israeli label Phonokol Records put out their debut album.
“He has an amazing studio,” Kahn said of Grife. “He’s a super serious guy. Without him it would be a joke.”
In addition to performing, Kahn teaches a class on branding for musicians at Muzik, a music school in Tel Aviv specializing in electronic music production. She recognized the power of branding in helping musicians secure an audience. In 2006 Terry Poison teamed up with local designers, stylists and photographers to launch on myspace with photographs of the girls in carefully staged outfits and settings.
“We did the photo shoot and video and did things ourselves on myspace. We created our website. After two months on myspace, we were invited all over Europe—for money. We started something.”
Now that the band has penetrated the Israeli mainstream with two radio hits, Kahn, like many artists in Israel, has her sights set on Europe and the US. The band has been making significant headway. It sold a track to Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance, and they perform regularly in Europe. In May they opened for Depeche Mode in Israel.
“I’ve been living in Israel for ten years, but I’m really dying to get out of here,” she said as the interview progressed to the café adjacent to the Playhouse. “I love my life there, but as artists you hit the wall very fast. We have a problem with how far we can go with our music there. If you have music in English and French you can be part of the global music scene, and Israel’s an island.”
The band has been invited several times to Norway, with television appearances there. Kahn feels more at home there as the singer of a popular electro-rock pop band than as a Jew.
“Every time they interview me in the paper they have to write I’m a Jew. It’s the way they put things into words that’s very dangerous,” she said, acknowledging Norway’s poor pro-Israel track record.
Her two siblings are among the some 1200 Jews living in Norway. Her father is a medical engineer and her mother is a teacher at a nursing school. Her mother doesn’t advertise her Jewishness to her students to avoid getting into a fight about Israel.
“They see things very black and white and I think it has to do with information people have,” she said. “I think if you’ve been a country that’s been a part of world history—America or Israel, for instance—your worldview becomes more grey. As for their attitude to Israel, you can read some really not fun things in Norwegian newspapers. My parents aren’t happy about being Jewish there.”
She glanced out the window towards Hollywood Boulevard. “It’s not like America. It’s something you hide.”
Have you ever used your child as an excuse to get out of something? Come on, we have all been guilty of it. “Sorry we have to leave so soon (from your boring party), but Junior has to take a nap and he went to bed late last night.” “We’d love to come to your Pictionary tournament, but we don’t have a sitter.” Or how about an excuse to do something? “He’s watching The Backyardigans for the fifth time today, while I work, because he loves it, he doesn’t want to do anything else.” “We had to get an annual pass to Disneyland because HE loves it there so much.”
I have to admit that I try not to use my son as an excuse, but find that it often comes in handy, and I’m not really lying…maybe just stretching the truth a little.
For instance, I took him to the park the other day and there were friends of mine that I hadn’t seen in a long time, picnicking with their children and another group of friends. They called us over and I really was not in the mood for mingling much, so I decided to leave the decision to my three year old son. What is wrong with that? I asked him, “Do you want to go over and say hi to Mommy’s friends, or should we go to the sandbox?” Lo and behold, he chose the sandbox…who knew? So, I waved to my friends from the other side of the park, shrugged my shoulders and said. “Oh, sorry, looks like he’s headed to the sandbox.” And that was that. It was the truth, after all; that is what he chose. I did go over and say hello afterwards because the guilt was killing me, but that’s not the point.
Then there was another recent incident. The other day I was out on a play date with two mommy friends that I had met at a class at the park. (And good thing they don’t know about my blog. Please don’t Google me, please don’t Google me!) We met at the park and the play date seemed to be going fine. Then I realized that one of their sons kept taking toys away from my son, so I would keep jumping in and making sure that everyone was sharing…blah blah blah. But then I noticed the mommies retreated to the park bench and began chatting while I started running around the sandbox making sure the kids were okay. This must have been great for them, Mihal’s Babysitting Service. I ran after their two boys, while mine was just riding a bike around and they were headed every which way, since I felt they had entrusted the supervising to me. I stopped and approached the moms, not wanting to interrupt their conversation. But they finally noticed me standing there, as I was blocking their sunlight.
There I stood sweaty and out of breath and could barely see under my sweat-filled baseball cap as sweat was dripping into my eyes. They spoke as I stood there like a deer in headlights,“Thanks for watching our boys. We haven’t had time to relax all week.”
