This video about American Jewish World Service, with more stars than you’d see at Temple Israel of Hollywood on Yom Kippur, has been making the rounds today.
I like Andy Samberg’s line:
“People often come up to me and they’ll say, ‘Hey Samberg, I didn’t even know you were Jewish.’ And I say, ‘Really?’ And they go, ‘No, not really. Look at your gigantic face.’”
Jews ‘may be pushy, but they are going to help you’ Read More »
Two explosive-stuffed packages sent from Yemen and addressed to two Chicago-area synagogues look like the work of al Qaida or its affiliate al Qaeda, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Saturday.
Two packages containing explosives — sent to Chicago addresses — were intercepted in London and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, late Thursday.
According to a report in the Chicago Synagogues Saved by Saudis Read More »
“Nabokov once said ‘I divide literature into two categories, the books I wish I had written and the books I have written,’” Umberto Eco once wrote in the pages of The Paris Review. “In the former category I would put books by Kurt Vonnegut, Don DeLillo, Philip Roth, and Paul Auster.”
To which I must say: “Amen,” although I have to say that I would add Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nikos Kazantzakis, and Mordecai Richler to the list.
Eco’s remarks help us understand why Paul Auster – novelist, poet, screenwriter, and cultural observer – is best described as a writer’s writer. His books are sometimes to be found on best-seller lists, but they are even more often cited and praised by other writers of distinction. Auster is always accessible and readable, but he is also a superb literary stylist, an author who is capable of extracting poetry from the hard facts of life, no matter how sad or sordid they may be.
The latest example of Auster’s genius is “Sunset Park” (A Frances Coady Book/Henry Holt: $25.00), a novel that was written in and about the elevator-drop economy of 2008. And yet, like all of his work, humankind rather than the Dow-Jones average is the measure of all things in the world according to Auster.
“The human body is strange and flawed and unpredictable,” muses one of the characters in “Sunset Park.” “The human body has many secrets, and it does not divulge them to anyone, except those who have learned to wait. The human body cannot exist with other human bodies.”
The book opens on a mysterious young man named Miles Heller whose job is “trashing out” abandoned homes in Florida. “Each house is a story of failure,” writes Auster, “and he has taken it upon himself to document the last, lingering traces of those scattered lives in order to prove that the vanished families were once here, that the ghosts of people he will never see and never know are still present in the discarded things strewn about their empty houses.”
Precisely the same description can be applied to Auster’s narrative technique in “Sunset Park.” As the author’s eye wanders across the urban landscape of contemporary America — a publishing house in Greenwich Village, a band of squatters in Brooklyn, an aging actress in California exile who aspires to return to the New York stage — Auster is gathering the fragments of a shattered family and assembling them into a rich biographical mosaic.
The moment that best captures what Auster has achieved in “Sunset Park” is when Miles Heller, who has returned to New York until his under-aged girlfriend in Florida reaches the age of 18, walks into the Hospital for Broken Things. It’s a repair shop that Bing Nathan, one of his cronies, operates from a storefront in Park Slope, a place where “battered artifact[s] from the antique industries of a half a century ago” — typewriters, fountain pens, record players, wind-up toys and gumball machines — can be put back into working order. Bing offers Miles a job, but we are shown that the offer is driven by his own urgent needs and passions.
“He knows that Miles is only half a person,” explains Auster, “that his life has been sundered and will never be fully repaired, but the half of Miles that remains is more compelling to him than two of anyone else.”
The novel itself, we realize, is a Hospital for Broken Things. With the practiced hand of a master storyteller, he draws us into the lives of the characters he has imagined, and he allows us to glimpse their hurts and longings, their aspirations and frustrations, their sins and secret good deeds. Above all, Auster holds out the hope that broken men and women, too, can be repaired.
Jonathan Kirsch, author and publishing attorney, is the book editor of The Jewish Journal. He can be reached at books@jewishjournal.com.
The World According to Paul Auster Read More »
There is a lot going on today: Widening international investigation into the bombs from Yemen; Game 3 of the World Series; UCLA v. Arizona football (what?). But probably the biggest headliner was Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.
The rally just wrapped up with this remark from Mr. Influential, via The Caucus blog:
“What exactly was this?” Mr. Stewart asks. “This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith. Or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland, or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies.”
“Not being able to be able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers, or real bigots and Juan Williams or Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves, who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate.”
“The press is our immune system,” Mr. Stewart says. “If it overreacts to everything, we actually get sicker. And perhaps eczema. And yet, with that being said, I feel good. Strangely, calmly good.”
Here’s from from CNN. Still looking for a video. In the meantime, here is some context on Tea Partiers and Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez.
The End of (the Rally to Restore) Sanity Read More »
WASHINGTON, D.C. – One thing to be said for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s Restore Sanity and/or Fear Rally today in Washington: they didn’t pull the transparent trick that Glenn Beck did last month with his Restore Honor Rally. Beck, the right-wing talker, used his supposedly non-partisan rally to rather blatantly sling a right-wing political agenda. Natch.
