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Jewish Journal

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November 17, 2010

Jewish groups slam anti-African refugee decrees

Leave a Comment / Worldwide /

U.S. Jewish groups condemned rulings by rabbis in the Israeli city of Bnei Brak that ban residents from renting apartments to African refugees.

The Anti-Defamation League on Nov. 15 called the decrees issued last week in the Charedi Orthodox city “biased pronouncements.” Six leading Charedi rabbis in Bnei Brak issued a ruling that follows a similar call in July by rabbis in nearby Tel Aviv.

“The decision to rent an apartment to another human being shouldn’t be based on ethnic background,” the statement issued from ADL’s Israel office said.

“We encourage the rabbis to follow the Jewish tradition of tolerance and empathy toward other human beings. We call on the religious, political and civic leadership in Israel to stand by the democratic values of acceptance and understanding and speak out against these biased pronouncements.”

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) also condemned the pronouncements.

“This injunction is inspired less by religious belief than by fear and prejudice,” said Eliseo Neuman, director of AJC’s Africa Institute. “Instead of emphasizing the biblical duty to care for the ‘guest in our midst,’ it legitimizes discrimination and stokes hostility, dangerously undermining the principles of equality and tolerance upon which the State of Israel is founded.”

According to figures released by Israel’s Population, Immigration and Borders Authority, and cited by AJC, the number of African migrants entering Israel this year has increased by 200 percent.

Approximately 27,000 undocumented migrants from countries across Africa — many of them practicing Christians and Muslims — are estimated to be living in Israel. While many are seeking asylum from persecution in countries such as Sudan and Eritrea, a large number venture to Israel for purely economic reasons.

Jewish groups slam anti-African refugee decrees Read More »

Le Salon de Musiques debuts with emphasis on the classics

Leave a Comment / Music /

The pianist François Chouchan has nothing against contemporary music, but for the first season of the monthly chamber music series Le Salon de Musiques, he and co-artistic director violinist Phillip Levy have filled all eight concerts with masterpieces of the Western classical canon.

“If pieces like Schubert’s String Quintet are considered conservative, then I’m a conservative guy,” Chouchan said, referring to the single hour-long work on the Nov. 21 program.

Works by Mozart and Elgar scheduled for the Dec. 19 and Jan. 16 concerts are also proven masterpieces beloved by audiences — further evidence of conservative programming. But, Chouchan and Levy ask, when was the last time you heard them up close and personal, the way they were meant to be heard?

The series, inspired by Marie Antoinette’s Salon de Musique in 1780 at the Petit Trianon Domain within the opulent Chateau de Versailles, seeks to bring audiences closer to the music and performers, with composers and works discussed before a performance.

The concerts take place the third Sunday of every month at 4 p.m. on the fifth floor of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and offer a fine view of the city and hills. There’s a gourmet buffet prepared by Patina and, naturellement, there’s also first-rate French champagne.

According to Levy, Chouchan liked the idea of offering a chamber music series in Los Angeles that completely does away with the formality of the stage. (The Da Camera Society’s estimable Chamber Music in Historic Sites also often dispenses with a stage.)

“We talk about the music, getting the audience interested in the piece with musical examples, where and why the piece was written — anything that adds to the experience of hearing it,” Levy said.

The idea is a throwback to the days when music — both showy and profound — was often performed in salons, where a smaller space intensified the experience of chamber music. Last month, Le Salon’s debut concert attracted 100 people, intimate enough to allow for maximum effect.

“Unless the hall is specifically built for chamber music — the perfect size with a good acoustic — it could be in somebody’s living room,” Levy said.

In fact, Levy added, the space inside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion is just that — “a big living room.”

Levy will not be among the performers Nov. 21 for Schubert’s String Quintet, but he’s excited about the other musicians — cellists Antonio Lysy and John Walz. “Walz’s recording of Bloch’s ‘Schelomo’ is spectacular,” Levy said. “It’s on par with all the great cellists who have recorded it.”

Among the other Los Angeles musicians scheduled to perform in the series are violinist Sarah Thornblade, in March, and pianist Steven Vanhauwaert, who joins Chouchan in May for a two-piano recital of works by Mozart and Rachmaninoff.

Chouchan, 49, was born in Paris and moved to Los Angeles four years ago. His teachers at the Paris Conservatory included pianist Yvonne Loriod, Olivier Messiaen’s wife and muse. But it was cellist-conductor Mstislav Rostropovich who gave Chouchan a lasting lesson about why chamber music is so special a collaborative art. “He was really famous, but so simple and so human,” Chouchan recalled. “He was close to people.”

Chouchan said growing up Jewish in France, a country predominantly Catholic, was not easy. “I love my country, but if I would have to go back to France, I would be sad,” he said. “As with most of the European countries now, we have anti-Semitic problems. Being Jewish in Los Angeles is a dream compared with being Jewish in some parts of France.”

The pianist spoke of co-artistic director Levy as musically likeminded. “There’s an extraordinary connection between us,” Chouchan said. “We don’t have to talk about how we need to do something. It’s automatic.”

Levy, who is also 49, is a former first violinist for the Stanford String Quartet. He has lived in Los Angeles for 13 years. Born in Cardiff, Wales, Levy emigrated to Israel with his parents when he was 10.