I wanted to say, “It’s a good thing that all I do is relax all week.” But instead I muttered a “You’re welcome.” Then pulled an excuse out of my hat, a very sweaty drippy one at that, “We’re going to head out because my son is getting tired…” You know how when you lie, you keep on going and going because essentially in the end you are trying to convince yourself that you are, in fact, not lying.
Good thing they interrupted. “Oh, no problem.” And I’m glad that they couldn’t see my son running around on the other side of the gigantic slide blocking their view. He was having a great time and didn’t seem tired at all.
Was I wrong? I probably should’ve come out and told them the truth. But, sometimes honesty is not the best policy…excuses are. Thanks, son…and sorry.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero last Thursday that talks between Israel and the United States over construction in the settlements on the West Bank had ended.
“We solved the matter of the settlements with the Americans,” Netanyahu told his Spanish counterpart.
“I cannot say more than that. If you are interested in hearing more details, ask in Washington,” added Netanyahu.
Speaking at a Rabbinical Conference in the American South this week, I made myself instantly unpopular by pointing out how irrelevant we Rabbis have become. How many parents push their kids to be Rabbis? Sure. If the kid flunked science and math. Perhaps. But to choose it over law or a job at Goldman Sachs?
And how many people turn to a Rabbi aside from the obvious life-cycle events like Bar Mitzvahs and weddings, or, more ominously, during tragedies like illness and funerals. And to the extent that we Rabbis are becoming more popular with our communities it seems to be precisely when we act as though we’re not Rabbis but just one of the boys. How often have I heard friends tell me, “We have the coolest new Rabbi. We call him by his first name. He plays poker and basketball with us. He’s amazing.” All of this is, of course, quite kosher. But this kind of popularity is hardly the stuff of leadership.
And if we’re becoming less relevant in the Jewish community, we never had any real relevance outside our community to begin with. While evangelical pastors like Rick Warren have an appeal well beyond Christians, Rabbis remain almost completely unknown in the United States beyond their Synagogues. Not that popularity or renown is any kind of meaningful barometer of success. It’s not. But as a gauge of the degree to which Rabbis are impacting the mainstream culture, it’s clear that we remain mostly marginalized.
And it’s our own fault. We have relegated ourselves to mainstream irrelevance by allowing ourselves to mostly become synagogue quarterbacks and ritual rule-givers. The Rabbi is the man who runs the Synagogue service. He makes announcements like, “Will the Congregation please rise” and “Please turn to page 250.” He is the person you come to with questions like “What time do Kol Nidrei services begin” and “Are my tefillin still kosher?” Now, let’s not trivialize these absolutely vital functions of the communal Rabbi. Let us also, of course, never trivialize the importance of every person whom Rabbis affect, comfort, and inspire, each of whom, according to our Talmud, is an entire universe. But let us also not pretend that any of these functions will ever bring Rabbis or Judaism to have a mainstream impact on a culture crying out for redemption.
What could change all this? A radical transformation in how Rabbis view themselves and how they are viewed by their communities. The principal purpose of a Rabbi is not to present a leather-bound Bible to a Bar Mitzvah boy or even to eulogize a righteous grandmother upon her passing. Rather, the Rabbi’s main objective is to serve as a guide for life to his congregants. Simply put, as a supreme repository of the splendid wisdom contained in Judaism, as Rabbi is the ultimate lifecoach.
The Rabbi once was, and should again be, the main person you come to when you want advice as to how to make your marriage passionate, how to learn to talk to your teenage kids, how to wean yourself off materialism and greed, and how to learn to become a deeper and wiser person. But when these question pop into our heads the personalities we turn to are Oprah, Deepak Chopra, Dr. Phil, and Marianne Williamson.
But aren’t rabbis wise? Are they not students of an ancient tradition that kept families intact and communities whole for generations? Are we not the teachers who can best explain how Joseph learned to forgive his brothers and are we not the heirs of Hillel who practiced patience even through the most outrageous provocations? So why are we teaching so little of this? We Rabbis ought to have owned the self-help revolution that had millions searching for mastery over their lives.
