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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

June 29, 2011

The Next Big? Jewish Idea?

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The LA Jewish Federation is about to announce the winner of The Next Big Jewish Idea. 

Innovation, innovation, innovation is the mantra.  Jewish social service agencies and providers in LA are having their historical funding from the Federation reduced, greatly reduced or eliminated.

Bob Goldfarb, president of the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity,  puts innovation in context in “Innovation and Responsibilty”

Whom does Jewish innovation serve? It’s a question that needs closer attention as the sector continues to grow. According to a recent report, The Jewish Innovation Economy, this sector “is more focused on Jewish identity and belonging, along with religious expression, than on social services and large-scale institutional action.” That’s markedly different from Federations, which typically have a primary commitment to caring for Jews in need.

I fear, that the current paradigm shift is: Rather than serve the needy, the innovators see themselves, and people they know and are like them, as in need of the organizations they are developing to actualize where they see their place in the world.

Our LA Jewish Federation is marching bravely into the new Jewish Innovation world as Jay Sanderson, Federation president, heralded his view of The Jewish Innovation Economy study.

Goldfarb describes the findings of The Jewish Innovation Economy

These data confirm the emergence of a new class of Jews defined by disproportionate access to communal resources. As several attest in the study, they often use their advantages to pursue their own interests. One speaks of “the drive to create a Jewish community that I would want to participate in myself.”

Goldfarb points out the possibility of a reverse Robin Hood.  Resources from services to the needy being diverted to the well-off.

If the innovation sector displaces older communal structures, the question of whom it serves becomes even more urgent. Here is a sector spending $200,000,000 a year on projects directed by a privileged group of leaders, yet with social services and human services glaringly underrepresented. This would have been a good time to correct that imbalance by recommending incentives to take care of the helpless and the needy among us.

Pini Herman is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. {encode=”pini00003@gmail.com” title=”To email Pini:”} pini00003@gmail.com

The Next Big? Jewish Idea? Read More »

Notes from the Dyke March (NYC Edition)

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1. Two women carry a banner that says “Gay Bashers Come and Get It.” Whenever the man with a “Jesus Saves from Hell” sign stops along our route, they stand next to him. Eventually, they’re joined by someone holding piece of white poster board with “Fuck This Guy” written on it, along with an arrow pointing to the Jesus guy.

2. In front of me for a few blocks is a woman, who, on her slender, sweaty back, has painted the words, “Liberation Not Assimilation.” We march past a Michael Kors store. In the window are two white wedding cakes with two brides and two grooms on top of each. This is very likely the definition of irony.

3. R asks me if I identify as straight. I panic. I tell her I like boys. She says, “I didn’t ask who you sleep with, I asked how you identify.” I consider this, feeling embarassed because I know they are different questions. I don’t know what to say, only that I hate the word straight and I don’t know if that means I have trouble owning the privilege associated with it. I am on the verge of a feminist/queer ally nervous breakdown.

4. S buys us whistles, which we blow jdelightedly and frequently. We scream and cheer and chant and watch the people watching us from the sidewalk. There are tourists taking pictures and people who yell along with us and folks who are just trying to get where they’re going. S and I find A, leaping around,  a woman symbol painted on her arm. I always think she’s in charge, no matter where we go.

5. For a while, it seems like I can’t get away from the Queers Against Israeli Apartheid folks. There are other signs that say “Soldarity with Queers in Palestine,” and I feel good about this, but I can’t get over how it all makes me feel like I’m divided within myself, like a pie chart.

6. We approach Washington Square Park, and throngs are waiting for us, along with a steeply priced pretzel truck and an alarming amount of cops. I tell S that I do not want this to end. I think about conversations I’ve been having lately about movements, how you cannot have a meaningful mass mobilization without meaningful organizing, without building community. People leap into the fountain, collapse on the grass, whirl around. The sky is orange. We disperse.

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Goodbye to Laura Ziskin: ‘A mother in a man’s world’

Leave a Comment / Education, Graduation /

The next time someone says that Hollywood-types don’t have heart, I’m going to namedrop Laura Ziskin.

The trailblazing producer of mega-hits including the “Spider-Man” franchise and the Oscar-nominated “As Good As It Gets” died on June 12 at age 61, after nearly a decade-long battle with breast cancer. Ziskin was a fiery female anomaly; one of those people who defied industry stereotypes at the same time as she was defining them. She was a true original.

At least that was the portrait that emerged at the lavish memorial – well, really party (just as she wanted) – that was held on Stage 15, where “Spider-Man” was filmed, at Sony Pictures Studios on June 25. More than 1,000 people attended – including Warren Beatty, Renee Zellweger, Sherry Lansing and Cuba Gooding Jr. – to pay homage to Ziskin’s life and work, in what many said was typical Ziskin style.

It was like a scene from a Sunset-strip club: crushed velvet couches, cabaret tables and expert low-lighting; a jazz band, a Celine Dion-caliber singer, wide open bars and buffets featuring wild kind salmon and summer corn risotto. There was a “signing wall”, the likes of which you see at a Bar Mitzvah and 12 giant flat screens looping personality-filled pics of Ziskin & Co., from her days as a beautiful blonde (“She was the prettiest Jewish girl I ever met” went one voiceover) to her twilight with the breast cancer buzz cut. Tributes and testimonials from Brian Williams to Emma Stone overlaid of on-set action and at-home family time.

“It’s a Laura party,” gushed one of her assistants. “It’s a total Laura party.” 

But despite exhortations to “keep your drinks in your hand” it wasn’t without tears.