“It worked to my advantage to go to Israel as a kid,” he said. “I got great teaching, and it was a great place to be. I played the viola in a string quartet in the Israeli army. At the time, it was the only army in the world that could boast not one, but two, string quartets.”

At 15, Levy became the youngest member of the Israel Chamber Orchestra. His mentors include violinists Isaac Stern and Yehudi Menuhin. With the latter, he performed Bartók Duos on television for a public concert benefiting the homeless. He has also been a member of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under Iona Brown.

Levy, like Chouchan, isn’t concerned about Le Salon’s conservative tastes and, as chamber music is collaborative, he said they are always open to new music.

“We asked the artists which pieces are close to their hearts,” Levy said. “What can you captivate an audience with the most? And these are the programs that came out. Schubert’s String Quintet, for instance, stands as one of the pinnacles of art. It’s an hour long but [is] a lifetime of music.”

For Chouchan, Le Salon’s goal is simple and personal. “I need to be touched by the melody,” he said. “I try to push the melody so that people can feel the deepest part of the music. I would love them to spend two great hours with us discovering the masterpieces of classical music and leave the space having a melody in their heads.”

Le Salon de Musiques, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Fifth Floor, Tickets: $65 per person, Le Salon de Musiques debuts with emphasis on the classics Read More »

Literary and cultural diversity in the modern Middle East

Leave a Comment / Books, Judaism /

Among the many tragedies of the so-called “clash of civilizations” is the fact that we have been blinded to the richness and diversity of the cultures of the Middle East. “[T]here is no such thing as a monolithic ‘Muslim world,’ “ argues Reza Aslan in “Tablet & Pen: Literary Landscapes From the Modern Middle East” (Norton: $35), “save perhaps in the imaginations of some in the West.”

So Aslan’s latest book comes as a healthy corrective. Published in cooperation with the international literary organization Words Without Borders, “Tablet & Pen” is a provocative and illuminating survey of poems, short stories, novels, memoirs, essays and drama that allows us to glimpse the previously unseen faces of the Middle East.

Aslan, a professor at University of California, Riverside, is the author of the international best-sellers “No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam” and “How to Win a Cosmic War,” which has been published in paperback under the title “Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in the Age of Globalization.” Born in Iran and educated in the United States, he is frequently called upon by the networks to explain the Middle East to American audiences. Here, Aslan performs a different but no less informative role as a guide through a century or so of writings that have been translated into English out of the Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Urdu languages, many of them for the first time.

“The aim of this book is to provide a different, more authentic perception of this rich and complex region,” Aslan explains in “Pen & Tablet,” “an image not fashioned by the descriptions of invaders, but rather one that arises from the diverse literatures of its most acclaimed poets and writers.”

From the very first page, then, Aslan begins to chip away at our misconceptions about the Middle East. For example, he points out that the region we call the Middle East — “from Morocco to Iran, Turkey to Pakistan” — is populated by people who “speak different languages, practice different faiths, and possess different cultures.” For that reason, the anthology begins with writings that can be neatly pigeonholed by language and geography but ends with “a ‘borderless’ collage of contemporary poems, essays and stories representing the whole of the modern Middle East.”

A few of the authors are familiar, but the selections from their work are not. Lebanese poet Khalil Gibran (1883-1931), for example, is best-known in the West for “The Prophet,” but he is represented by a 1923 manifesto titled “The Future of the Arabic Language,” which can be read as an early shot in a culture war that is still being waged: “The Western Spirit is at once our friend and our enemy,” wrote Gibran. “It is a friend if we can vanquish it, and an enemy if it can vanquish us. …”

One theme of “Tablet & Pen,” in fact, is that the tensions that dominate the headlines out of the Middle East nowadays are nothing new, as we discover in a poem by the Palestinian writer ‘Abd Al-Rahim Mahmud (1913-1948): “This land, this holy land, is being sold to all intruders/and stabbed by its own people!/And tomorrow looms over us, nearer and nearer!/Nothing shall remain for us but our streaming tears,/our deep regrets!”

But Aslan also shows us other grievances and aspirations that have nothing to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict. Turkey, for example, has been struggling with its own identity and destiny in ways that have been invisible to us until very recently, and the poet Nâzim Hikmet (1901-1963) allows us an oblique and ironic glimpse of these often bloody conflicts: “I love my country:/I have swung on its plane trees, I have stayed in its prisons,” he writes. “My country:/camels, train, Fords and sick donkeys,/poplar/willow/and red earth.”

By a certain grim irony, Aslan points out that Persian writing — “perhaps the oldest and most accomplished pre-modern literature of the Middle East” — was reinvigorated by the tumultuous events of the 20th century, when “it fell to Iran’s writers and poets to call society to account for its failings.” Thus, for example, we hear the angry voice of Parvin E’Tesami (1907-1941): “Formerly a woman in Iran was almost non-Iranian./All she did was struggle through dark and distressing days/Her life she spent in isolation; she died in isolation./What was she then if not a prisoner?”

By the time we reach a 1962 essay by Jalal Al-e Ahmad (1923-1969), we come to realize that certain themes continue to resonate in the Middle East — and it casts a new light on such wholly nonliterary concerns as Iran’s nuclear development program. “It’s obvious that as long as we only use machines and don’t make them, we’re Weststruck,” writes Ahmad, echoing the sentiments of Gibran’s manifesto. “Ironically, as soon as we starting building machines we’ll be afflicted by them, like the West.” 