Stewart and Colbert stuck to their word, unfortunately. While their three-hour show drew a buoyant and decidedly non-Republican crowd to the National Mall, they didn’t even come close to sending any overt or covert political message. Indeed, the whole spectacle, while immaculately produced, was sort of amazingly content-free. So tightly scripted, and so scrupulously determined to avoid even oblique political references, the performances -– which included a poetry reading from Sam Watterson, and songs from the O Jays, Cat Stevens, Tony Bennett, The Roots, Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow, along with lots of schtick from the two rally stars—at times seemed like an extended and not very funny version of Stewart’s rather unremarkable stint a few years back as host of the Oscars.
The implicit message, one supposed, of this rally is that given the obviously liberal and often courageous and confrontational on-air attitudes of the comic duo, a “sanity” rally in these concluding days of an historic mid-term campaign would somehow be a push-back against two years of frothy, if not lathered-up, conservative resistance to the Obama administration and everything it stands for.
Not much luck.
Only at the very end of the rally, after many had left, did Stewart venture into more political territory, but primarily by attacking the media and decrying what he characterized as a moment of frenetic paranoia. “These are hard times,” he said. “Not the end times.” He blasted the media, especially, cable news for irresponsibly stoking false controversies and needlessly dividing the American people.
“The press can hold a magnifying class to illuminate issues,” Stewart said his rather solemn ten minute closing statement. “Or it can use that glass to set ants on fire… if we amplify everything we hear nothing.”
A true enough proposition. But somewhat naïve or disingenuous to recur to the most routine sort of conventional wisdom —that all passionate pundits are essentially the same, that the only difference between left and right is labels. At least that allusion created some sparks.
Otherwise, it was a somewhat tedious couple of hours from a dais that had little if nothing to do with both the fundamental and sometimes irrational fears and the dampened hopes for sanity that currently roil the American psyche. Nor was it all half as funny as almost any random half hour of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report.
The crowd, nevertheless, seemed not disappointed at all, and content to just enjoy a mild day among a throng of fellow-thinkers.
Video footage from LA’s Rally to Restore Sanity. Story continues after the jump.
By late Friday night and early Saturday morning, hours before the onset of the rally, hundreds, thousands and then tens of thousands converged on the mall, jamming Washington’s sidewalks, the Metro, busses and crashing local cell phone networks.
While the official theme of the rally was a non-partisan, if not overtly non-political appeal to “sanity” –- to calm and reasoned discourse—there was little doubt that the event was populated primarily by Democrats, liberal Democrats. A light-hearted and almost carnival-like atmosphere prevailed, consistent with an event organized by two comedians, but the signs and placards definitely tilted left of center.
“We the People, Not We the Corporations…Less Hannity More Sanity.. We Have Nothing to Fear Except Fox Itself” were typical of the hand-painted signs that blossomed among the field of thousands. A plethora of liberal activist groups ranging from those favoring marijuana legalization to those pushing campaign finance reform were on hand to wave the flag, leaflet and recruit. Others held up signs supporting Obama and praising his health care reform.
Yet, there were also signs, echoing Stewart’s repeated plea that this was all just a “clarion call to sanity” asking those attending to “Chill It” and “Bring it Down a Notch.”
Herein, though, resided the fundamental irony of this odd event. While it rather reasonably if obliquely mocked the spittle and hyperbole that mars much of current political discourse and over-heated and superficial media coverage that has a direct stake in stoking ratings-friendly partisan wrestling matches, most of these rally-goers come from a constituency that is facing a very likely political bloodbath in less than 72 hours.
Bringing it down a notch, keeping things calm, cool and cerebral, has been among the traits that have most irked and discouraged President Obama’s Democratic base for the last two years. With that much-talked about “enthusiasm gap” firing up the Tea Partiers and fueling a probable GOP electoral surge over the Democratic barricades, this final weekend of the campaign might have been much more appropriate for a rally demanding that those political forces considering themselves “sane” -– compared to more frenzied conservatives — ramp things up instead of downshifting. And it might have been more logical, more sane, to have the President himself and not two cable comedians lead the charge.
And while the massive crowd exhibited considerably less of the extreme political theater that has marked more militant and partisan events, such as the anti-war rallies, this rally was still indisputably if unwittingly redolent with a slight whiff of self-righteous smugness, something organic to the central organizing principle of the event.
If those here are “sane,” then by extension those not attending or sympathizing just might be insane -– plain crazy. Not only does that contradict Stewart’s “Can’t we all get along?” message, but it might also alienate precisely moderate, or “low-information” voters who might see this event as a mass display of Democratic snobbery.
“Poppycock,” exclaimed Marie Fein, a 27-year-old New York office worker who came to D.C. on one of the free buses provided by The Huffington Post (which carted in an estimated 10,000). “This rally is going to help fire up millions seeing it on TV and let them know they are not alone out there, that there are so many others of us who are going to vote Tuesday to end the Tea Party craziness. Most people are sane and they will indentify with us.”