Beginning with her only child, the incredibly poised and well-humored Julia Barry, Ziskin was remembered as a fierce, wholesome heroine whose nurturing maternal instincts were as powerfully felt by director Sam Raimi as they were by friends and family. “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are,” Barry said, quoting the 20th century writer and philosopher, Joseph Campbell. “My mom had that her whole life – the only thing she hid behind was a chic pair of sunglasses.”

Barry referred to her mother as “a mom in a man’s world” and Ziskin’s first producing partner, the actress Sally Field, echoed the same. Upon meeting Ziskin, who was then pregnant, Field recalled saying, “Laura Ziskin, will you please work with me?” Anticipating her upcoming birth Ziskin told Field she wouldn’t always be available. “I’m not one of those mothers who leaves their child at home and goes to work.”

Field replied: “Well, neither am I!”

She said she’d never forget the image of Ziskin in their production office, arguing with a studio head—while breastfeeding her daughter from their donated couch. 

Raimi, the director of “Spider-Man” called Ziskin his “white knight” and said her optimism changed his life during the decade they worked together. “In moments when I feel lost, I now feel lost until I’m found – she changed me.”

But Ziskin was more than a Blockbuster producer – she was a champion for cancer research and prevention. After her diagnosis, she created the non-profit organization “Stand Up 2 Cancer” and raised more than $200 million for the cause. In tribute, Spidey himself (the actor Tobey Maguire) read a letter from a cancer survivor who had met Ziskin at an event and wrote to her after her death. The heartfelt missive emphasized Ziskin’s impact on cancer research, how effective she was at influencing and informing. So much so, in fact, that a chocked-up Maguire, who never raised his eyes, had to pause while reading to suppress his grief. “I’m sorry,” he said.

The up-and-coming young actress Emma Stone made a pitch to solicit donations for Ziskin’s cause. “I wish I could say Laura didn’t keep tabs on actors who didn’t donate to Stand Up 2 Cancer – but she did,” Stone quipped. 

To conclude, “the love of Ziskin’s life”, Alvin Sargent, ascended the podium. He told a telling tale, about how Ziskin would call him from the Sony lot, all disgruntled. “They hate me!” she’d say.

“Well, what did you do?” Sargent would ask.

“I just told them ‘I want what I want’ and they didn’t understand.”

“Did you say something you shouldn’t have?” Sargent said.

“Maybe,” Ziskin would say. “But I want what I want! I want Woody Allen to be on my Oscar show,” Sargent recalled her saying.

“You can’t get Woody Allen,” he said. “He doesn’t come to Hollywood and he doesn’t even touch the Oscars he wins.”

“I want what I want,” Ziskin would say. “And she got him,” Sargent said, before his voice broke describing his plan to scatter her ashes at sea.

By this point, the memorial had turned melancholy with nary a dry eye in the house. A thousand people had paid their respects to a woman who was “inspiring, funny, ballsy, bold, tough, vulnerable – and sometimes inappropriate” according to the speakers.

A film clip of Ziskin speaking at a cancer event told her heroic Hollywood story: “In my world, the hero always defeats the villain, the boy always gets the girl, and cancer is no more,” she said.

At the end of the night, her good friend Amy Pascal, chairwoman of Sony Pictures, threw her arms around her 11-year-old son. Her husband, former New York Times correspondent Bernie Weinraub was wearing sad eyes. “Let’s go,” Pascal said to her family.

On the way out, clips from Ziskin’s movies played. A line from “Spider-Man” felt uniquely resonant: “Sometimes we have to be steady and give up the thing we want the most,” said Spidey’s aunt, May Parker.

For the vivacious Ziskin, this was nothing short of life itself.

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Why Kate Middleton is More Important Than You’d Think

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For most Americans, Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, is irrelevant – just a pretty face, a new member of the British monarchy, which itself is seen as no more than a relic of days long gone. But that may simply be a knee-jerk reaction. Truth is Kate Middleton is HUGE! She is the unprecedented middle-class addition to a long-standing, “aristocratic” institution which by joining, she has just revitalized and made incredibly relevant. Because of her, the British royal family is guaranteed to last for at least another century, maybe much longer. And if that is the case, Kate is more important than ever.

She is married to the second in line to the British throne, which means someday her husband will be head of state of what is still perhaps the most influential, western European country. True, he will be a figure-head, but one significantly more well known, and well-liked than any elected British prime minister will ever be.  Likewise, the Duchess, already one of the most recognizable faces in Britain, will someday be queen. Unlike say a Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama, both highly accomplished, supremely remarkable women, Kate’s role does not have a term limit. She is here to stay.

Kate’s already proven herself to be intelligent, calm, practical, patient, engaging and a woman of the people, not at all like so many of our political leaders (or those in Britain for that matter).She’s going to be around for another 50/60 years at the very least, and given her prominence can probably have more impact on world politics than any other woman this century. Sure for now, she’s setting fashion trends, causing dresses to sell out, and getting her husband to do the wave at Wimbledon, but my hunch is that she’s not going to stop there. Like her remarkable mother-in-law, the late, great Princess Diana, Kate Middleton can very well become a huge force for good.

The world is smaller than ever and heading further in that direction, yet divisiveness is rampant and conflicts continue to rage. What we need are global figures who can bring peoples together. We need individuals who can inspire us to reach across boundaries and find our commonalities. The British monarchy may indeed be a relic of the past, but if they’re going to stick around, and if enough people really like them – as it seems people do – then maybe Prince William and his exceptional wife, Catherine, can be a part of helping create real change in a world that desperately needs it.

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Do liberals really hate God?

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