The thought occurred to me, as it will to other Jewish readers, that Israel and its literature have been wholly omitted from the collection. But Aslan anticipates and answers the question. Because the writers and poets in “Tablet & Pen” share in common “neither borders nor nationalities, but rather a struggle for self-definition in the context of imperialism, colonialism and Western cultural hegemony,” he argues, “Hebrew literature, which has developed along a different path, is not included in this anthology.” And he refers his readers to Robert Alter’s “Modern Hebrew Literature” and Ammiel Alcalay’s “Keys to the Garden: New Israeli Writing” as companion volumes to his own.

When we consider the vast achievement that “Tablet & Pen” represents — a survey that reaches out across vast distances of time and space — the omission of Hebrew literature is really just a quibble. “Nothing can be as astounding as life,” observes Ibn Zerhani, “except writing.” And “Tablet & Pen” is a literary banquet with so many astonishing dishes that we can hardly complain there are not yet more on the table. l

Jonathan Kirsch, author and publishing attorney, is book editor of The Jewish Journal. He blogs at jewishjournal.com/twelvetwelve and can be reached at {encode=”books@jewishjournal.com” title=”books@jewishjournal.com”}.

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It’s not just about Jews in journalist’s ‘Tenth Parallel’

Leave a Comment / Books, Entertainment /

With the news that two bombs sent from Yemen were addressed to Jewish communal organizations in Chicago, it would be easy to imagine that Jews are uniquely positioned in the crosshairs of a global movement of radical Islam. And with newspaper headlines about Israel following every shift in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position on whether to reinstate a freeze on Israeli settlement building in what is to be the territory of a future Palestinian state, one might think that Israel and the Palestinians are at the center of the global Islamic consciousness.

But ask journalist Eliza Griswold, who spent the past seven years reporting on Christian and Muslim communities in Africa and Asia, what people she met along her travels think about Jews and Israel, and she would tell you: Not much.

“The contemporary conversation between Islam and the West is not all about Israel and Palestine,” Griswold said in an interview. In her new book, “The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches From the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27), Griswold takes readers to the countries along the line of latitude 700 miles north of the equator that gives her book its name. The region includes some of the world’s most explosively unstable regions, and in her travels through Somalia, Nigeria, Sudan, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, Griswold met radical Muslims and Christians who seemed equally capable of waging violent struggles against the other in the name of religion, who were equally frustrated with Westerners (albeit for different reasons) and who were only marginally interested in either Jews or Israel.

Griswold did encounter Muslims in her travels who said, “We must support our Palestinian brothers,” but she said that their attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a relatively recent addition to their list of concerns. “They come to the story rather late,” Griswold said, noting that even Osama bin Laden only began talking about Palestinians in 1998, years after he began his struggle against the West. “That’s not their primary trigger,” she said.

Indeed, Griswold’s book, which was released in August to very positive reviews, pushes far beyond the old idea of a “Clash of Civilizations” between Christianity — or modernity — in the West and a medieval Islam centered in the Middle East. For all the attention paid to the Middle East, only 20 percent of the world’s Muslims live in that region. Far more live in the areas Griswold passed through in her travels, and by looking closely at the lives and belief systems of Christians and Muslims in these countries, she offers a far more nuanced perspective on what the future of the Muslim world might look like.

It’s hard to tell whether it’s the Christians or the Muslims she meets in Africa and Asia who are more disdainful of the West. African Christians are particularly incensed by the increasing liberality of their American and European counterparts. Muslims in Africa and Asia see the West as simultaneously godlessly secular and defined by its Christian roots, and are increasingly frustrated by the United States’ foreign policy playing out in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But Griswold tells this story in “The Tenth Parallel” from a hyper-local perspective, making clear that while global concerns play a role, the parties involved in these conflicts are not Western at all. “This is about Africans and Africans,” Griswold said, “Asians and Asians.”

Nevertheless, the conflicts between Muslim and Christian communities in these regions do align with some global trends, and Israel does occasionally play a symbolic role. “There’s a curious affinity between Christians in the global south — who tend to be conservative — and Israel,” Griswold said.

“For example, to look at how these local actors took on this global relationship, you don’t have to look farther than the city of Kaduna in northern Nigeria.” The city is divided by the Kaduna River. “On one side of the river,” Griswold said, “are the Muslim neighborhoods of Baghdad and Afghanistan,” names that immediately illustrate the allegiance of this community to two embattled Muslim communities in the Middle East.

“On the other side of the river,” Griswold said, “are the Christian neighborhoods of Haifa, Jerusalem and inexplicably, Television.” That last name could be the result of someone’s mishearing of the city of Tel Aviv — “it’s a mystifying name,” Griswold said — but the fact that African Christians have taken the names of Israeli cities for their own neighborhoods shows that both Christian and Muslim local populations are attaching global significance to their conflicts.

Nevertheless, “The central take-away of this book is that the most overlooked and important religious clashes of our time are those inside of, and not between, religions,” Griswold told an audience at the Los Angeles Public Library in September. It’s a message that should not surprise any Jew familiar with the many divisions within our own religious community. Yet here in the United States, Americans and Jews too often see Islam as a single unified entity, a fact made abundantly clear by this summer’s controversy over the Islamic Center near Ground Zero.