This past Sunday night I was joined on a panel by Elie Wiesel, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and Mayor Cory Booker to discuss Jewish values that can heal America. Each of the panelists spoke with great eloquence. Joining in the audience of over 1000 was John Gosselin from TLC’s ‘Jon and Kate Plus Eight’ whose life has become a tabloid parody but who is now searching for redemptive purpose and asked a very important question about values he can employ, as a single father, to raise healthy children. Mayor Booker said ‘Be a moral example to your children.’ Dr. Oz said he must teach his children to always show others respect. And Prof. Wiesel, eloquent as always, said education was key and his children must love learning. I advised him to wean his children off the attention that comes from TV viewers and substitute it instead with the kind of unconditional love that can only come from focused parenting. But the significance of the exchange was that a man whose family has been significantly damaged by the all-American obsession with celebrity is searching for meaning within the well of Jewish values.
About a year ago I had a meeting with a television executive about a family values program. I was warned ahead of time that although the executive was Jewish he was extremely secular and I should be careful not to bring up religion. Yet, as soon as I walked in he asked me, “Do you watch Joel Osteen?” I said that I did, on occasion, and found him to be an effective and inspiring communicator.
As I walked out it occurred to me that his question was somewhat tragic. Not because the Jewish executive watched a Christian pastor to receive spiritual uplift. Rather, the tragedy lay in the fact that Osteen mostly quotes from the Hebrew Bible as opposed to the New Testament. His sermons focus on the Jewish patriarchs, Moses, King David, Jeremiah, and Isaiah for guidance. What he doesn’t do is announce ‘Will the congregation please rise’ or content himself with quarterbacking a service. Rather, he provides guidance for life. And he does it from our Torah. Surely we Rabbis who devote our lives to its mastery can recapture our historical occupation of sharing its wisdom with those who seek to lead lives of moral grandeur and spiritual purpose.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the founder of This World: The Values Network. He has just published ‘The Michael Jackson Tapes: A Tragic Icon Reveals His Soul in Intimate Conversation.” www.shmuley.com.
Moni Fanan, the former chairman of the board for the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball club, was found dead in his home on Monday after he committed suicide.
After several failed resuscitation attempts the rescue services at the scene pronounced him dead.
Fanan became a team symbol and was known as one of the groups’ most fervent fans.
Who says there are no do-overs in international politics?
When the U.N. Human Rights Council endorsed the Goldstone report on the Gaza war last Friday, it reversed a surprise delay of its endorsement two weeks earlier. The Palestinians viewed last Friday’s endorsement as a corrective; Israel saw it as a return to the problematic policies of the past.
The Palestinian Authority had sparked a firestorm of anger among Palestinians late last month when it asked the Geneva-based Human Rights Council to delay a vote on a resolution endorsing the Goldstone report, which cited evidence that Israel and Hamas committed war crimes during the three-week war and possibly crimes against humanity.
Hamas leaders and protesters in the West Bank declared that P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas had betrayed the Palestinian people by caving in to U.S. and Israeli pressure, scuttling a resolution on a report faulting Israel with war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza.
So Abbas quickly reversed course, first pressing the U.N. Security Council to take up the matter—which it did last week, albeit informally—and then asking the Human Rights Council to reconvene for a special session on the report. The council, whose next scheduled session is in March, agreed.
The result was a quick endorsement last Friday by the 47-member council of the report, produced by a fact-finding mission on the Gaza war led by retired South African jurist Richard Goldstone.
Israel had refused to cooperate with the fact-finding mission from the start, asserting that its mandate to investigate only Israeli “grave violations of human rights” and not Hamas’ actions was inherently biased.
While the report’s mandate later expanded to include consideration of Hamas misconduct during the fighting, the draft resolution debated at the council last week restored that bias, prompting a rebuke from Goldstone himself.
“There is not a single phrase condemning Hamas, as we have done in the report,” Goldstone was quoted as saying by the French news agency AFP.
The resolution was slightly amended before its passage to include a line condemning the targeting of civilians and calling for all parties to be held to account. It also expressed “deep concern” at Israeli restrictions on Arab worshipers at the Temple Mount, which Israeli police imposed amid unrest during the recent Sukkot holiday.
Supporters of Israel complained that the unrest in Jerusalem had nothing to do with the Goldstone report and constituted little more than a gratuitous swipe at Israel.
Nevertheless, the resolution passed by a vote of 25 to 6.
While the council’s vote is not legally binding, it asks that the U.N. General Assembly consider the Goldstone report, and the report itself recommends that the U.N. Security Council refer war crimes prosecutions to the International Criminal Court if Israel does not take action within six months to investigate the alleged crimes.