That was hardly a universal conviction, even among the ralliers. “Look, this is going to make people feel good for a couple of hours, including me, but in itself it isn’t going to change much,” said a D.C.-based union organizer who didn’t want to be named.
“The moment this is over, I’m going to be phone-banking all afternoon and night. What counts is not how many people we have out here on the mall today. What counts is how many people we get into the voting booths on Tuesday.”
The word “vote” was never mentioned from the stage.
Marc Cooper is an Associate Professor of Professional Practice and the Director of Annenberg Digital News at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.
More coverage on the Rally to Restore Sanity:
Washington, D.C. – Sanity rally: Now that we are all friends, what do we do?
Sanity rally: Now that we are all friends, what do we do? Read More »
A work by Niso Maman
The Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon in Southern Israel, six miles from Gaza, is a 500-bed facility with an emergency room and a teaching hospital that treats Israelis and Palestinians. Qassam rockets launched from Gaza land so regularly on the building that the top two floors are kept unoccupied as a “safety buffer.”
Imagine that you are Lee Wallach, an American and CEO of Community Assets Consulting, a firm specializing in assisting Israeli, international and U.S. environmental technology companies with business in the United States and California. And that you visited Barzilai, some 18 months ago. Or Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who, together with his chief of staff, Matt Wollman, also visited Barzilai and, while there, came under rocket attack. Or Niso Maman, an Israeli sculptor of international renown who often works with recycled materials and operates a studio in West Palm Beach, Fla. Or even Daphna Ziman, political activist, philanthropist, founder and chair of Children Uniting Nations, who lives in a beautiful home in Beverly Hills and had heard about Barzilai and the sculptures Maman has created.
Each of these people wanted to do something to help Barzilai.
Here’s what happened: Wallach came up with the idea of having an artist create artworks from the missile fragments and debris that had hit the hospital, and he approached Maman, who accepted the challenge. Wallach also approached Baca to discuss how Qassam rocket debris might be allowed into the United States to be fashioned into sculpture and then exhibited. And Ziman offered her home to host a reception for Barzilai, Maman and the sculptures.
All of which is how, on a recent evening, I came to find myself at Ziman’s home viewing an exhibition of Maman’s sculptures called “The Qassams of Barzilai,” in the company of Maman, Ziman, Wollman and City Councilman Paul Koretz, as well as Dr. Shimon Scharf, Barzilai’s CEO and medical director.
Displayed throughout the home were more than a half dozen of Maman’s sculptures. They were striking, surprising and challenging. In some instances, the work was humbled by its medium’s provenance, at other times it transcended it, becoming a thing of perplexing beauty.
One piece used twisted, rusted strips to form a peace symbol; in another, small shards became a woman’s torso. Even more interesting were pieces in which the rocket canister was evident but was surrounded by metal to suggest a futurist-style work of strange energy, a flower of evil, if you will, moving back and forth between horror and beauty. Finally, there were a few sculptures where the metal seemed like mad brushstrokes speaking their own abstract language.
Maman explained that each metal fragment came from shrapnel collected by the Israeli bomb squad, and each had been marked as to when and where it fell, then stored in evidence boxes. “This was the most challenging scrap metal I ever worked with,” Maman said. “As an artist, I like challenges. With some pieces I tried to transform them completely,” he continued, “but some pieces, it was a struggle to work with the energy of the piece.” Maman said his connection to the materials was personal, as he had been in Ashkelon during a rocket attack, and one of the fragments he’d worked with had fallen the day he was there. He said he derived great satisfaction from the work and from the exhibition. “It’s a great feeling to do this for the hospital, because they are doing wonderful work,” he said.
Wallach said he hopes to send Maman’s current exhibit on a national tour and has already garnered support from the American Jewish Committee, StandWithUs and the Iranian American Jewish Group 30 Years After; the latter organization displayed the work during its recent conference at the Century Plaza Hotel. Wallach hopes to invite other artists to “tell the story of Barzilai.”
Wallach also has launched a fundraising campaign for the Friends of Barzilai to fund an underground emergency room, protected from attacks; to enhance the hospital’s oncology institute; and to renovate the gynecology wing, as well as the neonatal intensive care and pediatric intensive care units. Wallach would like to match the $44 million the Israeli government has pledged for improvements to the hospital.
At the event in her home, Ziman said she had long been frustrated by the situation in Southern Israel and wanted to speak out about the destruction wreaked by the missiles. However, when she first saw the sculptures, she said, “I was blown away.” What moved her was that, in “turning death and ugliness into beauty,” she saw a powerful metaphor for the best of Israel, that it has been “turning a desert into a garden … building rather than destroying … turning a negative into a positive.” She said she was grateful to be able to offer her home for the exhibition.
The event was neither political nor an evening to engender political debate. It was an exhibit of sculptures – interesting, unexpectedly beautiful and poetic. And yet, as Scharf, Barzilai’s director, pointed out, no one can look at the sculptures without thinking of the words of Isaiah: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares.”
Or, as Maman said, “If shrapnel can be turned into fine art, maybe there’s a chance for peace.”
Turning Qassams into Art Read More »