That hotly contested project was headed up by the Sufi imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, and Griswold worries about alienating Sufis worldwide, especially because she considers them the world’s most approachable, exciting and progressive Muslims. “Of the 400 million Muslims living in Africa, most of them are Sufis,” Griswold said. “They believe in bringing God into the human heart.

“We do not want to lose Sufis,” Griswold continued, “or have Sufis assume that they are under threat from the U.S.,” especially because Sufis and other liberal Muslims are already being targeted by other, more conservative Muslim groups. In Somalia, this conflict is playing out as a bloody battle between Al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda affiliated militant Islamist group that espouses a hard-line Sunni philosophy. Al-Shabab carried out attacks on people watching the World Cup this past summer in Uganda, and has also focused its violence on the Somali Sufi Muslims that make up the majority of the country’s population.

“The Tenth Parallel” paints a complicated, somewhat bleak picture of a region where religious violence often makes international news. Those news stories rarely offer much in the way of context, making books like Griswold’s even more valuable to readers of all faiths.

It’s not just about Jews in journalist’s ‘Tenth Parallel’ Read More »

Carnival closes Pico Boulevard

Leave a Comment / Community /

The Los Angeles Police Department-sponsored carnival that took over three blocks of Pico Boulevard Nov. 12-14 got an enthusiastic reception from local Jewish parents. The reaction from businesses on those blocks was decidedly more mixed, particularly from those under Jewish ownership.

“Everybody is against it,” Delice Bakery and Bistro owner Julien Bohbot said on Friday, the second morning that the stretch of Pico running in front of his shop was closed to vehicular traffic. “Thank God I have very good customers, loyal customers,” Bohbot said.

On a day when the bakery is usually swarming with customers buying challah and pastries for Shabbat, Delice’s business was down 75 percent. One block away, on the other side of Pico, Schwartz Bakery saw its business drop significantly on Thursday, the first day of street closures.

LAPD solicited the early support of the South Robertson Neighborhoods Council in the planning stages. “We’ve been planning this for maybe nine or 10 months,” Sgt. David Podesta said, explaining that the proceeds for the carnival would help support the West Los Angeles Division’s youth programs. Of LAPD’s 24 divisions, 17 have staged carnivals to raise funds for these programs.

But little outreach seems to have been done on the level of the individual businesses. Bohbot said he only heard about the carnival plans two-and-a-half weeks before the event. He and other local business owners said that when they did hear about the planned carnival from Podesta and other uniformed officers, the plans sounded less like a possibility or a proposal and more like a fait accompli. “Four weeks ago, I found out they were having it,” Nick’s Coffee Shop & Deli operator Clinton Love said. “Four weeks ago, I didn’t find out they were planning on deciding to have it.”

By Sunday afternoon though, local business owners were trying to make the best of the situation. Bohbot was selling burgers and fries in the open doorway of Delice Bistro. A kosher popcorn and cotton candy concession had been set up on the sidewalk outside Schwartz Bakery. The manager of Twin Dragon Restaurant hung two large banners advising carnival-goers that half of the Chinese restaurant’s profits would go to support the youth programs of LAPD’s Western Division.

Senior Lead Officer Chris Ragsdale said that while traffic had been slow on Friday night and Saturday during the day, owing to the large concentration of Shabbat-observant Jewish residents, people showed up on Saturday night “as soon as the sun set.”

“Today’s been a great day,” Ragsdale said Sunday afternoon.

Though there was a strong Jewish presence — the carnival’s main food concession stand had switched to Hebrew National corn dogs for this weekend — it was a diverse crowd overall. “We have had so many different kinds of people come over,” said Joy Parris, the owner of a gym on Pico. “We need to do it again.”

Mark Hecht owns and operates Schwartz Bakery, and he is hoping to have more conversations with the LAPD in advance of any future event. “This was their first time,” Hecht said. “I think they realize that bringing us in in the future is going to help them.”

Carnival closes Pico Boulevard Read More »

Pro-Israel, pro-peaceniks launch J Street Los Angeles ‘Local’

Leave a Comment / Community /

On Nov. 11, in an event that felt like a combination political rally, cocktail party and parlor meeting, about 200 Angelenos and a number of local elected officials gathered at the Taglyan Cultural Center in Hollywood to launch the local Los Angeles chapter of J Street.

The two-and-a-half-year-old organization calls itself “the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans” and claims a nationwide base of support of more than 160,000. To make clear to lawmakers in Washington, D.C., the breadth of support for its agenda within the American Jewish community, J Street began launching “locals” around the United States earlier this year. The first batch of 22 J Street locals launched on Feb. 4; the L.A. local is the 37th and will coordinate J Street’s efforts in Southern California and the Southwest.

“Our mission in the months ahead is to rally what I call “the passionate moderates” in our community and beyond,” J Street founder and president Jeremy Ben-Ami told the audience. “Here in Los Angeles and across the country, we must build a political power base in the center, even as those with the loudest voices — and, sometimes it feels, the deepest passion — gravitate to the extremes and try to drown us out.”

Ben-Ami cited J Street’s polling of American Jews in Illinois and Pennsylvania on Election Day, which showed that two-thirds of American Jews voted Democratic, that an even greater percentage support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that 70 percent believe that Israel should stop building settlements in the West Bank.