In last Friday’s vote, the countries voting against the resolution were the United States, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Ukraine. Eleven countries abstained and five countries did not vote at all—a highly unusual occurrence at the council—including Britain and France. Among the yes votes were Russia, China, Argentina and Egypt.
The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard accused the United States, Israel and others of planning a suicide attack that killed 42.
Five senior Revolutionary Guard commanders were among those killed in Sunday’s attack near the Pakistani border. The attack, carried out by a bomber who reportedly was disguised in tribal dress, occurred at a reconciliation meeting in southeastern Iran between Shiite and Sunni tribal leaders.
“The American and Israeli intelligence agencies are behind this,” Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari said Monday. “We must pay them back in order to punish them and, God willing, we hope to be able to do so.”
Jafari also accused Britain and Pakistan of planning the attack.
The Muslim militant group Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, which operates along the Iranian-Pakistani border and is said to be affiliated with al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the attack, according to reports.
Last night our organization, This World: The Values Network, hosted a fascinating discussion entitled, “Values to Heal America” featuring Prof. Elie Wiesel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Mehmet Oz, America’s doctor, and Mayor Cory Booker of Newark.
What an event it turned out to be! Truly, one of the finest dialogues I have ever been involved with. I structured the evening by presenting to the panelists with the seven greatest social ills that I believe are plaguing America. I then offered a Jewish-values based solution to each and asked the panelists to react. We dealt with depression, the terror threat and foreign wars, broken families, materialism and greed, the growing gap between rich and poor, and other pressing concerns.
To have three guests, each of whom is a world-leader in their field, was spectacular and I strongly encourage each of you to go on our websites and watch the full program. The questions from the audience were equally riveting.
John Gosselin, from Jon and Kate Plus 8, joined us in the audience and asked the panelists what were the most important values by which to raise good kids. We alighted upon respect (Oz), setting a good moral example (Booker), and teaching them to love learning (Prof Wiesel). I spoke to Jon publicly about the need to use fame and celebrity to highlight a cause larger than oneself, without which fame can become a curse. He was very receptive and I commend him for having the courage to get up in front of everyone and ask his question. His family clearly needs healing and I have been speaking to him about changes he must make in his life. Again, he is always very receptive. There is much good in him and he has, I believe, a sincere desire to correct the many mistakes he has made as he has been carried away with fame, as have so many others in our culture.
Indeed, the obsession with celebrity was one of the most interesting parts of the conversation and Mehmet Oz said that his wife Lisa, as well as raising four children, keep him grounded amid his own skyrocketing celebrity.
But the greatest treat for all of us was hearing Elie Wiesel, a living legend, share his inspirational wisdom with us. Prof. Wiesel has lectured to my organizations now for twenty years. Each time it is memorable, uplifting, and historic. There is none like him.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the founder of This World: The Values Network. He has just published ‘The Michael Jackson Tapes: A Tragic Icon Reveals His Soul in Intimate Conversation.” www.shmuley.com.
JDub, the nonprofit Jewish music label, is adopting the online Jewish magazine Jewcy.com.
Jewcy, which was started as a for-profit venture in 2006, was left in the lurch last spring when its primary funders abruptly pulled their money from the project. Since then the blog-heavy magazine—JDub says it has 120,000 unique visitors per month, most of them young people—has been looking for a funding partner.
Day-to-day operations of Jewcy will be overseen by JDub Chief Operating Officer Jacob Harris and Jewcy editor Lilit Marcus, who has run Jewcy on a volunteer basis for the past eight months and will officially join the JDub staff.
The JDub-Jewcy marriage was funded in part by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and several Jewish foundations.
“Jewcy is an amazing brand,” Harris said. “We’ve been fans of the site since it began and are very excited to leverage the natural overlap and keep Jewcy thriving and growing. Jewcy’s content is similar to our music catalogue in that it proudly presents very diverse Jewish thoughts, ideas, challenges and struggles in a quality and relevant fashion.”
“In these difficult economic times, we are constantly seeking partnership and collaboration with like-minded organizations,” said Aaron Bisman, JDub’s chief executive officer. “We are creating spaces and experiences without barriers to entry where young people can find their community and interact with it on their own terms, be it through music, blogging, events, or social media. We hope JDub’s adoption of Jewcy can serve as a model for increased efficiency and allow focus to remain where it belongs—on culture, conversation, and real community.”