Coming just over one week after the Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives, the evening’s other speakers, including Congresswoman Judy Chu and Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti, recognized that J Street might face a difficult battle trying to make this voice from the American Jewish community heard.

“This week it looks pretty depressing,” Shawn Landres, a member of J Street’s national advisory council, told the audience. He said it is essential to remember that “the American Jewish community is not only the organized Jewish institution that sometimes speaks for us and sometimes claims to speak for us, but that the American Jewish communities are all of American Jewry, people who are in the conversation and people who are not yet in the conversation.”

J Street organizers hope the diversity of Los Angeles’s Jewish community will make for fertile ground to mobilize this progressive mainstream voice. “You have those of us who are all the way to the left, and you have those of us who are all the way to the right, and most of us live somewhere in the middle,” J Street Southern California/Southwest Regional Director Serena Zeise said. “There’s a plethora of individuals in Los Angeles who have been starving for a J Street.”

Pro-Israel, pro-peaceniks launch J Street Los Angeles ‘Local’ Read More »

Enough Is Enough: Parashat Vayishlach (Genesis 32:4-36:43)

Leave a Comment / Torah /

In Parashat Vayishlach, Ya’akov is returning home. Twenty years earlier, he tricked his father, stole the blessing from his brother, Esav, and ran away. For 20 years he has held onto the hope that, given time, Esav’s anger would abide.

As he journeys toward home, Ya’akov learns that his brother, Esav, is heading his way with 400 men. Ya’akov sends fleets of animals to greet his brother — gifts to assuage his anger. He arranges his family, wives and children, full in number. Finally, he presents himself, bowing to the ground seven times.

Esav’s response is surprising. He embraces his brother. Kisses him. They weep together. Is 20 years enough time to erase the pain of a stolen birthright? Could a fleet of animals have warmed Esav’s heart? To be sure, Esav is overwhelmed. “Looking about, Esav saw the women and the children. ‘Who,’ he asked, ‘are these with you?’ “ (Genesis 33:5). As it turns out, Esav has become a brother-in-law and uncle many times over. “And what do you mean by all this company which I have met?” (Genesis 33:8). He is perplexed by the number of animals representing Ya’akov’s wealth and prosperity. He might even be stunned by Ya’akov’s generosity, amazed by all that has transpired since Ya’akov ran away.

And in the midst of animals, wives and children, two brothers acknowledge a new reality:

Yesh li rav, Esav says. “I have enough. Let what you have remain yours.”

Yesh li kol, Ya’akov says. “I have plenty. Please accept.”

And suddenly, where once there was only enough for one, it seems there is enough for everyone. Twenty years earlier, a perceived scarcity was the source of great fear and anger, dividing the family. Twenty years later, surrounded by family and livestock, both brothers proclaim, “I have what I need,” and they embrace.

There is something magical about this declaration, “Yesh li kol.” I have enough. I have everything I need. In Parashat Vayishlach, it transforms a scene between brothers. On this Shabbat, perhaps it might serve as a tool of transformation for our lives, as well.

We are constantly besieged by messages that we do not have enough and that we are meant to acquire more. Our perceived inadequacies can spawn deep fear and anxiety. What would it take for us to look at our possessions, our relationships, our surroundings, and proclaim aloud, “I have enough?” Yesh li kol. What would it take for us to let go of our fears that we are not enough — that we do not have enough — and embrace who we are and what we have? How might such a declaration change our lives and the lives of those around us?

Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter (1847-1905), also known by the title of his main work, the Sfat Emet, adds an additional insight into yesh li kol (note: he translates kol as “all”): “But how can any person say ‘all’? Surely there were some things that he didn’t have! But for the one who is attached to the upper root, whatever he has is ‘all.’ ” It makes no difference whether we have more or less. It’s about value. It’s about believing that what we have — the sum total of blessings in our life — is “all” or “enough” instead of “part” or “almost.” And then, just like Esav and Ya’akov, it’s about declaring it aloud and acknowledging a new reality.

As one of many committed to the pursuit of justice, placing great emphasis on moving from the world as it is to the world as it could be, I look forward to Shabbat as a time when I can state aloud: Yesh li kol. I have enough. If only for a day, yesh li kol. Because in that moment of transformation, when scarcity becomes abundance, I remember that there are resources waiting for me on the other side of Shabbat. In that moment of declaration, I am inspired by the possibility that our words can shape a new reality. In a space where I allow myself to rest and reflect, I can gather the strength to re-enter the week and continue the work of rebuilding a broken world.

The Sfat Emet adds that Shabbat is exactly the time when “all [our] desires are fulfilled” and we lack for nothing. On this Shabbat of Vayishlach, may we be blessed with the time, space and awareness to proclaim, yesh li kol. May it be a tool of transformation for us all.

Enough Is Enough: Parashat Vayishlach (Genesis 32:4-36:43) Read More »

Obituaries: Nov. 19-25, 2010

Leave a Comment / Obituaries /

David H. Abramson died Sept. 28 at 62. Survived by wife Barbara; son Nicolai; sister Carol (John). Mount Sinai

Fern Fox Aroesty died Oct. 10 at 71. Survived by daughter Keri; brother David; niece Jackie. Eden

Evelyn Louise Bishin died Aug. 30 at 91. Survived by son David (Andrea) Landes. Hillside

Stanley Brown died Oct. 2 at 100. Survived by wife Marian; daughter Patty (Mark) Myers; stepdaughter Gail Thornton; stepbrothers Mark (Gretchen) and Bruce (Sharon) Charnas; 8 grandchildren; 8 great-grandchildren. Hillside

Vera Brown died Sept. 24 at 90. Survived by daughter Angela Lee; nephew Marvin Albert; niece Alexa Albert Sack; stepsister Geri Borden; 3 grandchildren. Hillside

Beatrice Ann Bruckner died Sept. 27 at 84. Survived by husband Sherman; daughter Mara. Hillside

Robert Carvel died Sept. 25 at 62. Survived by mother Irene; brother Ron. Hillside

Sylvia Yetta Colker died Oct. 1 at 91. Survived by nephew Edwin (Susan) Balis. Mount Sinai

Florence Comar died Oct. 9 at 92. Survived by nephew Howard (Betty) Willis; sister Ruth Finkel; cousins Judy Freeman and Esther Tabak. Hillside

Lee Corwin died Oct. 2 at 91. Survived by wife Constance; daughters Diane L. (Steve) Perren and Judith (Richard) Swatt; sons Lee Robert (Donna) and Bradford Lee (Susan) Treusch; sister Marian Bayard; 7 grandchildren; 1 great-grandchild. Hillside

Ayoub Daneshgar died Sept. 30 at 91. Survived by wife Mahin; daughter Shanaz (Zaro Nassib); sons Shahram (Lily) and Shariar (Ladan); 7 grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Manouchehr Danial died Oct. 4 at 91. Survived by wife Sherafat; daughters Taraneh (Karmael) Donay and Shohreh (Adib) Ashouri; 5 grandchildren; 2 great-grandchildren. Hillside

Dora Feinzig died Sept. 21 at 98. Survived by daughter Maxine (Morrill) Ordesky. Hillside

Rowena Feldman died Oct. 6 at 95. Survived by sons Michael (Trudy) and Edward (Bonnie); 16 grandchildren; 15 great-grandchildren. Hillside

Leon Frieden died Oct. 4 at 90. Survived by wife Helen Frieden; daughters Debra (Solomon) Perlo and Nancy Cohen; 6 grandchildren. Hillside

Morton Futterman died Sept. died 22 at 71. Survived by wife Diane; daughters Michelle (David) Popowitz, Elise (Eric) Beane and Suzanne; sister Judy Miller; 3 grandchildren. Hillside

Frances Glazier died Sept. 20 at 86. Survived by daughters Judith Binder and Susan Brownstein; 4 grandchildren; 8 great-grandchildren. Hillside

Salek Goldberg died Oct. 8 at 94. Survived by daughter Jaohn Weitzbuch. Hillside

Dorothy Kagon died Oct. 7 at 90. Survived by daughter Jane (Ed Greenberg); son Robert (Julie); 2 grandchildren. Hillside

Helen Kamins died Sept. 25 at 81. Survived by sons David and Philip; brother Howard Stone; 2 grandchildren. Hillside

Steven Kupetz died Sept. 18 at 50. Survived by mother Frances; sisters Barbara and Debra (Randy) Gallant. Hillside

Shirley Levine died Oct. 1 at 90. Survived by daughter Caren Dizney; sons Richard (Ellen) and Jay; 3 grandchildren; 7 great-grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Hugh Lichtig died Oct. 1 at 84. Survived by wife Mae; sons Scott (David Llerenas), Gary (Cheryl Paller) and Steven; 2 grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Ruth L. Mand died July 11 at 80. Survived by daughter Denise Livker; son David; 1 grandson; sister Barbara Sade. Eden

Goldie Markowitz died Sept. 30 at 98. Survived by sons Harold (Vera) and Robert (Pearl); 5 grandchildren; 8 great-grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Lorene Opkins died Sept. 30 at 85. Survived by sons Lane (Maureen) and Lee (Donna). Hillside

Earl Osadchey died June 28 at 83. Survived by wife Joan; daughter Lori (Carlos); sons Shaul (Roberta), Alan (Stephanie) and Bruce; 7 grandchildren. Chevra Kadisha

Dorothy G. Pinczower died Sept. 28 at 95. Survived by husband Henry; daughter Rachel (David) Rosenstein; son Eric (Gail); 4 grandchildren; sisters Maryetta Locke and Sylvia Levine. Mount Sinai

Anne Pollack died Sept. 30 at 91. Survived by daughter Susan Di Leo; stepdaughter Marlene Kapp. Hillside

Shirley Polonsky died Sept. 26 at 92. Survived by cousins Nancy Gorman and Bernice Bloom. Hillside

Goldma Resnick died Sept. 30 at 96. Survived by daughter Elaine (Elliott) Caplow; 2 grandchildren; 5 great-grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Norman Rodier died Sept. 26 at 73. Survived by daughter Lisa; son Brian; 4 grandchildren. Hillside

Florence Rubel died Sept. 6 at 83. Survived by husband Alfred; sons Steven and David; stepdaughter Debbie (Norman) Rosenberg; 2 grandchildren; sister Helen Schlanger. Hillside

Lewis Savinar died Sept. 9 at 67. Survived by wife Joan; daughters Lorie and Hilary (Steve); son David (Rita); 3 grandchildren. Malinow and Silverman

Stan Seamone died Oct. 3 at 79. Survived by wife Weiqing Li; daughter Sheryl Sims; brother Ellis; stepdaughter Hazhen Li; 5 grandchildren. Hillside

Corrine Shukartsi died Sept. 23 at 65. Survived by husband Lynn Kesselman; daughter Dove (Howard) Mayo; son Elan (Kari Storch); sister Leah Shamir; brother Les Joseph; 3 grandchildren. Hillside

Beverly Sommers died Sept. 23 at 86. Survived by sisters Harriette Schall and Isabelle Preiss; 13 nieces and nephews. Hillside

Fern Waddell died Sept. 22, 2010 at 87. Survived by daughters Marilyn Mikos and Joanne; sister Alberta; brother-in-law Clarence Gazin; 5 grandchildren. Hillside

Claire White died Oct. 5 at 81. Survived by daughter Nancy Segal; son David (Naomi) Segal; 6 grandchildren. Hillside

The Jewish Journal publishes obituary notices free of charge.  Please send an e-mail in the above format with the name, age and survivors of the deceased to {encode=”obits@jewishjournal.com” title=”obits@jewishjournal.com”}. If you have any questions, e-mail or call (213) 368-1661, ext. 116.

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Film fest gala a spicy melting pot for Sephardic Jews

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Hollywood, Hollywood Jew /

In the Los Angeles Jewish world, the Sephardic Jewish community stands out for two things: its stylishness and its separateness.

Both stem from centuries of religious and cultural practices that evolved outside the predominant Ashkenazi sphere and imbued the community with a kind of flashy distinctiveness. On the surface, last weekend’s opening-night gala of the 10th annual Sephardic Jewish Film Festival was no exception: There was the glamorous venue on the Paramount Pictures studio lot, the red-carpet-worthy movie stars, and because it was a Jewish event, more food than 500 people could consume in one evening — plus dessert.

Even Alfred Molina, the critically acclaimed actor from “An Education,” “Spider-Man 2” and “Chocolat” who served as the evening’s emcee, noted all the sparkle. After leaving his reading glasses at home, he had to borrow festival chair Sarita Fields’ crystal-specked rims.

“I’ve never felt quite so gay as I do now,” Molina said, provoking laughs. He also never felt so Jewish: “I’m half-Spanish, half-Italian, my daughter is Jewish, I love bourekas, so cut me some slack — that’s the closest I’ll ever get!”

The celebration, which commemorated a decade of Sephardic Jewish influence in international film culture, also offered a surprising display of group self-deprecation and insecurity.

“I hate being preceded by someone with a British accent,” Rabbi Daniel Bouskila, director of special projects at the Sephardic Educational Center of Jerusalem and Los Angeles, said of Molina. “Everything sounds better with a British accent. In films, God always has a British accent.”

But the weeklong festival, most of which takes place at Laemmle’s Music Hall 3 Theatre in Beverly Hills, isn’t only about film. In fact, the festival was created to help raise money for the Sephardic Educational Center (SEC), established more than 30 years ago as a center of Sephardic study and culture.

The opposite of clannish, the SEC has an ambitious goal: to impart a global version of Sephardic Judaism, open to any Jew interested in Sephardic customs. The festival’s Nov. 14 opening-night gala honored the center’s founders, Dr. Jose and Freda Nessim (South American, with roots in Syria, Egypt and Spain), as well as producer Michael Benaroya (Greece’s island of Rhodes) and actress Emmanuelle Chriqui (Moroccan).

Despite the self-celebration, in her acceptance speech, Freda Nessim referred to Sephardic Jewry as “the weak arm of the Jewish experience.” And French filmmaker Gad Elmaleh, whose film “Coco” screened that night, mocked the name of the festival: “Forus, it’s not enough to just say ‘Jewish film festival,’ ” he said. “It has to say ‘Sephardic’ first; we have to have our own thing.”

The director and star of “Coco,” a French comedy, joked, “It always sounds better to have a movie by Steven Spielberg than a movie by [Aroun] Benchkaroun.”

The evening’s salt-and-pepper humor was peppered with self-doubt. The Sephardim made no secret of feeling like outsiders in the Jewish community.

“We’re a minority,” Fields, who co-chairs the festival with Neil Sheff, said during a phone interview. “There are far more Eastern European Jews than Sephardic Jews, and then there are so many diverse types of Sephardics that are like minorities within minorities. I used to hear from my grandparents that when they went up to Seattle, people didn’t think they were Jewish — we don’t speak Yiddish, we don’t eat bagels. It’s a whole different culture.”

Bouskila, who recently stepped down after 17 years on the pulpit at Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel to join the SEC, has a theory about the roots of Sephardic Jewish anxiety.

“If you look at the two major Sephardi dispersions in the last several years — to the United States and Israel — in both places, Sephardim were really not the majority voice or way of life,” Bouskila said. “The predominance of organized Jewish life has largely been Ashkenazic — bagels, cream cheese, lox, ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ — this is what we’ve known as the prevalent cultural depiction of the Jew. The Sephardic Jew was always kind of secondary, or ethnic, or exotic. It wasn’t mainstream.”

Bouskila also said that because Zionism developed largely as an Eastern European idea, Israel also feels heavily Ashkenazic. Since Israel’s founding, Sephardic Jews have felt like “second-class citizens” — and were sometimes treated that way. But, Bouskila added, that’s all changing.

For Chriqui, being exotic was a great benefit in Hollywood. Because of her raven hair, dark eyes and fair skin, she was cast as Adam Sandler’s Palestinian love interest in the film “Don’t Mess With the Zohan.” 

“I loved that I could celebrate my background in that role,” she said in a filmed interview that played for the gala audience. Next, she’s off to Budapest to play an Italian duchess in the Showtime series “The Borgias” about a 15th century criminal dynasty.

But Chriqui is best-known for her role on the HBO series “Entourage,” in which she doesn’t so much appear ethnic as American. For her, Hollywood has become a big, messy melting pot where she can be exotic and ordinary at the same time. It’s exactly the kind of thing the Sephardic community covets: a place of Jewish “inclusiveness.”

The SEC, they hope, will become the embodiment of a new Jewish vision.

“We’re ready to spread the word,” Fields said. “We don’t want to be an isolated organization that only reaches out to Sephardim. We want the SEC to be a place where all Jews can learn. We want to be centrist, moderate and tolerant. We want to spread our philosophy and our mission to the greater Jewish world.”

Bouskila has big plans to turn the SEC into a center that will preserve Sephardic culture without limiting itself ethnically.

“It will no longer be an ethnic-based organization,” he said. “It will be a Sephardic institute with a broad-based philosophy open to all Jewish people.”

The way to feel more included, it seems, is to include others. Or, as Fields puts it, “Once everyone becomes secure in their identity, then they can share it.”

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Day of Kabbalah

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At the opening class of “Day of Kabbalah,” Rabbi David Sacks of the Happy Minyan talked about the mysteries of the letter aleph, which he called “the Gateway to Infinity.” Sacks’ talk was filled with what those unfamiliar with the subject imagine kabbalah to be: mystical ruminations based on numerology, seeing the entire cosmos in its microcosmic elements, repeated references to “the unity of all things.”

The rest of the day played out as a back-and-forth between abstract, spiritual ideas and intensely practical ones, such as dating and the barriers to happiness.

Rabbi Yonah Bookstein of JConnectLA put together this full day of kabbalah activities and classes Nov. 14 at Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy in Beverly Hills. It was JConnectLA’s first full kabbalah day, and it was advertised as “An Urban Learning Retreat for Body, Soul and Mind.”

The teachers were a diverse group, from scholarly to neighborly, from soft-spoken intensity to infomercial-pitchman boldness, from bubbly innocence to professorial.

Attendees spanned a wide age range, and it probably comes as no surprise that the younger ones gravitated to a class called “Kabbalah & Dating,” led by Bookstein, while the older ones went to a session called “Prophetic Kabbalah,” led by Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadok, who has written extensively on Jewish topics.

The “Prophetic” group was not about how kabbalah predicts the future, but about the relation between kabbalah and the biblical prophets, who warned people about the consequences of their behavior. These prophets, Bar Tzadok said, were human beings, not saints. The point of Judaism and kabbalah, he added, is to learn how to be human.

Bar Tzadok addressed the question of whether one should study kabbalah. He said that when we pursue a course of study, we should ask ourselves: Does it provide spiritual transformation? Does it help us bond with God? He went on to say that if you study kabbalah, the answer to both is: Maybe, maybe not, depending on how you study it.

It was practical advice, if a bit ambiguous. By contrast, there was nothing ambiguous about Bookstein’s class on dating. He said that if you have not had success in finding a life partner, you might look at what kabbalah identifies as klipot — barriers — such as carrying emotional baggage, lack of self-worth and too much ego. These can be obstructions to making a commitment to another person.

Obstructions were also a key element in what Rabbi Naftali Citron of the Carlebach Shul of New York said about kabbalah meditation, which he identified with prayer. The purpose of prayer, or meditation, he said, is to remove emotional and psychological barriers, those elements “blocking you from an objective view of things.”

Later, Citron taught a class on Isaac Luria’s philosophy, pointing out that in 16th century Safed there was “an explosion of knowledge.” During Citron’s descriptions of Luria’s mathematical-sounding explanations of how God created the world (circles, lines, light), someone asked if Luria’s writings were a precursor to modern scientific ideas.

Kabbalah, Citron responded, has “nothing to do with science.”

“Some have said that kabbalist thought is consistent with the Big Bang Theory,” he said, adding,  “I’m not a big fan of linking this with science. Religion and science function independently of each other.”

Professor Daniel Matt, in his lecture on the Zohar, a basic text of kabbalah that he has translated, agreed with Citron’s comment. “You cannot reduce kabbalah to science,” Matt said. “One of the underlying ideas of the Zohar is that “every person, everything that exists, is an incarnation of God. … The ultimate reality of God is white space. Words and charts are inadequate in the face of Ein Sof [infinity]. … What the Zohar shows is divine qualities but also human experiences. The ideal is to find the balance between the two.”

Summing up, organizer Bookstein said he believes the event offered an introduction to both the practical and theoretical aspects of kabbalah. “I’m very pleased with the result,” he said. “There was a dream team of teachers, and a large group of people of all ages and all backgrounds showed up. I was thrilled to be a part of it.”

Day of Kabbalah Read More »